The Faculty of Science Seminar Series invites the campus community to a presentation titled "Framing Prince Edward Island’s Aquatic Ecosystems" by Dr. Kyle Knysh, PEI Department of Land and Environment, on Friday, March 20, 2026, at 12:30 pm, in the Duffy Science Centre, Room 204. Everyone is welcome.

Award-winning Canadian poet Lorna Crozier will give a public performance of her poetry on Thursday, March 26, at 7:00 pm, in Schurman Market Square, Don and Marion McDougall Hall, UPEI. NOTE: This event has been rescheduled from March 19.

An Officer of the Order of Canada and Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, Crozier is cherished for her poems about the natural environment, women’s lives, human relationships, and the interplay among nature, human history and myth, and spiritual elements infusing existence and experience. Her poetry is also celebrated for her delightfully subversive wit, for example, “The Sex Life of Vegetables,” and her deep commitment to social justice.

Crozier’s reading is sponsored by the UPEI Faculty of Arts and Department of English. Admission is free.

We are pleased and excited to invite all to attend Alyssa MacDonald's PsyD dissertation defence presentation. Please join us in supporting Alyssa on this momentous occasion!

Date and time: March 30, 2026, at 3 pm
Location: Memorial Hall 104

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on March 21, the day in 1960 when the police in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration against apartheid "pass laws." The 2026 theme for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is "Mobilizing Political Will."

In 1979, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a program of activities to be undertaken during the second half of the "Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination." On that occasion, the General Assembly decided that a week of solidarity with the peoples struggling against racism and racial discrimination, beginning on March 21, would be organized on an annual basis in all member states. To learn more about the UN's fight against racism and how we call all play a part, click here.

There will be a basic biosafety training session on Wednesday, March 25, at 10:00 am. 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. Prerequisite training material must be completed prior to attending the session.

To attend, you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell by noon, Monday March 23, 2026, via email hse@upei.ca or phone 902-566-0901. 

Please provide:

• Your name
• Your supervisor’s name (if applicable)
• Department
• Email address
• Phone number
• Whether you're an employee or graduate student  

NOTE: An online biosafety training refresher course is available for those who completed basic biosafety training previously. Training must be renewed every three years. Please contact us for information on how to register for this training!

Join us today - the UPEI Faculty of Graduate Studies invites the UPEI community to attend the 2026 Three Minute Thesis (3MT™) Competition. 

The Three Minute Thesis challenges research graduate students to explain their research project to a non-specialist audience in just 3 minutes, using only 1 slide. This year’s competitors represent a range of disciplines, including Education, Science, Sustainable Design Engineering, and Veterinary Medicine. 

Join us today to support UPEI graduate students and learn about the fascinating and impactful research taking place across campus in this fast-paced and engaging format. 
Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three competitors, and the first-place winner will go on to represent UPEI at the regional 3MT competition. 

Audience members will also have the opportunity to play fun and supportive 3MT Bingo while watching the presentations for a chance to win a prize. 

Light refreshments and door prize draws will be available.

UPEI students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome to attend.

Date: TODAY: Friday, March 20, 2026 
Time: 4:00–6:00 pm 
Location: Fox & Crow, W.A. Murphy Student Centre 

Join the Catherine Callbeck Centre for Entrepreneurship for an engaging session on risk mitigation delivered by Permjot Valia! This in-person workshop will provide insight on what types of risk exist, how startups and organizations can categorize and prioritize risks, how risks can be perceived as opportunities, and what tools can be used to demonstrate risk to external stakeholders. This event is part of the Harry W. MacLauchlan Entrepreneurship Program, but anyone from the public is welcome to attend!

The workshop is taking place in 128A-B Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering on Thursday, March 26 from 5:00-7:00 pm. Sign up today!

More about the Facilitator:  Permjot Valia:Permjot Valia (he/him) is co-founder at Nava Develop Inc., a business development firm serving innovation focused corporates, startup organizations and academic institutions. A globally recognized mentor, facilitator and business coach, he has led strategic planning successes for organizations throughout Canada’s innovation ecosystem. He founded MentorCamp and was Lead Mentor of Cape Breton’s Navigate Startup House. He served as a Mentor-in-Residence at the University of Arkansas Sam Walton School of Business and has helped multiple researchers commercialize their research. This work continues through the 3 day Lab2Market program he delivers across Canada to researchers.

