The first session of this year's ConneXions series is scheduled for Friday, 2 December, 2:00-3:00 pm. Join us on Zoom as four colleagues in the Department of Psychology--Drs Jennifer Altman, Martha O'Meara, Jessica Strong, and Yoshi Takano--share some of their recent research activities and how their work connects to the Arts in general.

Zoom link: https://upei.zoom.us/j/61950086711?pwd=TUoxcllaNnlicGJsdmRxWWtvUkhBUT09

In addition to showcasing the scholarly endeavours of these four recently hired faculty members, this session will provide an opportunity for us all to welcome them into the family of the Faculty of Arts at UPEI.

The Connexions series aims to foster understanding of the role that the liberal arts play in the construction of knowledge and ways of knowing, and in making sense of the complexities of the world around us through panel discussions, speakers and research talks, collaborative projects and presentations, symposia and workshops, and reading and discussion groups.

The Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering is pleased to announce an upcoming Master of Science in Sustainable Design Engineering (MSc-SDE) thesis defense on Friday, December 2, 2022.

Presenter: Hamed Bozorgi

Title: "FROM SOCIAL PERCEPTION TO SHARED CONTROL ON A MOBILE ROBOT: FUSION, INTEGRATION, AND FILTERING"

Social perception and safe navigation are the main requirements for deploying a mobile robot in a human-populated environment and turning it into a human-aware mobile robot. To date, we are still lacking social perception and reasoning systems capable of dealing with various human intentions and behaviors in human-populated environments. The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a novel, reliable, real-time social perception system for real-life dynamic environments by integrating solutions of learning-based and model-based techniques. Our secondary goal is to extend the social perception toward robot navigation and control by developing a shared autonomy framework allowing the user to encode social preferences into the autonomous control of the robotic system. To achieve these goals, four sub-objectives were identified and will be reviewed in this defense.

If you wish to attend the public presentation, please contact Lisa Sanderson to receive the link.

The UPEI Faculty Association is holding a food drive on November 30 in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre and on December 1 in the Robertson Library breezeway, both from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. 

We hope you'll join and help us stock the shelves of UPEI's food bank. Non-perishable items only, please, or gift cards to grocery stores or cash. 

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 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.

For details and registration, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/acenet-visualization-with-r-tickets-427307507257 

December is HIV Awareness Month

The UPEI Health and Wellness Centre offers support and resources to community members who are at risk of or are living with HIV.

Some groups of people are affected by HIV more than others, but it can be passed on to anyone. But remember, HIV can't be passed on through casual contact like touching, kissing, or sharing cutlery or drinking glasses.

There is no cure for HIV, but there is excellent treatment. If you are diagnosed in good time and take your medication, you can have as long and healthy a life as everyone else.

Ways to prevent HIV

• Get tested regularly if you are sexually active.
• Take PrEP or PEP (tablets that prevent HIV) either before or just after you’ve been exposed to it.
• Use condoms.
• Never share needles.
• Take your medication if you are living with HIV.

Know your status!  

Book an appointment at the UPEI Health & Wellness Centre for confidential testing.

Seek professional assistance! ​

We can connect you with counselling support and medical professionals if you are HIV positive. Effective treatment for HIV suppresses the virus to such low levels that it can’t harm you and you can’t pass it on. 

U=U (undetectable = untransmissable).

Live positively! 

With the advent of HIV treatments, many people living with HIV are living longer and succeeding in life, with the same dreams, desires, and aspirations as anyone. Here are some tips to live positively:

• Stay active and exercise.
• Get plenty of rest.
• Eat a balanced diet.
• Avoid drugs and alcohol.
• Find a support system using resources like 
  • PeersAlliance.ca, which supports those living with and at risk for HIV, Hep C, and all sexually transmitted infections in PEI
  • PositiveLove.ca, the online dating app that connects people living with HIV 

For more information, contact the RN (registered nurse) at the UPEI Health & Wellness Centre at healthcentre@upei.ca, or call 902-566-0616.

Bell Let's Talk is approaching, and UPEI is excited to be participating again on January 25, 2023. The Department of Student Affairs is assembling a schedule of mental health events during the week of January 23rd aimed at supporting students, staff, and faculty. If you or your department has an idea for an event or initiative that you would like to organize and have added to the schedule, we'd love to hear from you! Please contact kjlawlor@upei.ca to learn more. 

The Faculty of Science Graduate Studies Committee invites the campus community to the next presentation of the 2022-23 Environmental Sciences & Human Biology seminar series on Friday, December 2, at 12:30 pm in Duffy Science Centre, Room 204.

 Dr. Nina Germitsch, Department of Pathology & Microbiology, Atlantic Veterinary College will present “Bloody worms – how parasites interact with host coagulation.” 

