The search committee for the Associate Vice-President (Students) and Registrar has arranged for the online viewing of the video presentations for finalists Frances Billingsley and Shawna Garrett. Chris McGrath has withdrawn from the competition.

Frances Billingsley’s presentation can be viewed at 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T6rPMAaVCH2Sal--dUcYnJhehcRZs97j/view?usp=sharing

Shawna Garrett’s presentation can be viewed at 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SrVYIRR4HEj262I2af1k2YYL-D11hc8Q/view?usp=sharing

The committee welcomes your feedback on the candidates. Please send feedback by email to vpar@upei.ca by 4:00 pm on Monday, October 23, 2023. Thank you for your valuable input into this search process. All feedback remains confidential.  

The next deadline for submitting biosafety applications, including new applications, renewals, and/or amendments, is Friday, October 27, 2023. These applications will be reviewed at the November 16 meeting.

All research compliance applications, including biosafety application forms, must be submitted through the UPEI  Researcher Portal. Information about the Researcher Portal, including instructions for using the site, is available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Research Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca if you have any questions about accessing or using the Researcher Portal, or about the biosafety application, review, and approval process.

Research Ethics Board (REB) applications involving "more than minimal risk" must be reviewed by the full UPEI REB. The next deadline for submitting these protocols is Friday, October 27, 2023, for review at the November 27 meeting.

Other ethics protocol submissions, including new applications that do not involve more than minimal risk, renewals, and amendments, may be submitted at any time. They will be sent for delegated review as soon as all necessary materials are received.

All research compliance applications, including for the REB, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal (https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/). Instructions for using the site are available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca for more information about the Researcher Portal, or the REB application, review, and approval process.

Taking a screenshot on a computer is easy. On a PC, right-click the “Start” button, choose “Search,” and type “Snipping Tool.” Select “New,” and click and drag the cursor over the desired area. Once you are finished, you can then share or save the snip. On a Mac, Press and hold “Shift+Command+4.” Drag the crosshair to select the area of the screen to capture.

The 2023 Atlantic Association of Universities Teaching Showcase will take place on Saturday, October 21, 2023, at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The keynote speaker will be David Newhouse, Professor of Indigenous Studies, Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. Professor Newhouse was the first principal of the new Peter Gzowski College at Trent University and has been Chair of the Department of Indigenous Studies, now the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, since 1993. For more details about the full day of session and to register, go to the AAU Teaching Showcase website.

The Chaplaincy Centre is spreading gratitude this October with our Gratitude Graffiti Wall. We'll start things off on Tuesday, October 17, at 12:00 pm with a short multi-faith reflection on gratitude, and then add our graffiti to the wall. Feel free to drop by anytime before the end of October to add your gratitude to the wall.

The OER Development Program through the the Robertson Library and the Teaching and Learning Centre is accepting grant applications for the creation or adaptation of open educational resources (OERs). The grant types include:

Open Educational Resource or Textbook Grant: Two grants of up to $6000

•  the development of a new open educational resource or textbook on a topic that is currently not covered by an existing open resource or textbook 

 Open Textbook Adaptation Grant: up to $4,000

•  the adaptation of one or more open textbooks to create a new version or edition of an open textbook (i.e. a Canadian edition of an existing open textbook)

 Supplementary Resources Grant: up to $2,000

• the creation of ancillary materials for existing open textbooks, including, but not limited to test banks, slide decks, or interactive media, etc.

Applications that support first-year courses will be given priority as they reach the largest number of students, but all applications will be reviewed and considered. The deadline for applications is Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, with work expected to begin during Spring or Summer 2024. 

More information is available at https://library.upei.ca/OERProgram/grants.

Questions about your grant idea? Contact TLC@upei.ca. 

Questions about OERs? Read more at http://opencontent.org/definition/.

Colleagues interested in pursuing a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project should check out the Internal SoTL Research Grant (ISRG) program, which provides funding for SoTL research. Here’s a chance to provide high-quality student training opportunities and collaborate with colleagues from different but complementary disciplines. Note that this call is open to all faculty, sessionals, lab instructors, CNIs, etc. in all faculties at UPEI.

VALUE: up to $2,000 for a two-year term.

Applications are due by December 13, 2023, by 4 pm. Please review the general information in the guidelines for eligibility considerations. Support in developing a SoTL proposal for this grant program is available through the UPEI Teaching and Learning Centre. 

Program guidelines and application instructions can be found on the UPEI Internal Funding webpage.

The second meeting of the UPEI Senate will take place on Friday, October 20, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in Room 128B of the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering building. All meetings of Senate are open to members of the University community, although for certain in-camera items (e.g., granting of degrees), only senators may be present. While Senate is an in-person meeting, to facilitate inclusion, under special circumstances members of the University community may request a Zoom connection when they are unable to attend in person. Only members of Senate are permitted to address the Senate unless otherwise recognized by the Chair. 

