Research shows that culturally heterogeneous teams outperform and out-innovate culturally homogeneous teams, leading to better science. But addressing cultural heterogeneity can be daunting. In recent times, we have been confronted with the difficulties of racial discussions and the legacy of racism in our institutions. Research is not insulated from these dynamics. This CIMER CAM workshop is one effort to increase effective mentorship to advance inclusive excellence in science (Byars-Winston et al., 2018; Byars-Winston et al., 2026). 

Although there are many aspects to cultural diversity, the CIMER CAM workshop focuses on race within the US. Extrapolations can easily be made to other aspects of our identities. Here is a brief video summarizing a longitudinal study of the CAM workshop.

If your participants have not had mentorship education, we recommend beginning with a research mentor training course that includes at least four hours of training prior to a CAM workshop. CIMER offers core mentorship education workshops, including Entering Mentoring or Mentoring Up.

If you are unable to meet the prerequisite core mentorship education for the CAM workshop, shorter mentorship education courses might be more appropriate for you. An alternative option is the University of Minnesota’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which covers topics of cultural diversity within mentorship.

*The National Research Mentoring Network courses are no longer available at this time.

Themes and Concepts

• Identify how cultural beliefs, worldviews and identities influence mentoring practices.
• Recognize how cultural diversity can impact, complicate, and benefit research mentoring relationships.
• Acknowledge the impact of conscious and unconscious assumptions, privilege, stereotype threat, and biases on the mentor-mentee relationship.
• Apply evidence-based strategies, using case studies, to reduce and counteract the impact of biases, stereotype threat, and privilege, fostering trusting, culturally responsive mentoring relationships.

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Implementation

We offer both hosted and public CAM workshops. Regardless of format, these workshops are led by two CIMER Principal Facilitators and participants are asked to complete roughly two hours of pre-work, in addition to completing the prerequisite mentor training:

• Hosted/private trainings consist of a full-day in-person workshop at your institution.
• Public training, open to individuals, is offered online as three 3-hour sessions on Zoom, held one week apart.
• For more information about private and public workshops, see the CAM brochure.
• For current and future dates and to register for an open training, visit the News and Events page.