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GradProSkills

Concordia Graduate and Professional Skills (GradProSkills)
Welcome to Concordia University's Graduate and Professional Skills training program!
In partnership with on-campus and external providers, this student driven program offers graduate students and postdoctoral fellows skills development workshops, on-line resources and responsive learning options designed to enrich the graduate experience and transition into a future career.
  • Choose from a full range of FREE graduate and professional skills development workshops (a non-attendance fee may apply)
    If you register for a workshop and do not attend, a non-attendance fee will be charged to your student account because you have taken away the opportunity for another student to benefit from attending the FREE workshop. Please see the FAQ section for more details.
  • Learn to communicate effectively, plan and manage projects, be entrepreneurial, understand and apply ethical practices, work effectively in teams and as leaders, develop a memorable CV, speak in a second language, and more
  • Register for workshops easily through the myConcordia portal (how to register)
  • Request a GradProSkills record of completed workshops to include with funding applications and job searches
  • Propose new workshops or resources for future development
Connect to your future with GradProSkills!
Watch the video from the official launch in January 2012:

Skill Domains

Skill Domains
The Graduate and Professional Skills program aims to provide graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with training in ten skill domains areas essential to successful functioning in Québec's professional workforce and internationally. The skill domains were selected on the basis of focus group meetings with postdoctoral fellows, recommendations of the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies, the National Postdoctoral Association, and research on advanced training needs for entry into the professional workforce.
All Graduate and Professional Skills resources, including the GradProSkills Record, have been categorized using these ten skill domains:
  1. Leadership (LD) - training in interpersonal skills to prepare HQP to work collaboratively in dynamic, knowledge-based environments
  2. Research Management (RM) – training in research project planning, preparing funding proposals, research ethics, health and environmental safety training in research protocols, intellectual property protection, patents and contract;
  3. Language Training (LT) – second language acquisition in French and English to prepare students for integration into the Québec, pan-Canadian and international workforce
  4. Strategic Communication (SC) – develop techniques for written and oral presentation to scholarly and professional audiences, as well as for knowledge mobilization/transfer to general audiences
  5. Digital and Information Intelligence (DI) – hands-on training to develop skills for navigating the digital and new media knowledge economy
  6. Career Building (CB) – entrepreneurship training in the development of marketable technology and applications, patents and contract, enhanced job search techniques, networking and contract negotiation
  7. Teaching and Knowledge Transfer (TK) – pedagogical training for effective undergraduate /graduate classroom, online and supervisory teaching.
  8. Public Spirit and Social Consciousness (PS) – strategies to connect your ethics and values to personal choices and social actions
  9. Wellness and Life Balance (WL) – acquire the tools you need to stay on top of your personal and academic life, to deal with stress and uncertainty while increasing self-confidence.
  10. Learning to Learn (LL) – learn new research techniques, project planning, software tools, time management techniques, improve your study skills, organize research, is a must for success in graduate school and beyond.
Although a Graduate and Professional Skills workshop may straddle more than one skill domain, to simplify posting the workshop to your GradProSKILLS record, each workshop has been assigned a primary target skill that ties it to a specific skill domain. The primary target skill is identified on the workshop page.

Background

Background
Graduate and Professional SKILLS: Connect to your future.
Concordia University's Graduate and Professional Skills program.
To succeed in a rapidly changing world, graduate students must develop professional skills in addition to their disciplinary knowledge that will carry them through their studies and well into their careers. The Graduate and Professional Skills program is a student-driven initiative supported by Concordia's School of Graduate Studies to provide graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with opportunities to develop these skills. A steering committee was formed in the fall of 2010 to oversee development and, in January 2011, a working committee comprised of student representatives from each faculty and support staff from the School of Graduate Studies and Office of Research began building a pilot program. Using the skill domains identified in the 2008 Canadian Association of Graduate Studies report as a framework for the program, these committees have partnered with on-campus and external service providers to assemble a suite of graduate and professional skills resources for Concordia's grads and postdocs.
Graduate and Professional Skills is a pilot project that offers a comprehensive year-round calendar of workshops, an online registration and tracking system, blended learning options, clear objectives, a record of involvement, and support for the development and delivery of new workshops through an ongoing submission process. Through Graduate and Professional Skills, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows can learn how to communicate effectively, plan and manage time, be entrepreneurial, understand and apply ethical practices, work effectively in teams and as leaders, develop a memorable CV, speak in a second language, and more.
To ensure we continue to meet the needs of all graduate students we are following a three-phase development plan.
Phase One - August 2011-Summer 2012
-  Launch program with focus on promoting existing internal resources
Phase Two – Fall 2012 to Summer 2013
-  Continue to develop workshops and resources in cooperation with students, faculty, and staff
-  Expand on-line resources and skill development job/internship opportunities
Phase Three – Fall 2013 and beyond
-  Continue development based on student, faculty and staff feedback
-  Begin development of a Summer Training Institute for 2014
Comments about the program and website? Suggestions for new workshops and resources? We want your feedback.

