Beginning this year, both new and returning UPEI students are able to register earlier for 2015-16 courses than ever before. Registration* for returning UPEI students opens in June as follows:

June 2 - fourth-year students
June 3 - third-year students
June 4 - second-year students
June 5 onward - first-year students, and registration remains open to all students

Registration can be completed via Campus Login or in person at the Registrar's Office from Monday to Friday, 8:30 am-4:00 pm. (NEW! To facilitate the transition to earlier registration dates, the $100 tuition deposit will be deferred until July 17 for current, returning students.)

Students' year of study will be updated under 'Registration Status' on their Campus Login before registration begins.

More information about early registration dates for the 2015-16 academic year can be found on the UPEI website.

New, first-year UPEI students can register for courses with the First-Year Advising office either during group sessions or individually with a first-year advisor. Contact beready@upei.ca or 902-628-4353 to schedule a time.

*Note: Some professional programs follow different registration dates. Please check with individual program for more information.

Canadian Catholic Campus Ministers host an annual lecture named for their first Episcopal Liaison, Bishop John Sherlock. The 2015 Sherlock Lecture speaker is Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ, Vatican Astronomer. The lecture will be Thursday May 28 at 7:00 pm in the Amphitheatre of UPEI's Duffy Science Centre. Admission will be by a free-will offering to support Brother Guy's work at The Vatican Observatory.

Thursday's lecture "At the Margins of the Universe: The Vatican's Astronomical Observatory" will include why the Vatican supports an observatory and how we do outreach to people on the margins who hunger to know about their place in the universe.

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is the President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. A Jesuit brother and astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, his research is in meteorites and asteroids. He is a native of Detroit, Michigan. He received his BA and MA degrees from MIT, and earned his PhD in Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona in 1978. Along with more than 200 scientific publications, he is the author of six popular astronomy books. In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences.

UPEI's School of Nursing and Health PEI held their annual Nursing Research Day at UPEI's Don and Marion McDougall Hall on Friday, May 22, 2015. The theme of this year's conference was '21st Century Nursing: Challenges and Opportunities in Practice.' Nursing Research Day brings together practicing nurses, academic researchers, and students to hear and share the latest research from their respective fields of practice.

"I am very excited about our 2015 Nursing Research Day,' said Dr. Rosemary Herbert, Dean of UPEI's School of Nursing. 'This conference profiles nursing research and practice innovations, and brings together nurses from all settings as well as nursing students."

This year's keynotes included:

Dr. Kathleen Valentine is the Dean of Nursing at UNB. She comes to UNB from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Professions where she served as associate dean for clinical affairs and community engagement. Her research focuses on the economic value of human caring, nurse managed primary care clinics, and inter-professional collaboration.

Dr. Shelley Doucet is the Jarislowsky Chair Inter-professional Patient Centred Care at the University of New Brunswick and is recognized as an emerging leader in inter-professional education and practice within Canada.

Kristen Cameron was born and raised in Charlottetown, PEI. She attended Bowdoin College where she played NCAA hockey and completed her degree in psychology. Kristen was named an All American her first year for her outstanding play. She coached one of the top hockey programs in the country at Mercyhurst University, where she served as an assistant coach. Kristen is currently working towards her goal of making the national wheelchair rugby team and representing Canada at the Paralympics. Kristen will speak about her experience as a patient.

Dr. Herbert says the 2015 Nursing Research Day couldn't have happened without the organizing committee, including Angela Carpenter, Karen Dunn, Audrey Fraser, Cheryl Gaudet, Rosemary Herbert, Dawn Inman-Flynn, Pat MacPhail-Darrach, Keri Thompson, Marla Townshend, Jessica Webster, Brenda Worth.

The University of Prince Edward Island released its 2015-16 Operating Budget today after it was approved at a meeting of the Board of Governors last night. The balanced budget, which is just under $107 million, includes a tuition increase of three per cent, keeping it among the lowest in the Maritimes, and sustains core program and services as well as UPEI's workforce.

'UPEI is so proud of the role we play in supporting student, faculty, and research success, and in contributing to the Prince Edward Island economy,' says President Alaa Abd-El-Aziz. 'This budget strikes a balance between our University priorities and strategic investments for the future as outlined in our UPEI Strategic Plan.'

The budget plan was approved under the assumption that the provincial government's core operating grant, UPEI's single largest source of revenue, will increase by 1.6 per cent over last year's funding as the Government of PEI has not yet tabled its budget.

'We appreciate that post-secondary education continues to be a priority for the Government of PEI,' adds President Abd-El-Aziz. 'We arrived at this scenario after months of preparing for a number of possible situations, and working closely with senior government officials.'

Throughout the budget process, administrators across campus worked to minimize the impact on UPEI's most valuable resource-people-by continuing to reduce non-salary expenditures as much as possible. While the proportion of the operating budget allocated to salaries and benefits remains high at 72%, UPEI was able to sustain the workforce through vacancy management and attrition.

