Doctoral-Level Certification

APU’s Department of Higher Education offers the Doctoral-Level Certificate in Strengths-Oriented Higher Education.

This certificate is designed to assist higher education leaders, practitioners, and faculty in creating, implementing, and assessing strengths-oriented programs on their campuses in order to enhance the success and persistence of their students.

Intended to deepen the knowledge of the strengths philosophy, its conceptual framework within positive psychology, and the aspects of strengths-oriented programming that contribute to positive outcomes for students, this certificate enables participants to serve their campuses more effectively as educators and leaders.

This doctoral-level certificate program may be right for you if you:

• have a master’s degree and want to gain knowledge and expertise in a strengths-oriented approach to higher education.
• are enrolled in another doctoral program and would like to transfer 10 units back to that program.
• are a faculty member or an administrator who does not wish to pursue a doctoral degree in higher education, but who would like to deepen their ability to teach and lead from a strengths-oriented perspective.

Program Format

The certificate program consists of three courses, for a total of 10 doctoral units. The courses are offered together as an intensive for two weeks in January and two weeks in July on the APU’s campus in Azusa, California, where program participants join existing cohorts of doctoral students in their classes.