UC Irvine

BACKGROUND: The nursing profession will need one million more nurses by 2024, yet nursing schools are turning away applicants due to insufficient numbers of nursing faculty. Likewise, minority nursing faculty are needed in order to attract diverse nursing students who can then address health care disparities. PURPOSE: The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of a group think tank (GTT) as a mentoring strategy for supporting the recruitment and retention of minority nursing faculty. METHOD: Guided by Kotters theory of change, this paper describes the application of the GTT approach with 5 African American (AA) faculty, one AA doctoral student and a cross-cultural mentor. FINDINGS: Results are presented based upon the metrics typically used to support career advancement, promotion and/or tenure. DISCUSSION: The GTT is a promising mentoring model that can be used to integrate cross-cultural and peer mentoring into academic communities to support diversity in academia.