The UPEI Department of Music presents "Swing Into Spring" with the 18-member Charlottetown Jazz Ensemble, who will showcase its big-band mix of contemporary and classic jazz tunes from the books of jazz giants like George Gershwin, Count Basie, and Maynard Ferguson, along with works by contemporary composers like Frank Mantooth and Carlos Eiene. 

The concert will take place on the SDU Stage, Dr. Steel Recital Hall, Steel Building, on April 26 at 7:40 pm. Accessible parking is available, and the theatre has an accessible entrance via elevator. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students, payable by cash at the door.

The UPEI Department of Music welcomes two members of Ensemble ArtChoral (Janelle Lucyk, soprano/violinist; and Kerry Bursey, tenor/lutenist) to perform their concert "The Nine Maidens" as part of their coast-to-coast-to-coast tour.

Their program will feature music from Nova Scotian folklorist Helen Creighton's Maritime folk song collection, alongside early music and other traditional English and French songs. Through voices, plucked strings, and some violin, the duo performs old music in an intimate manner, with ayres and ballads recounting the transience of good fortune in the life of a voyager.

This event will take place on the SDU Stage, Dr. Steel Recital Hall, Steel Building, on April 25, starting at 7:30 pm. Accessible parking is available, and the theatre has an accessible entrance via elevator. Tickets are $30 for adults and $10 for students, payable by cash at the door.

Presenter: Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Hassan, candidate for a tenure-track position, UPEI School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Teaching talk: Wednesday, April 24, 9:00--10:00 am, Cass Science Hall 101

Research talk: Wednesday, April 24, 10:25--11:25 am, Cass Science Hall 101

Title: "Empirical Study on the Application of Quantum, LLM, and Federated Machine Learning in Software Engineering--Challenges and Opportunities!"

In this series of research endeavours, we explore the application of cutting-edge technologies in the domain of software engineering, poised to revolutionize traditional methodologies and enhance analytics. Our first study delves into the practical utilization of Quantum Support Vector Classifiers (QSVC) for detecting buggy software commits, leveraging the power of quantum computing to tackle complex challenges. Despite the computational hurdles posed by large datasets, our findings showcase the potential of quantum-assisted algorithms to significantly improve detection accuracy. Moving forward, we introduce an automated approach to deriving UML sequence diagrams from user stories, harnessing the capabilities of generative AI models to streamline design validation and communication processes in Agile development environments. By leveraging state-of-the-art techniques, our research illuminates novel pathways for enhancing collaboration and system understanding. Finally, we delve into analytics with a focus on Just-In-Time (JIT) and Real-Time (RT) bug-inducing commit prediction using Federated Learning (FL), a cutting-edge approach that addresses privacy concerns while maintaining robust model performance across diverse software projects. Through the application of advanced technologies, our studies pave the way for transformative advancements in software engineering, offering insights that stand at the forefront of innovation and industry relevance.

Teaching and research talks are open to the UPEI campus community.

Research Ethics Board (REB) applications involving "more than minimal risk" must be reviewed by the full UPEI REB. The next deadline for submitting these protocols is Friday, April 26, 2024, for review at the May meeting.

Other ethics protocol submissions, including new applications that do not involve more than minimal risk, renewals, and amendments, may be submitted at any time. They will be sent for delegated review as soon as all necessary materials are received.

All research compliance applications, including for the REB, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal (https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/). Instructions for using the site are available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca for more information about the Researcher Portal, or the REB application, review, and approval process.

The next deadline for submitting biosafety applications, including new applications, renewals, and/or amendments, is Friday, April 26, 2024. These applications will be reviewed at the May 16 meeting.

All research compliance applications, including biosafety application forms, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal. Information about the Researcher Portal, including instructions for using the site, is available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Research Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca if you have any questions about accessing or using the Researcher Portal, or about the biosafety application, review, and approval process.

Members of the campus community are invited to attend a special announcement regarding the Faculty of Business on Wednesday, April 24, at 11:00 am in Schurman Market Square, Don and Marion McDougall Hall. 

There will be a basic biosafety training session on May 15, 2024, at 1:00 pm in AVC 287N. Topics will include basic biosafety principles and how they are applied at the University of Prince Edward Island, as well as biosecurity training. This session is open to everyone, including graduate students.

To attend, you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell by the end of the day on May 10, 2024, by email (hse@upei.ca) or by phone (902-566-0901). Please provide your name, department, your supervisor’s name (if applicable), email address, and phone number in your email or voice message. Please indicate if you are a graduate student. 

NOTE: An online basic biosafety training refresher course is available for those who need it. 

Looking to procrastinate your grading just a little? We get it.

The Experiential Education department would like to gather feedback from faculty about the type of supports and services they would like to see with respect to career development and work-integrated learning through the 2024/25 academic year. This feedback will help us plan and prioritize as we allocate resources to our work across campus.

Please visit https://forms.gle/DhhN8HvJzUYuK5US9 to provide your feedback. Thanks!

UPEI's fiscal year ends on April 30, 2024.