All are welcome.

IT Systems and Services will be performing network maintenance on our campus network on December 4 from 8 to 11 am.  During this time, there will be intermittent connectivity on the campus network. 

If you are off campus, many services such as Microsoft solutions (including email), Google, Zoom, upei.ca, Moodle etc., that are in the cloud will not be impacted.  

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding. 

The members of the UPEI Wind Symphony are excited to return to performing live for the first time in a year, with a program of works by British composers. Featured works for this recital include Philip Sparke's playful and expressive “Hanover Festival,” Ralph Vaughan William's iconic “Folk Song Suite” (including the original 4th movement, “Sea Songs”), a set of three musical “Portraits of the North” by British Canadian composer Robert Buckley, and the first movement of Edward Gregson's “Tuba Concerto,” featuring music student Olive MacPhail as soloist.

The recital takes place at 7:30 pm, Thursday, December 1, at Dr. Steel Recital Hall. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students, and will be available for purchase with cash at the door of the event.

On Wednesday, November 30, between 10:30 pm and midnight, ITSS will be conducting routine maintenance on the Remote Desktop Services accessed via the website myDesktop.upei.ca and RXWorks application servers. During this time, both RXWorks and myDesktop.upei.ca servers will be unavailable.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465.

Each year, on December 1, the world commemorates World AIDS Day. People around the world unite to show support for people living with HIV and to remember those who have died from AIDS-related illnesses.

If you think that you might be living with HIV, you can come to the UPEI Health and Wellness Centre to request a blood test. The sooner you are diagnosed the sooner you can begin treatment. Individuals living with HIV can now be treated and have their blood levels reduced to undetectable. U = U - undetectable means untransmissible. 

Stay tuned for an HIV self-test coming soon to the UPEI Health and Wellness Centre. It will be under the program titled "I'm Ready."

World AIDS Day remains as relevant today as it’s always been, reminding people and governments that HIV has not gone away. There is still a critical need for increased funding for the AIDS response, to increase awareness of the impact of HIV on people’s lives, to end stigma and discrimination, and to improve the quality of life of people living with HIV.

The excitement for this Saturday's Gold Rush draw is growing as big as the pot! With no winners in the last SEVEN draws, the total pot has grown to more than $10,365, with half going to the winner of Saturday night's draw.

Gold Rush is a virtual fundraising initiative that raises funds for UPEI’s athletic programs. 

Play today and every week for a chance to win! Download the UPEI Panthers app from the App Store or on Google Play, or play from your computer. The weekly draw is held at 8 pm every Saturday.

The first session of this year's ConneXions series is scheduled for Friday, 2 December, 2:00-3:00 pm. Join us on Zoom as four colleagues in the Department of Psychology--Drs Jennifer Altman, Martha O'Meara, Jessica Strong, and Yoshi Takano--share some of their recent research activities and how their work connects to the Arts in general.

Zoom link: https://upei.zoom.us/j/61950086711?pwd=TUoxcllaNnlicGJsdmRxWWtvUkhBUT09

In addition to showcasing the scholarly endeavours of these four recently hired faculty members, this session will provide an opportunity for us all to welcome them into the family of the Faculty of Arts at UPEI.

The Connexions series aims to foster understanding of the role that the liberal arts play in the construction of knowledge and ways of knowing, and in making sense of the complexities of the world around us through panel discussions, speakers and research talks, collaborative projects and presentations, symposia and workshops, and reading and discussion groups.

The search committee for the Dean of Nursing announces an upcoming presentation by Dr. Sandra Goldsworthy, one of the short-listed candidates for this position. Dr. Goldsworthy will deliver a public presentation on Thursday, December 1, at 9:00 am in Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, Room 142.  

Dr. Sandra Goldsworthy is a nurse education leader who is nationally recognized as a simulation and critical care expert, researcher, and author. She is the recipient of the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation in Learning (INACSL) Excellence in Research Award and the Canadian Nurses Association Order of Merit in Education. She has over 70 peer-reviewed publications. 

Dr. Goldsworthy is currently a professor in the School of Nursing at Nipissing University. She held a Research Professorship in Simulation from 2015–2019 at the University of Calgary. She holds three national certifications: Canadian Nurses Association credentials in Critical Care and Medical Surgical Nursing, as well as a Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) Canadian Certified Nurse Simulation Educator credential (CCNSE). She is a member of several national and international committees including roles as director of education for the World Federation of Critical Care Nurses Association and co-chair of the CASN Simulation Interest Group. Her research program focuses on the impact of simulation on building competence and response for the reduction of medication errors and improving health team communication competencies through interprofessional simulation education.   

