The Faculty of Science's Human Biology / Environmental Sciences Seminar Series invites the campus community to a presentation by Dr. Sarah Finch (Applied Human Sciences) entitled "Impact of the 2019 Canada’s food guide and vitamin D fortification strategies on childcare meals"

January 23 at 12:30 pm in Duffy Science Centre, Room 204

The UPEI Department of Religious Studies’ popular Theology on Tap series returns on January 28 with a talk titled “More than Optimistic: Hope and Teilhard de Chardin” by Dr. Libby Osgood, Congregation of Notre Dame and Associate Professor in Sustainable Design Engineering. Dr. Osgood’s talk will take place at 7:00 pm at the Salvador Dali Café, The Arts Hotel, 155 Kent Street, Charlottetown. 

“People often use the words ‘hope’ and ‘optimism’ interchangeably, but hope requires much more than optimism,” said Dr. Osgood. “Hope is not naive. It is not sitting back and waiting for something to change, nor is it easy. Based on the writings of Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and Jesuit priest who helped discover an ancestor to homo sapiens, we will explore the need for hope during these challenging times of ecological change.”

Born in Sarcenat, France, in 1881, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest and an accomplished paleoanthropologist who researched human beginnings and wrote imaginative, mystical writings on the evolutionary nature of the world and the cosmos. Though his Jesuit leadership did not allow him to publish during his lifetime, his writings were published by his secretary Jeanne Mortier after his death in 1955. Since then, generations of theologians and scientists have been inspired by his desire to find God in the world and how he embraced evolution. He asked, “Who at last will give evolution its God?” At times, he was criticized for being naively optimistic. Dr. Osgood suggests that Teilhard de Chardin is much more than optimistic—he is hopeful.

For more information about the series, contact event coordinator Alexandra Durant at alexandrajdurant@gmail.com, or follow Theology on Tap PEI on Facebook.

The UPEI Writing Centre (Robertson Library 274) is now open. The service is free and available to everyone in the campus community. To book an in-person or online appointment, please visit https://upei.mywconline.com/

We look forward to working with you!

A recent Faculty Focus article shares a short list of Ten Tiny Experiments to Ease Burnout for Educators with different techniques, practices, and ideas that you can do without any practice or instruction. Check out the list and see what works for you. 

Echoes of the Tango is a duo piano recital featuring UPEI piano professor Dr. Magdalena von Eccher along with invited guest Megaria Halim in an exploration of 2-piano works featuring a suite of dances by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, three Romances by his compatriot Carlos Guastavino, as well as music inspired by the distinctive rhythms and passionate melodies of tango, as interpreted by Canadian composer Jeff Smallman in Rhapsodie Espagnole, alongside Richard Bennett's light-hearted tribute to various dance styles, entitled Four Piece Suite.

Echoes of the Tango will take place on Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 pm on the SDU Stage at Steel Recital Hall, UPEI Campus. Accessible parking is available, and the theatre has an accessible entrance via elevator.

Admission: $30 adults, $25 seniors, $10 students. 

FREE for all UPEI students with a valid ID card. Tickets are available in advance at upei.universitytickets.com or by cash at the door.

There will be a basic biosafety training session on Tuesday, January 27, at 1:00 pm. Topics will include basic biosafety principles and how they are applied at the University of Prince Edward Island, as well as biosecurity training. This session is open to everyone, including graduate students. Prerequisite training material must be completed prior to attending the session.

To attend, you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell by noon, Monday January 26, 2026, via email hse@upei.ca or phone 902-566-0901. 

Please provide:

• Your name
• Your supervisor’s name (if applicable)
• Department
• Email address
• Phone number
• Whether you're an employee or graduate student  

NOTE: An online biosafety training refresher course is available for those who completed basic biosafety training previously. Training must be renewed every three years. Please contact us for information on how to register for this training!

All faculty, students, and staff are invited to the next UPEI Research Breakfast, happening on Thursday, January 29, 2026, hosted by Research Partnerships and Innovation (formerly OCII).

The theme of this breakfast is “Climate Change and Society”. Two UPEI research chairs, Dr. Sara Sadri and Dr. Jean Mitchell, will give short presentations about their research. Presentations run from 8:00-9:00 am, with networking and a continental breakfast available at 7:30 am. This event is FREE, but space is limited. Please RSVP here.

Join us for a morning of knowledge-sharing and networking with fellow researchers and industry, community, and government partners over a delicious breakfast!

Research Partnerships and Innovation is the new name for the Office of Commercialization, Industry and Innovation (OCII)! We are kicking off the new year with a renewed focus on our core mission and our role in the PEI innovation ecosystem. 

Research Partnerships and Innovation is a name that reflects the work that we do connecting UPEI researchers with industry, community, and government partners, contributing to economic and social development in the region. 

