People undertaking career change late in their working lives often relinquish high status senior positions to become novices in unfamiliar organisational cultures and hierarchies. They commonly experience lengthy periods of transition during which new capabilities must be developed, identity reshaped, and confidence rebuilt. Navigating the ‘betwixt and between’ space that accompanies the shift from one set of structures to another typically requires learning the rules of a new game and taking on a new persona, an exercise that can significantly disrupt one’s sense of self. Moving from one identity state to another generates periods of liminality as people disorient and reorient their professional lives.

In the higher education field, researchers have focused on the liminal spaces experienced by students transitioning from school to university, higher education to employment, and employment to doctoral study. Moving from students to faculty, a smaller body of literature examines liminality in academic middle management (Davis-Salazar, 2024), writing for publication (du Plooy et al., 2024), and early career researchers (Djerasimovic & Villani, 2020; Larsen & Brandenburg, 2023). Little is known, however, about second-career academics (SCAs) (Dash, 2018) and the ways in which mentoring assists them to navigate the liminal space between professional practice and academia.

The impetus for a larger qualitative study of second-career academics in New Zealand universities and polytechnics, this paper poses the question, ‘How do expert practitioners experience the transition from professional to academic roles?’ It juxtaposes the experiences of a recently appointed and longer serving SCA who engage in a peer mentoring relationship within the same institution. As skilled teachers who taught for several decades and held senior leadership roles in New Zealand secondary schools, both found themselves neophytes in a performative research environment. This paper surfaces the catalyst for their mentoring conversations, reflections on their researcher identity formation, and the power of mentoring to shorten the liminal divide. This is of particular relevance as universities in the European Higher Education and Research Areas (EHEA/ERA) work to maximise researcher productivity and performance in the pursuit of a “globally competitive and internally competing ‘Europe of knowledge’” (Djerasimovic & Villani, 2020, p. 248).

Mentoring is widely regarded as a foundational element of academia (Marino, 2021) and a powerful tool in the induction and subsequent professional development of new faculty. Mentors share institutional and disciplinary knowledge, provide psychosocial support, and help scaffold the intellectual inquiry that supports mentees to move from one desired state to another (Guccione & Hutchinson, 2021). As such, they act as liminal servants (McLaren, 1987), particularly when the gap between desired states involves major career transition.

While many mentoring strategies benefit all new faculty, second-career academics face distinct challenges. As they take on teaching, supervision, research, and publishing responsibilities; adjust to university norms and expectations, and become novices in a competitive arena, SCAs experience career dislocation and identity renegotiation that is arguably more pronounced than the transition experienced by younger colleagues (Herman et al., 2021; Isovitsch Parks & Dietz, 2017). Compounding inner uncertainty and turmoil is the risk that factors such as age, professional experience and reputation lead line managers to assume that ongoing support for SCAs will not be required.

Despite the well documented individual and organisational benefits arising from mentoring (Castanheira, 2016; Zachary, 2005), institutional commitment to this personalised learning process varies. Provision ranges from formal, comprehensive faculty wide programmes that are continuing rather than episodic in nature, to informal self-initiated personal arrangements. In the neoliberal university, pressure to teach, publish and secure research grants often means that the time and resources dedicated to mentoring are sparse. This paper exposes the folly of this approach.

The privileging of SCAs’ diverse lived experience suggests a relativist ontology and social constructivist epistemology in which knowledge is uniquely personal, subjective and acquired through interaction with others. This study employs duoethnography, a “collaborative research methodology in which two or more researchers of difference juxtapose their life histories to provide multiple understandings of the world” (Norris & Sawyer, 2012, p. 9). Duoethnography is an ethical, reflexive and reciprocal process in which both parties research self and Other as equals, narrating their emergent thinking through dialogic storytelling. This methodology aligns well with peer mentoring dialogue (DeCino & Strear, 2019) that seeks to traverse liminal space and establish researcher identity. Sense making included reflection on the power of mentoring to shorten the liminal divide, from which several recommendations for SCAs and tertiary employers arise. Data generation and analysis occurred simultaneously as dialogue unfolded and new insights emerged.