Anticipated flat enrolment numbers, normal inflationary effects, salary increments, pension commitments, benefit costs, heat, electricity, and deferred maintenance continue to be other cost drivers. University revenues are used to cover core-operating costs including wages, utilities, equipment replacement and supply cost increases. The principal sources of funding are the provincial government operating grant and student tuition.

Vice-President Administration and Finance Jackie Podger says, 'Though we recognize the rising costs of post-secondary education and do not want to overburden students, we did need to increase tuition rates to help counteract our significant budget pressures.'

The undergraduate tuition increase of 3 per cent represents $17 per course or $170 per year for a student taking a full course load. International student fees will also increase by 3 per cent.

UPEI Student Union President Dana Kenny says, 'While we cannot endorse a tuition increase of 3 per cent, we understand the challenges that the University faces when trying to balance the budget. We do appreciate the University putting the interests of students first and keeping fee increases to a minimum, but it is the continued opinion of the UPEI Student Union that annual increases to tuition be indexed to the Consumer Price Index.'

The operating budget does not include research funds, which are budgeted separately on a project-by-project basis but does include the budget of departments that provide support to research. Capital projects, such as the construction of the new School of Sustainable Design Engineering, are also budgeted on a project-by-project basis and reported within the capital assets fund.

UPEI's 2015-16 Operating Budget is posted online at upei.ca/publications.

The Department of Athletics and Recreation is inviting applications for the position of head coach for the UPEI Women's Basketball team as Mark English has accepted a position in St. John's, N.L.

Director of Athletics and Recreation Chris Huggan accepted English's resignation earlier this week.

'It's disappointing to lose Mark, especially after a great season that saw the Women's Basketball team achieve so much under his leadership,' says Huggan. 'But the opportunity to move back to his home province of Newfoundland presented itself, so we all wish him well.'

'I am confident we will find a candidate who will build on our recent success and inspire the Panthers to have another great year.'

The head coach position is full-time and responsible for building a competitive women's basketball program at the University of Prince Edward Island. The competition closes Friday, June 5.

Job posting on UPEI website

Beginning this year, both new and returning UPEI students are able to register earlier for 2015-16 courses than ever before. Registration* for returning UPEI students opens in June as follows:

June 2 - fourth-year students
June 3 - third-year students
June 4 - second-year students
June 5 onward - first-year students, and registration remains open to all students

Registration can be completed via Campus Login or in person at the Registrar's Office from Monday to Friday, 8:30 am-4:00 pm. (NEW! To facilitate the transition to earlier registration dates, the $100 tuition deposit will be deferred until July 17 for current, returning students.)

Students' year of study will be updated under 'Registration Status' on their Campus Login before registration begins.

More information about early registration dates for the 2015-16 academic year can be found on the UPEI website.

New, first-year UPEI students can register for courses with the First-Year Advising office either during group sessions or individually with a first-year advisor. Contact beready@upei.ca or 902-628-4353 to schedule a time.

*Note: Some professional programs follow different registration dates. Please check with individual program for more information.

Richard Nowakowski will talk games in a public lecture on Friday, June 5 at 5 pm as part of the Canadian Mathematical Society's Summer Meeting at the University of Prince Edward Island.

'Games in general have very nice mathematical formulas,' said Nowakowski. 'It may look like there are a number of possible moves, but mathematical analysis focuses on just a few.'

Chess and checkers are two games that Nowakowski studies, as he specializes in two-player games where the players move alternately, there are no random factors and the last player to move determines the winner.

Nowakowski is heavily involved with the CMS and mathematics in the Maritimes. He volunteers with Dalhousie Math Circles, a mathematics outreach program based out of the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at Dalhousie University, where he works as a research professor. Nowakowski also volunteered on a team of university markers across Canada who graded the Sun Life Financial Canadian Mathematics Challenge (COMC) in November 2014. He has worked with the CMS since the mid-1980s and is a former Canadian Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) Chair.

Nowakowski said he is happy to have the CMS Meeting back again in Atlantic Canada. The last CMS Meeting in the region was in Halifax for the 2013 Summer Meeting.

'It's nice to have the meetings rotate around the country,' said Nowakowski. 'You always get quite a few local people attending, so there should be a strong turn-out of Atlantic mathematicians.'

The public lecture will launch the 2015 Canadian Mathematical Society Summer Meeting. More than 300 mathematics professionals, students, and educators from Canada and around the world are expected to attend. Nowakowski's lecture takes place at the University of Prince Edward Island on Friday June 5 at 5 pm in the Alex H. MacKinnon Auditorium, 242 Don and Marion McDougall Hall, and is a free event. No mathematical background is required to appreciate the talk.