The Team

The Graduate and Professional Skills Team
The Graduate and Professional Skills program is a graduate student-driven initiative and has been realized with the efforts of many dedicated members of the Concordia community. A steering committee comprised of senior members of the university's administration have worked in close consultation with a working committee of graduate students representing each of Concordia's faculties, and staff members from the School of Graduate Studies and the Office of Research.
Since the launch we continue to involve graduate students from all faculties and programs in the ongoing development and delivery of GradProSkills resources. Team positions are posted in November and April on the Job Opportunities page.
CURRENT TEAM MEMBERS:
Steering Committee Members
Paula Woods-Adams, Interim Dean of Graduate Studies
Vivek Venkatesh, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies
Olivier Dyens, Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning
Bradley Tucker, Associate Vice-President , Enrolment and Student Services
Director
Laurie Lamoureux Scholes
Administrative Assistant:
Cristina Barbu
Development team
Events Mona Afshari, MA Art Education
Outreach Anmol Vig, MEng Quality Systems Engineering
Mahmood Salehi, Master of Business Administration
Online Constanza Silva, PhD Education Technology
Shaun Gamboa, PhD Humanities
Read/Write Jordan Columbe, MA Media Studies
Andrew Wieczorek, PhD Candidate Molecular Biology
Web development Musab Masood, MEng Software Engineering
Mikhail Levkovksy, BEng Software Engineering
Josh Hum, BEng Software Engineering
Workshop assistants
Fall 2012 Jordan Kaufman, MA Film Studies
Salvador Valdovinos Rodríiguez, PhD Candidate in Art Education
French/English Conversation Group Leaders
Fall 2012 TBC
Website Development and On-line Resources Support
David Gaudine, System Analyst, School of Graduate Studies
Adriana Rico, Web and Graduate Calendar Coordinator, School of Graduate Studies
PAST TEAM MEMBERS:
Steering Committee Members
Carole Brabant (to Dec 2011)
Graham Carr
Working Committee Members (January - August 2011)
Laurie Lamoureux Scholes, Coordinator
Nabil El Meslmani, PhD Candidate, John Molson School of Business
Brenda Fewster, Information Advisor, Office of Research
Suzanne Hood, Post-doctoral Fellow, Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Emily Paige, Masters Candidate, Faculty of Fine Arts
Niyusha Samadi, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
Cynthia Raso, Officer, Graduate Awards and Postdoctoral Studies, School of Graduate Studies
Website development and maintenance
2011/2012
Katerina Lagassé, Production Coordinator, Faculty of Fine Arts
Brian Li, Designer, lab six and a half
Development team
2011/2012
Events Mukhbir Singh, MSC Finance
Online Emily Paige, MA Art Education
Kris Alexander, PhD Education Technology
Workshop assistants
Winter 2012 Elena Kornikova, MA Film Studies
Mahmood Salehi, Master of Business Administration

Fall 2011 Elena Kornikova, MA Film Studies
Anmol Vig, MEng Quality Systems Engineering

French Conversation Group Leaders
Summer 2012 Jean-Marc Leduc, MA Translation
Winter 2012 Jean-Marc Leduc, MA Translation
Myriam Miraghaie, MA Translation

