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Personality and Career Development Center

June 2005, Leadership Center was officially established as a part of Kazakh American Free University. At first, work of the Center was supported by the AES corporation and Eurasia fund, financed by the Agency for International Development, USA. In November 2011, the Center was renamed to Personality and Career Development Center. Aim of the Center is organization of work-shops and educational programs for improvement of managerial skills, leadership potential, and horizons expanding of middle and senior managers, KAFU students and faculty, and East Kazakhstan community.  Personality and Career Development Center specializes in providing educational services of high quality on programs of professional development and further training of faculty, improvement of professional knowledge, and skills in the following areas:

  • Organization and supervision of Executive MBA program;
  • Organization and supervision of business work-shops;
  • Organization and supervision of language courses;
  • Organization and supervision of distant courses at the U.S. universities;
  • Organization and supervision of projects jointly with city administration.  

Executive MBA program

Specialist with the MBA degree is a professional manager, ready to perform functions of manager-administrator of the company of any economic branch. Program presupposes not only abilities to learn new information, but also implement it in business process creatively. The most difficult is to surrender the usage of conventional ways of thinking, most part of business habits, and behavior stereotypes. Not each top-manager of head of a company is ready to admit that some of his administrative methods are insufficient and must be replaced. After studding on the MBA program, manager starts to realize the changes, happened in his work. Trying to meet the needs of the market in training highly qualified managers, KAFU established domestic MBA program, based on the international standards. Main distinguishing feature of the program is practical orientation of managers training for national and international business, and international standards, implemented in the MBA course design. Main aim of MBA program in KAFU is shaping a system of knowledge and skills that professional manager needs for making efficient decisions, and company management under the conditions of dynamic Kazakhstani market. Program aims to train managers having strategic vision, making decisions, determining and developing values of organization.

Main orientation of the program:

  • Acquisition of knowledge of company functioning;
  • Development of skills, allowing to increase efficiency of business decision making process under the conditions of rapidly changing environment; 
  • Acquisition of business communication skills, ability to work in team and leadership qualities;
  • Favoring improvement of cultural and education level of students, and their skills of system analysis;
  • Development of modern analytical, assessed and consulting skills;
  • Development of vide range of knowledge and skills by means of integrative, and subject approach to academic courses;
  • Improvement of conditions for personal development, connected with the necessity to manage own carrier;
  • Acquisition of specialized managerial experience in particular areas by means of elective courses and thesis writing.

Faculty

Faculty is one of the most important factor of the MBA program functioning. Professors, working with MBA students, completely differ from average university teachers.  They must be able to work adult audience, be competent enough to answer any business question. For that they must have great practical experience. This is the only approach to the MBA program, accepted in KAFU.   Teacher is to make students interested, disclose the problem, show approaches to its solving.  Students must try to find optimal decisions of task, working individually and doing their best. Teacher and students are not a subject and an object, respectfully, but partners in educational process. But it doesn’t prevent the teacher from giving students assessment.

Teaching Techniques

There are different approaches and teaching techniques implanted: lectures, case-study, business games, workshops, individual and group projects, presentation, extracurricular study. The program is designed in a way that each subject is necessary for further studying

Within the program students:

  • study main functional issues and managerial methods, necessary for manager`s work;
  • understand the necessity of constant professional development as business-leaders;
  • improve efficient analytical, organizational and leading skills;
  • develop skills of making changes and decisions, specified by the influence of environment, business, market, economic, social, political and technical background;
  • upgrade business knowledge and conversational English.

The Executive MBA program is designed in accordance with the international structure of a program. Program includes general courses, but with the predomination of practical classes (30% of theory and 70% of practice).

Main courses

  • Personnel management
  • International Law
  • Managerial Accounting
  • Entrepreneurial Law
  • International Leadership
  • Managerial Economics
  • Strategic Management
  • Corporate Management
  • Managerial technologies
  • Business English
  • Innovative Management
  • Basics of scientific research

Duration of the MBA program is 10 months.

Work-shops

Workshops are designed according to the leadership program of Darden School of Business Administration, University of Virginia.  Business programs of this university are in Top ten Best educational programs in the USA. Teaching techniques there include studying of real situations (case-study), making a team, making decisions for solving problem situations. Teachers from KIMEP University (one of KAFU partners in this project) assimilated case-study technology and adopted it to our environment, aiming to share the experience with KAFU teachers in future.   

