All students are encouraged to attend and learn abou tthe many volunteer organizations and available opportunities. This is a great time to get hands-on experience, make connections, and help make a difference in your community. 

Stories of Weathering Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu: Leaf-houses, Flying Foxes and Body Bags Island Studies Lecture by Dr. Jean Mitchell The November Island Studies Lecture will be Tuesday, November 15, at 7 p.m. in the SDU Main Building Faculty Lounge on the UPEI campus, featuring Dr. Jean Mitchell sharing Stories of Weathering Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu: Leaf-houses, Flying Foxes, and Body Bags. With winds up to 300 kph, Cyclone Pam was the largest cyclone to make landfall in the South Pacific islands since recordkeeping started. It struck the island of Vanuatu on March 13, 2015, leaving in its wake enormous losses of infrastructure, housing, animals, and food gardens. The ferocity and destructiveness of Cyclone Pam spurs questions about climate change and the effects of global warming and sea-level rise in the South Pacific Islands. Another key question also emerges: why did so few islanders die during the cyclone and its aftermath? Drawing on recent interviews with Islanders from the southern islands of Erromango and Tanna, which were literally in the eye of the storm, this presentation recounts stories from those Islanders about the cyclone and its aftermath. How social relationships, the gift/kastom economies, local knowledge, and the ways in which nature and culture are entangled in Vanuatu offer powerful insights into how to survive a cyclone. Jean Mitchell, an associate professor of Anthropology at UPEI, has been working in Vanuatu for 20 years and has also conducted research in Kiribati and Solomon Islands. Prior to working in the Pacific she worked with the UN in India for five years. In Vanuatu she started the Young People's Project at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Her research interests include post-colonialism, youth, gender, health and urbanization. She has co-edited several volumes of essays on L.M. Montgomery and has been researching the Presbyterian Missionary history that connects Vanuatu and Prince Edward Island. She has, together with Vanuatu Cultural Centre, recently started a project on local knowledge, youth and the ecologies of gardens in Tanna and Erromango. Admission to the Lecture is free and everyone is welcome to attend. Watch for details for another lecture about islands – near and far – December 6! For more information, please contact Laurie at brinklow@upei.ca or (902) 894-2881.

The Island’s “food system” will be the topic of a Public Symposium to be held at UPEI’s Duffy Science Centre Amphitheatre, Room 135, on Monday, November 14, beginning at 7:00 p.m. In particular, the discussion will focus on a move toward a more sustainable agriculture, with a stronger emphasis on local food and food security. This event is one of a regular series of Public Symposia sponsored by UPEI’s Institute of Island Studies, in conjunction with UPEI Research Services. The main speaker will be distinguished author and public policy specialist Dr. Mark Lapping, long associated with the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. Dr. Lapping has held many academic leadership posts, including that as founding Dean of the prestigious School of Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph. Throughout his career, he has maintained a strong interest in land issues in Prince Edward Island, and has published several papers and studies on the topic. In recent years, Dr. Lapping has focused his work on food systems and has written extensively on the subject. He was the leader of an ambitious undertaking at the Muskie School which developed a food plan and strategy for the state of Maine. “To most people,” says Dr. Lapping, “food is about growing and consuming food.  But a food system,” he continues, “is a large set of processes and it is critical to take a wider, systems perspective. Only then might we have a more robust understanding of the ways by which a sustainable agriculture can become part of a larger process of change toward a more nutritious and just life for individuals, families and communities.” Dr. Lapping will be joined by other panelists, to be announced. Stratford Town Councillor and IIS Advisory Committee member Diane Griffin has agreed to serve as Chair. Responding to Dr. Lapping’s talk will be a Panel comprised of two Island farmers and a researcher in public health nutrition. Barry Cudmore of Brackley Beach farms seed potatoes, soy beans and grains. A Nuffield scholar and member of the Atlantic Agriculture Hall of Fame, he is a proponent of seeking farm sustainability in moving from commodities to branded products, and reconnecting consumers with producers.  Mark Bernard and his wife Sally operate Barnyard Organics in Freetown. As the fourth-generation Bernard on this family farm, Mark has moved away from potato production. The objective of Barnyard Organics is “to bring the farm back to its original state as a self-sustaining mixed farm, using traditional methods combined with some of the efficient technologies of our time.” The third Panelist is Dr. Colleen Walton, Associate Professor in Applied Human Sciences at UPEI. She has over 20 years of working experience within the Island’s food system. Her research interests lie in the area of building capacity among groups and individuals toward strengthened livelihoods and greater household food security.  Members of the public are cordially invited to attend. Admission is free. Following the presentations, there will be ample time for discussion and questions from the floor.      

