Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LATHE) graduate certificate

Please note that this program is currently on pause for redevelopment. Therefore, we are not accepting applications at the moment.

Research demonstrates that over the next decade, Canadian universities are likely to continue the vigorous renewal of the professorate as current professors reach the normal age of retirement. According to the last census, 32% of the professoriate was aged 55 and over. This demographic bulge, which is over twice the proportional size of the general labour force, will continue to work its way through universities.

The LATHE Program combines knowledge about teaching and learning across the disciplines to create a future professoriate fluent in the foundation principles of post-secondary instruction. It will challenge participants to reflect on their practical teaching activities in a scholarly way within their disciplinary context. Graduates of the LATHE program will be able to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in their own fields, thus preparing them to become life-long reflective and scholarly teachers.

Earn this graduate certificate concurrently with your UVic doctoral degree.
Be part of a program that is focused on your future. Enroll in the 16-month, part-time, 6.0-unit Graduate Certificate in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education.

Program cost

For concurrent University of Victoria doctoral students there is a one-time program fee for the whole 6.0 unit certificate:

Domestic one-time only program fee of $847.78 + $134.25 application fee (if all documents are from within Canada) = $982.03

International one-time only program fee of $1071.98 + $172.00 application fee (if any documents originate outside Canada) = $1,243.98

One-time fee only: As long as each time you take a LATHE course you are enrolled full-time in your PhD then no additional fees are payable. If at any time you are enrolled in LATHE courses and are NOT full time in your PhD courses additional fees may apply. If you take the certificate (or a portion of it) as standalone (non-concurrent) you pay standard certificate fees which for the full LATHE certificate would be six times higher (6.0 units at $847.78 per unit - domestic; 6.0 units at $1,071.98 per unit - international).

Please note that fees are increased every May.

The LATHE program was instrumental in the development of my academic career. The practical elements of the curriculum, such as designing lessons, articulating a teaching philosophy, giving and receiving feedback, and even constructing an entire course, were immediately useful in my academic job search. But LATHE goes beyond these practicalities, it penetrates the epistemological and metaphysical core of the university and provides graduates with a sound footing on which to meaningfully engage with the big issues in the world of higher education. Perhaps most importantly, I believe my experience in the LATHE program was directly responsible for the job offer I received after graduating.

Derek Murray, PhD candidate (History)

2014 LATHE graduate

Like many of you who are interested in academic careers, I have contemplated and at times worried about my career possibilities. I have been a TA since 2008, done guest lectures, attended workshops on how to get that elusive first academic job, looked at others' teaching dossiers, and wondered how I would fare trying to secure a (hopefully, or perhaps wishfully, tenure-track) position. How will I make myself stand out from other candidates? Perhaps you, too, have heard this: doctoral degrees aren’t always enough anymore. 40% of the job is, after all, teaching. And it is a tough job market “out there."

A year ago, at the Fall TA conference, I heard about “LATHE" and immediately applied. The Learning and Teaching in Higher Education program is a two-year certificate program that you take in addition to your graduate degree (MA or PhD), one course per term, during which you learn skills to improve your teaching, how to develop a course curriculum, and what some of the contemporary issues facing higher education are. It is consciously designed to not overwhelm you as a graduate student with extra course work, and to give you the opportunity to practice teaching with immediate and formative feedback. It could mean the difference between “you don’t have enough evidence of your teaching ability” and “we’d like to interview you.”

For me, the experience has been extraordinary. I am in the second year of the program now, and immensely looking forward to the opportunity to develop my own course and have it critiqued by my professors and peers. The first course alone was a treasure trove of new teaching techniques I could try out and then put into practice as a TA that very same term. Moreover, the courses have not felt in any way overwhelming or like a burden, and they have not slowed down the completion of my degree. While in the LATHE program, I have completed and defended a comprehensive exam, my dissertation proposal, and am now starting my own research, which I will be working on at the same time as I complete the second year of LATHE coursework. I understand we as graduate students and often our supervisors have reservations about us taking on more and more things, but I would argue that this program is worth it.

Kimi Dominic, PhD candidate (Interdisciplinary)

2nd year LATHE student