He is an expert pitch coach with companies he has coached winning over $10m in prize money.

Permjot serves on Boards of several startups, works with Dal Innovates, and lectures globally on business modelling, strategy and leadership. He is passionate about contributing to Canada’s economic development and cultural success. 

Permjot holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from University of Leeds and an MBA from Open University (UK). He is an MIT-trained mentor program manager.

You're invited to the Robertson Library Book Club! Throughout Winter Term 2026, we will read and discuss three books on the topic of indigeneity in the region of Turtle Island known as Canada. Book club meetings will be co-hosted by Morgan Varis, a sessional instructor from IKERAS (Faculty of Indigenous Knowledge, Education, Research, and Applied Studies). These meetings will take place on the last Monday of each month from January - March and will be held in the Robertson Library lobby at noon (12pm); light refreshments will be provided. 

Our next meeting is Monday, March 30, 12pm-1pm, discussing The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline (fiction)

"Humanity has nearly destroyed its world through global warming, but now an even greater evil lurks. The Indigenous people of North America are being hunted and harvested for their bone marrow, which carries the key to recovering something the rest of the population has lost: the ability to dream. In this dark world, Frenchie and his companions struggle to survive as they make their way up north to the old lands. For now, survival means staying hidden - but what they don't know is that one of them holds the secret to defeating the marrow thieves." The Marrow Thieves won the Governor General's Literary Award for Young People's Literature (Text) in 2017. -Cormorant Books

Copies of all three books are available to borrow from the Robertson Library (courtesy of PEI Public Library/Service des bibliothèques publiques ÎPÉ and their book club kit program):

Birdie by Tracey Lindberg
Out of the Depths by Isabelle Knockwood
The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Hope to see you there!

Join us at McMillan Hall in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre as we welcome the UPEI Class of 2026 to our alumni family! This event is open to all 2026 grads and UPEI/SDU/PWC alumni.

Friday, April 10, 2026
5:00–7:00 pm

Celebrate with free refreshments, live entertainment by Ryan Merry, fun door prizes to be won, and more!

• Every 2026 grad in attendance will get a complimentary grad gift!
• Alumni who RSVP and attend the event will be entered to win an alumni prize pack.
• All 2026 grads who attend will be entered to win additional door prizes.
• GRAND PRIZE DRAW: Two lucky grads will EACH win a $1000 CASH prize* sponsored by TD Insurance.

You can register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSczCN7aqo2DIpA3vgS1-Q8aKECbK42opSkxuxj2KzHtShBaCw/viewform?usp=header

If you have any questions, please reach out to Faith Phillips at flphillips@upei.ca or 902-566-0687.

*Only 2026 grads are eligible to win and must be present at the time of draw.

The Faculty of Science Seminar Series invites the campus community to a presentation titled "Framing Prince Edward Island’s Aquatic Ecosystems" by Dr. Kyle Knysh, PEI Department of Land and Environment, on Friday, March 20, 2026, at 12:30 pm, in the Duffy Science Centre, Room 204. Everyone is welcome.

Award-winning Canadian poet Lorna Crozier will give a public performance of her poetry on Thursday, March 26, at 7:00 pm, in Schurman Market Square, Don and Marion McDougall Hall, UPEI. NOTE: This event has been rescheduled from March 19.

An Officer of the Order of Canada and Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing at the University of Victoria, Crozier is cherished for her poems about the natural environment, women’s lives, human relationships, and the interplay among nature, human history and myth, and spiritual elements infusing existence and experience. Her poetry is also celebrated for her delightfully subversive wit, for example, “The Sex Life of Vegetables,” and her deep commitment to social justice.

Crozier’s reading is sponsored by the UPEI Faculty of Arts and Department of English. Admission is free.

Join us on Thursday, March 19, at 4:00 pm in SDU Main Building, Room 117, for our next SMCS Pizza Seminar! Our speaker this month is Dr. Pouya Faroughi, and the title of his talk is "How Insurance Companies Predict the Future Using Mathematics and Statistics." There will be FREE pizza to follow!

Every day, members of our community go above and beyond in ways that make our workplace stronger, kinder, and more connected. The Recognizing Remarkable Colleagues program is one way we celebrate those moments—and we invite you to be part of it.