We are still the same team here to support you. Check out our website upei.ca/rpi to learn more about what we do. 

Increasingly, faculty are reporting exhaustion, overwork, and burnout as serious issues affecting their work lives.  Join Elizabeth Wells from Mount Allison University for this ONLINE session, where we will explore the landscape of burnout through the literature, and offer support and solutions to today’s overburdened academic. Register here to receive the Teams link for this session  on February 3 at 12:00 noon. 

A statement of teaching philosophy (STP) is an essential opening for most teaching dossiers, and it signals the central beliefs and practices to be found in your teaching dossier. This workshop will take participants through a variety of strategies for crafting an effective statement, looking at examples from across disciplines. Participants will leave with a sound basic structure for their STP.  Join us on Friday January 23 (snow date Jan. 30) from 2:00 to 4:00 in Teaching and Learning Centre, Robertson Library Annex, Room 230. 

Kick off the semester by attending our networking event for the Harry W. MacLauchlan Entrepreneurship Program (HWMEP)! Join us on Wednesday, January 21 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm, in 201 Robertson Library.

This is the best opportunity before the competition officially starts for you to meet fellow competitors, find potential partners, and ask questions to CCCE staff about the competition before the application deadline of February 10, 2026! The networking event is open to any current UPEI student, regardless of interest in the HWMEP competition.

Register today!

The UPEI Health Research Network is inviting full-time and part-time undergraduate students to join the Connections Program. This is a research program focused on health and well-being for undergraduate students on campus. The program will begin last week of January OR the first week of February 2026 (will be confirmed soon).

Are you interested in meeting new people in a friendly, inclusive, and non-judgmental environment? In this program, you will learn about food, health, stress, coping strategies, and physical activity.

The Health Research Network is offering this free, eight-week program to help students learn about health and well-being while connecting with the student community. Participants must be able to complete the pre and post-screening assessments (completed before the program begins and also once more after the program finishes) and be able to attend all eight sessions.

The program includes:

• Eight weekly group sessions (2 hours each):
  • 1 hour with a Registered Dietitian and Health Educator
  • 1 hour of physical activity led by a Kinesiologist
• Optional open gym times
• All sessions take place in the lower level of the Steel Building
• Snacks are also provided at each session!

The sessions are student-centered, and all levels of experience and ability are welcome.

If you are interested, please email Anja and Laurie at connections@upei.ca to get more information or to book the required pre-program screening assessment.

Building from the November launch of the UPEI Strategic Plan (2025–2030): Making our World a Better Place—in which we reaffirm our core values: academic freedom; accountability and integrity; pursuit of excellence; equity, diversity, inclusion, and a sense of belonging; and reconciliation. Join us for the next President’s Town Hall on Wednesday, January 21 to further discuss how we live these values.

We will look at the feedback from our community members and keep the conversation going about how we expect our behaviours and actions—and that of others—to translate in our day-to-day work at UPEI.

President’s Town Hall: Living our Values
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
10:00 am
Performing Arts Centre and Residence Amphitheatre, PAC 121S

If you are unable to participate in person, you are welcome to participate virtually at this Teams Town Hall link.

The following online training sessions may be of interest to faculty and students, and are free of charge.

• January 20, Introduction to ACENET and High Performance Computing (HPC)
• January 21, Introduction to the Linux Command Line
• January 22, Introduction to Shell Scripting
• January 23, Job Scheduling with Slurm
• January 28, Using Spreadsheets to Organize Data

Registration is through our training portal — https://www.acenet.training/courses 

Echoes of the Tango is a duo piano recital featuring UPEI piano professor Dr. Magdalena von Eccher along with invited guest Megaria Halim in an exploration of 2-piano works featuring a suite of dances by Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla, three Romances by his compatriot Carlos Guastavino, as well as music inspired by the distinctive rhythms and passionate melodies of tango, as interpreted by Canadian composer Jeff Smallman in Rhapsodie Espagnole, alongside Richard Bennett's light-hearted tribute to various dance styles, entitled Four Piece Suite.

Echoes of the Tango will take place on Saturday, January 24 at 7:30 pm on the SDU Stage at Steel Recital Hall, UPEI Campus. Accessible parking is available, and the theatre has an accessible entrance via elevator.

Admission: $30 adults, $25 seniors, $10 students. 

FREE for all UPEI students with a valid ID card. Tickets are available in advance at upei.universitytickets.com or by cash at the door.

Research Services is starting work on the next issue of UPEI’s research magazine InView. You may have seen a copy of our first issue from September 2025. 

