Our study explores online international mentoring that supports novice faculty at geographically distant universities. Interview data with 30 mentees were analyzed using an inductive analysis method to describe how online mentoring supports young academics in their development as novice teachers, and to identify how they perceive this transformative experience in their own professional contexts and how an online setting may provide a context for the mentoring experience. Analyses showed that mentees have qualitatively different conceptualizations of the mentoring process, the role of the mentor, and the transformative potential of these professional relationships. A model of transformative experiences was thus created to describe the various cycles through which professional development in an online faculty mentoring program may evolve. Beyond generic implications, the particular dimension of how physical distance impedes mentors' authenticity in mentoring has been identified.

This paper focuses on exploring the intellectual basis for establishing an academic development program for international doctoral students in social sciences and humanities in Central Europe so as to cultivate a reflective scholarly approach to teaching early on in their academic career. The program conceptions and practices are embedded in the notion that a scholarly approach to teaching integrates the understanding and demonstration of knowledge about teaching and necessitates a continuous learning process about teaching through reflection and through conducting research on teaching in the various disciplines. In particular, taking on board the domains of teaching knowledge which derived from the kinds of reflections on teaching (cf. Kreber & Cranton, 2000; Mezirow, 1991), instructional, pedagogical and curricular knowledge and continuous reflection at the level of content, process as well as premise, are represented in an integrative manner in our overarching program principles and pedagogical strategies. As we see, professionalization of doctoral students' teaching practice in higher education (cf. Lueddeke, 2003) is particularly important in the context of enhanced faculty mobility and internationalization. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to the literature and practice on establishing academic development programs, especially in academic environments with low institutional support for teaching and lack of formal requirements for professional development.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 is widely framed as an outside-in process, not only enabled but also enacted by the Kremlin. Prevailing accounts privilege geopolitical analysis and place those developments in a broader narrative of tension and competition between the West and Russia. Such a narrative downplays the involvement of local actors and the importance of the choices they made prior to and during those events. This article revisits the period leading up to March 2014 through a focus on critical junctures, critical antecedents, a near miss, and the path not taken. It argues that a full account of Crimea’s incorporation into Russia – while acknowledging Moscow’s role – cannot ignore the local contingencies that preceded and shaped it. We understand the region’s annexation as a key moment of institutional change in Ukraine and focus our attention on explaining how that outcome was determined, identifying the path to such a political outcome. Yanukovych’s decision to “catapult” political-economic interest groups from Makeevka and Donetsk into the peninsula led to the marginalization of the local elite. Regime change in Kyiv and a slow and cumbersome response from the new authorities in February-March 2014 triggered, but did not cause, Crimea’s exit option.

This article analyses the concept of diversity in education in the context of Eastern Europe, and how its meaning might differ from that used in Western-focused literature. The study explores the ways in which faculty interpret diversity based on their experience of teaching contexts as being homogenous, situational, or internationalized, for which interviews have been conducted with university educators in Eastern Europe. In a phenomenographic analysis, three different approaches to how teachers engage with diversity in the classroom were identified: (1) exposing students to diversity as an external phenomenon through teaching; (2) focusing on the diversities among students in a given classroom and learning how to navigate them; (3) using the diversities present in the classroom to facilitate inclusive teaching and learning. We argue that the meanings and intentions associated with the understanding of diversity are constitutive of how faculty see their role in facilitating student learning in diverse classroom, and especially of their strategies to address sensitive and controversial topics. Finally, we discuss the implications for teaching practice and academic development, in addition to the relevance of diversity in Eastern European classrooms.

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