(L to R): Mr. Greg Clayton, Director of Facilities Management; Ms. Jackie Podger, UPEI Vice President Administration and Finance; Dr. Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, UPEI President and Vice-Chancellor; Blair Somers Vice Chair and Shop Steward; Jim Sponagle, IBEW Local 1928 Business Manager.
 

(L to R): Dr. Malcolm Murray,Vice President, UPEI Faculty Association; Dr. Nola Etkin, President, UPEI Faculty Association; Dr. Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, UPEI President and Vice-Chancellor; Ms. Jackie Podger, UPEI Vice President Administration and Finance.
 

(L to R): Mr. Barry Connell, Vice President MTF, CUPE 1870; Ms. Tracy Carmichael, President, CUPE 1870; Dr. Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, UPEI President and Vice-Chancellor; Ms. Jackie Podger, UPEI Vice President Administration and Finance.

UPEI is proud to host the second Pan-Canadian Conference on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), May 31 to June 2. UDL is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences that guides the development of flexible learning environments that can accommodate individual learning differences.

The first conference on UDL was hosted two years ago at McGill University. Interest and momentum for UDL has steadily grown across Canada in both the K-12 and post-secondary sectors, and the time has come for UDL practitioners and advocates to come together again to exchange ideas, showcase practices, and examine the potential for future development.

For early bird registration or for more information, please visit www.udlconference.ca or contact udlpei17@gmail.com.

Read more

More than 150 students and teachers from Three Oaks Senior High School, Colonel Gray High School, Kensington Intermediate Senior High School, Bluefield High School, and Charlottetown Rural High School attended If You're Curious About Climate Change, an event for PEI high school teachers and students held at Holland College on April 5, 2017. Topics such as renewable energy, hydrogeology, and climate change were presented, with a special introduction from PEI Minister of Communities, Land and Environment, the Honourable Robert Mitchell. UPEI Climate Lab PhD student Hope Parnham and UPEI Climate Lab Researcher Stephanie Arnold represented UPEI at the event discussing sea-level rise, coastal flooding and erosion, regional impacts of climate change, extreme weather events, and the UPEI Climate Lab’s use of drones and computer simulation (CLIVE) in Environmental Science research. Many students were interested in pursuing their academic careers at UPEI as a result.

Submitted by Dr. Adam Fenech

A research project at the University of Prince Edward Island is seeking volunteers for a study on the impact of consumption of blueberries on indicators of diabetes. The research team is seeking participants who are healthy, non-smoking, and age 21 to 65. Eligible participants will be compensated up to 200 dollars.

Those interested in participating are invited to attend a 30-minute information session in room 301 of UPEI’s Health Sciences Building. 

This project is a collaboration between UPEI’s Dr. Katherine Gottschall-Pass, Dr. Marva Sweeney-Nixon, and Dr. Kim Stote, 2016/2017 UPEI Fulbright Scholar and Research Chair of Nutrisciences and Health. For more information, contact Dr. Stote at kstote@upei.ca.

Read more

The Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (AARMS) is holding its 2017 summer school this July at UPEI. For a four-week period every summer, AARMS invites highly regarded faculty from around the world to deliver graduate courses in the mathematical sciences and their applications. The goals are to broaden the education of graduate students and to encourage promising undergraduates to continue their study.

The summer school is intended for graduate students and promising undergraduate students from all parts of the world. Each participant is expected to register for at least two of the three courses. Each course consists of three hours lecture sessions per day for two weeks. These are graduate courses approved by the University of Prince Edward Island. AARMS will facilitate transfer credit to the extent possible.

Read more

Dr. Neb Kujundzic, dean of Arts and a professor of philosophy at UPEI, delivered a guest lecture last week on the relationship between humanity, work, and technology (particularly robotics) and its implications for education to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Malta (UMalta).

Dr. Kujundzic is the latest of a long series of island-to-island exchanges between UPEI and UMalta, which started off with an invitation extended to Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino to visit UPEI back in 1992. Dr. Baldacchino is now pro-rector and a professor at UMalta and a UNESCO Co-Chair in Island Studies & Sustainability at UPEI and UMalta.

A healthy history of student exchanges exists between UMalta and UPEI. Clare Byrne, a UPEI student, is currently at UMalta for a semester studying political science. UMalta nursing student Chanel Borg spent a semester at UPEI last year. Dr. Robert Dennis, a professor of religious studies at UPEI, will visit Malta and UMalta in May 2017.