About Richard Nowakowski
Richard Nowakowski is a Research Professor at Dalhousie University, specializing in game theory and graph theory. In 2008, he was awarded the CMS Adrien Pouliot Award, which recognizes contributions to outreach and teaching and the 1995-1996 Dalhousie University Faculty of Science Teaching Award. More information about Richard can be found on his website: http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~rjn/Home.html

About the Canadian Mathematical Society
The CMS is the national mathematics organization that promotes the advancement, discovery, learning and application of mathematics. The Society's activities cover the whole spectrum of mathematics including: scientific meetings, research publications, and the promotion of excellence in mathematics education at all levels. The CMS annually sponsors mathematics awards and prizes that recognize outstanding achievements.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian men, with one in seven developing the disease in his lifetime. An average of 65 Canadian men are diagnosed every day, and 11 of those men will die from it. 90% of cases can be cured thanks to medical advances, but early detection is the key.

Every year, motorcycle enthusiasts from across the country join together to raise funds to fight prostate cancer in the TELUS Motorcycle Ride for Dad. In this year's edition, some of the money raised by the PEI chapter will support the research Dr. Bill Whelan, professor of physics at UPEI.

Dr. Whelan's research uses technology called optoacoustics, which uses light and sound to detect cancer. With optoacoustics, short pulses of light are sent into tissue, and sound is created. Measuring the strength and frequency of the sound may help to better locate cancerous cells and possibly sooner while the tumour is small.

This new partnership with the PEI TELUS Ride for Dad will support UPEI's ongoing research efforts in developing optoacoustic imaging to improve prostate cancer detection and treatment monitoring," said Dr. Whelan.

"According to the Canadian Cancer Society, PEI Prostate cancer mortality rates are 35% above the national average. This is quite disturbing,' said Tamara Shores, Chairperson of the PEI TELUS Ride for Dad. 'We are very fortunate to have Dr. Whelan performing his research right here on PEI and we are pleased and excited to be able to contribute to his research.'

'We at UPEI are grateful for the contribution of every participant and donor to the TELUS Ride for Dad,' said Dr. Robert Gilmour, Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies at UPEI. 'This contribution allows Dr. Whelan to hire and train a student to aid in his research. This is the second award to UPEI from the Ride to support research at UPEI, and we're proud to continue this relationship.'

The mission of the TELUS Ride For Dad is to raise funds to save men's lives by supporting prostate cancer research and raising public awareness of the disease.
Funds are raised through large-scale, one-day motorcycle, snowmobile, watercraft, and ATV ride events and through ongoing public fundraising throughout the year. TELUS Ride For Dad events take place in multiple cities across Canada, representing every Canadian province. The PEI Ride is Saturday, June 13, 2015.

Since 2000, the TELUS Ride For Dad has donated more than 15 million dollars to the Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation to support prostate cancer research and awareness in the communities where the funds were raised. For more information, visit ridefordad.ca.

The Department of English at UPEI and the PEI Writers' Guild will co-host much-loved author Sheree Fitch as Writer in Residence during June 21-28.

Sheree is a children's author, poet, and novelist with more than 25 publications. She has received numerous awards and given presentations and workshops on many topics in Canada and abroad. Her writing for both children and adults has been described as 'exuberant, joy-filled and wise.' Her readings are 'magical' and her workshops 'inspirational.'

Her two workshops will be on Saturday, June 27: 'Writing Children's Literature - Serious Nonsense, Word Play & Utter Stuff' at 9:30 am-12:00 pm, and 'How to Write That Book You Need to Write' at 1:00 pm-3:30 pm. Both workshops will be in the SDU Main Building, room 320, UPEI.

Sheree will give two public readings: Confederation Centre Art Gallery on Tuesday, June 23, at 7:30 pm, and Montague Rotary Library on Thursday, June 25, at 6:30 pm. Both readings are free admission.

For more information on the workshops and to register, please visit the PEI Writers' Guild Website.

The UPEI International Relations Office (IRO) is recruiting volunteer Conversation Partners for its summer programs. The IRO hosts an English Language Summer Camp where students participate in English Academic Preparation (EAP) courses in the morning and fun, educational activities during the afternoon. The camps will be ongoing through the summer from July 24 through August 28. For more information, please visit http://projects.upei.ca/englishsummercamp/.

The IRO is looking for volunteers to participate in activities with these visiting students. Volunteers will be encouraged to become Conversation Partners, to help fellow students learn, and develop their English language skills.

This opportunity will allow you to learn about another culture, participate in fun socio-cultural activities, and help students practice their English. Please contact Nouhad Mourad (nmourad@upei.ca) or Teresa Tu (jtu@upei.ca) with the UPEI International Relations Office for more information on how you can get involved.

About the UPEI International Relations Office
UPEI's IRO facilitates student exchanges, assists in official visits from international delegations, and provides academic and personal services to our many international students.

About UPEI's English Language Summer Camp
Students aged 16 - 22 spend 2-6 weeks learning English in the morning and participating in fun, cultural activities in the afternoons. Highly qualified and experienced English language instructors work very hard to help students make improvements in speaking, listening, and to improve their overall confidence in using English. Students share their cultures and learn about things such as Anne of Green Gables and LM Montgomery, sustainable energy, and Canadian Culture and History.