Wade MacLauchlan, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Prince Edward Island, congratulates third year arts student Caitlin Brown (left), of Richmond, PEI, and third year music education student Deidre Gallant (right), of O’Leary, on winning Millennium Excellence Awards. Brown and Gallant each received a $4,000 award. The Millennium Excellence Awards are awarded based on academic achievement, community service, leadership, and interest in innovation. Created by the federal government, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is committed to providing opportunities for Canadians to learn, grow, and contribute to their communities.

The University of Prince Edward Island is committed to enhancing inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities through a multi-year project that will see improved exterior and interior access to buildings and facilities on campus.

University officials launched the “Plan For Inclusion: A Response to the UPEI Accessibility Audit” at an event in the Duffy Science Centre on Monday, December 3. The event was held in conjunction with the annual International Day for Persons with Disabilities on December 3, first proclaimed by the United Nations in 1992.

The plan was developed by the UPEI Access-Ability Committee as the result of an accessibility audit of the campus carried out in December 2006 and January 2007 by the architectural firm Sperry & Partners Ltd., of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The audit covers the main UPEI campus, including academic and service buildings and residences.

Wade MacLauchlan, president and vice-chancellor of UPEI, praised the committee for its work.

“The UPEI Access-Ability Committee has produced a very fine piece of work in this comprehensive audit,” says MacLauchlan. “We owe a great debt of gratitude to committee chair Joanne McCabe and the entire team who produced this report and developed the multi-year commitments that we undertake today.”

Committee member Paul Cudmore, a UPEI student who uses a wheelchair, is pleased with the university’s commitment to improving the campus for people who have disabilities.

"The physical accessibility and culture of inclusion at UPEI provides a great atmosphere for people with disabilities to pursue their post-secondary goals,” he says.

Under the plan, which will be implemented over seven years, all new construction and major upgrading projects on campus, including buildings, parking areas, pedestrian routes, adaptive technology and other services, will meet or exceed barrier-free and universal guidelines.

Funding for the plan will come from UPEI’s capital budget, and will cover ongoing maintenance of accessibility-related upgrades and repairs, and continued disability awareness training for UPEI faculty and staff, as well as the actual improvements.
Improvements will include better lighting and signage, particularly for barrier-free entrances; replacement of the ramp in Memorial Hall; installation of automatic door openers where needed; designation of wheelchair spaces in teaching rooms; installation of assistive hearing systems in auditoriums and classrooms; renovation of non-accessible washrooms; and the continued replacement of door knobs with lever handles.

Significant improvements have already been put in place under the plan, including construction of a new outdoor ramp and accessible door to Dalton Hall; the addition of 11 new parking spots for people with disabilities; replacement of door knobs with lever handles in some high-traffic areas; and putting accessible desks in all accessible teaching classrooms.

The University of Prince Edward Island’s Computer Science and Information Technology department has received national accreditation for its degree programs for the first time from the Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS).

Gerald Caissy, president of the CIPS-Charlottetown Section, made the announcement at a professional development event held by the local group recently. On behalf of Sylvia Osborn, chairperson of the CPIS Computer Science Accreditation Council, he presented a plaque to Dr. Christian Lacroix, dean of the UPEI Faculty of Science, and Professor Wayne Cutcliffe, of the Computer Science and Information Technology department.

The department offers a major and an honours degree in computer science, and a computer science co-op education program.

“Accreditation ensures that our programs meet national standards with respect to the core body of knowledge taught in our courses,” says Cutcliffe. “It allows our graduates to qualify for the Information Systems Professional (ISP) designation after they acquire two years of professional experience. Certification of IT professionals is, and will become, more important as the public will demand not only technical competency, but also assurance that IT professionals are acting in the public interest. At the national level, CIPS is engaging IT industry and government leaders in the benefits of having employees who set high standards for the profession.”

A computer science accreditation review team visited UPEI in March 2007 and prepared a report for the CIPS Computer Science Accreditation Council. Over its summer meetings, the council granted accreditation for the university’s computer science programs for three years.

In his remarks at the event, Caissy noted that UPEI now joins regional institutions such as Dalhousie University, University of New Brunswick, Saint Mary’s University and Acadia University in the computer science CIPS accreditation arena.

Founded in 1958, CIPS is the professional association for Information Technology (IT) practitioners in Canada, representing more than 6,000 IT professionals on important issues affecting their industry and profession. It is also responsible for pursuit of the legislation and regulation of the ISP designation.

