Investment expert Sydney Tremayne will give a free public presentation on Thursday, September 24, at 2 p.m. in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre's McMillan Hall.

Tremayne's presentation, made possible in part by the UPEI Student Business Society and the UPEI Alumni Association, is part of the university's third annual Homecoming Weekend, which takes place from September 24 to 27.

Involved with investments for 55 years, Tremayne has written two bestsellers, Take the Guessing out of Investing (Prentice-Hall Canada, 1987), and Wealth Secrets Revealed: Lunch with Gaffer (Morgan James, New York, 2007). Born and educated in England, he lived in Canada for 46 years and now lives in a mountain village in Panama.

He spent 20 years as a journalist in England, Canada and East Africa, including stints as African correspondent for a Canadian chain of daily newspapers and editorial page writer for Canada's leading national newspaper.

After what he calls a less than auspicious start to his own investment efforts, he wants to see that young people have good savings and investment knowledge they can use for the rest of their lives.

The public is invited and seating is limited.

Other Homecoming events on Thursday include the distinguished alumni luncheon, the Alumni Association's annual general meeting and an Academic All-Canadian Dinner.

Friday's events include an exhibition of UPEI's collection of A. L. Morrison's paintings; a barbecue with donations accepted for the Passion for Life Award; Visionary Society reception; the tenth annual Founders' Day ceremony; and reunions for the classes of 1979 and 1989. A locker-room social for the 1989 AUS Championship Panther teams takes place between two basketball games.

Starting at 9:30 p.m. at The Wave is an All Years' Reunion pub night, featuring Sunday Punch and Big City.

Saturday features a 5K Fun Run, a family activity day, a residence competition and the Atlantic Veterinary College's ever-popular open house. The UPEI Panther men's and women's hockey teams take to the ice against Université de Moncton and St. Mary's respectively, and the soccer teams play against Acadia and St. Mary's. The day wraps up with a dance party at The Wave.

Homecoming Weekend wraps up on Sunday with a rugby game between UPEI and St. Francis Xavier, and Mass at 6 p.m.

For more information about Homecoming events, please contact Sarah MacInnis, Alumni Outreach Co-ordinator, at (902) 566-0687 or alumni@upei.ca, or visit www.upei.ca/alumni/homecoming

Two of Canada's outstanding poets, John Donlan and Sue Sinclair, will read at the Confederation Centre Library, on Tuesday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m.

Donlan was raised in Ontario's Muskoka lakes district. His father worked with teams of horses hauling logs in the bush; neighbours raised skunks, crows, and porcupines as domestic pets (a neighbour's crow, named for his father, stole clothespins from the wash to tease his mother). Surrounded by some of Canada's most beautiful wilderness celebrated in the paintings of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, Donlan developed a deep sense of belonging in the natural world. Far from Muskoka, he now works as a reference librarian at the Vancouver Public Library in downtown Vancouver, and is a poetry editor with Brick Books. His most recent collection is Spirit Engine.

Sue Sinclair was raised in St. John's, Newfoundland, and received an M.A. in Creative Writing and English from the University of New Brunswick. She now lives in Toronto. Her poetry books include Secrets of Weather and Hope, Mortal Arguments, The Drunken Lovely Bird, and, most recently, Breaker.

Her poetry possesses intense lyrical vision, steeped in wonder at the existence of the world, and grief at our inability to lose ourselves in it completely. Her perception is acutely focused and rigorously self-aware. She is not afraid of words like "beauty" or "being," and the intensity of her vision and gift for metaphor give those words a fresh, vital reality.

The Honourable Thomas Cromwell, of the Supreme Court of Canada, will be the guest lecturer at the Chief Justice Thane A. Campbell Lectureship in Law at the University of Prince Edward Island on Monday, October 5.

Cromwell will give a lecture entitled 'Atlantic Canada's Contributions to the Supreme Court of Canada' in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium (Room 242), Don and Marion McDougall Hall, at 7:30 p.m.

