Now that the solar eclipse is over, you may be wondering what you can do with your eclipse glasses. If you store them carefully so that the lenses do not get scratched or torn, then you can keep using them to view the sun at any time. If you've got sharp vision, you may be able to see any larger sunspots on the sun's surface.

You can also use the glasses to view any future partial solar eclipses, which happen more often than total eclipses. For example, there will be an early morning low-in-the-sky partial solar eclipse on March 29, 2025.

If you don't want to keep your eclipse glasses, the Department of Physics is accepting donations of used glasses. We will use them in our regular public outreach activities. We are also investigating whether we can donate them to organizations that distribute used eclipse glasses elsewhere in the world.

If you'd like to donate your glasses, please place them in the labelled blue bin that is outside the door to Room 203A of the FSDE building.

You are invited to UPEI's 2024 Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition on April 11 at 5:00 pm in the Fox & Crow, W.A. Murphy Student Centre.

3MT is a competition for graduate students in which participants present their research and its wider impact in three minutes or less to a panel of non-specialist judges. The winner of the UPEI 3MT Competition moves on to the regional 3MT competition in June.

Come cheer on the competitors, and learn more about graduate students' research at UPEI!

Light refreshments will be provided.

The seventh meeting of the UPEI Senate will take place on Friday, April 12, 2024, from 3:00 to 5:00 pm in Room 102 at Alumni Hall (618 University Avenue). 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 by emailing senate@upei.ca. Only members of Senate are permitted to address the Senate unless otherwise recognized by the chair. 

UPEI's fiscal year ends on April 30, 2024.

Purchasing Cut-Offs

Requisition/purchase order:

The last day to create a requisition/purchase order for the 2023-24 fiscal year will be on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at noon, with guaranteed delivery date on or before April 30, 2024.

Requisitions/purchase orders created after April 18, 2024, will have the requisition date changed to May 1, 2024, and the goods and services must be delivered on or after May 1, 2024. If you are unable to change the requisition's date to May 1, 2024, please put a note in the comment section of the requisition indicating it is a new year order.

Receiving goods/services cut-off: April 30, 2024

Goods and services must be received on campus by April 30, 2024. Only the goods that have been physically received or completed services should be accepted at this time. This will ensure that these goods and services are paid in the 2023-24 fiscal year.  Any items received in myUPEI after April 30, 2024, will be considered new fiscal year goods and services and will be deducted from your new fiscal year budget (2024-25).

All departments are required to look at their outstanding purchase order list to see if there are any purchase orders that need to be cancelled. This functionality can be accessed through the myUPEI self-service menu under "Financial Information" and the “Receive Goods and Services” selection.

If the items have been back-ordered for some time, you will need to check with the supplier to see if they are still on their records as back-ordered. If they are not back-ordered, then please email procurement@upei.ca to cancel your purchase order.

If you are in receipt of vendor invoices, forward these to invoices@upei.ca ASAP. Please contact apadmin@upei.ca with questions or concerns regarding billing and invoicing.

Need assistance? 

Please take a look at the “Financial Tools Reference Guide” under the "Self-Service Help" tab on myUPEI. 

This session is designed to prepare colleagues to review teaching dossiers as part of the tenure and promotions process at UPEI. We touch on applicable clauses from the collective agreement, consider elements from EDI training, and discuss how to think about and assess teaching contributions. There will also be time to ask questions of colleagues with experience serving on the URC about best practices, and guidelines for reviewing a tenure or promotion file. There will also be discussion around what to look for when reviewing interdisciplinary work and how to see if it is well contextualized and accessible to a broader audience.  This session can be particularly helpful for colleagues chairing a DRC or those from cognate departments. 

The session will take place on April 11 at 9:30 am in the Teaching and Learning Centre, Robertson Library Annex, Room 230. Seats are limited, Please RSVP. 

A separate session geared toward colleagues preparing their tenure and promotion files for the coming year will be organized in early May. Details will be shared in campus notices and the next TLC newsletter. 

The Facilities Department would like to remind the campus that due to the workload requirements following Convocation, we are requesting that the University community not book any events that will require a setup for the weekend and Monday immediately following the last ceremony.  

Thank you.

The Faculty of Nursing would like to invite all to attend the public presentation of Nikodim Broukhanski’s Master of Nursing thesis defense, "Characteristics of Patients With Stroke Who Fall During Inpatient Rehabilitation." 

Date/Time/Location: Thursday, April 11, Health Sciences Building, Room 103, starting at 10:00 a.m.

Everyone is welcome.

Are you sitting on a DRC this spring? This session is designed to prepare colleagues to review teaching dossiers as part of the tenure and promotions process at UPEI. We touch on applicable clauses from the collective agreement, consider elements from EDI training, and discuss how to think about and assess teaching contributions. This session can be particularly helpful for colleagues chairing a DRC or those from cognate departments. Seats are limited, Please RSVP.

The deadline for Animal Care Protocol Submissions (new, renewal, or amendment) is Friday, May 3, for the May 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 viewed 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.

With no winners in the last SEVEN draws, the total pot has grown to more than $26,300 and is the LARGEST Gold Rush pot to date, with half going to the winner of the draw!

Gold Rush is a virtual fundraising initiative that raises funds for UPEI’s athletic and recreation programs. You can now select a specific team, club, or program to direct your proceeds from each of your tickets. 

Play today and every week for a chance to win! The weekly draw is held at 8:00 pm every Saturday.

Classes are over, and you just have to make it through exams! The library is here to help, and not just with books and research advice. Every day from April 11--21, we'll provide some sort of treat, craft, or activity to give your brain a break. Follow @RobertsonLibrary on Instagram and Facebook so you never miss a Pop-Up Surprise. 

