UPEI Experiential Education has a variety of programming planned to support your career development needs. Visit https://www.upei.ca/exed/students/career-month for details about information tables, career-related events, drop-in services, and more, and follow us at https://www.instagram.com/exedupei for fun career content through November and beyond!

UPEI graduate students are invited to join Dr. Wendy Rodgers (President and Vice-Chancellor) and Dr. Suzanne Kresta (Dean, Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering), co-chairs of the University Strategic Plan Steering Committee, to discuss the University's strategic direction. The forward-thinking consultations are an opportunity to learn more about the priorities and goals of our graduate students as the University develops its roadmap for the future.

In collaboration with the UPEI Graduate Student Association, a conversation with graduate students will be held on 

Friday, November 8
12:00 noon to 1:00 pm
Room 142, Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, UPEI

Those who are unable to attend in person may join via this Teams Town Hall link.

For more information about the strategic planning process at UPEI, visit https://www.upei.ca/president/strategic-planning

UPEI values its employees and recognizes the importance of programming such as "Take Our Kids to Work Day" when grade nine students join their parents at work as an opportunity to expose our youth to future job possibilities and to teach the value of education and the rewards of hard work. 

To ensure the safety of all, the following criteria must be met before your child may be permitted to participate in the program at UPEI:

a) Permission is received from your supervisor.

b) Appropriate precautionary measures are taken, and hazards have been considered or removed during the visit.

c) Supervision of children is required at all times.

d) Supervisors may require additional safety measures prior to such visits and may require written parental consent authorizing the site visit.

Examples of high-risk safety areas include, but are not limited, to

1. Shops, mechanical rooms, confined spaces, food preparation areas.
2. Any areas, indoors or out, containing power tools or machinery with exposed moving parts or rotating equipment.
3. Areas with excessive noise, temperatures, inadequate ventilation, or potential for exposure to chemicals or hazardous biological material.
4. University vehicles, heavy-duty, or other motorized equipment.
5. Any other high-risk areas such as rooftops, construction zones, etc.
6. Laboratories or specialized work areas that include chemicals, biological hazards, radioactive hazards, flammables, explosives, compressed gases, sharp objects, lasers, research animals, hazardous wastes, or other environmental hazards. Please refer to the UPEI Laboratory Safety Manual for specific laboratory visitor guidance.

Supervisors must email HSE@upei.ca prior to November 6 to notify that a child will be at the workplace and include the date, workplace location(s), and activity.

For any questions or concerns please contact your supervisor.

ACENET has the following upcoming training available to researchers and students. There are no fees. 

Registration is available on our new training portal:
REGISTRATION 
https://www.acenet.training/courses

Desktops in the Cloud
November 5, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
The Cloud provides access to hardware resources beyond those available on your laptop or desktop, though you may still want to interact with that hardware as if it were your laptop using a graphical user interface (GUI) desktop. In this workshop we will install a GUI desktop on a remote virtual machine and connect to it from our laptop, allowing us to use this remote desktop almost as if it were our local machine.

Introduction to Python & Coding for HSS - Parts I and II in the HSS Python Series
November 6 and 13, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL (online)
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences researchers (HSS) and librarians. Introduction to Python and Coding for HSS - Parts I and II focus on introducing participants to basic coding concepts and fundamentals to help them confidently participate in high-level conceptual discussions with computer programmers or technical team members. We will use Python due to its vast popularity, easy syntax, and powerful extensions while working in the user-friendly and convenient JupyterLab environment. These general concepts will be reinforced and illustrated with the hands-on development of simple programs that can help with text-based research and analysis immediately.

Command the Cloud
November 7, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
In ‘Introduction to Cloud’, we used the OpenStack web interface to create our first virtual machine. With this web interface many common tasks can be performed, however, some important tasks cannot be completed using only the web interface; instead a command line interface (CLI) is needed. The CLI also allows access to some additional and very useful tasks, such as downloading virtual machine images, and provides access to information not shown in the web interface. In this workshop, we will show how to setup and use the OpenStack CLI and perform some common tasks when managing virtual machines.

Using Git Tools Part I: Version Control
November 19, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
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 is a version control software. Git-portal sites, like GitHub or GitLab, offer many useful features to facilitate collaborative development. This is the first workshop of a two-part series. The first session focuses on version control. The second explores using Git for collaborative development. This beginner-level session will introduce you to Git. 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).

