Surviving the first year: new academics flourishing in a multidisciplinary community of practice with peer mentoring

ABSTRACT

When new academics begin university life, the support they receive in their departments can vary. For many their initial experiences of the new job can be daunting. In this article 10 new academics from a range of disciplines were involved in a community of practice, known as Catalyst, to support them finding their feet within the university. Catalyst is a special community of practice; it is structured, multidisciplinary, one semester long, meets fortnightly and has no restriction on numbers. It also includes peer mentoring, where the new academics meet in pairs or small groups between meetings to foster further support at a deeper, more personal level as they talk about critical aspects of beginning an academic path. In the process they learn more about each other and build strong professional friendships. In this article, the community of practice is evaluated through analysis of journal notes kept by the author, together with semi-structured interviews and a focus group by an independent researcher. In particular, working collaboratively away from their disciplines provided space to learn about institutional and departmental expectations, but more importantly the opportunity to discuss difficult issues that often arise for new academics in a supportive environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer mentoring
• community of practice
• new academic
• early-career academic
• collaboration
• multidiscipline