Key insights from this study include the culture shock, loss of power, and diminished agency and confidence that two second-career academics experienced when transitioning from senior school roles to academic positions. Whether liminality became a temporary or extended phenomenon depended on multiple factors at the individual and organisational level. These included the timing and substance of induction programmes; the assigning of and relationships with colleagues in support, research mentors, and line managers; performance management systems; and tensions between teaching, research, and service obligations. While it is not uncommon for expert teachers to feel obligations to students more acutely and prioritise these accordingly, all SCAs must change what they habitually do. As such, this paper advocates tailored approaches to the socialisation of all expert practitioners appointed to academic roles in higher education. Bespoke mentoring that blends experience-based contextualisation, advice and guidance with non-directive learning conversations is essential in enabling crucial identity work and supporting SCAs to activate and grow research capabilities. Careful consideration therefore needs to be given to the nature and duration of mentoring support, and the selection and resourcing of SCA mentors. Resolute commitment to the enculturation and wellbeing of SCAs helps shorten the liminal divide, making it more likely that the return on investment outlaid upon their appointment will bring research dividends.

Castanheira, P. S. P. (2016). Mentoring for educators’ professional learning and development. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 5(4), 334-346. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-10-2015-0030 Dash, D. P. (2018). Recruiting and developing second-career academics in universities. In R. Erwee, M. Harmes, M. Harmes and P. Danaher (Eds). Postgraduate education in higher education (pp. 2-16). Springer. https://doi-org.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/10.1007/978-981-10-5249-1_34 Davis-Salazar, K. L. (2024). Liminality in academic middle management: Negotiating the associate dean role in US higher education administration. Learning and Teaching, 17(1), 54–76. https://doi.org/10.3167/latiss.2024.170104 DeCino, D. A., & Strear, M. M. (2019). Duoethnography: A mechanism for higher education faculty mentoring. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education, 8(3), 150-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMCE-07-2018-0040 Djerasimovic, S., & Villani, M. (2020). Constructing academic identity in the European higher education space: Experiences of early career educational researchers. European Educational Research Journal EERJ, 19(3), 247–268. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904119867186 du Plooy, B., Albertyn, R., Troskie-de Bruin, C., & Belcher, E. (2024). Academic writing for publication: The experience and facilitation of liminality for developing higher levels of scholarliness. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2024.2363899 Guccione, K., & Hutchinson, S. (2021). Coaching and mentoring for academic development. Emerald Publishing. Herman, N., Jose, M., Katiya, M., Kemp, M., le Roux, N., Swart-Jansen van Vuuren, C., & van der Merwe, C. (2021). Entering the world of academia is like starting a new life: A trio of reflections from health professionals joining academia as second career academics, International Journal for Academic Development, 26(1), 69-81. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2020.1784742 Isovitsch Parks, S. L., & Dietz, L. J. (2017). Mid-career change: Benefits and challenges of leaving industry for academia. Association for Engineering Education - Engineering Library Division Papers. Larsen, E., & Brandenburg, R. (2023). Navigating the neo‑academy: Experiences of liminality and identity construction among early career researchers at one Australian regional university. The Australian Educational Researcher, 50, 1069–1087. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-022-00544-1 Marino, F. E. (2021). Mentoring gone wrong: What is happening to mentorship in academia? Policy Futures in Education, 19(7), 747–751. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210320972199 McLaren, P. L. (1987). The anthropological roots of pedagogy: The teacher as liminal servant. Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, 12(3–4), 75–85. https://doi.org/10.1525/ahu.1987.12.3-4.75 Norris, J., & Sawyer, R. D. (2012). Toward a dialogic methodology. In J. Norris, R.D. Sawyer, and D. Lund (Eds.). Duoethnography: Dialogic methods for social, health, and educational research (pp. 9-39). Taylor & Francis. Zachary, L. J. (2005). Creating a mentoring culture: The organization’s guide. Jossey-Bass.