Student-President Reverse Mentoring at Universities: Maltepe University Case

Mentoring is a de rigueur concept, which has been widely practiced in organizations for a long time, and has also been observed in academic milieus in the form of one student helping another and an academician giving a hand to a colleague. Reverse mentoring, a new twist on this familiar concept, also has a long history and has been used in higher education as well. Academicians' empowering students as their reverse mentors is no longer a myth. How does a university president's benefiting from students as her/his reverse mentors sound? This paper aims to present a case study by exploring Maltepe University's experiences, whose president has delegated some students as his reverse mentors. The conceptualization through the findings has revealed the significance of such a mentoring system from which all higher education institutions can benefit. The findings of this case study demonstrate how reverse mentoring can clear up negative stereotyping in academia