The Poole College of Management’s new director of diversity and inclusion – Tayah Lin Butler, MBA – has hit\u00a0the ground running since joining the staff this fall.<\/p>\n
The new position reflects the college\u2019s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion through both leadership and program development. Butler was delivering on both during the first full week of classes in September, when she developed and delivered a set of training sessions for about 50 student peer mentors and 50 professional mentors on topics related to diversity and inclusion.<\/p>\n
The mentors are now working in pairs with first-year undergraduate students in Student Network Groups. Modeled after affinity groups found in corporate settings, the SNGs at Poole College break down the 1,000-plus new student population into smaller groups organized around various characteristics, such as first in family to go to college, active military or veterans, diversity by culture, race or gender identity, or faith and spirituality. The groups meeting a few times in the new students’ first semester, participating in cultural events or other activities that help them get acquainted with other students who are similar or different, depending on which SNG the student chose to join.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that business students have a disproportionate opportunity to solve challenges that communities face in the modern economy and it\u2019s our role as a business college to equip those leaders with competence, fluency and comfort in inter-cultural work spaces. We need all faces at the table,\u201d Butler said when asked about her new role at Poole\u00a0College.<\/p>\n
Butler brings to that\u00a0role prior experience as an undergraduate advisor for pre-business and business students at the University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business. Soon after starting in there, she created the Connect Engage Opportunity Network (CEO Network) to help encourage the program\u2019s underrepresented students stay on track toward graduation from the business program. The result: the business school\u2019s retention rates rose from 30 to 85 percent among students who participated in the CEO Network.<\/p>\n
Tamah Morant, associate dean for undergraduate programs, said the college\u2019s leadership team upgraded a previous coordinator of diversity position to the current director of diversity and inclusion. The change reflects the college\u2019s strong commitment to supporting an atmosphere that embraces all perspectives and encourages input from all backgrounds and experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is to develop business leaders who genuinely embrace diversity of thought and experience and to put those leaders in a position to share that perspective with the world,\u201d said Annette L. Ranft, Poole College dean and Stephen P. Zelnak, Jr., Chair. \u201cWe are pleased to welcome Tayah to our team and value her demonstrated experience and initiative in helping develop future business leaders and role models.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler received her bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and Spanish and master\u2019s in Business Administration from Pacific Lutheran University.<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with Poole College communications, Butler shared the insights about what she brings to her new role.<\/p>\n
What drew you to this position?<\/strong><\/p>\n Realizing the importance of diversity and inclusion, I wanted to grow from my experience at the University of Oregon. I have a passion for civil rights, social action and education, and understand that student success is not just about programming. I look forward to working with bold leaders and creating a clear vision of equity and inclusiveness in the college.<\/p>\n How will you be bringing your message to Poole College students? <\/strong><\/p>\n I will continue to work with leaders of student organizations, as my predecessor did, to bring inclusive work practices to their programming. I will also help undergraduate programs look at the metrics of their majors, persistence rates and graduation rates. I aim to help every unit in undergraduate programs identify an inclusion initiative which supports the vision that Dr. Morant and Dean Annette L. Ranft have for Poole.<\/p>\n What do you think about Raleigh?<\/strong><\/p>\n While Raleigh is different than Eugene, the transition is going relatively smooth thanks to having family nearby.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"The Poole College of Management's new director of diversity and inclusion - Tayah Lin Butler, MBA - has hit\u00a0the ground running since joining the staff this fall.\n\nThe new position reflects the college\u2019s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion through both leadership and program development. Butler was delivering on both during the first full week of classes in September, when she developed and delivered a set of training sessions for about 50 student peer mentors and 50 professional mentors on topics related to diversity and inclusion.\n\nThe mentors are now working in pairs with first-year undergraduate students in Student Network Groups. Modeled after affinity groups found in corporate settings, the SNGs at Poole College break down the 1,000-plus new student population into smaller groups organized around various characteristics, such as first in family to go to college, active military or veterans, diversity by culture, race or gender identity, or faith and spirituality. The groups meeting a few times in the new students' first semester, participating in cultural events or other activities that help them get acquainted with other students who are similar or different, depending on which SNG the student chose to join.\n\n\u201cI believe that business students have a disproportionate opportunity to solve challenges that communities face in the modern economy and it\u2019s our role as a business college to equip those leaders with competence, fluency and comfort in inter-cultural work spaces. We need all faces at the table,\u201d Butler said when asked about her new role at Poole\u00a0College.\n\nButler brings to that\u00a0role prior experience as an undergraduate advisor for pre-business and business students at the University of Oregon Lundquist College of Business. Soon after starting in there, she created the Connect Engage Opportunity Network (CEO Network) to help encourage the program\u2019s underrepresented students stay on track toward graduation from the business program. The result: the business school\u2019s retention rates rose from 30 to 85 percent among students who participated in the CEO Network.\n\nTamah Morant, associate dean for undergraduate programs, said the college\u2019s leadership team upgraded a previous coordinator of diversity position to the current director of diversity and inclusion. The change reflects the college\u2019s strong commitment to supporting an atmosphere that embraces all perspectives and encourages input from all backgrounds and experiences.\n\n\u201cOur goal is to develop business leaders who genuinely embrace diversity of thought and experience and to put those leaders in a position to share that perspective with the world,\u201d said Annette L. Ranft, Poole College dean and Stephen P. Zelnak, Jr., Chair. \u201cWe are pleased to welcome Tayah to our team and value her demonstrated experience and initiative in helping develop future business leaders and role models.\u201d\n\nButler received her bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and Spanish and master\u2019s in Business Administration from Pacific Lutheran University.\n\nIn a recent interview with Poole College communications, Butler shared the insights about what she brings to her new role.\n\nWhat drew you to this position?<\/strong>\n\nRealizing the importance of diversity and inclusion, I wanted to grow from my experience at the University of Oregon. I have a passion for civil rights, social action and education, and understand that student success is not just about programming. I look forward to working with bold leaders and creating a clear vision of equity and inclusiveness in the college.\n\nHow will you be bringing your message to Poole College students? <\/strong>\n\nI will continue to work with leaders of student organizations, as my predecessor did, to bring inclusive work practices to their programming. I will also help undergraduate programs look at the metrics of their majors, persistence rates and graduation rates. I aim to help every unit in undergraduate programs identify an inclusion initiative which supports the vision that Dr. Morant and Dean Annette L. Ranft have for Poole.\n\nWhat do you think about Raleigh?<\/strong>\n\nWhile Raleigh is different than Eugene, the transition is going relatively smooth thanks to having family nearby."},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Poole College welcomes its new director of diversity and inclusion, Tayah Lin Butler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1630,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28,12],"tags":[29,30,31,33,34,35,36,37],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-1627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","category-news-releases","tag-affinity-groups","tag-culture-and-community","tag-first-year-business-students","tag-nc-state-poole-college","tag-office-of-undergraduate-programs","tag-poole-college","tag-student-network-groups","tag-tayah-lin-butler"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1627"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poole.ncsu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=1627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}