While we are able to gather a list of funded active research projects, we know that there are certainly more projects that do not have an associated project account. We also understand that certain faculties have a number of faculty members currently working on doctoral degrees. These faculty members are welcome to submit their active doctoral research for consideration. 

Participation in the research magazine does not take much time or effort from faculty members. It involves a 30- to 60-minute recorded interview with Julie VanLeeuwen, Research Navigator, to get a good understanding of the project, a short photoshoot with the UPEI photographer (coordinated by Julie), and a review of the draft article. 

There are many factors that impact the selection of projects featured in InView. We want to ensure equitable representation of faculties and departments, gender, race, career-stage, research type, and signature areas of research excellence. The final list of featured projects will be approved by the Research Advisory Committee.  

If you are interested in having your project featured in the 2025-2026 issue, please send the following information to Julie VanLeeuwen, Research Navigator (jmvanleeuwen@upei.ca) by the end of the day on January 21, 2026. 

• Project title:
• Principal Investigator:
• Any UPEI Collaborators:
• Any External Partners:
• Number of students working on this project:
• Signature Area of Research Excellence (pick one of the following)
• Sustainable Development
• Environmental Stewardship
• Healthy Animals
• Healthy Communities
• Humanity, Justice, and Organizations 

Selected projects can expect to be contacted in February 2026. 

A statement of teaching philosophy (STP) is an essential opening for most teaching dossiers, and it signals the central beliefs and practices to be found in your teaching dossier. This workshop will take participants through a variety of strategies for crafting an effective statement, looking at examples from across disciplines. Participants will leave with a sound basic structure for their STP.  Join us on Friday January 23 (snow date Jan. 30) from 2:00 to 4:00 in Teaching and Learning Centre, Robertson Library Annex, Room 230. 

Kick off the semester by attending our networking event for the Harry W. MacLauchlan Entrepreneurship Program (HWMEP)! Join us on Wednesday, January 21 from 5:30 - 7:30 pm, in 201 Robertson Library.

This is the best opportunity before the competition officially starts for you to meet fellow competitors, find potential partners, and ask questions to CCCE staff about the competition before the application deadline of February 10, 2026! The networking event is open to any current UPEI student, regardless of interest in the HWMEP competition.

Register today!

If you missed out on the UPEI Open Educational Resource Grants, here's another opportunity for funding for OERs!

The Council of Atlantic Academic Libraries (CAAL-CBPA) is excited to announce the 2026 cycle of the AtlanticOER Development Grants. 

The AtlanticOER Development Grant program is intended to encourage and support educators in the Atlantic region in the adaptation, creation, and curation of Open Educational Resources (OER). These grants provide financial support to educators teaching credit-bearing courses at publicly funded post-secondary institutions who are interested in creating or adapting new educational resources for their classes. There are three tiers of funding that applicants can apply for, each of which represents a different scope and type of project.  

Applications for the 2026 cycle of the AtlanticOER Development Grant program open December 15, 2025 and are due on February 6, 2026. The applications are put through a single blind process and a committee of CAAL-CBPA members reviews and ranks the applications. Successful applicants will be notified in mid to late March 2026. 

An open webinar that goes over the application process will be occurring on January 13, 2026. Further information about the Grant program and application process can be found at https://atlanticoer-relatlantique.ca/grants/ . A list of past grant funded projects can be found at https://atlanticoer-relatlantique.ca/grant-projects/.  

The Island Lecture Series presents a talk by Jeff Collins, “Power Plays: Newfoundland's Fight Over Churchill Falls,” on January 20, 2026, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge, Main Building Room 201, University of Prince Edward Island. 

"No more giveaways" is a longstanding idea built into Newfoundland nationalism. Controlling resources and achieving as many benefits as possible for the local population even predates Confederation with Canada in 1949. However, it is the sense of betrayal and lost opportunity associated with a 1969 agreement with Quebec to develop the Churchill Falls hydro-electric dam that stands alone as the symbol of this sentiment. 

Now, as the people of Newfoundland and Labrador near the closing decade-and-a-half of that original contract, they are presented with a new deal, a “memorandum-of-understanding” between the two provinces that would extend the partnership and potentially develop even more hydro-resources in the province. The deal's proponents, chiefly the provincial Liberal party, which lost this year's election, say it will bring billions in new revenue to a province teetering on financial calamity. For detractors, chiefly the new provincial Progressive Conservative government, it is a deal that, at a minimum, is worthy of review given the legacy of 1969. 

This talk will situate the current debate within this historical context and show that for the government in St. John's, and the province as a whole, there are no nuanced answers when nationalist sentiment shadows public policy.

Jeffrey F. Collins is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Prince Edward Island. A native of Placentia, Newfoundland, he has written numerous articles and essays on Newfoundland political history and public policy challenges. 

The lecture is free, and all are welcome. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.