We'll also be transforming the library lounge into the Stress-Free Zone for the duration of exams. Relax with colouring pages, yarn, origami, and so much more!  

Good luck with your finals! 

Current status update from Microsoft: A fix to the issue is expected to be in place by Tuesday, April 9. 

During a recent update from Microsoft, there was a code configuration issue that is causing issues with downloading and viewing attachments from Outlook on the web.   

If you are experiencing this issue, we recommend that you sign out and back into Outlook to temporarily mitigate the impact. Please note that you may have to do this more than once if the problem recurs, and you will have to complete a multifactor authentication (MFA ) check, so remember to have your authentication device nearby. 

This issue is affecting many other organizations as well as UPEI.   

Please contact the ITSS helpdesk with any questions at 902-566-0465 or helpdesk@upei.ca.

On Wednesday, April 10, the Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering will host a guest presenter for the last SDE 8900 seminar of the semester.

Dr. Ali Madani was a full professor in the Department of Engineering at the College of Agriculture (NSAC), Dalhousie University. He was involved in teaching, conducting research, and providing extension services in the areas of drainage, water quality, water table management, and constructed wetlands for several decades.

His topic will be  “Agricultural Drainage Water Management for Crop Production and Water Quality Benefits."

Everyone is invited and encouraged to attend.

Location: FSDE 128B

Our second Tea(ching) Break in this April series touches on issues of equity, social justice, reconciliation, and decolonization. This article from Academic Matters is entitled Why Indigenous Resurgence is Needed at Universities.

Now that the solar eclipse is over, you may be wondering what you can do with your eclipse glasses. If you store them carefully so that the lenses do not get scratched or torn, then you can keep using them to view the sun at any time. If you've got sharp vision, you may be able to see any larger sunspots on the sun's surface.

You can also use the glasses to view any future partial solar eclipses, which happen more often than total eclipses. For example, there will be an early morning low-in-the-sky partial solar eclipse on March 29, 2025.

If you don't want to keep your eclipse glasses, the Department of Physics is accepting donations of used glasses. We will use them in our regular public outreach activities. We are also investigating whether we can donate them to organizations that distribute used eclipse glasses elsewhere in the world.

If you'd like to donate your glasses, please place them in the labelled blue bin that is outside the door to Room 203A of the FSDE building.

On Tuesday, April 9, the UPEI Jazz and Popular Music Ensemble will present a night of music titled "Under the Moon." The show begins at 7:30 pm on the SDU stage at the UPEI Steel Recital Hall.

Under the leadership of Shawn Doiron, the night will feature a variety of musical genres from old classics to modern pop hits. There will be many featured vocalists and instrumental soloists, as well as performances of original music by ensemble members.

Admission is $20 for adults and $10 for students, payable by cash at the door.

The English Corner in the Robertson Library is now closed for the term. We will resume our activities in September 2024. We look forward to seeing you again in the fall.

Join us at the Fox & Crow, W.A. Murphy Student Centre, and help welcome the UPEI Class of 2024 to our alumni family! This event is open to all 2024 grads and UPEI/SDU/PWC alumni.

Celebrate the last day of classes with complimentary refreshments, live entertainment by Ryan Merry (BA'10), fun door prizes to be won, and more!

• Every 2024 grad in attendance will get a complimentary grad gift!
• Alumni who RSVP and attend the event will be entered to win an alumni prize pack.
• All 2024 grads who attend will be entered to win additional door prizes.
• GRAND PRIZE DRAW: Two lucky grads will EACH win a $1000 CASH prize* sponsored by TD Insurance. 

To RSVP, please fill out the form found here.

If you have any questions, please reach out to Owen Shaw at oshaw@upei.ca or 902-566-0687.

*Only 2024 grads are eligible to win and must be present at the time of draw.

The Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering is pleased to announce an upcoming Master of Science in Sustainable Design Engineering thesis defense on Wednesday, April 10, at 9 am.

Zeeshan Haydar, supervised by Dr. Aitazaz Farooque and Dr. Travis Esau, will present his thesis titled "Design and Evaluation of Wild Blueberry Harvester Header Automation System Using Artificial Intelligence and Drone."

Location: FSDE 128B

Everyone is welcome.

Dr. Brent MacLaine will launch a new poetry book called A Skeptic in Springtime on April 24, 2024, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge (Room 201), SDU Main Building, University of Prince Edward Island. 

A Skeptic in Springtime wrestles with uncertainty and aging, hurricanes, gravity, and particle theory. Amid all the unknowns, “Still, the white-throated sparrow cries I’m here, here, here, here.” Rooted in the PEI landscape where MacLaine grew up, his gaze ranges farther afield to Assyrian myth in “Killing a Lassamu,” to the Song Dynasty in “Su Dongpo Makes Ink,” to art in “Claude Monet in the Waiting Room.”

The book closes with a tribute to the late Dr. John Smith, former poet laureate of PEI. Combining keen observation of the natural world and the human condition, the poems in this collection contain “a universe which has leapt from nothing into something.”

Dr. MacLaine is a professor emeritus at the UPEI Department of English and the author of six volumes of poetry. He grew up in the rural community of Rice Point, PEI, to which he returned after teaching at universities in Vancouver, Edmonton, China, and Singapore. His awards for poetry include a League of Canadian Poets prize, the Prince Edward Island Book Award, and the Atlantic Poetry Prize.

The event is free, and all are welcome to attend. Books will be available for purchase. The event is sponsored by Island Studies Press, the UPEI English Department, and The Bookmark. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.