Early Faculty Mentoring: Cases of Universities of Kazakhstan

Abstract

This study investigates the mentoring experiences of faculty members under the informally administered mentoring programs at three universities in Kazakhstan. Needless to say, the improvement of university work and its organizational structure depends primarily on its faculty. novice teachers who have not managed to gain substantial experience during their career might feel stressed at their early experiences as faculty members, and they need support from their more experienced faculty and colleagues. In other words, novice faculty members need mentors who can support them at the right time to mitigate the problems arising from the lack of experience and awareness; mentors, who can help diminish the anxiety and fear during the period of adaptation and socialization of early-career faculty. In light of this, this research is focused on faculty mentoring in some of the leading universities in Kazakhstan to discover possible impacts of mentoring on such aspects as career promotion, more natural adaptation, and better scientific results received from informal faculty mentoring. Along with the potential benefits of mentoring, some difficulties such as the lack of time for consultations, personal relationship, and a mentor-mentee mismatch were reviewed and analyzed....