Introduction to API Querying for HSS -- Part III in the HSS Python Series
November 20, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences (HSS) researchers (HSS) and librarians. API Querying and Textual Analysis - Parts III and IV focus on allowing participants to apply basic coding concepts to API querying and text-based analysis. API stands for application programming interface. It acts as a communication interface so different computers/systems can talk to the application hosting the API. Querying APIs in HSS research is useful because data changes rapidly and it is a way to capture a small piece of a much larger set of data.

Using Git Tools Part II: Collaboration Platforms
26 November, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
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 is a version control software. Git-portal sites, like GitHub or GitLab, offer many useful features to facilitate collaborative development. This is the second workshop of a two-part series. The first session focuses on version control. This session will focus on collaborative development workflows using Git-collaboration sites like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. It 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.

Textual Analysis using Python for HSS - Part IV in the HSS Python Series
November 27, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences (HSS) researchers (HSS) and librarians. API Querying and Textual Analysis - Parts III and IV focus on allowing participants to apply basic coding concepts to API querying and text-based analysis. We will use a Python library to analyze textual data and learn about common natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as part-of-speech tagging, noun phrase extraction, sentiment analysis, classification, and more to explore meaningful trends in language patterns.

Visualization with R
November 27, 1300-1500hrs Atlantic / 1330-1530hrs NL
While working with large sets of numbers, it is often quite useful to display the information graphically. Often, we use basic graph types such as histograms, scatter plots, bar charts, boxplots etc. In this session, we will use the programming language R to create visualizations of large datasets. Basic knowledge of R is recommended, although not mandatory. By the end of this session, participants will be able to create simple scatterplots, histograms, and box plots; compare the plotting features of base R and ggplot2 package; plot with ggplot2; plot time series data; and arrange and export plots.

Registration is available on our new training portal. 
REGISTRATION: https://www.acenet.training/courses

The Bookmark and UPEI’s Faculty of Indigenous Knowledge, Education, Research, and Applied Studies (IKERAS) will host a book launch for Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga’s new book, "The Knowing," on Thursday, November 7, at 7 pm, in the UPEI Performing Arts Centre amphitheatre (Room 121S). 

"The Knowing" is a riveting exploration of Talaga’s family’s story and a retelling of the history of the country now called Canada. For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals,” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people are. Talaga retells the history of this country through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great-grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

This event is free and open to everyone, but tickets are required. To book tickets, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tanya-talaga-in-conversation-with-jenene-wooldridge-tickets-1042270046767 or call the Bookmark at 902-566-4888.

Please note that challenging topics will be discussed at the event, including, but not limited to, historical traumas, the Residential School system, sexual abuse, and suicide.

The Institute of Island Studies, UPEI Faculty of Science (Foods and Nutrition program in Applied Human Sciences), the Campus Food Bank, and the UPEI Student Union invite our campus community to attend the 2024 Harry Baglole Memorial Public Symposium in Island Studies: “Homelessness and Food Insecurity on Canada’s Food Island.” This symposium is a collaborative initiative with the Native Council of PEI, Meals on Wheels, the John Howard Society of PEI, the Adventure Group, and the Upper Room Hospitality Ministry. 

The event will be held on Thursday, November 7, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium, Don and Marion McDougall Hall. Prior to the symposium, between 4:00 and 6:00 pm, information booths in the Schurman Market Square will provide an opportunity to learn more about a few not-for-profit organizations doing work related to the themes that we are talking about later in the evening. Please drop by to chat with people from the Community Outreach Centre, John Howard Society of PEI, Meals on Wheels, the PEI Food Exchange, ResourceAbilities, and PEI Family Violence Prevention Services, and help us support their efforts. 

The symposium will include opening presentations by Dr. Jennifer Taylor, Professor of Foods and Nutrition and food insecurity researcher, and  Jacinta Brown, a UPEI alumna and Program Manager of the Community Outreach Centre with The Adventure Group. We will also hear about a new research project on food insecurity in rural PEI by Oliver Batchilder, an Islander studying at Mount Allison University. We will then share some related research and resources followed by a short break. The second part of the evening features a panel discussion in which we will hear from Chris Clay (Reaching Home Coordinator, Native Council of Prince Edward Island), Josh Constantinou (Coordinated Access Coordinator, John Howard Society of PEI), Haley Zavo (Executive Director, Meals on Wheels PEI), and Mike MacDonald (Executive Director, Upper Room Hospitality Ministry).  

