In 1854, British travel writer Isabella Lucy Bird visited Prince Edward Island for six weeks and published an account of her stay that was both scathing and charming. Paris may be the gayest city in the world, she wrote, and London the richest, but Charlottetown was the most gossiping. "I never saw a community,” she continued,” in which people appear to hate each other so cordially.”

Contemporary Island poet Jane Ledwell was both fascinated and exasperated by Bird’s haughty, privileged judgement and decided to “write back”—160 years later. The result is Bird Calls, the latest title published by Island Studies Press at UPEI. Bird Calls weaves the travel prose of Isabella Lucy Bird with Ledwell’s poems written in response, and delivers an intriguing conversation for the reader, which contrasts PEI then and now, and showcases the talents of two accomplished writers, from very different generations.

Bird Calls is being launched Wednesday evening, December 14 at Upstreet Craft Brewery on Allen St., Charlottetown, at 7 pm.

The book will also be available in local bookstores and the UPEI bookstore. For more information contact Joan Sinclair at Island Studies Press: ispstaff@upei.ca.

ITSS will be closed Wednesday, Dec.7/16 from 9:00 am to 10:30 am for a departmental staff meeting. For immediate assistance for your computer needs, please call the ITSS Helpdesk at (902)566-0465.

Standard First Aid, CPR & AED Training - September 1 & 2
There are still a few seats left for the Emergency First Aid and CPR training session being held this Friday (December 9, 2016) from 9 am - 4 pm The training cost is covered. If you are interested in attending please email Kathryn Harrison, kharrison@upei.ca

Time to get creative. Join your co-workers in decorating your office for the Christmas Decorating Contest. Judging will be held from 11 am – noon on Thursday, December 15. Please register your office with Angela Marchbank.

Tuition Waiver forms for the Winter 2017 semester must be submitted to Human Resources no later than December 13, 2016. To avoid any delays in processing the waiver, please include all of the required information when completing the form: course name, time, start and end date, cost and the number of semester hours. Please submit original forms directly to Human Resources in the lower level Kelley building, Rm.143.

If you have any questions please contact Human Resources at: (902) 566-0514

Graduate students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend the GSA Ugly Holiday Sweater Social on Saturday, Dec 10 from 6 to 9 pm in the AVC Learning Commons. 
 
There will be food and drinks, door prizes, a silent auction, and we will announce the recipients of the GSA Faculty and Staff Awards.

The Faculty of Science wishes to announce Azhaar Alsaggaf, PhD candidate from the Department of Chemistry, will be defending the thesis entitled "Synthesis Characterization and Biological Studies of Chromene Derivatives" at 2 pm on Thursday, December 8, 2016 in the K.C. Irving Chemistry Centre, room 104. Additional Information: All PhD defences are open to the public and all are welcome to attend. Please note seating may be limited.

There are still a few seats left for the Emergency First Aid and CPR training session being held this Friday (December 9, 2016) from 9 am - 4 pm. The training cost is covered. If you are interested in attending please email Kathryn Harrison: kharrison@upei.ca

UPEI invites you to join us for a skate and some hot chocolate from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm on Wednesday, December 7 at MacLauchlan Arena, ice surface B.

President and Vice-Chancellor Alaa Abd-El-Aziz invites you to attend the 2016 President’s Holiday Social and Tree Lighting for Faculty and Staff on Tuesday, December 6 from 2 to 4 pm in McMillan Hall, W. A. Murphy Student Centre.

Celebrate with your colleagues and enjoy complimentary appetizers and refreshments while listening to students from the UPEI music program perform songs of the season. You are encouraged to bring your food and monetary donations for the UPEI Food Bank—the Office of the President will match your support!

UPEI is also excited to welcome members of the Island A Cappella chorus who will lead us in some carolling and to the tree lighting portion of the event when we gather between the Kelley Memorial Building and the Student Centre at 4 pm. The director of Island A Cappella is UPEI's very own Carolyn Prime who works in Accounting. The chorus sings four-part harmony in the barbershop style and includes four UPEI employees, two UPEI retirees and many alumni.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at this special time of year!