Robin DeRosa (Plymouth State University): Open Education: Reducing Costs, Transforming Pedagogy Open Educational Resources have the ability to eliminate the costs to students for textbooks and other learning materials, but they also empower students and faculty to work in new ways.  This presentation will explore how we can save money for students, while also transforming our teaching and radically centering learners in their own educations.  We will take a look at how free, openly-licensed digital materials can be incorporated into any course in any discipline, and explore new ways of using technology to connect our students and their work to the world outside of the the university. http://library.upei.ca/robin-derosa-open-education-reducing-costs-transf...

Dr. Robert Gilmour, VP Academic and Research, will introduce the re-launch of the new IslandScholar and data.upei.ca. Dawn Hooper and Donald Moses, from the Robertson Library, will demonstrate the new IslandScholar, UPEI’s institutional repository of faculty and staff publications, graduate theses, and graduate projects.   The session will also include a demonstration of data.upei.ca, a service that provides UPEI researchers with a suite of tools that include a data management planning tool, a locally hosted “WorkSpaces” to store and manage research data files, and a publishing/archiving platform for research data sets. https://library.upei.ca/re-launch-new-islandscholar-dataupeica-demo-oct… All are welcome!

Speaker: Alyson Brown, Pathology and Microbiology Title: Acute phase and intracellular responses in vaccine-induced protection against bacterial infections in Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus)

The Robertson Library partners with the Open Data Book Club to host an event. The Open Data Book Club will introduce their activities related to Open Data. Following that we will have two speakers: Dr Adam Fenech (Director of UPEI Climate Lab) will speak on The Value of Open Data in Research. Mary-Ann MacSwain (Data Analyst at UPEI Centre for Health and Community Research) will speak on Health Data in an Open Data World. http://library.upei.ca/open-data-book-club-guest-speakers-adam-fenech-ma... All are welcome!

Hello all, World Singing Day is a great opportunity to bring people together and share some inspirational songs, and the AIRS UPEI & Community Multicultural Choir and Song Circle is reminding you of the celebration that will be occurring for World Singing Day. The event will take place on Saturday, October 22 at 11:30am, at the Charlottetown Farmers Market. The Charlottetown Farmers Market is the perfect location for this event, and management has kindly allowed us to host the event on the grounds. However, in case of bad weather, McMillan Hall (in the UPEI W.A Murphy Student Center) has been booked as a backup location.   As a suggestion for the event, three specials songs have been suggested for all attendees to sing together: “One Voice”, written and performed by The Wailin’ Jennies “Everybody Loves Saturday Night”, written by Arthur Podell, performed by The Tarriers “Clean Water”, written and performed by Theresa Doyle Please feel free to forward or post this message to anyone who might be interested, as all are welcome to attend. We thank you for your consideration, and hope to sing with you on Saturday, October 22, at 11:30am!  Hailey Arsenault: AIRS Student Administrative Assistant, airs@upei.ca, 902-566-6023 Tony Reddin: Community Member & UPEI Alumnus, 902-675-4093
 Annabel Cohen: Founder of AIRS UPEI & Community Multicultural Choir and Song Circle, acohen@upei.ca, 902-628-4325

Come and join local health professionals to learn more about health careers on Prince Edward Island. There will be a wide range of different health professionals available to meet and talk with students about their specific health based career. Health care professionals have a wide range of educational backgrounds and students from all faculty are invited to attend.

President and Vice-Chancellor Alaa Abd-El-Aziz cordially invites members of our campus and Prince Edward Island communities to attend the seventeenth annual Recognition of Founders Ceremony including a very special event, The President's Circle: Indigenizing our Campus in the Spirit of Reconciliation.  Speakers will include Abegweit First Nation Chief Brian Francis, Lennox Island First Nation Chief Matilda Ramjattan, Native Council of PEI President and Chief Lisa Cooper, Aboriginal Women's Association President and Elder Judy Clark, and Aboriginal Students Association representative and UPEI student Jenna Burke. Please join us on Founders Day, this Monday, October 31 at 1 pm to honour the Aboriginal Peoples of Prince Edward Island and their collective contributions to the University. Pjila'si - All are welcome!