Registration Guidelines

Registration Guidelines
A. WORKSHOP CODES:
To register on through the myConcordia portal you need to know the workshop code, semester and section (date) for your workshop. This information is available on each workshop page.
Eg.
GPRM 201/A1 – Studying Abroad
GPRM 201 A 1 Studying Abroad
Skill
Domain		 Workshop
Number		 Semester
A=Fall;B=Winter;
C=Spring;D=Summer)		 Section
(unique
date/time)		 Workshop Name
B. NON-ATTENDANCE FEES, WITHDRAWALS, MAXIMUM WORKSHOP AND WAITLIST RULES AND REGULATIONS
***Students who register and do not take part in the workshop will be charged a non-attendance fee.
In partnership with on-campus and external providers, this student driven program offers graduatestudents and postdoctoral fellows access to a full range of FREE graduate and professional skillsdevelopment workshops. However, all workshop providers have committed resources to offer theseworkshops and expect students who register to attend the workshop. That is, if you take a spot anddon't attend, you have taken away the opportunity for another student to benefit from attending theworkshop. Therefore, to guarantee your attendance, if you register for a workshop but do not attend, thenon-attendance fee listed below will be charged to your student account.
NON-ATTENDANCE FEES: vary from $25 to $200. Workshops with limited space that are popular and/orrequire attendance at multiple sessions and/or have fees covered by the Graduate and Professional Skillsprogram (eg. Intensive French Courses), will have a larger fee assigned. For thsose programs with multiplesessions, you must attend 80% of classes to avoid the non-attendance fee i.e. 8 of 10 classes.
LATE POLICY: GradProSkills mandate is to support the development of professional skills includingtime management. We have also received requests from workshop leaders and attendees to institute alate policy to address the issue of workshop participants who arrive late. Just as you would not be latefor a meeting with your supervisor or boss, for an interview or to teach a class, students registered for aGradProSkills workshops are expected to arrive before the start time. The workshop leader will determineif late students will be allowed to join the workshop. Students arriving late but within the first 10 minutesof class will be marked as late - note being late for two workshops may result in the application of a non-attendance fee.
WORKSHOP WITHDRAWALS:
  1. To avoid non-attendance fee charges, requests to withdraw from a workshop must be received 48 hours prior to the workshop. Should you find you are unable to attend, a request to withdraw must be emailed to: gradproskills@concordia.ca Efforts will be made to email a courtesy reminder notice 72-hours in advance of the workshop failure to receive an e-mail reminder does not waive the right to apply the non-attendance fee. If your withdrawal request is sent less than 48 hours in advance and we are unable to fill the spot you may be charged the non-attendance fee.
  2. To encourage the development of time management skills, GradProSkills will process a maximum of 5 withdrawals per semester. Additional withdrawal requests will be subject to an $8.00 processing fee.
MAXIMUM WORKSHOPS PER SEMESTER: Students may register for a maximum of 10 current GradProSkills workshops in one semester. However, if you have registered for 10 workshops and want to take more, once the first is complete, you can register for an additional workshop within the semester maintaining a maximum of 10 current workshops.
WAIT LISTS: When workshops are full, students are offered the option to register as a waitlisted participant. This means you will be contacted if a space becomes available, or if another workshop is opened due to high demand. You will be notified via email if a space becomes available. Ideally, this will happen 7 calendar days before the date of the workshop. However, a space may become available a day or two prior to the workshop date. If another workshop is opened due to a high waitlist, you will be advised by email. To add yourself to the waitlist, go to the GradProSKILLS website, search for the course code and once on the workshop page click the wait list button and fill in the contact info fields. All registration contracts are subject to revision for adjustment of errors.

GradProSkills Record

GradProSkills Record
Increasingly, funding agencies, employers or research institutes are requiring applicants to provide a record of training in professional skills. The GradProSkills Record includes a list all your completed workshops sorted by skill domains.
Access your GradProSkills “Record” and “Workshop Schedule” through the GradProSkills link on the myConcordia portal.

“Your GradProSkills schedule” - Lists all your current workshops by the start date.

“Your GradProSkills record” - Two options to view your record of participation

Please select the GradProSkills Record of Participation view you want to see:
   Completed ATT ONLY - to Print for Official GradProSkills Record of Participation**
   All Workshops - In Progress, ATT(ended), DNE (did not enter), DNA (did not attend)
**NOTE: OFFICIAL RECORD OF PARTICIPATION
An official GradProSkills Record of participation may be prepared to include in funding applications, immigration process or when requested by employers.
To request an Official GradProSkill Record of participation please:
  1. Select the "Completed ATT ONLY" GradProSkills record of attendance above
  2. Once the Record is displayed, click on the "printable version" link below the record and print the copy
  3. Send an email to gradproskills@concordia.ca to make an appointment to have the printed GradProSkills Record stamped and signed.
  4. Please note ONLY ONE request for an Official GradProSkills Record per semester. Additional requests will be subject to a $10 processing fee.