Work-shops are helping middle and senior managers in perfection of their leadership qualities; broaden approaches to leadership, leadership methods of influence and place of manager in organization. 

Work-sops, offered by Personality and Carrier Development Center:

  • Effective Sales
  • Aales Technique
  • Client Serves
  • Management of Conflict
  • 25th Hour or Effective Time Management
  • Manager as Translator of Corporate Culture
  • Situation Management – couching-approach
  • Effective Manager
  • Human Resource Management
  •  Leadership for Strategic Changes

Upon completion of work-shops, students get certificates

Language Courses

Personality and Career Development Center designs multi-level language courses including:

  • Training courses for enrollment into the American program
  • English courses for students of 11th grade schools
  • English courses for third year college students
  • English courses for enrollment into magistracy
  • Level courses of English and Kazakh (A1-B2)
  • Language courses for special and professional purposes
  • English courses for university administration
  • English courses for university faculty
  • Professional Translation Training

Upon completion of courses, students get certificates

Distance Courses at American Universities

Distance education as one of the effective educational technologies is developing in Kazakhstan. Many universities in the country have joined the process of creating conditions for distance education. KAFU is actively implementing modern educational technologies. Since 2003, KAFU has been providing its students with an opportunity to take distance courses at such American universities as:

  • Seattle Pacific
  • LeTourneau
  • Indiana Wesleyan
  • Ohio Christian

The fallowing courses are available:

  • «International Marketing»,
  • «Financial Management»,
  • «Personnel Management»,
  • «Organizational Behavior»,
  • «Entrepreneurs Basis».

Upon completion of courses, students get American certificates

Projects with City Organizations

KAFU and Secondary School # 24 made an agreement about joint educational service. 

This project presupposes joint educational work within the “School-University” continuous educational system. It provides succession in education, and different forms and terms of education. As a part of the project English Courses (take place in KAFU) and Courses of Information Science (take place in Secondary School #24) are held.

Personality and Career Development Center would like to ask you to participate in poll for managers of companies aiming to gather information, concerning short-time courses and further training for employees.

Organization_____________________________________________________

Respondent`s name and position_____________________________________

Phone number/fax/e-mail___________________________________________

  1. Does your organization provide further training for employees?
  • Yes, but only within our organization, using only our resources
  • Yes, within our organization, and guest lectures
  • Yes, we send our employees for training
  • No, we don`t need that
  • No, but we are planning to put it into practice
  • Own variant _____________________________________________________
  1. What are most relevant courses for your organization?
  • Ethics and business psychology of management, system of quality management, stress-management
  • Marketing
  • Management accounting
  • Leadership
  • Human Resource Management
  • Own variant __________________________________________________________
  1. Who of employees mostly need further training on present level of your organization?
  • Top management
  • Middle managers
  • Other employees
  • Own variant __________________________________________________________
  1. Mark the most suitable duration of the course:
  • Short-term work-shops (1-3 days)
  • Middle-term work-shops (several weeks)
  • Long-term courses (several month)
  • Session learning (according to academic calendar, within a year)
  • Own variant __________________________________________________________
  1. Mark the most suitable place of the course
  • Your organization
  • KAFU
  • Is not important
  1. What is the best way of payment for training?
  • Organization must pay for training and educate its employees
  • Organization must share expanses with employees
  • Employees must pay for their training
  • Own variant __________________________________________________________
  1. How much are you ready to invest in your employees training (a year)?

 ______________ tenge

  1. How would you like to get information about courses and training?
  • E-mail
  • Phone
  • Letters
  1. Please mark the most interesting themes of work-shops:
  1. Crises Management (couch – Robert Roebuck) date – beginning of March
  2. Corporate Leadership (couches – D. Ballast, M. Christensen) date – beginning of March
  3. Salle Technologies
  4. Negotiations Technologies and Management of Conflicts
  5. PR Technologies of Marketing and Advertising
  6. Time Management
  7. Business Planning and Organization
  8. System of Quality Management
  9. Management Accounting
  10. Project Management
  11. Kazakh
  12. English
  13. Management of Changes
  14. Managerial Technologies for Managers
  15. Own variant __________________________________________________________

Thank You for Your Participation!

You can return questionnaires to the representative of our university or sent per mail or e-mail: KAFU Prospect Nezavisimosty 86, office 105, Personality and Career Development Center, phone 8 /7232/ 23 13 72, e-mail:  serikabilov@kafu.kz