The final segment of the symposium is focused on audience participation. Our aim is to gather ideas and thoughts about how best we can all work together, in different ways, to continue, support, and strengthen meaningful work to better Prince Edward Island. Sébastien Parker, Assistant Professor, cross-appointed with UPEI's departments of Political Science and Sociology, will wrap up the evening by providing closing thoughts. Sébastien joined UPEI in 2024, and is also affiliated with the Cleantech Academy here and the Social Change Lab at the University of Toronto.

Seating at the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium is limited, and we request that you RSVP to iis@upei.ca if you would like to ensure that you will be able to attend in person. We will also provide the option to watch the event online through a link on www.islandstudies.com and the Institute of Island Studies social media. If you are driving, we encourage parking in UPEI’s general lots (parking in the general lots is free in the evenings). All are welcome. 

ACENET has the following upcoming training available. All sessions are online and free of charge. Registration is available on their new training portal: https://www.acenet.training/courses

• Static Websites in the Cloud - October 31, 1300-1600hrs, Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
• Desktops in the Cloud - November 5, 1300-1600hrs, Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
• Introduction to Python & Coding for HSS—Parts I and II in the HSS Python Series - November 6, 13, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL (online)
• Command the Cloud - November 7, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
• Using Git Tools Part I: Version Control - November 19, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
• Introduction to API Querying for HSS—Part III in the HSS Python Series - November 20, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
• Using Git Tools Part II: Collaboration Platforms - November 26, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
• Textual Analysis using Python for HSS—Part IV in the HSS Python Series –  November 27, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
• Visualization with R - November 27, 1300-1500hrs Atlantic / 1330-1530hrs NL

All courses are free of charge 

The 2024 Global Village celebration will take place in McMillan Hall, W.A. Murphy Student Centre, on November 30 at 3:30 pm. Global Village is a celebration of the multiculturalism and diversity that exists on campus, so students from all over the world showcase their culture and traditions, as well as help encourage cultural sensitivity and a global perspective. Global Village is held annually to showcase all the different cultures represented at UPEI both within and outside Canada. This is a student-led event that features cultural exhibitions, processions, and performances.

Registration is open for BUILD, a 15-week virtual program designed for Black entrepreneurs and early-stage founders with an initial product or service in place. If you're ready to scale your business, this program will equip you with essential tools in leadership, marketing, finance, and human resources, with the added potential for consultancy funding.
The start date is November 5. 

Register now to join the BUILD program!

Students interested in learning more about Study Abroad opportunities available to them while they are attending UPEI are invited to an information session on November 6, 2:00 to 3:00 pm, Robertson Library, Room 210. Please RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/study-abroad-info-session-tickets-1056622058019?aff=oddtdtcreator

As we continue to build a culture of trust, safety, and inclusion, we must continue to listen with curiosity, make sure all voices are heard, welcome diverse points of view, and embrace opportunities to challenge our thinking and learn new things.  

Your insights are crucial in helping us understand what we are doing well and where we can do better. UPEI is committed to fostering a workplace that supports your professional growth and well-being, and your feedback will guide our efforts. Starting on November 4 and running for two weeks, we will be conducting an online employee engagement survey that covers a wide array of topics about our workplace. 

The survey will be conducted by TalentMap, a company that specializes in employee engagement measurement and benchmarking. Keep your eye out for the survey link, which will be sent directly to your UPEI e-mail address.  

Each employee who completes a survey is eligible to enter into a draw for UPEI swag. You can enter the draw by delivering your survey confirmation page in person to Human Resources at Kelley Memorial Building 143, or you can e-mail a screenshot to hrengage@upei.ca, by no later than November 22. 

Please visit myUPEI for more information about the Employee Engagement Survey: myUPEI – Employee Engagement. The survey will be open to faculty, staff, and student employees. If you do not receive an e-mail link and think you should have, please contact hrengage@upei.ca 

Should you need a quiet place to complete your survey, please feel welcome to attend a computer lab on one of the dates indicated below. UPEI’s Employee Engagement Officer will also be available to provide support if needed. 

