The UPEI Health and Wellness Centre, in partnership with Public Health Nursing, was thrilled to provide over 500 flu shots to faculty, staff, students and their families. Due to ongoing requests, we have arranged one final flu vaccine clinic for Tuesday, December 4th from 12:00 noon-5:00 pm. Please mark your calendars to join us upstairs at the UPEI Health and Wellness Centre located on the second floor of the W.A. Murphy Student Centre (North). Bring your provincial health card or proof of international insurance with you. Appointments are not required. For more information, contact healthcentre@upei.ca.  

Campus Life Program is partnering with Charlottetown's Start Up Zone to bring an interactive session for our students on mental wellness and youth development. Join us for a panel presentation and Q&A with representation from both on and off campus on a variety of topics exploring the importance of taking care of oneself through stress management and becoming involved with one's community. Refreshments will be provided.

Douglas Gibson is Canada’s most famous living book publisher and editor. In his 45-year career, he edited and published luminous constellations of Canadian authors including Alice Munro, Pierre Trudeau, Alistair MacLeod, Ken Dryden, Brian Mulroney, Hugh MacLennan, Robertson Davies, W.O. Mitchell, Mavis Gallant, and Barry Broadfoot. Gibson will tell stories about his work and friendships with Canada’s celebrated authors at the next Winter’s Tales Authors Reading Series event on Tuesday, November 20 at 7:30 pm in the Carriage House of Charlottetown’s Beaconsfield Historic House. In 2011, he published his memoir, Stories About Storytellers. Book in hand, he took his self-proclaimed “road show” to more than one hundred communities around Canada, from Newfoundland to Haida Gwaii. That tour resulted in his second book, Across Canada by Story, and a second “stage show.” In the new book and show, he tells stories of the many people he encountered with strong connections to Canada’s literary culture: friends of the authors, devoted readers, booksellers and librarians, teachers and students, local authors and supporters. He celebrates not only the stars, but the galaxy of people who cherish and nurture our heritage as it crystallizes in book form.                       Douglas Gibson was born in the village of Dunlop in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, and worked on farms during the summer. He immigrated to Canada in 1967 and became Managing Editor at Doubleday Canada in 1969. He was appointed editorial director and then publisher at Macmillan of Canada, then publisher at the great Canadian publishing company McClelland & Stewart from 1988 until 2004. At M&S, he established Canada’s first editorial imprint, Douglas Gibson Books. “No one has done more for Canadian Literature than this man,” wrote Alistair MacLeod. Gibson’s show is hosted by the UPEI English Department, with support from the UPEI Dean of Arts and The Canada Council for the Arts. Admission is free. All are welcome.

UPEI’s Climate Research Lab and the PEI Woodlot Owners Association (PEIWOA) will host a public talk on sustainable forestry practices to deepen our understanding of how climate change can affect forestry management. Dutch expert Dr. Gert-Jan Naburs will compare European forestry practices with the situation on Prince Edward Island. The event is Tuesday, November 20 at 7:00 pm in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium of UPEI’s Don and Marion McDougall Hall. All are welcome to this free public lecture. “On PEI, one can think of enhancing thinnings, using the low quality thinned wood for biomass and, at the same time, aim with the remaining stand for a higher quality timber—a kind of European style forestry,” said Dr. Nabuurs. “The benefit for the forest owner is not so much in the short term, but lies more in the longer term, with better stands. These operations and mindset have to change. That takes time. Access to forest is needed. Owners have to collaborate, and regular supply is needed.” Dr. Gert-Jan Nabuurs is a professor of European forest resources at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a senior researcher at Wageningen Environmental Research (WUR). His background is in European scale forest resource analyses and management under climate change. His work has both scientific and practical applications. Dr. Nabuurs is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) coordinating lead author in good practice guidance for the its fourth assessment report. He will lead the agriculture and forestry chapter in the IPCC’s sixth assessment report, starting in 2019. He was assistant director of the European Forest Institute in Finland from 2009-2012. He is member of Ministerial Advisory Committee Sustainability of Biomass for Energy Purposes, advising on certification schemes and their applicability to Dutch biomass sustainability criteria. Although this event is important for woodlot owners and silviculture workers, Dr. Nabuurs’ ideas and experience will also be of interest to forestry contractors, environment and watershed groups, climate scientists, resource managers, local governments and chambers of commerce. All are welcome.