Central Printing will be closed from November 1--10 inclusive. Please wait until Central Printing has re-opened to submit files. Jobs submitted before closure will be completed if time allows.  Please contact Wendy Henderson at whenderson@upei.ca or cpo@upei.ca or 902-566-0558.
 

The 2023 Atlantic Association of Universities Teaching Showcase will take place on Saturday, October 21, 2023, at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia. The keynote speaker will be David Newhouse, Professor of Indigenous Studies, Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies. Professor Newhouse was the first principal of the new Peter Gzowski College at Trent University and has been Chair of the Department of Indigenous Studies, now the Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies, since 1993. For more details about the full day of session and to register, go to the AAU Teaching Showcase website.

The Chaplaincy Centre is spreading gratitude this October with our Gratitude Graffiti Wall. We'll start things off on Tuesday, October 17, at 12:00 pm with a short multi-faith reflection on gratitude, and then add our graffiti to the wall. Feel free to drop by anytime before the end of October to add your gratitude to the wall.

Interested in learning about cloud computing, programming with R, using spreadsheets or SQL, or version control with Git? More training from ACENET for the fall is now open for registration. Sessions are online and free of charge.

If you have questions about upcoming training or ACENET services at UPEI, contact Kaitlin Newson.

Cloud from A to Z
17, 19, 24, 26 October, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic
Cloud computing provides great flexibility, allowing complete control of the computing environment. In addition, the environment can be copied, backed up, created, and recreated in an automated way. In these lessons, we will start you on the path toward making use of the great flexibility and power of cloud computing. We will be using the popular static website generator Jekyll. Prerequisite: Completion of Software Carpentry's Unix Shell, or similar experience. DETAILS & REGISTER

Introductory Programming with R
18, 25 October, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic
This is a beginner-level series that is hands-on, covering the fundamentals of R. This includes data types, functions, importing, manipulating and analyzing data, and data visualization, as well as program design, version control, data management, and task automation. The goal is to teach the practical knowledge needed to start programming, debugging, and using R in everyday tasks. You do not need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented or previous programming experience, but intermediate level experience with a computer is recommended. DETAILS & REGISTER

Using Spreadsheets for Humanities, Social Sciences, and Librarians
8 November, 1330-1630hrs Atlantic
This beginner-level workshop is the first session of our Humanities & Social Sciences Data Organization & Analysis Series. To use tools that make computation and analysis more efficient, such as programming languages like R or Python, we need to structure our data the way that computers need the data. In this workshop, you will learn good data entry practices, how to avoid common formatting mistakes, approaches for handling dates in spreadsheets, basic quality control and data manipulation, and exporting data from spreadsheets. We will focus on examples and challenges from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and library research fields, and use librarycarpentry.org materials. There are no prerequisites. DETAILS & REGISTER

SQL for Humanities, Social Sciences, and Librarians
15, 22 November, 1230-1530hrs Atlantic
This two-part session is the second of our beginner-level Humanities & Social Sciences Data Organization & Analysis Series. Many web applications, research project websites, and library and archival repositories store data in relational databases. A relational database can help you keep your data separate from your analysis, improve quality control of data entry, reduce duplication of data, and improve your ability to search across large and complex datasets. Structured Query Language, or SQL, is a powerful language used to search and manipulate relational databases. This workshop teaches participants about relational databases and SQL using SQLite. You will learn how to write queries in SQL and how to use aggregate functions to combine data. It uses examples and challenges from the Humanities, Social Sciences, and library research fields and uses librarycarpentry.org materials. There are no prerequisites. DETAILS & REGISTER

Using Git Tools to Manage File Changes and Collaborate: Version Control
21 November, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic
Version control is the practice of managing and sharing changes to documents, programming code, websites, or any other files to keep track of what’s been changed, by whom, when, and why. All previous versions of files are saved, and you can even revert to a previous version. Git-portal sites, like GitHub or GitLab, offer many useful features to facilitate collaborative development. This is a two-part series. In this beginner-level first session, we will show you how to create a repository, record changes to files, explore and restore from the recorded history, and resolve conflicts (when one member overwrites another’s changes). DETAILS & REGISTER

Using Git Tools to Manage File Changes and Collaborate: Collaboration
28 November, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic
This is the second session of our two-part series. This workshop will focus on collaborative development workflows using Git-collaboration sites like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, and will demonstrate how to work with branches, issue tracking, contribute to projects using pull-/merge-requests, code-review, run CI/CD-pipelines, and use other common features of these platforms. Prerequisite: basic experience using Git version control, participation in the 21 November workshop, or attendance at the Git lecture of a software carpentry workshop. DETAILS & REGISTER

Visualization with R
29 November, 1300-1500hrs Atlantic
When working with large sets of numbers, it is often more useful to display the information graphically using histograms, scatter plots, bar charts, box plots, and other depictions. This workshop teaches participants how to gain insights into data through visualization using R as the programming language. Participants will learn how to create simple scatterplots, histograms, and box plots; compare the plotting features of base R and the ggplot2 package; plot with ggplot2; plot time series data; and arrange and export plots. Basic knowledge of R is recommended, although not mandatory. DETAILS & REGISTER

This eight-week walking club will provide members with the opportunity to work with a fourth-year Kinesiology student who will encourage them throughout their walking journey and offer helpful tips including cool-down stretches. Participants can meet every Tuesday from October 10 to December 4, noon--12:30 pm, at the Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre indoor track. You can join the club even if you can’t attend Tuesdays at noon. 