'Since the Supreme Court of Canada was created in 1875, 12 judges of the Court have been appointed from the Atlantic region, including Sir Louis Henry Davies, an Islander who served as the Chief Justice of Canada,' says Cromwell. 'From markedly different backgrounds, they have made significant contributions to the institution and to Canadian jurisprudence. This illustrated lecture will trace the development of the Court from its early days as an intermediate court of appeal to its present role as the court of last resort with special attention to the contributions of these judges.'

Cromwell was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada on December 22, 2008. He had previously been appointed to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal on August 27, 1997. He holds a B. Mus. (1973) and an LL.B. (1976) from Queen's University. He also obtained an A.R.C.T. diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1974 and attended Oxford University, where he earned a B.C.L. in 1977.

He practised law in Toronto and taught in the Faculty of Law of Dalhousie University. He worked as Executive Legal Officer to Chief Justice Antonio Lamer from 1992-95 and has held many other offices. He has served on the Canadian Judicial Council's working committee that prepared the publication entitled Ethical Principles for Judges, as well as its working committee on jury charges and education. He was also a faculty member for programs for new federally and provincially appointed judges, the National Judicial Institute's intensive evidence program, and other national and provincial continuing education programs. He has written or contributed to six books and numerous articles, and served on the editorial boards for CRIMJI and the Canadian Journal of Administrative Law and Practice.

His awards include the C.B.A.'s Louis J. St. Laurent Award of Excellence, 1992; Her Majesty's Jubilee Medal, 2002; the Dalhousie Law Students Society and Dalhousie Law Alumni Association Award of Teaching Excellence, 1992; and the Dalhousie Law Students' Society Class of 1986 Class Ring.

The Chief Justice Thane A. Campbell Lectureship in Law is co-sponsored by UPEI and the Law Foundation of Prince Edward Island. In 1991, the Foundation created an endowment at UPEI to provide a stimulating series of lectures in honour of Chief Justice Thane A. Campbell, former premier of PEI and first chancellor of UPEI.

Rianne Carragher, Marley Bruce, Ashley Caulier and Cheryl Edmunds travelled to Kenya as part of the Canadian International Development Agency's Students for Development Program.

The students will share their 11-week experience at a delicious African meal, slideshow presentation and silent auction in McMillan Hall. Teresa Mellish, of Farmers Helping Farmers, and Dr. Kim Critchley, Dean of Nursing, will be the guest speakers at the dinner.

Tickets are $10; only 250 will be sold. For information and tickets, contact Rianne Carragher at rcarragher@upei.ca, Marley Bruce at marley_bruce42@hotmail.com, or Suna Houghton, UPEI International Development Office, at shoughton@upei.ca or 894-2842.

In addition, DJ-J Rod will entertain into the wee hours at The Wave that night. The cover charge is $5, but people with tickets to the dinner will be admitted for no additional charge.

All proceeds raised from both events will go toward the institutions where the students worked during their internships. These include St. Theresa's Mission Hospital in Kiirua, Mother of Maria Zanelli's Children's Home in the slums of Machaka and St. Theresa's House of Hope Children's Home in Elimentita for children living with HIV.

His talk, entitled 'What you are and who you are in the era of genome projects,' will take place in the Regis and Joan Duffy Research Centre's lecture theatre from 3 to 4 p.m. The lecture is open to the public.

Scherer is Director of The Centre for Applied Genomics at The Hospital for Sick Children at the University of Toronto. His research examines the composition of the human genome for studies of genetic disease. His recent work characterizes structural variation in the human genome, and examines the role of genetics in autism. Long-standing endeavours include the study of human chromosome 7 as a model of the chromosomal basis of disease, and building genomics infrastructure to facilitate biomedical research. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed articles (cited >12,000 times) and won numerous awards including the 2004 Steacie Prize in the Natural Sciences and an international Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholarship. He holds the GlaxoSmithKline-Canadian Institutes of Health Research Endowed Chair in Genetics and Genomics and chairs Genome Canada's Science Advisory Board. He is a Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

The Gairdner Foundation was created in 1957 by James Arthur Gairdner to recognize and reward the achievements of medical researchers whose work contributes significantly to improving the quality of human life. Since the first awards were made in 1959, the Gairdner Awards have become Canada's foremost international award. They hold up the pinnacle of achievement as a mirror to Canadians, and in so doing, play a role in helping Canada achieve its goals of excellence.