Purchasing Cut-Offs

Requisition/purchase order:

The last day to create a requisition/purchase order for the 2023-24 fiscal year will be on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at noon, with guaranteed delivery date on or before April 30, 2024.

Requisitions/purchase orders created after April 18, 2024, will have the requisition date changed to May 1, 2024, and the goods and services must be delivered on or after May 1, 2024. If you are unable to change the requisition's date to May 1, 2024, please put a note in the comment section of the requisition indicating it is a new year order.

Receiving goods/services cut-off: April 30, 2024

Goods and services must be received on campus by April 30, 2024. Only the goods that have been physically received or completed services should be accepted at this time. This will ensure that these goods and services are paid in the 2023-24 fiscal year.  Any items received in myUPEI after April 30, 2024, will be considered new fiscal year goods and services and will be deducted from your new fiscal year budget (2024-25).

All departments are required to look at their outstanding purchase order list to see if there are any purchase orders that need to be cancelled. This functionality can be accessed through the myUPEI self-service menu under "Financial Information" and the “Receive Goods and Services” selection.

If the items have been back-ordered for some time, you will need to check with the supplier to see if they are still on their records as back-ordered. If they are not back-ordered, then please email procurement@upei.ca to cancel your purchase order.

If you are in receipt of vendor invoices, forward these to invoices@upei.ca ASAP. Please contact apadmin@upei.ca with questions or concerns regarding billing and invoicing.

Need assistance? 

Please take a look at the “Financial Tools Reference Guide” under the "Self-Service Help" tab on myUPEI. 

Dr. Brent MacLaine will launch a new poetry book called A Skeptic in Springtime on April 24, 2024, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge (Room 201), SDU Main Building, University of Prince Edward Island. 

A Skeptic in Springtime wrestles with uncertainty and aging, hurricanes, gravity, and particle theory. Amid all the unknowns, “Still, the white-throated sparrow cries I’m here, here, here, here.” Rooted in the PEI landscape where MacLaine grew up, his gaze ranges farther afield to Assyrian myth in “Killing a Lassamu,” to the Song Dynasty in “Su Dongpo Makes Ink,” to art in “Claude Monet in the Waiting Room.”

The book closes with a tribute to the late Dr. John Smith, former poet laureate of PEI. Combining keen observation of the natural world and the human condition, the poems in this collection contain “a universe which has leapt from nothing into something.”

Dr. MacLaine is a professor emeritus at the UPEI Department of English and the author of six volumes of poetry. He grew up in the rural community of Rice Point, PEI, to which he returned after teaching at universities in Vancouver, Edmonton, China, and Singapore. His awards for poetry include a League of Canadian Poets prize, the Prince Edward Island Book Award, and the Atlantic Poetry Prize.

The event is free, and all are welcome to attend. Books will be available for purchase. The event is sponsored by Island Studies Press, the UPEI English Department, and The Bookmark. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.

Presenter: Dr. Mohammad Mahdi Hassan, candidate for a tenure-track position, UPEI School of Mathematical and Computational Sciences

Teaching talk: Wednesday, April 24, 9:00--10:00 am, Cass Science Hall 101

Research talk: Wednesday, April 24, 10:25--11:25 am, Cass Science Hall 101

Title: "Empirical Study on the Application of Quantum, LLM, and Federated Machine Learning in Software Engineering--Challenges and Opportunities!"

In this series of research endeavours, we explore the application of cutting-edge technologies in the domain of software engineering, poised to revolutionize traditional methodologies and enhance analytics. Our first study delves into the practical utilization of Quantum Support Vector Classifiers (QSVC) for detecting buggy software commits, leveraging the power of quantum computing to tackle complex challenges. Despite the computational hurdles posed by large datasets, our findings showcase the potential of quantum-assisted algorithms to significantly improve detection accuracy. Moving forward, we introduce an automated approach to deriving UML sequence diagrams from user stories, harnessing the capabilities of generative AI models to streamline design validation and communication processes in Agile development environments. By leveraging state-of-the-art techniques, our research illuminates novel pathways for enhancing collaboration and system understanding. Finally, we delve into analytics with a focus on Just-In-Time (JIT) and Real-Time (RT) bug-inducing commit prediction using Federated Learning (FL), a cutting-edge approach that addresses privacy concerns while maintaining robust model performance across diverse software projects. Through the application of advanced technologies, our studies pave the way for transformative advancements in software engineering, offering insights that stand at the forefront of innovation and industry relevance.

Teaching and research talks are open to the UPEI campus community.

Research Ethics Board (REB) applications involving "more than minimal risk" must be reviewed by the full UPEI REB. The next deadline for submitting these protocols is Friday, April 26, 2024, for review at the May meeting.

Other ethics protocol submissions, including new applications that do not involve more than minimal risk, renewals, and amendments, may be submitted at any time. They will be sent for delegated review as soon as all necessary materials are received.

All research compliance applications, including for the REB, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal (https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/). Instructions for using the site are available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca for more information about the Researcher Portal, or the REB application, review, and approval process.

The next deadline for submitting biosafety applications, including new applications, renewals, and/or amendments, is Friday, April 26, 2024. These applications will be reviewed at the May 16 meeting.