A new book from Island Studies Press will examine and compare the stories of abortion access in Prince Edward Island and Ireland. Crossing Troubled Waters: Abortion in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Prince Edward Island is co-edited by UPEI’s Dr. Colleen MacQuarrie. The book launches Monday, November 19 at 4:00 pm in Schurman Market Square of UPEI’s Don and Marion McDougall Hall. Crossing Troubled Waters shines a light on two islands—Ireland (north and south) and Prince Edward Island, Canada—and considers for each island, the nature of the discourse of abortion on the island, the impact that restrictions have had, ongoing efforts to improve access, and recent activist successes. Island Studies Press is proud to publish this pivotal academic text that is rooted in local research and activism. Accessing abortion services is challenging in many countries around the world. Barriers result from poor access to healthcare, geographic location, legal restrictions, abortion stigma, and moral conservatism. Repeated studies indicate restricting access to abortion does not prevent it happening, but rather displaces it and often results in unsafe abortion contributing to maternal mortality. Those living on islands face particular challenges presented by their geographic isolation, including travel to other jurisdictions, which is financially and emotionally burdensome. Crossing Troubled Waters: Abortion in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Prince Edward Island is co-edited by Dr. Colleen MacQuarrie, Fiona Bloomer, Claire Pierson, and Shannon Stettner. Dr. MacQuarrie is a professor of psychology at UPEI and a co-founding member of the Abortion Rights Network, Abortion Access Now PEI, and RAARN, the Reproductive Activism and Abortion Rights Network. Please join Island Studies Press in celebrating this new book. For more information about the book or the launch, please contact Bren at ispstaff@upei.ca or call (902) 566-0386.

UPEI’s Executive MBA program offers a high-quality learning experience for working business professionals. The program is designed for those working in, or aspiring to work, in a management or leadership position. Classes are offered bi-weekly on Fridays and Saturdays with the option to complete the program in 20 months.    To learn more about the program and to meet with staff, faculty and students from the Faculty of Business, we invite you to attend the following information session:   Tuesday, November 20 The Gallery @ The Guild  Charlottetown 5 pm   Please call (902) 566-6474 or email mba@upei.ca to reserve a seat.   For more information on UPEI's EMBA Program, please visit upei.ca/business/emba

