Kazakhstan’s Scholars Take Root at UC Davis: A New Chapter in International Education
In June 2024, UC Davis Continuing and Professional Education welcomed the first members of a cohort of scholars from Kazakhstan as part of a new professional development program sponsored by their home government. All scholars are working professionals in different fields of education or public learning in Kazakhstan and are studying at UC Davis as part of the Bolashak Scholarship with J-1 Scholar Visa status. Scholars have been arriving since the summer and will continue to arrive through the fall, with more arrivals planned for early 2025. A total of 50 scholars are expected to participate.
International and Access Programs did have some infrastructure in place to allow for J-1 Visa applicants, but bringing this study abroad opportunity to life required staff to act quickly to develop new systems and processes. They had to build a new system for reviewing hundreds of potential scholars and identifying those whose interests aligned with the unique strengths of UC Davis and CPE. They also created a new application process and developed orientation and arrival programming. The International and Access Programs team was able to successfully launch this new program because of their extensive experience in international student programming, which they were effectively and efficiently able to translate to an adult professional scholar-focused program.
While all scholars are pursuing individual research and enrichment projects, they are also quickly integrating into the larger Continuing and Professional Education and academic campus community. As needed, scholars begin their time in Davis by enrolling in CPE’s Academic Engagement Track (English language) courses, generating revenue and diversifying the student population. Many of the scholars have a focus on educational and higher educational practice and this gives them an opportunity to directly experience current Western-style pedagogy.
The scholars will also perform research using UC Davis library resources, pursue CPE Coursera coursework related to their field, interact with both CPE and campus faculty who specialize in their areas of interest and audit on-campus courses. The first cohort recently met with faculty and graduate students from both the Russian and history departments to discuss their projects and establish connections for future research conducted at UC Davis or in Kazakhstan.
"I've greatly enjoyed my discussions of current events in Central Asia with these visiting scholars,” said Ian Campbell, a historian of pre-Revolutionary Russia and an associate professor in the Department of History at UC Davis. “I look forward to working with them more in the coming months."
Given the lack of Kazakh scholars in the United States (only 328 in the past year) and specifically at UC Davis (just one to two), the Kazakhstan Access Program is also designed to utilize the scholars as Russian language tutors for UC Davis undergraduates, as well as cultural experts for the faculty teaching in areas related to the history and politics of the Central Asian region. Their presence has already been well received by campus faculty, and the impacts of their engagement with us will only continue to grow in the coming months.