Track the kilometres you walk, and for every 20 kilometres, you will earn a ballot that can be entered into a weekly draw. The club is individually based.

To register, log into recreation.upei.ca, click on UPEI LOGIN, and enter your UPEI email and password. Once you are logged in, go to the Wellness icon, then click on Walking club (UPEI Staff/Faculty only), and follow the prompts to register.

The Healthy Campus Committee coordinates these initiatives through the UPEI Employee Wellness Strategy supported by the Joint Benefits and Advisory Committee.

The second meeting of the UPEI Senate will take place on Friday, October 20, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in Room 128B of the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering building. All meetings of Senate are open to members of the University community, although for certain in-camera items (e.g., granting of degrees), only senators may be present. While Senate is an in-person meeting, to facilitate inclusion, under special circumstances members of the University community may request a Zoom connection when they are unable to attend in person. Only members of Senate are permitted to address the Senate unless otherwise recognized by the Chair. 

Join us on October 17, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge of UPEI’s SDU Main Building for a lecture titled “Camping in the Backyard” by Dr. Ed MacDonald, PEI historian and professor of history at UPEI.

The historical literature on camping in the Western world has been preoccupied with the period between the mid-1800s and the Second World War. It maintains that well-heeled city dwellers camped in order to escape summers in North America’s dirty, polluted, high-stress cities and connect physically and emotionally with the wild Nature. But it was the postwar era and the gradual democratization of tourism that brought camping to the masses. And the experience on Prince Edward Island tells a different story about the motives behind, and the experience of, camping. Focusing particularly on the Island’s provincial parks, “Camping in the Backyard” will unpack the rise and fall (and rise again) of camping in terms of the Island’s tourism industry.

Dr. MacDonald's lecture is part of the Institute of Island Studies' Island Lecture Series.

Overview: Have you completed the New Manager's Certificate—the Certificate in Collaborative Leadership is the next step for managers.

Positions of management and higher-level leadership are stressful and demanding. It takes a certain type of person to excel in these roles. The Certificate in Collaborative Leadership gives managers and high-level leaders the information, practical tools and experience to maximize their influence within their organization and inspire their fellow workers to greater levels. Within this Certificate, crucial competencies for managers and leaders will be dissected and discussed, as well as strategies to keep participants and their fellow colleagues revitalized and motivated, establish and maintain healthy diversity and inclusion within their organization, and improve presentation skills to enhance, engage and inspire.  

Completion of the New Manager's Certificate as a prerequisite is highly recommended (or equivalent experience). The courses within this Certificate will feature a format that keeps in mind the demanding schedule of the managers taking part. 

Designed for: People who are managers or leaders within their organization, and those who have completed the New Manager's Certificate (or have equivalent experience). 

Duration: Four (4) courses for a total of thirty (30) hours.  

For More Information/Register

This week, October 8–14, is Fire Prevention Week in Canada. The theme of Fire Prevention Week 2023 is “Cooking Safety Starts with You.”

Cooking brings family and friends together, provides an outlet for creativity, and can be relaxing. But did you know that cooking fires are the number one cause of home fires and home injuries? By following a few safety tips, you can prevent these fires:

• Be alert! If you are sleepy or have consumed alcohol, don’t use the stove or stovetop.
• Stay in the kitchen while you are frying, boiling, grilling, or broiling food. If you leave the kitchen for a short time, turn off the stove.
• If you are simmering, baking, or roasting food, check it regularly, remain in the home while food is cooking, and use a timer to remind you that you are cooking.
• Keep anything that can catch fire—oven mitts, wooden utensils, food packaging, towels, or curtains—away from your stovetop.

If you have a small (grease) cooking fire and decide to fight the fire...

• On the stovetop, smother the flames by sliding a lid over the pan and turning off the burner. Leave the pan covered until it is completely cooled.
• For an oven fire, turn off the heat and keep the door closed.

When in doubt…

• Just get out! When you leave, close the door behind you to help contain the fire.
• Call 9-1-1

For more fire safety tips and information, visit the PEI Department of Justice and Public Safety website at:
https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/information/justice-and-public-safety/fire-prevention-resources