Stories

 Articles for “Kimep Times”.

Open House Day in KIMEP, February 3, 2007

By Aimbetova Assel

Kimep attracted more potential students to its open-house recruiting event on February 3 than the previous February, university officials said. This year’s open house brought in 800 visitors, including 459 students interested in bachelor’s programs and 51 interested in master’s programs. Many parents also came. Last year the event attracted 439 prospective bachelors’ students and 30 master’s students.The Director of the Recruitment Office Balzhan Bliskeldinova, said that before the event KIMEP representatives visited all schools in Almaty and the surrounding area, distributed invitation cards to Open House Day to all seniors. She said KIMEP’s Marketing and PR Department also ran ads about the event on television and newspapers.    Friends Akmaral and Zarina from Almaty School #138 decided to go to the Open House Day after learning about it at school. “We would like to study accounting,” Akmaral said. Among other things, that job offers good pay, she said. Their high school, Zarina said, has a curriculum heavy in the arts – music, writing, painting and the like. Those fields not so popular now, she said.  One thing of concern to the girls was how to pay for an education at KIMEP – in particular, how to obtain a scholarship or grant.  The Open House Day was held in the KIMEP Grill, which was decorated with balloons in KIMEP’s blue-and-yellow colors. The recruiters gave prospective students sign-in forms, brochures and packages containing admissions policies. As always, professors and administrators from different academic programs had their own tables that students could stop at. The biggest crowds were at the table of the Bang College of Business. Mariya Yesseleva, lecturer, who was at the Bang College table, said that at least 50 students came in the first hour – perhaps more.Many students not only asked questions about KIMEP’s entrance examinations and academic programs, but also about job prospects upon graduation.

 “I heard from a friend of mine about Open House Day and decided to come here with my Mom,” Zhanna said. The event was well organized, she said. Another table that attracted a lot of attention was the representing student’s organizations. Alexandra Fadeyeva (BSS – 1), Nurlan Kairshin (BAE -1), Kamila Lukpanova (BAIJ-1) told the students about their organization “Createam”. Representatives of the Advising Center also answered many student questions. Some of prospective students met center staff in the KIMEP Grill and some met them at the center’s office on the second floor of the Valikhanov Building.   

    “Our purpose is to help students to adapt to KIMEP in their first year of studying,” said Valery Kim, a center staff member. Students’ question ranged from choosing various subjects to how accessible computers at KIMEP are, Kim said. Parents were invited to Room 237 for a briefing about the university from Dr. Steven Green, the Dean of Student Affairs, and others. There were so many parents that some of them had to stand.         

At the end of the event, five groups of prospective students were given a tour of the campus.                                    

KIMEP’ Library               

 By Assel Aimbetova   

The KIMEP library’s main collection has now grown to 52,000 books according to Library Director Leslie Champeny. 

The Library typically adds 8,000 books a year, but some are multiple copies of the same textbook. So the library’s current number of volumes, including multiple copies, is 80,000 books. In future years about 10,000 new items will be added, most of which are in English, Russian and Kazakh, Champeny said.

 

The 8,000 new books consist of about 4,000 textbooks from United States, Canada and Europe, and 4,000 other publications, she said. The average cost of a textbook is $60, although some are much expensive. The average cost of other books is $100, partly because some reference books are very costly.

During the last academic year, “the library ordered $315,000 worth of books, ” Champeny said. The KIMEP Council makes the final decision on the book-purchasing budget each year, she said. The Library has a collection development plan for book purchases, she added. The selection of individual depends titles on what instructors ask for.

 

The Library orders books two or three times a year, she said. The Kazakhstan company Polygon International fills many orders. “But we search for some books independently, because the company can’t find them,” Champeny said.

 

The Library, which has 2,600 square meters of space, has room for thousands of more books, Champeny said. She estimates that the facility, which opened in August 2006, can hold a total of 100,000 titles.

  

Although that is a sizable library, it would not compare with the Kazakh National University library, which has 1.5 million books.

 

The library consists of 7 departments and staff consists from 32 persons.             

In addition to books, Champeny pointed out, the Library has some excellent electronic databases. 

These databases contain several hundred thousand academic articles and 30,000 electronic books.

ProQuest ABI/INFORM is the newest database, and includes the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

 

JSTOR is a worldwide archive of scholarly journals maintained by academic and research institutions. SSRN is a repository of scholarly research on finance, economics, law, accounting, management and marketing.EBSCO is a database of scholarly journals in the social sciences, popular magazines and newspapers.  INTAS is a database focused on math, engineering, chemistry and biology.JURIST is a database of Kazakhstani law. It has regular updates as laws change.