November 5: 12:00–3:00 pm, Duffy Science Centre, Room 202 

November 6: 2:30–6:30 pm, Robertson Library, Room 265 

November 7: 10:00 am–2:00 pm, Atlantic Veterinary College, Room 218S  

November 12: 10:00 am–2:00 pm, Duffy Science Centre, Room 202 

November 13: 12:00–3:00 pm, Robertson Library, Room 264 

Together, we will build a supportive community where everyone can thrive—Your Voice, Our Future! 

The search committee for the Dean of Arts announces upcoming public presentations by finalist candidates. Since the search process began, the committee has undertaken a comprehensive search and has selected two finalists for a series of stakeholder meetings on campus.

The first presentation is scheduled on the following date/time:

Candidate 1: Public presentation, Wednesday, October 23, 2024, 10:00--11:00 am, Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, Room 142

The second presentation is scheduled on the following date/time:

Candidate 2: Public presentation, Monday, November 4, 2024, 10:00--11:00, Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, Room 142

The Animal Care Committee does not meet in December. The deadline for Animal Care protocol submissions--new, renewal, or amendment--is Friday, January 3, 2025, for the January meeting.

Please note that as of June 1, 2020, all animal user protocols must be submitted through UPEI Researcher Portal at https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/

For new protocols, select "applications" and for renewal or amendment protocols, select "events."

UPEI ACC SOPs and Codes of Practice can be accessed through myUPEI at https://portal.upei.ca/facultystaff/administrativeservices/AVCAnimalCare/Pages/default.aspx. 

Those protocols received after the deadline will be reviewed the following month. The committee requires at least one month for processing applications.

UPEI graduate students are invited to join Dr. Wendy Rodgers (President and Vice-Chancellor) and Dr. Suzanne Kresta (Dean, Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering), co-chairs of the University Strategic Plan Steering Committee, to discuss the University's strategic direction. The forward-thinking consultations are an opportunity to learn more about the priorities and goals of our graduate students as the University develops its roadmap for the future.

In collaboration with the UPEI Graduate Student Association, a conversation with graduate students will be held on 

Friday, November 8
12:00 noon to 1:00 pm
Room 142, Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, UPEI

Those who are unable to attend in person may join via this Teams Town Hall link.

For more information about the strategic planning process at UPEI, visit https://www.upei.ca/president/strategic-planning

UPEI values its employees and recognizes the importance of programming such as "Take Our Kids to Work Day" when grade nine students join their parents at work as an opportunity to expose our youth to future job possibilities and to teach the value of education and the rewards of hard work. 

To ensure the safety of all, the following criteria must be met before your child may be permitted to participate in the program at UPEI:

a) Permission is received from your supervisor.

b) Appropriate precautionary measures are taken, and hazards have been considered or removed during the visit.

c) Supervision of children is required at all times.

d) Supervisors may require additional safety measures prior to such visits and may require written parental consent authorizing the site visit.

Examples of high-risk safety areas include, but are not limited, to

1. Shops, mechanical rooms, confined spaces, food preparation areas.
2. Any areas, indoors or out, containing power tools or machinery with exposed moving parts or rotating equipment.
3. Areas with excessive noise, temperatures, inadequate ventilation, or potential for exposure to chemicals or hazardous biological material.
4. University vehicles, heavy-duty, or other motorized equipment.
5. Any other high-risk areas such as rooftops, construction zones, etc.
6. Laboratories or specialized work areas that include chemicals, biological hazards, radioactive hazards, flammables, explosives, compressed gases, sharp objects, lasers, research animals, hazardous wastes, or other environmental hazards. Please refer to the UPEI Laboratory Safety Manual for specific laboratory visitor guidance.

Supervisors must email HSE@upei.ca prior to November 6 to notify that a child will be at the workplace and include the date, workplace location(s), and activity.

For any questions or concerns please contact your supervisor.

ACENET has the following upcoming training available to researchers and students. There are no fees. 

