The Emerging Scholar Accelerator Program
The program aims to mentor and coach emerging scholars to achieve the research, teaching and learning, engaged scholarship and leadership skills, attributes and performance to meet and exceed the criteria associated with senior academic levels.
Objectives of the programme
The main objectives of the Transformation of the Professoriate Mentoring Programme are to
- help candidates to navigate the realities of the South African higher education context in general and the UFS context specifically through facilitation of effective communication between candidates, their line managers, mentors and the mentoring program management to enhance support for candidates to align their career development goals with the strategic priorities of the UFS.
- positively impact integration into professional cultures and strengthening the academic identities of a diverse groups of scholars.
- contribute to make the institutional environment more enabling to early career scholars through peer interaction.
The structure of the program
The mentoring program include the following processes:
a) Initial orientation to the mentoring program: Selected candidates participate in an information session (group or individual) to explain the objectives of the program, the theoretical framework and the various development strategies that form part of the program. Candidates also receive guidelines for developing their individual career plans and are instructed to submit their plans to the program manager within a month after the information session.
b) Creating and discussing Individual Development Plans: Candidates submit their individual career development plans that include their short, medium and long term career goals, the skills and resources they need to develop to achieve these goals and their perception of the enabling and constraining factors that may impact on their ability to realise their career goals. The creation and discussion of the individual
career development plan (with the program manager) helps candidates to make their future plans explicit and to consider strategies that they can implement to achieve their goals. The individual development plan serves as a baseline against which the progress of candidates is monitored and evaluated at least once a year (August/September) followed by discussions planning for the next year and addressing obstacles to the progress of candidates.
c) Feedback to line managers: Individual discussions between candidates and the program manager are followed by compulsory three-way discussions between the line manager, the candidate and the mentoring program manager to facilitate better support within departments and address obstacles to the growth and development of candidates. Candidates also share and discuss their development plans with their discipline- specific mentors.
d). Group meetings to facilitate peer support. These meetings form a critical part of the mentoring program and therefore take place every two months. These meetings are compulsory. Group meetings are also conducted to facilitate engagement with members of top management and various other stakeholders such as the international office, the community engagement office, HR and others. These
meetings serve the purpose of increasing candidates’ sense of engagement with the institution and clarifying the roles of different stakeholders and the serves they deliver. Social gatherings of candidates also help to facilitate the sense of peer support experienced by the candidates.
e). Training Program: The mentoring program provides monthly training opportunities based on the needs assessment (as expressed in the development plans) of candidates. The mentoring program does not duplicate training offered by the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Center for Graduate Support, HR Leadership Development or other training facilities on campus. The program supplement existing training opportunities with activities such as writing retreats, monthly writing spaces, grant funding workshops and workshops focusing on productivity and increased self-efficacy. Candidates choose the relevant training opportunities which align to their training needs and planned goals.
f). Discipline-specific mentors: Candidates are encouraged to find a discipline-specific mentor that can help guide their scholarly development to ensure a strong focus on quality outputs and how to strengthen and expand their academic profiles. The mentors also play an important part in assisting candidates to build national and international networks. Mentors also provide advice about the research focus of candidates, building postgraduate research groups, publication decisions, funding and NRF-rating processes as well as preparation for work on editorial boards, refining academic projects and navigating the demands of academic careers. The program support candidates to travel to visit external mentors, but most of the work between candidates and external mentors take place online. The mentoring program coordinates meetings with mentors and arrange two mentorship training sessions per year facilitated by Prof Brenda Marina (President of the International Mentoring Association).
g). Coaching on specific skills: The program appointed three colleagues with specialised experience of international funding, writing and methodological skills, and with experience of NRF rating processes to work individually with candidates on the refinement of funding applications, manuscripts for publication and NRF Rating applications.
h). Access to resources: The mentoring program provide access to resources such as funding for international sabbatical visits and conference registration and attendance. Members of the program apply formally for assistance (it is not guaranteed) and are only eligible for assistance after six months of membership of the program.
i). Distribution of information and links to webinars and training opportunities: The mentoring office share information about training opportunities and actively search for free webinars on relevant topics such as building resilience in lockdown conditions and training courses provided by OneHE, Harvard Online, Google Digital Garage, and Coursera.
Who are eligible for selection to the program
The Emerging Scholars Accelerator Program (ESAP) select candidates who are in the early postdoctoral stages and many of them have published from their doctoral research and refined their research into niche areas. The period following the PhD is a critical period in the launching of the emerging scholars’ careers and therefore, the ESAP program aims to support the candidates to become productive researchers and research supervisors and to balance their roles as lecturers and researchers with engaged scholarship and leadership activities. The duration of the ESAP program is two years and the candidates can advance to the Future Professoriate Program based on excellent performance during the ESAP program. Preference is given to candidates under 40 years of age unless there are specific circumstances that merits inclusion to the program.