All are welcome to attend. For any who are unable to attend, the presentation will be recorded and available afterward for viewing from a secure site.   

Following each candidate’s presentation, you are invited to provide feedback on each candidate’s suitability for the role by 4:30 pm on Thursday, December 9, to Chris Gibson at cgibson@kbrs.ca. KBRS is the recruitment firm that is supporting UPEI in this decanal search process.

The Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering is pleased to announce an upcoming Master of Science in Sustainable Design Engineering (MSc-SDE) thesis defense on Friday, December 2, 2022.

Presenter: Hamed Bozorgi

Title: "FROM SOCIAL PERCEPTION TO SHARED CONTROL ON A MOBILE ROBOT: FUSION, INTEGRATION, AND FILTERING"

Social perception and safe navigation are the main requirements for deploying a mobile robot in a human-populated environment and turning it into a human-aware mobile robot. To date, we are still lacking social perception and reasoning systems capable of dealing with various human intentions and behaviors in human-populated environments. The primary objective of this thesis is to develop a novel, reliable, real-time social perception system for real-life dynamic environments by integrating solutions of learning-based and model-based techniques. Our secondary goal is to extend the social perception toward robot navigation and control by developing a shared autonomy framework allowing the user to encode social preferences into the autonomous control of the robotic system. To achieve these goals, four sub-objectives were identified and will be reviewed in this defense.

If you wish to attend the public presentation, please contact Lisa Sanderson to receive the link.

It's that time again!  Before I ask anything, let me say "thank you" to the UPEI community and beyond. Your generosity helps our students in so many ways. Food, funds, gift cards, and coats are only the tip of the iceberg. Your volunteering, your referrals, and your smiles are priceless.  

And now for two more opportunities: (1) Thursday, December 15, is our Free Food Chili and Dahl Event.  For more than 25 years, the Chaplaincy Centre has reached out to our students during exams with a free hot meal served by UPEI staff and faculty.  Free hot food in a friendly environment is a great stress reliever! But we need your support.  Please use this link for an overview and the volunteer sign-up sheet.

(2) Our UPEI Campus Foodbank also needs volunteers. Please use this link to access our January and February 2023 sign-up sheet.

Thanks!  Sister Sue and Lauren

The UPEI Faculty Association is holding a food drive on November 30 in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre and on December 1 in the Robertson Library breezeway, both from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. 

We hope you'll join and help us stock the shelves of UPEI's food bank. Non-perishable items only, please, or gift cards to grocery stores or cash. 

On Wednesday, November 30, ITSS will be conducting routine maintenance on the MyUPEI portal and related services (Colleague, Recruit, Self-Service) from 8 pm to 12 am midnight. During this time, there may be intermittent access and performance issues with MyUPEI, Self-Service, Colleague & apply.upei.ca sites.

We encourage students, faculty, and staff that may need documents or links located on myUPEI to plan ahead and bookmark or download the resources they may need during this period.

As a reminder, you can access Moodle directly using https://moodle.upei.ca and Outlook email directly using https://outlook.office.com.

If you have any questions, please contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465.

The UPEI Healthy Campus Committee is seeking feedback from UPEI faculty and staff about the employee wellness program. Your feedback will assist the committee in future planning. The survey should take less than five minutes to complete.

As an incentive to complete the survey, we will draw for a new iPhone 14 on Thursday, December 1, 2022. Deadline to complete the survey is December 1, 2022, at 9:00 am AST.

NOTE: The survey is for UPEI faculty and staff only. One entry per person.

To complete the survey, click here.

Hi everyone, especially new employees and students,

The AVC Veterinary Teaching Hospital has an online pet store (myVETstore.ca) as well as our on-site pet food offerings. This 24/7 service offers a huge selection of food, treats, toys, and supplies for cats, dogs, pocket pets, and exotics. Every purchase supports the next generation of veterinarians. At times, it can be inconvenient for you to shop in person. Our home delivery option is perfect as we prefer that clients have orders shipped directly to their homes.

To facilitate this, we reduced the order purchase amount from $80 to $30 before tax to have it qualify for free shipping to your home. As well, if you sign up for auto orders, you can save 5% on your order.

How does it work? If you haven't already, we invite you to sign up for an account for the AVC myVETstore through this link: https://www.myvetstore.ca/avcvth

Once you sign up, you can place your order, which will then be processed. You will receive an email letting you know when your order has shipped or is available for pickup. Certain orders that do not qualify for home shipment can still be shipped to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital for pickup.

If you receive the staff/AVC student food discount at the VTH and are not seeing your discount on the AVCmyVetstore website pricing when you sign in, please email avcmyvetsore@upei.ca with the email address you used to sign up.