UPEI email accounts continue to be targeted by a number of phishing and spoofing email scams (the most recent example claims to be from the ITSS Helpdesk).  UPEI’s IT Systems and Services department encourages students, faculty, and staff to “protect while you connect":

• treat all links in emails as suspicious, even the ones in this message
• choose strong passwords and change them frequently, and
• use only protected wireless networks.

Read the UPEI article for more cyber safety tips. If you have questions or concerns, contact the ITSS Help Desk at 902-566-0465 or helpdesk@upei.ca.

From November 1 until April 30, winter restrictions on overnight campus parking will be enforced. Parking Lot "A" is the only lot where overnight parking is permitted for the winter season. Residents of Andrew Hall and Bernardine Hall may park overnight in the Andrew Hall Lot provided that their vehicles are moved to Lot "A" during storm conditions and until the lots have been plowed after a storm.

If vehicles are left in any parking lot other than Lot "A" during snow storms or before snow removal is complete, the vehicle will be towed at the owner's expense. Facilities Management appreciates your co-operation to ensure parking lots are cleared safely. If you have any questions or concerns regarding winter parking please contact Mark Pharand.

The Physics department identified surplus equipment before its recent move to the SSDE building and what is left will be available in Duffy Science Centre 309 on Monday, December 5 from 2:30 to 4 pm.  A general "for use at UPEI" pickup took place October, but this opportunity is for anyone who might have any use for these items (i.e. home use, disassembly for parts, etc.) as what is remaining will be disposed of. Examples of items include old electronics equipment such as calorimeter equipment, analog meters, glassware; metal weights; metal stands; scales, graph paper, electronic components; and some office items. Contact Lisa Steele (ldsteele@upei.ca) if you have questions.

UPEI Christmas Skate - Tuesday, December 6
Join us for a skate and some hot chocolate from 11:30 am- 1:00 pm, Tuesday, December 6 at the Bell Aliant Centre , ice surface B.

Time to get creative. Join your co-workers in decorating your office for the Christmas Tree Decorating Contest. Judging will be held from 11 am – noon on Thursday, December 15. Please register your office with Angela Marchbank.

This isn’t your weekly announcement of another SCENT blog post to go take a look at. Instead, it’s a big thank you, as the fall 2016 semester comes to a close, from SCENT to the campus community—for engaging so richly with our weekly blog and this semester’s theme of “what is university for?” The 12 blog posts for this semester elicited 1956 views and 57 comments, suggesting to us that a lot of you are reading and no doubt having other kinds of conversations about the posts. Apparently, our most popular blog posts were #2 and #5, and—no surprise—September and October were the busiest months. We think this is a huge success, as we aim to provoke and educate, and to get us all thinking together about the complexity of issues around this central theme. Stay tuned for the second week of January, when we’ll return with another semester’s worth of posts on the related and equally provocative theme “whom is university for?” Have a great break! And if you’re looking for some reading, and haven’t checked out all the posts yet, head on over to projects.upei.ca/scent and catch up on this semester’s articles.

Fitness Class UPDATE! With the new fitness studio A opened we are able to extend our membership classes until Thursday, December 15.

Mondays - PiYo - Bernadette @ 12:05 pm, Cardio Dance Fusion - Lyndsey @ 5 pm
Tuesdays - Cardio Dance Fusion Lite - Lyndsey @ 9 am, Cardio Blast - Bernadette @ 12:05 pm, HIIT - Tracey @5 pm Wednesday - PiYo - Bernadette @ 12:05 pm, Stretch n' Tone - Lyndsey @ 5 pm Thusday - Stretch n' Tone - Bernadette @ 12:05 pm, Yoga Flow - Rebecca @ 5 pm