Author's Response:

Abstract

We thank Mr. Shadix for giving us the opportunity to reaffirm ADA's commitment to increasing gender diversity as well as cultural diversity in the dietetics profession. While the Diversity Mentoring Project was designed to specifically address the need for more ethnically diverse health care professionals, the Building Our Future Mentor Program is inclusive of both male and female students of all cultures. We would like to assure Mr Shadix that an emphasis on female students was not the committee's intent. In fact, males provided leadership at all phases of the project—Jorge Monserrate served on the Steering Committee and experts invited to the Summit included ethnically diverse males with prominent roles in higher education and health care practice. The toolkit describes strategies for mentoring students from underrepresented cultures known to be at risk for nutrition-related disease. Male and female students are profiled in the toolkit ( (1) Fitz P.A. Mitchell B.E. Building our future A summary of the ADA Diversity Mentoring Project. J Am Diet Assoc. 2002; 102: 1005 Google Scholar ). We hope that all ADA members will use the toolkit in their communities to increase diversity of all kinds in our membership.