Have you noticed a colleague who:

• Took time to support you or your team
• Went the extra mile to make someone’s day better
• Demonstrated our shared values through their actions

We want to hear about it.

What’s new?
As part of our continued efforts to grow and improve this program, we’ve introduced a new submission form. The colleague being recognized will automatically receive an email notification letting them know they’ve been recognized —and to watch for the next issue. A big thanks to Moshiur in ITSS for helping us set up this new work flow!

For more details on the program—including links to past issues and information about the new submission form—please click here. The deadline for our next issue is Friday, March 27, 2026.

Let’s keep the gratitude and recognition going by taking a moment to celebrate the remarkable people we work with every day.

Thank you for helping to build a culture of appreciation and connection.

Welcome to the following new employees who joined the University of Prince Edward Island community in February 2026:

• Oliver Andrews, Facilities Management
• Ankita Bedi, Facilities Management
• Simon Bourassi, Health Management, Atlantic Veterinary College
• Robert Frankfurth, Facilities Management
• Carina MacDonald, Human Resources
• Tara Richards, Companion Animals, Atlantic Veterinary College

We are excited to have you join the UPEI team!

Researchers at UPEI are looking to understand how students, faculty, staff, and community members get to and from the UPEI campus. This will help identify ways to make it easier to get to and from UPEI with or without a vehicle. The anonymous survey will take five to ten minutes to complete, and participants who complete the survey will be eligible for a draw for one of five $50 VISA gift cards.  For more information or to complete the survey, please go to https://forms.office.com/r/Ck97PRtw4N.  For questions, you can also email the lead investigator, Dr. Travis Saunders, at trsaunders@upei.ca. This project has been reviewed by the UPEI Research Ethics Board.

We are pleased and excited to invite all to attend Alyssa MacDonald's PsyD dissertation defence presentation. Please join us in supporting Alyssa on this momentous occasion!

Date and time: March 30, 2026, at 3 pm
Location: Memorial Hall 104

Curious about how to access administrative health data for your research? Join us for a Lunch & Learn hosted by the Secure Island Data Repository (SIDR). This session will provide an overview of the types of data available through SIDR, the process for requesting access for research projects, and how researchers can access data for multi-regional studies through Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN Canada). While faculty, students, and research staff are likely to find this session especially relevant, anyone interested in learning more about these data resources and how they can support research and policy work is welcome to attend. Come learn how this exciting new platform can support your work and ask questions about getting started.

When: March 30, 2026. 12:00 noon. Pizza will be served at noon!

Where: AVC, Room 286A

Please register with this link: SIDR Lunch & Learn Registration – Fill out form

Colleagues from Mount Allison University invite you to complete a brief survey about your teaching practices, time use (prep, grading, student support), and perceptions of how teaching is valued. The purpose of this project is to better understand how faculty allocate time to teaching, what supports are helpful, student workload, and how institutions might improve teaching environments. Participation is voluntary and anonymous. You may skip any question or exit at any time. If you wish, you can opt in at the end to a short follow-up interview (contact info collected separately from your survey responses).

• Length: 10–20 minutes
• Eligibility: Current [tenure-track, limited-term, sessional/adjunct] instructors, administrators, and students
• Confidentiality: Responses are anonymous; aggregated findings only
• Date: Closes March 29

Start the survey: Administrators

Start the survey: Faculty

Start the survey: Students

If you’re planning to hire a student this summer, we can help. Co-op students from several programs are seeking opportunities. Students are enrolled in business, computer science, analytics, chemistry, physics, environmental studies, and financial math programs. 

Contact Karen Turner, Co-op job development coordinator at klturner@upei.ca or 902-566-0794 for more details about how to get started. Visit the UPEI Co-op Program website, or submit this form to post a co-op job. You can also follow the Co-op Program on LinkedIn. 

There will be a basic biosafety training session on Wednesday, March 25, at 10:00 am. 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. Prerequisite training material must be completed prior to attending the session.

To attend, you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell by noon, Monday March 23, 2026, via email hse@upei.ca or phone 902-566-0901. 

Please provide:

• Your name
• Your supervisor’s name (if applicable)
• Department
• Email address
• Phone number
• Whether you're an employee or graduate student  

NOTE: An online biosafety training refresher course is available for those who completed basic biosafety training previously. Training must be renewed every three years. Please contact us for information on how to register for this training!