The public is invited to the Harry Baglole Memorial Public Symposium in Island Studies, “Measuring Quality of Life on Prince Edward Island,” on Thursday, November 22, 7-9 p.m., at UPEI’s MacKinnon Auditorium, Room 242, McDougall Hall. This event is sponsored by UPEI’s Institute of Island Studies, in conjunction with UPEI Research Services.  The principal speaker will be Gwen Colman, who, in 1997, along with her husband Ron, founded Genuine Progress Index (GPI) Atlantic, a pioneering research organization in creating new measures of wellbeing and progress. Gwen will be speaking about GPI’s work in collaborative development of wellbeing measures with communities in Bhutan, New Zealand, Thailand, and Nova Scotia. Recently, GPI has worked with a network of universities and NGOs in Southeast Asia, developing a methodology for collaborative development of wellbeing measures at the community level. She will speak about recent work in two communities in Thailand, and about previous work with the creation of Community GPIs in two communities in Nova Scotia. Gwen will identify the elements for creating successful community partnerships to measure wellbeing and their resultant impact.  Gwendolyn Colman is Executive Director of GPI Atlantic which has worked intensively with the small Himalayan country of Bhutan to create the Gross National Happiness Index, and with the Maori nation and New Zealand governments to create core measures of progress. Gwen’s work with GPI recently focused on community partnerships in measuring progress in Southeast Asia, and with youth volunteerism to create wellbeing. Previous to her work with GPI, Gwen managed documentation of primary research by 28 scientists for the Goose Bay EIS, the largest Environmental Impact Statement for North America for Lavalin, and worked for high-tech firms IBM and the Solar Energy Research Institute on large-scale documentation projects.  Joining Gwen Colman are panelists Dr. Jim Randall and Wendy MacDonald, who will address the relevance of GPIs to the health and prosperity of this island. “Too often what we think constitutes Quality of Life is divorced from the everyday lives of people,” says Dr. Randall, UNESCO Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, Chair of the Institute of Island Studies, and Co-ordinator of the Master of Arts in Island Studies program at UPEI. “By asking people how they feel about themselves, their neighbourhoods and their communities, we can start to get a better picture of islanders’ values, hopes, and dreams and whether these are being fulfilled." As an economic and social geographer, Dr. Randall carried out QOL research in neighbourhoods in Saskatoon which was used to help direct public policy in such areas as neighbourhood inequality, health determinants and perceptions of personal health and security. Some of this work was also repeated in assessing newcomers’ perceptions of quality of life in Charlottetown. Throughout her career, Wendy MacDonald has learned the impact of measuring the right things in the right ways. For nine years, starting in 1989, she worked in a range of policy and management roles in the provincial government, before establishing her own consulting firm in 1998. Over the next decade, she worked in many areas of public policy. Her best memories from this period include a number of Harry Baglole's visionary projects, notably the Knowledge Assessment Methodology, the PEI Population Strategy, the PEI Employment Strategy, and, in a volunteer role, the Quality of Island Life Co-op. In 2008, Wendy rejoined the provincial government and in 2010 she was appointed Clerk Assistant. Since then, she has worked on various policy projects including kindergarten, early childhood, education governance, and poverty reduction. As Secretary to the Cabinet Committee on Priorities, she works to support Cabinet decision-making processes and to strengthen policy capacity in government.  The Symposium will be chaired by Andrew Lush, member of the Institute of Island Studies Advisory Committee. Following the presentations, there will be ample time for discussion and questions from the floor. Admission is free and everyone is cordially invited to attend.  The Symposium series is being newly renamed after Harry Baglole, the Institute of Island Studies' first Director, who passed away in May. Harry was the architect of many Public Symposia over the years, born out of his passionate vision for strong, Prince Edward Island-made, public policy frameworks. For more details, go to www.islandstudies.com, e-mail iis@upei.ca, or call 902-894-2881. 

The Department of Psychology welcomes faculty, students, and the campus community to join us at our next Fiona Papps Colloquium Series on Thursday, November 22nd at 3:00pm where Dr. Stephen Butler will present " Capitalism in the "hot seat": Challenges and opportunities for young people”. The presentation will take place in KMB237 with a reception to follow in the faculty lounge.  Suggested reading: Butler, Stephen (2018). The Impact of Advanced Capitalism on Well-being: An evidence-informed model. Human Arenas, available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-018-0034-6

The Honourable Robert Mitchell, Minister of Health and Wellness, along with the Canada Games Council, invites you to a major announcement regarding the Canada Games. Friday, November 9, 2018 at 1:00 pm McMillan Hall, W. A. Murphy Student Centre at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown The event today will be live streamed at www.youtube.com/govpeca/live

Did you know that it is illegal to travel with dogs, and other companion animals, unsecured in the back of a pickup truck? Are you aware that cosmetic surgery on animals, such as tail docking in dogs, cattle, and horses, or ear cropping in dogs, is prohibited? These regulations—and more—are part of the new PEI Animal Welfare Act, passed into law in 2017. How does the Act impact Islanders and their animals? Dr. Alice Crook, Coordinator of the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre at AVC, will provide a “big picture” of the Act, focusing on the evolution of a distressed-based model to a standard–of-care model. Dwight Thompson, PEI Department of Agriculture and Forestry, will speak about the rights and responsibilities of owners, and Mike Gilbertson, PEI Humane Society, will focus on how the Society handles animal welfare complaints. Everyone is welcome. Admission is free, and refreshments will be served. For information, contact (902) 566-0589 or upei.ca/avc.