Abstract

Changing institutional culture to be more diverse and inclusive within the biomedical academic community is difficult for many reasons. Herein we present evidence that a collaborative model involving multiple institutions of higher education can initiate and execute individual institutional change directed at enhancing diversity and inclusion at the postdoctoral researcher (postdoc) and junior faculty level by implementing evidence-based mentoring practices. A higher education consortium, the Big Ten Academic Alliance, invited individual member institutions to send participants to one of two types of annual mentor training: 1) “Mentoring-Up” training for postdocs, a majority of whom were from underrepresented groups; 2) Mentor Facilitator training—a train-the-trainer model—for faculty and senior leadership. From 2016 to 2019, 102 postdocs and 160 senior faculty and administrative leaders participated. Postdocs reported improvements in their mentoring proficiency (87%) and improved relationships with their PIs (71%). 29% of postdoc respondents transitioned to faculty positions, and 85% of these were underrepresented and 75% were female. 59 out of the 120 faculty and administrators (49%) trained in the first three years provided mentor training on their campuses to over 3000 undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and faculty within the project period. We conclude that early stage biomedical professionals as well as individual institutions of higher education benefited significantly from this collaborative mentee/mentor training model

Highlights

  • It has long been recognized that diversifying the biomedical workforce is essential for advancing the research enterprise, but how to go about this transformation has been a challenge for many institutions of higher education

  • In order to understand the paucity of diversity, especially in academia, some studies have focused on social/cognitive barriers to career progression for UR trainees [6,7,8,9,10,11,12], with interventions directed to the individual to address many of these barriers [13]

  • This paper reports the results of our four-year experience using this multi-institution model for intensive face-to-face mentor training of postdocs, as well as mentor facilitator training of senior colleagues at the Big Ten Conference Center near Chicago, with follow-up implementation of mentor-training sessions on home campuses to foster capacity-building, dissemination, and sustainability of good mentoring practices

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Summary

Introduction

It has long been recognized that diversifying the biomedical workforce is essential for advancing the research enterprise, but how to go about this transformation has been a challenge for many institutions of higher education. One area of postdoc development that has only recently been addressed is to optimize postdocs’ dual mentee and mentor roles via “Mentoring-Up” training [14]. Each module of this curriculum is considered from the perspective of the postdoc as a current mentee attempting to get the most out of their relationship with their PI/Mentor, and flips to consideration of the concepts as a future and/or current mentor. A more recent study reported a positive link between students’ skill development trajectory and the active engagement of postdoctoral researchers in lab discussions, postdocs typically have no formal mentor role [15] and little formal mentorship training [16]. Further examination of the impact of exposure to mentor competencies on postdocs’ personal and professional career development via the validated but under-utilized “Mentoring-Up” training program is warranted

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