All research compliance applications, including biosafety application forms, must be submitted through the UPEI Researcher Portal. Information about the Researcher Portal, including instructions for using the site, is available at https://www.upei.ca/research-services/forms.

Please contact the Research Compliance Coordinator at researchcompliance@upei.ca if you have any questions about accessing or using the Researcher Portal, or about the biosafety application, review, and approval process.

Want to learn about high performance computing, or how to use parallel programming to break down large computational problems? ACENET has new training sessions coming up in May and June. All sessions are online and free of charge. Select a session below to learn more and register.

• Introductory Programming: Unix Shell, Git, and Python, May 1, 8, 15, and 22, 1:00 pm
• Basics of Computers, May 9, 1:00 pm
• ACENET Basics: Introduction to High Performance Computing, May 14, 10:00 am
• ACENET Basics: Introduction to Linux, May 15, 10:00 am
• ACENET Basics: Introduction to Shell Scripting, May 16, 10:00 am
• ACENET Basics: Job Scheduling with Slurm, May 17, 10:00 am
• Overview of Parallel Computing, May 21 and 23, 2:00 pm
• Parallel Programming with Dask, June 4 and 6, 2:00 pm
• Parallel Programming with OpenMP, June 11 and 13, 2:00 pm
• Parallel Programming with Message Passing Interface, June 18 and 20, 2:00 pm
• Parallel Programming with Graphic Processing Units, June 25 and 27, 2:00 pm

If you have questions about upcoming training or ACENET services at UPEI, contact Kaitlin Newson.

On April 23, there will be a full moon ceremony on the quad outside Kelley Memorial Building (where the tipi stood). The sacred fire will be lit at 8:00 pm. Leading the ceremony will be Elder Thirely, who is well-respected in the community. We ask participants to bring a bottle of water for blessing and to refrain from recording the ceremony (photo or video). If you would like to wear a skirt but do not have one, you may borrow one during the ceremony. As always, all are welcome.

Since time immemorial, Indigenous Peoples have followed the 13 Moons or moon cycles to ground themselves in their teachings and ensure balance. Life on Earth is connected to and regulated by Grandmother Moon, through the tides and waters, which stabilizes our Earth's position and determines the cycle of women and the birth of new life. Grandmother Moon helps us with healing and is strongly connected to human life.

Members of the campus community are invited to attend a special announcement regarding the Faculty of Business on Wednesday, April 24, at 11:00 am in Schurman Market Square, Don and Marion McDougall Hall. 

One week left until our EDIID symposium! Here's another blog in our April series of Tea(ching) Breaks related to EDIID topics: How Identities Impact Our Pedagogical Practices.

Looking to procrastinate your grading just a little? We get it.

The Experiential Education department would like to gather feedback from faculty about the type of supports and services they would like to see with respect to career development and work-integrated learning through the 2024/25 academic year. This feedback will help us plan and prioritize as we allocate resources to our work across campus.

Please visit https://forms.gle/DhhN8HvJzUYuK5US9 to provide your feedback. Thanks!

A series of information webinars on the Rhodes Scholarship for Canada will be offered this spring for students interested in learning more about this prestigious opportunity for fully funded postgraduate study at Oxford University! Applicants, advisors, and faculty who may wish to encourage students are welcome to attend and learn everything from the background of the Scholarship, what's needed to apply, and the Oxford experience as shared by recent scholars. There will also be a Q&A with current and recent Scholars.

The Eastern Canada session will take place on May 6, 2024, starting at 4 pm AST. Follow the link to register.

The full list of webinars and events will be posted on the Rhodes Trust website, including a Canada-wide session on June 3, 2024, starting at 4 pm AST: 

https://www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholarships/events-to-learn-more/

Dr. Brent MacLaine will launch a new poetry book called A Skeptic in Springtime on April 24, 2024, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge (Room 201), SDU Main Building, University of Prince Edward Island. 

A Skeptic in Springtime wrestles with uncertainty and aging, hurricanes, gravity, and particle theory. Amid all the unknowns, “Still, the white-throated sparrow cries I’m here, here, here, here.” Rooted in the PEI landscape where MacLaine grew up, his gaze ranges farther afield to Assyrian myth in “Killing a Lassamu,” to the Song Dynasty in “Su Dongpo Makes Ink,” to art in “Claude Monet in the Waiting Room.”

The book closes with a tribute to the late Dr. John Smith, former poet laureate of PEI. Combining keen observation of the natural world and the human condition, the poems in this collection contain “a universe which has leapt from nothing into something.”

Dr. MacLaine is a professor emeritus at the UPEI Department of English and the author of six volumes of poetry. He grew up in the rural community of Rice Point, PEI, to which he returned after teaching at universities in Vancouver, Edmonton, China, and Singapore. His awards for poetry include a League of Canadian Poets prize, the Prince Edward Island Book Award, and the Atlantic Poetry Prize.

The event is free, and all are welcome to attend. Books will be available for purchase. The event is sponsored by Island Studies Press, the UPEI English Department, and The Bookmark. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.