With funding from ACOA and Technology PEI, UPEI will establish a video game programming stream within the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology. The courses offered will be among the first in Canada at the undergraduate level.

The university will receive $426,245 from ACOA, through its Business Development Program, and $445,000 from Technology PEI for the project.

"By providing Islanders with an opportunity to study and work in this exciting emerging field, the university is endeavouring to address the demands of both students and employers. The program to be introduced is demanding, but for those students who rise to the challenge, the future looks extremely positive,” said Vianne Timmons, UPEI Vice-President of Academic Development.

The funding will allow UPEI to market new programs and purchase the necessary hardware, software and curriculum resources. Funding from both levels of government will help advance the video game industry on PEI by further developing a skilled workforce that is ready to meet the demands of the growing information technology sector.

Gerald Keddy, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and the Honourable Richard Brown, Minister of Development and Technology, announced the funding last week as part of a total investment of $1.3-million for UPEI and Holland College for new video game training and programming.

Richard Lemm, an award-winning author and a professor of Canadian and English Literature and Creative Writing at UPEI, has released his first collection of short stories. Entitled Shape of Things to Come, the book traces Lemm’s journey from the west coast to the east.

The eleven stories run readers through the gauntlet of sexual tensions and emotional conflicts, where people are forced to confront their choices and grapple with connections they would not have chosen but cannot live without. Hard-living characters follow their own paths through relationships with parents and siblings, friends and lovers, discovering and sometimes crossing their limits as they try to find their own way in the world. A thirty-something man takes a chance on finding love after he encounters an exotic opera singer on an airplane. Two brothers face their own ghosts as they come to terms with the death of their father. A young man tries to live with his friends’ idea of justice after one of them crosses the line. The stories are decidedly masculine — sometimes apologetically so — but always honest.

Richard Lemm has been a faculty member at the Banff School of Fine Arts, and a writer-in-residence and poetry instructor for various community colleges, regional libraries, public school districts, and summer writing programs across the country. He is the author of several volumes of poetry, as well as the biography, Milton Acorn: In Love and Anger.

Shape of Things to Come is published by Acorn Press. The cover art is the painting Domiciles, a triptych by Charlottetown artist Brenda Whiteway. It was launched on Sunday, December 9, at Casa Mia Café, 131 Queen Street, Charlottetown. 

UPEI's School of Business Administration will begin offering executive education programs in January 2008, in partnership with York University's Schulich Executive Education Centre.

Programs will be tailored to suit the needs of today's entrepreneurs and executives, emphasizing 'just-in-time' learning that is focused, practical and immediately applicable.

'We're very pleased to provide leaders in the local business community with valuable, career-enhancing programs. In today's fast-paced, competitive and ever-changing market, entrepreneurs and executives must be able to quickly develop and fine-tune personal business skills to address immediate situations. These programs are designed to do just that,' noted Roberta MacDonald, dean of the School of Business Administration.

Local business leaders learned about these exciting opportunities at a recent program launch hosted by the School of Business Administration in Charlottetown. Representatives from Schulich provided information and answered questions about the first programs that will be delivered, starting in late January.

Schulich's nine-module 'Master's Certificate in Project Management' will be delivered in 18 days over four months. It covers all the fundamentals of the internationally accepted 'project management body of knowledge' in a format that works with the time limitations of today's professionals. It is ideal for project managers who wish to move to a higher level in their field, as well as mid- and senior-level managers who have completed an introductory project management program.

An intensive three-day seminar entitled 'Leadership Through Teambuilding' will be offered in February and May. Participants will learn leadership and teambuilding strategies to maximize the effectiveness of work teams or staff they currently manage. The seminar will explore a variety of topics within three core learning modules: successful team foundations, group leadership and empowerment, and team leadership in action.

'The School of Business Administration is continually changing and evolving to respond to the demands of today's fast-paced, competitive business landscape. We're excited about the future of executive education at UPEI, and confident it will provide local entrepreneurs and executives with valuable and career-enhancing opportunities,' said MacDonald.

The School of Business Administration is working with Pinnacle Marketing Group and Schulich to identify programming that best fits the needs of the Island's business community. For more information about executive education programs and other learning opportunities at the School of Business Administration, please call (902) 566-0564 or visit business.upei.ca.

The Sierra Club of Canada, one of Canada’s largest and most reputable environmental organizations, has awarded two of its five annual prizes to a student and a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island, in part for their work on the “Sustainable UPEI” project.