Registration is available on our new training portal:
REGISTRATION 
https://www.acenet.training/courses

Desktops in the Cloud
November 5, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
The Cloud provides access to hardware resources beyond those available on your laptop or desktop, though you may still want to interact with that hardware as if it were your laptop using a graphical user interface (GUI) desktop. In this workshop we will install a GUI desktop on a remote virtual machine and connect to it from our laptop, allowing us to use this remote desktop almost as if it were our local machine.

Introduction to Python & Coding for HSS - Parts I and II in the HSS Python Series
November 6 and 13, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic | 1330-1630hrs NL (online)
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences researchers (HSS) and librarians. Introduction to Python and Coding for HSS - Parts I and II focus on introducing participants to basic coding concepts and fundamentals to help them confidently participate in high-level conceptual discussions with computer programmers or technical team members. We will use Python due to its vast popularity, easy syntax, and powerful extensions while working in the user-friendly and convenient JupyterLab environment. These general concepts will be reinforced and illustrated with the hands-on development of simple programs that can help with text-based research and analysis immediately.

Command the Cloud
November 7, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
In ‘Introduction to Cloud’, we used the OpenStack web interface to create our first virtual machine. With this web interface many common tasks can be performed, however, some important tasks cannot be completed using only the web interface; instead a command line interface (CLI) is needed. The CLI also allows access to some additional and very useful tasks, such as downloading virtual machine images, and provides access to information not shown in the web interface. In this workshop, we will show how to setup and use the OpenStack CLI and perform some common tasks when managing virtual machines.

Using Git Tools Part I: Version Control
November 19, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
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 is a version control software. Git-portal sites, like GitHub or GitLab, offer many useful features to facilitate collaborative development. This is the first workshop of a two-part series. The first session focuses on version control. The second explores using Git for collaborative development. This beginner-level session will introduce you to Git. 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).

Introduction to API Querying for HSS -- Part III in the HSS Python Series
November 20, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences (HSS) researchers (HSS) and librarians. API Querying and Textual Analysis - Parts III and IV focus on allowing participants to apply basic coding concepts to API querying and text-based analysis. API stands for application programming interface. It acts as a communication interface so different computers/systems can talk to the application hosting the API. Querying APIs in HSS research is useful because data changes rapidly and it is a way to capture a small piece of a much larger set of data.

Using Git Tools Part II: Collaboration Platforms
26 November, 1300-1630hrs Atlantic / 1330-1700hrs NL
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 is a version control software. Git-portal sites, like GitHub or GitLab, offer many useful features to facilitate collaborative development. This is the second workshop of a two-part series. The first session focuses on version control. This session will focus on collaborative development workflows using Git-collaboration sites like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. It 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.

Textual Analysis using Python for HSS - Part IV in the HSS Python Series
November 27, 1300-1600hrs Atlantic / 1330-1630hrs NL
This is a beginner-level 4-part series for humanities and social sciences (HSS) researchers (HSS) and librarians. API Querying and Textual Analysis - Parts III and IV focus on allowing participants to apply basic coding concepts to API querying and text-based analysis. We will use a Python library to analyze textual data and learn about common natural language processing (NLP) tasks such as part-of-speech tagging, noun phrase extraction, sentiment analysis, classification, and more to explore meaningful trends in language patterns.

Visualization with R
November 27, 1300-1500hrs Atlantic / 1330-1530hrs NL
While working with large sets of numbers, it is often quite useful to display the information graphically. Often, we use basic graph types such as histograms, scatter plots, bar charts, boxplots etc. In this session, we will use the programming language R to create visualizations of large datasets. Basic knowledge of R is recommended, although not mandatory. By the end of this session, participants will be able to create simple scatterplots, histograms, and box plots; compare the plotting features of base R and ggplot2 package; plot with ggplot2; plot time series data; and arrange and export plots.

Registration is available on our new training portal. 
REGISTRATION: https://www.acenet.training/courses

The Bookmark and UPEI’s Faculty of Indigenous Knowledge, Education, Research, and Applied Studies (IKERAS) will host a book launch for Anishinaabe author Tanya Talaga’s new book, "The Knowing," on Thursday, November 7, at 7 pm, in the UPEI Performing Arts Centre amphitheatre (Room 121S). 

