Thus, mentoring can and should be an important means to achieve the aims of diversity. Whichever definition one chooses to embrace, in its broadest application, mentoring has proved valuable to most successful individuals, regardless of race. Far from being viewed as extraneous to the ultimate goals of diversity, mentoring appears to be more strategically sound than Erekson and Trautman care to admit. Mentoring is more than the mere celebration of differences among work or school populations. The objective of a sound mentoring strategy is to secure diversity of permanence.
Males tend to serve more readily as mentors to other males, and women tend to mentor other women.
Obviously, as he further explains, the under-representation of African American mentors will necessitate that a large number of whites will be required to mentor African Americans. Even the obvious racial and assumed cultural homogeneity among white males should not preclude the existence of diverse ideas and personalities among members of that group. Some relationships between diverse populations will invariably emerge, allowing for cross-racial mentoring matches. Among doctoral students, some will tend to gravitate to those potential mentors who best reflect their own unique academic interests. Conformity that demands the suppression of differences in life style and perception among students and faculty is stultifying and carries with it the stench of decaying creativity.