Joshua S. Darrach, a fourth-year student majoring in philosophy with a minor in environmental studies, received the Sierra Youth Coalition of Canada (SYC) Inspiration Award. The award marks an outstanding contribution by a Sierra Club of Canada member under 25 years old and comes with a $2,000 scholarship to further the recipient’s education.

Darrach received the award for his work with “Sustainable UPEI”; his advocacy in SYC Sustainable Campuses; and for joining and co-organizing the Canadian Youth Delegation to the UN Climate Change meetings in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2006, and Bali, Indonesia, in 2007.

“UPEI Environmental Studies and Sustainability has been a life-changing experience,” says Darrach. “Many students like myself are now active in provincial, national, and international sustainability work. It has been a real incubator for youth leaders committed to positive, constructive change toward a sustainable world and future.”

Dr. Almut Beringer, a professor of environmental studies and sustainability at UPEI, received the Sierra Club of Canada Conservation Chapter Award for her contributions to the “Sustainable UPEI” initiative. Only one such prize is awarded across the five regional chapters of the Sierra Club.

Members of the University of Prince Edward Island's history and religious departments are featured in a P.E.I.-produced television series that is being broadcast on the Canadian Learning Television (CLT) at 9 p.m. AST on Monday nights this winter.

'Voices in Time: Great Speeches of the 20th Century' is a 13-part, half-hour television series focused on the people, events and moments in time captured by a famous speech or speeches that helped shape the course of history during the last century. This series blends archival footage, interviews and re-enactments to give viewers an insightful and moving look at historical events and the people involved in them.

Produced by Seahorse Entertainment, a P.E.I. production company, this second cycle of programs (episodes 14-26) includes shows about Fidel Castro, Lech Walesa, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev and Harry S. Truman. The episodes about Castro and Walesa aired on December 10 and 17 respectively.

The series is hosted by Professor Ian Dowbiggin, chair of the Department of History at UPEI. In several episodes, he is joined by Professors Phil Davis and Joe Velaidum, of the Department of Religious Studies, who provide additional insight and commentary on specific subjects.

Executive producer Larry LeClair is very pleased with the results. 'It's no easy task to produce a TV series using P.E.I. talent entirely at every stage of production. Certainly it wouldn't have been possible without the participation of Ian and his colleagues at UPEI.'

For his part, Dowbiggin was also happy to have been involved. 'This series is a tribute to LeClair's imagination, skills, knowledge and hard work. It's great when different parts of the P.E.I. community, including UPEI, can come together to produce such fine programming,' he says.

Gillan, who has worked at UPEI since 1989, is currently coordinator of UPEI's English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program for international students. Under her leadership, the program has grown from 21 students taking 42 EAP courses in the 2002/2003 acdemic year to 89 taking 212 courses in 2006/2007. In addition to assisting students academically, she serves them as a teacher, mentor and counselor.

Fiction writer Kathy Page will give a public reading on January 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the UPEI Faculty Lounge, Main Building, during her tour of the Maritime provinces this month.

Born in London, England, Page was a rising British literary star when she moved to Salt Spring Island, B.C., in the 1990s. She is best-known for her recent novels, The Story of My Face, long-listed for the 2002 Orange Prize for fiction, and Alphabet, nominated for the 2005 Governor General’s Award.

The Story of My Face gives us Natalie, a teenage girl looking for someone or something to latch on to. Her seemingly innocent involvement with a religious sect leads to the revelation of a long-kept secret and devastating events which change not only her face but also the course of her life. This novel is a psychological thriller and the archaeology of an accident which shaped a life.

In Alphabet, Simon Austen is serving a life sentence for murder. Intelligent and charming, but damaged and manipulative, he admits to what he's done but his motives are far from clear, even to himself. From his prison he begins an illicit correspondence with a series of women. The more he learns - about them and himself - the higher the stakes become. Simon finds himself on a perilous and unpredictable journey, stumbling towards self-knowledge and redemption.

In addition to her numerous posts as a writer-in-residence (including in a prison setting) and creative writing teacher, Page was a counsellor and psychotherapist earlier in her career. This experience contributes to the compelling reality of her characters, and to her fiction’s faith in personal transformation: “the magic by which a bad hand becomes a good chance.”

Page’s reading is sponsored by the UPEI English Department, with support from the Canada Council of the Arts. Admission is free. For further information, call (902) 566-0389.