"The Knowing" is a riveting exploration of Talaga’s family’s story and a retelling of the history of the country now called Canada. For generations, Indigenous People have known that their family members disappeared, many of them after being sent to residential schools, “Indian hospitals,” and asylums through a coordinated system designed to destroy who the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people are. Talaga retells the history of this country through an Indigenous lens, beginning with the life of her great-great-grandmother Annie Carpenter and her family as they experienced decades of government- and church-sanctioned enfranchisement and genocide.

This event is free and open to everyone, but tickets are required. To book tickets, go to https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tanya-talaga-in-conversation-with-jenene-wooldridge-tickets-1042270046767 or call the Bookmark at 902-566-4888.

Please note that challenging topics will be discussed at the event, including, but not limited to, historical traumas, the Residential School system, sexual abuse, and suicide.

The Institute of Island Studies, UPEI Faculty of Science (Foods and Nutrition program in Applied Human Sciences), the Campus Food Bank, and the UPEI Student Union invite our campus community to attend the 2024 Harry Baglole Memorial Public Symposium in Island Studies: “Homelessness and Food Insecurity on Canada’s Food Island.” This symposium is a collaborative initiative with the Native Council of PEI, Meals on Wheels, the John Howard Society of PEI, the Adventure Group, and the Upper Room Hospitality Ministry. 

The event will be held on Thursday, November 7, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium, Don and Marion McDougall Hall. Prior to the symposium, between 4:00 and 6:00 pm, information booths in the Schurman Market Square will provide an opportunity to learn more about a few not-for-profit organizations doing work related to the themes that we are talking about later in the evening. Please drop by to chat with people from the Community Outreach Centre, John Howard Society of PEI, Meals on Wheels, the PEI Food Exchange, ResourceAbilities, and PEI Family Violence Prevention Services, and help us support their efforts. 

The symposium will include opening presentations by Dr. Jennifer Taylor, Professor of Foods and Nutrition and food insecurity researcher, and  Jacinta Brown, a UPEI alumna and Program Manager of the Community Outreach Centre with The Adventure Group. We will also hear about a new research project on food insecurity in rural PEI by Oliver Batchilder, an Islander studying at Mount Allison University. We will then share some related research and resources followed by a short break. The second part of the evening features a panel discussion in which we will hear from Chris Clay (Reaching Home Coordinator, Native Council of Prince Edward Island), Josh Constantinou (Coordinated Access Coordinator, John Howard Society of PEI), Haley Zavo (Executive Director, Meals on Wheels PEI), and Mike MacDonald (Executive Director, Upper Room Hospitality Ministry).  

The final segment of the symposium is focused on audience participation. Our aim is to gather ideas and thoughts about how best we can all work together, in different ways, to continue, support, and strengthen meaningful work to better Prince Edward Island. Sébastien Parker, Assistant Professor, cross-appointed with UPEI's departments of Political Science and Sociology, will wrap up the evening by providing closing thoughts. Sébastien joined UPEI in 2024, and is also affiliated with the Cleantech Academy here and the Social Change Lab at the University of Toronto.

Seating at the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium is limited, and we request that you RSVP to iis@upei.ca if you would like to ensure that you will be able to attend in person. We will also provide the option to watch the event online through a link on www.islandstudies.com and the Institute of Island Studies social media. If you are driving, we encourage parking in UPEI’s general lots (parking in the general lots is free in the evenings). All are welcome. 

The Faculty of Science Graduate Studies Committee invites the campus community to the next presentation of the 2024-2025 Environmental Sciences and Human Biology Seminar Series on Friday, November 1, 2024 at 12:30 pm in DSC 204.

Dr. Sean Brillant, Canadian Wildlife Federation will present, “Protecting North Atlantic right whales and fisheries with evidence-based actions.” 

All are welcome.

“Supporting Undergraduate Development through Psychology Research”: One major part of an education in psychology is developing an understanding of psychological research and how it is applied. Research in psychology is expansive, spanning clinical and health domains, arts, and sciences. This presentation by Dr. Jessica Strong will share how to incorporate undergraduate students into a research lab using a developmental model depending on their year of study and plans for their careers. The Age Strong PEI lab will demonstrate this develop­mental model through a few current projects, including one on dream content in older adults, running and dementia, and dementia rehabilitation.

The presentation will take place on November 1, 2024, at 2;30 pm, in SDU Main Building, Room 320.