LINC envisions a Lehigh Valley where everyone feels welcome, gets rooted, and thrives. Our esteemed DEI Advisory Council helps us work to achieve this vision in alignment and collaboration with local stakeholders. Our DEI Council is made up of regional leaders, working together to support Lehigh Valley employers in advancing and sustaining their DEI Initiatives. Please join us in welcoming Jessica Liu, DEI Program Manager at Lehigh Valley Health Network, to LINC’s DEI Council.
Read below to learn more on Jessica’s journey to DEI and her hopes for her time serving on LINC’s DEI Council:
When I think about the work of DEI, I think of the word possibilities. And for that reason alone, for the possibilities that DEI work brings about, that is what makes endeavoring in this realm of work so utterly important and meaningful regardless of what ‘happens’ along the way. That realization took a while for me to fully understand, and one I continue to grapple with, particularly in a world that tends to be so outcome oriented. Through the years, my perspective has shifted away from that end-in-mind perspective to what’s in mind. In doing so, my appreciation for the present moment has opened up doors to interactions, conversations, and moments in this world of DEI that I never would have been able to fathom without this shift in mindset.
When I first began my journey as a DEI practitioner, I often embodied the identity as an ‘educator,’ a narrative and role that often still tends to be endorsed by people when asked what the role of the DEI personnel in their organization is. However, interpersonal moments have humbled me and have altered this perspective. Through my various interactions, I have found that although I was often the one who was asked to provide a ‘training’ or an ‘educational session’ with colleagues, community members, or organizational leaders, I was always the one who, by the end of my sessions, if I was present and attuned, was gifted with more knowledge than anything I felt I had bestowed onto them. And for that, I am so grateful for these pivotal moments in my career.
Through the years, I have come to realize that each interaction, each encounter, each training, and each moment in navigating this space called ‘DEI’ has broadened my understanding of the human experience and perspective. I have learned so much about myself and the world of my mind through my interactions and reactions, and I have truly been humbled and challenged. I have learned about thought processes that I could have never fathomed, and I have been called to navigate each encounter with compassion and curiosity – a forever learning journey. I have been left with more moments of uncertainty than certainty, and I have been tested with the task of leading with trust and surrendering to the humanity within each of us. Because most importantly, I have learned that just as how I am a human in this journey navigating DEI work who deserves compassion, patience, and curiosity, so, too, are all the other humans who are also navigating their own journey.
In that way, what I hope to bring to the LINC DEI Council and the LINC Community is an unwavering sense of compassion and curiosity to the work we do, who we do it with, and why we do it. I believe that in doing so, these are the actions and intentions that will open up the door for possibilities. Often, the work of DEI can feel very tight and not very spacious — conversations in some spaces can feel rigid and interactions can be loaded with all kinds of energy. As a LINC Council member, I am excited to be in presence with others, and to explore what makes DEI work important to them and what their hopes are for the LINC DEI Council, and to presence with the ‘what’s in mind’ for each of us, so we can hold space for others to do the same. I have absolute trust that in doing so, this is what will not only open each of us up, individually and collectively, to the possibilities ahead in this DEI topography, but also to manifest possibilities beyond our wildest imaginations.