Abstract
M.Phil. (Leadership Coaching)
There is a need for an effective accelerated career development intervention such as mentoring to address the imbalances of the past still prevalent in the South African higher education context. Such an intervention should contribute towards the development of the next generation of academics for more senior roles.
Mentoring programmes for academic advancement have been implemented in the higher education sector, but the value gained by the participants of such programmes has not been explored. The aim of this study was to explore what is to be valued by an academic mentoring programme for accelerated career development.
The strategy towards this end was a case study. The case was an accelerated academic mentoring programme for lecturers in a higher education institution. The positive action research method of appreciative inquiry was applied in a two-phase design. The mentees (11 participants) took part in a facilitated appreciative inquiry workshop, and the mentors (5 participants) participated in appreciative interviews.
The participants were able to identify the positive core of their mentoring programme, which enabled them to envision how such a programme may lead to academics flourishing in terms of teaching, research, community involvement, and academic leadership. Subsequently, the participants co-constructed an architecture for an ideal mentoring programme. The participants finally suggested the deliverables required for enhancing and guaranteeing the sustainability of a mentoring programme.
On a methodological level, the positive action research method of appreciative inquiry was introduced as an approach to value (as opposed to evaluate) an academic mentoring programme. On a theoretical level, the findings corroborated the positive impact of mentoring on career development, in particular in the higher education context. On a practical level, the appreciative inquiry method empowered the participants to become appreciative of the value of the mentoring programme, encouraging them to become more self-directed in their personal career development.