The Foundation's core mandate is to select the annual Canada Gairdner International Awardees. Over the past 50 years, the Foundation has gained a superb international reputation for recognizing and rewarding the work of the world's leading scientists. An external measure of their stature is the fact that of the 298 individuals from 13 countries, including 42 Canadians, who have received Gairdner Awards, 73 have subsequently gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

The Tourism Research Centre at the University of PEI is pleased to release a new report on visitors to P.E.I. Using the visitor exit survey from July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008, visitors were profiled based on how much they spent while in P.E.I.

'Low-spending travel parties tended to be Maritime baby boomer couples who made P.E.I. their primary destination,' said Dr. Paul Lewis, Research Director at the TRC. 'Although they spent the least amount of money in P.E.I.--less than $100 per party per night--they were our most frequent guests and stayed longer than the other groups, likely because half of them came to P.E.I. to visit friends and relatives.'

Low-spending travel parties were a significant off-season fall and winter crowd. They were by far the most likely of all four categories to visit in the winter and the least likely to visit in the main season or spring-shoulder season.

Medium-low spending travel parties made up 41 per cent of travel parties to P.E.I. and spent from $100 to $250 per night. They also tended to be Maritime baby boomer couples who made P.E.I. their primary destination. Like low-spending travel parties, most of these visitors also came from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; over half travelled as adult-couple travel parties, and many were over 35 years of age. P.E.I. was also their main destination by a wide margin.

'Medium-low spending travel parties were less likely to be repeat visitors, and those who were repeat visitors tended to return less frequently,' explained Dr. Lewis. 'They were also more likely to visit in the spring than low-spending travel parties.'

Medium-high spending travel parties spent from $250 to $450 per night. They were the most likely to be travelling as families with children under 18. They tended to stay in the more expensive forms of lodging like hotels, motels and resorts, inns, B&Bs and tourist homes as well as cottages and cabins instead of campgrounds and trailer parks, or with friends and relatives.

'Medium-high travel parties were quite active when in P.E.I.,' stated Dr. Lewis. 'They often had the highest level of participation for any given activity, with the more notable exceptions of visiting friends and relatives and partaking in sporting activities. They spent a significant portion of their nights in Anne's Land, and in cottages or cabins. Although many stayed in hotels, motels, and resorts, their stays tended to be shorter.'

High-spending travel parties--those who spent more than $450 per night--were like medium-high travel parties in that they were more likely to be first-time visitors. A significant proportion of high-spending travel parties were families, and parties composed of three or more adults. They were the most likely to stay overnight in Charlottetown, and the most likely to stay in a hotel, motel, or resort. Their stays in P.E.I. were the shortest at only 2.5 nights. Just over 20 per cent of high-spending travel parties visited in the fall, the highest rate of visitation during this season of all expenditure groups.

This report is available on the exit survey section of the TRC's website. More information about the report can be obtained from the Tourism Research Centre, School of Business, UPEI, at (902) 566-6096 or trc@upei.ca.

The UPEI women's soccer program has received a $5,000 award from the national True Sport Community Fund for leadership in community sports development work.

UPEI women's soccer team captain Mandy Lise McKenna will be presented with a certificate of the award prior to the start of the team's home game against Cape Breton University on Saturday, October 3, at 3 p.m.

'We are very proud of our women's soccer program,' says coach Michael Redmond. 'Our athletes believe strongly in making social change--locally and globally. These young women are wonderful student athletes who represent themselves, and their school, community and country with great pride. They are a wonderful example of what sport should represent.'

The True Sport Community Fund is administered on behalf of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and the True Sport Foundation, a charitable organization committed to the belief that sport makes a powerful and positive contribution to the development of people and their communities. True Sport believes in value-driven sport founded on four core values of fairness, excellence, inclusion and fun.

