ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate

The ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate provides with you the skills, knowledge, and resources to succeed in your academic journey and beyond. It provides with you the flexibility to attend workshops based on your individual goals and needs.

You can select from a variety of workshops offerings that span across five different program pillars including: Career Development, Professionalization and Communication, Teaching Development, Research, and Wellness.

This certificate is for students in Masters, PhD, and Graduate Diploma programs, as well as postdoctoral fellows.

Learning Outcomes for the ASPIRE Certificate

By completing the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate, you will have:

• Acquired skills, tools and techniques to enhance your personal, professional or scholarly goals.
• Developed self-knowledge about one’s professional, personal or scholarly purpose.

How to Earn the ASPIRE Certificate

 To earn the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate:

1. Complete 5 workshops in at least 2 of the ASPIRE pillars. 
2. In Navigator, enroll in the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate and log your participation in each of the 5 workshops using the steps below in the Document Your Experience section.
3. Save a PDF or print a copy of your certificate, which will be available in Navigator after your participation in all 5 workshops is approved. 

Any asynchronous ASPIRE workshops that are run through MyLearningSpace or Navigator count towards the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate. However, individual sessions and appointments, events, workshops not listed under the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate, and recordings do not count towards the completion of the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate.

If you completed the requirements for the certificate prior to May 8, 2023, you can count these workshops towards the completion of the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate. Complete the ASPIRE Retroactive Request Form to have your attendance validated and to note your ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate progress in Navigator.

Document Your Experience

The ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate is part of your Laurier Experience Record and you can track your progress in the certificate through Navigator.

Steps for logging your ASPIRE workshop participation in Navigator:

1. Log in through Navigator and click “Student”
2. Click on “Certificate Programs”
3. Click on “ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate” and you will see a table that lists Workshop #1, #2, etc.
4. Click on Workshop #1 and enter in the requested information in the different fields. For example, it will ask about the workshop title, the date it was completed, what department hosted the workshop (it’s OK if you don’t know this – there’s an option for “not aware of the department host”), and the pillar associated with the workshop*. You must also provide a short reflection of what you gained from the workshop.
5. Once everything is entered, hit “Save” and the workshop should be entered.
6. Follow the same procedure for the other workshops.

*Note the pillar during the session and/or log your participation immediately following the workshop as workshops from past terms are removed from the web.

Once you have 5 workshops completed in at least 2 different pillars, the system will reflect this and your record will be held until the certificate is approved in FGPS. This can take 1-2 weeks. Once approved, the certificate will be available for you to download directly from the Navigator site.

You can also sync your Laurier Experience Record to your LinkedIn profile in the Licenses and Certifications section.

If you’ve completed some ASPIRE workshops as part of your academic program, you can use these workshops to count towards the completion of the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate. This applies only to workshops listed within the ASPIRE Professional Development Certificate listings.