I believe that one of the key attributes of mentors is acceptance of people. But I also think it’s one of the trickiest and perhaps one of the most challenging. I’m generally pretty accepting of people, but how did this acceptance come about? How does one become accepting? Thinking back to my childhood and early adulthood, I got a few clues.
I remember my Dad telling me stories about racial integration when I was growing up in West Virginia. Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s this was a major event in the South, which included to some degree West Virginia where I grew up. Dad told me about interactions he observed. I sometimes wonder if these stories were actually meant to teach me and shape my attitudes. But perhaps my husband Kenneth put it best: “I wasn’t taught to hate.” His mom said: ”I forgot to teach you to be racist.”
I grew up in an era that didn’t seem to talk about gays and lesbians. The first gay people I remember were two of the cavers in the MIG Grotto at the University of Illinois-UC. One of the gay men and I were competing for the attention of the same TA in a course we were both taking. I found that hilarious and don’t remember thinking anything negative about him or his orientation. He was a friend. This unthinking acceptance of his sexual orientation just seemed to be a part of me, but I really have no roots to trace this acceptance back to.
These examples of acceptance have played out in my mentoring too, in some way drawing a wide diversity of students to my lab. I believe there is a relationship between diversity and acceptance and lack of acceptance may lead to failure of attempts to enhance diversity. And acceptance isn’t just accepting people of different colored skin. It’s accepting people with different attitudes and beliefs. My hypothesis is that enthusiasm draws people to my research group and acceptance and caring keep them in the group.