Spotlight: Michaela Taylor, Member of DEI Leadership Team

Michaela Taylor graduated from the University of Kentucky and is now attending the UK Rosenberg College of Law. Originally from Elgin, Illinois, Michaela is a graduate student representative on the DEI leadership team.

When I started here as a freshman, it was kind of daunting to be in a new state and in a new place with people I didn't know. I think freshman year was kind of hard for me just figuring out who I was and what I wanted to do on campus as well as who I wanted to be after I left campus. I think the most influential thing I did was get involved.

UK is the type of place that has something for everybody, but if you don't get involved in something you kind of drown in the vastness of what UK is. Getting involved in different things that I was passionate about really helped me feel like I had a place on campus. I started with my sorority, then student government and then the Alumni Association.

It took me getting into student government to really understand my love and my passion for UK and its students, and to also be able to see the kind of work that needs to be done on campus.

I think that is one thing that student government really helped me to understand, and it also just affirmed my desire to help UK students and campus grow.

That’s been my experience here. Freshman year was hard, but once I finally got Involved in things and actually found a purpose and a passion at UK, it helped me want to stay. And, I decided to stay for law school.

I'm currently doing a dual degree. So, I'm also pursuing a Master of Health Administration degree. I want to be able to take regulations, policy and laws and consult health care organizations to make sure they are in correct compliance with them. Not only in correct compliance with the laws we have now, but I also want to try to look at trends and see where we're going and how organizations can create laws and policies that enhance patient safety and overall improve the general outcome of their organizations. Staying up to date with trends and then being able to consult organizations is kind of where I see myself going in the next few years.

We are in a world right now that's changing and recognizing that things are not right, and they haven't been right for a very long time.

As a DEI Leadership Team, we are looking at various areas and roles and we have multiple project groups that are doing different things to make changes that help everyone on this campus feel like they belong here, that they can be successful, that they can invite others to come here, and that they can feel comfortable saying that they represent the University of Kentucky. These various efforts and initiatives help make that a reality for everyone that steps foot on this campus, not just certain groups.

I think our mission is to make sure everyone feels welcome and recognized and proud to be a member of the university community.

Right now, we're doing a lot of good work to move toward that, but there's still a lot of work to do. And I think that's kind of indicative of the world around us. Not everyone feels welcome in this country and it’s the same at the university – we're trying to bridge that gap.

I think one of the things that we've talked about in the DEI meetings, and I think I would really like to see this go further, are the laws and regulations around hate speech, reporting and how that process unfolds.

Although I haven't had much of a chance to assess what it looks like now, it does not seem as robust as it needs to be. I think that's going to change with this new project work group.

I also think that incidents and bias training needs to be implemented campus wide as soon as someone gets here. Whether you are faculty, staff or a student, you should be going through those regardless of what area of campus you're in. That’s something we all need to be doing, and it needs to hit everyone.

It also needs to be an intentional program for every single person that comes on this campus. I think after I leave the group, that's something I would want to see happening every year, not just this year, not just next year, but every year.

I really hope I’m making a difference somewhere – even if it’s small. If I'm working in a small regional hospital to improve their policy, then that'd be great. If I'm working in the government to help improve the country, that'd be great, too.

I just want to make an impact on somebody – if that's big or small, it doesn't really much matter to me. I think impact is impact, regardless.

I’d like to still be coming to sports games at UK and cheering on the teams. I've been involved in the Alumni Association as a student, and I think they do a lot of great work. I would love to be able to do that when I'm a little older.

Also, I've had a lot of great mentors that went to UK and they are people in the industry that I want to go into. They're also really open to mentoring and helping me, and I would like to do that for students too.