The UPEI women's soccer program is a leader in community sports development in Canada, says Redmond. This year the team participated in many activities across the Island with the goal of making positive change in their own community.

Activities included hosting the annual 12-hour SOS Children's Villages soccer game; organizing a Valentine's Day teddy bear drive for the pediatric ward at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and indoor and March Break soccer programs; visiting seniors' homes; hosting a sports game day and barbecue for newcomers to PEI and Canada; participating in the Alzheimer's Society of PEI's Christmas house tours, the Tim Horton's Food Drive and the IWK Hospital Radiothon.

The players will sell pink winter hats on campus and at the men's and women's soccer games this Sunday to raise money for the Run for the Cure. And on October 24, they will volunteer at West Kent School's fall fair.

Redmond says that the soccer program's community sports development work is part of its 'Green Print' program, launched in 2007. Through this program, UPEI's soccer teams promote their sport, education and healthy living programs across P.E.I., and support special causes around the world.

Jean-Marc Hachey, a leading authority on international careers, will give a presentation about working and studying overseas on Tuesday, October 13, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Bill and Denise Andrew Hall, Room 142, at UPEI.

A best-selling writer, Hachey has shared his international employment strategies with thousands as author of The BIG Guide to Living and Working Overseas and as the international careers editor and columnist for TransitionsAbroad.com. He has worked overseas for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, World University Service, Canadian Crossroads International, and the German Volunteer Service. Since 1990 he has been mentoring students, recent graduates and others interested in pursuing opportunities abroad. He has presented seminars at more than 160 colleges, universities and career fairs, and for governments and nongovernmental organizations.

Fluent in French and English, Hachey has a business degree from the University of New Brunswick and an MA in Political Science from l'Université Laval in Québec City.

This event is open to the public. For more information, please contact Kyla Hennessey at UPEI's Department of Student Services, at (902) 566-0738. For information about Hachey, visit www.workingoverseas.com.

The Atlantic Veterinary College at UPEI celebrated the re-opening of its expanded and renovated Veterinary Teaching Hospital today marking a new era of veterinary health care for Atlantic Canada.

'The Atlantic Veterinary College's Veterinary Teaching Hospital is the only full service veterinary referral hospital in Atlantic Canada,' said Dr. Donald L. Reynolds, Dean of the Atlantic Veterinary College. 'We take great pride in providing exceptional care for our clients and their animals, and an outstanding education for our veterinary medicine students.'

Approximately 10,000 square feet was renovated and added to the veterinary hospital at a cost of $3.2 million. The upgrade included increasing the number of surgery rooms; an expanded anesthesia, induction and recovery area; an Intensive Care Unit and isolation ward; a family consultation room; clinical conference space; rooms dedicated to dentistry, special procedures and exotic animals; and an improved bovine loading area.

Each year more than 5,000 companion animals and approximately 750 large animals from throughout the Atlantic region receive care at the College's Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Many of these animals are referred to the Atlantic Veterinary College by veterinarians from throughout the Atlantic provinces.

The Atlantic Veterinary College's Veterinary Teaching Hospital provides comprehensive treatment and care through specialties such as veterinary cardiology, orthopedics, dermatology, ophthalmology, surgery, herd health, internal medicine, theriogenology and community practice. This expertise is delivered by a team of clinicians, technicians, interns, residents and veterinary students.

Senior veterinary students spend their final year of training in the Veterinary Teaching Hospital working directly with clients to gain valuable hands-on experience.

'In addition to better care for client animals, improvements to the hospital translate directly into enhanced training and learning opportunities for our soon-to-be veterinarians,' explains Dr. Reynolds.

The Atlantic Veterinary College is committed to excellence and innovation in education, research and professional services. Funded by the four Atlantic provinces, the Atlantic Veterinary College is the only veterinary college in eastern Canada and north of Boston. Since 1990, the College has trained more than 1,100 veterinarians - the majority of which work and live in Atlantic Canada.