The UPEI Relay for Life is a student-led initiative dedicated to supporting the Canadian Cancer Society. The event will take place on March 14, 2026, and committee members are asking for campus and community support.

Through fundraising and community engagement, the Canadian Cancer Society strives to support those affected by cancer and fund groundbreaking research. Last year, the UPEI student team raised over $16,000. This year, they have set their sights even higher with a goal of $20,000 and are donations and participation in the event.

Event Details:

• When: Saturday, March 14, 2026
• Time: 11:30 am to 5:00 pm
• Location: Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre indoor walking track
• What: A day of fun activities, entertainment, food, and beverages. Most importantly, it is a time to celebrate cancer survivors and honour those who lost their lives to cancer.
• General registration: $20 (100 per cent of proceeds are donated directly to the Canadian Cancer Society)
• Survivors: We invite all survivors to register and participate free of charge as our honoured guests. 

The event will begin with the cancer survivors leading the way and cutting the ceremonial banner to officially start the walk. After the opening lap, participants are encouraged to walk between activities and entertainment as much as they would like. 

Registrants can participate in two ways:

• Join a team: Join an existing group and make some new friends.

• Create your own: Rally your family, friends, or coworkers to start a new team. While teams are typically around 10 people, there is no limit, and all groups are welcome.

For more information, to donate, or to register as an individual or team, email upeirelayforlife@outlook.com or visit UPEI Relay for Life.

Get excited for the changing of seasons with the Swing into Spring 5k hosted by the AVC Class of 2029 as a fundraiser event for our white coat ceremony and the PEI Humane Society! 

When: March 28, 10 am start

Where: Confederation Trail

Registration is ONLY $10 and is now open on our website for runners (and volunteers)! Everyone within the community is encouraged to participate; bring the fam, friends, pets, etc.!

We can't wait to see you at the start line! https://swingintospring5km.rsvpify.com

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 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. 

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

Light refreshments and door prize draws will be available.

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

Along with many other institutions in Canada, UPEI is taking part in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) again this semester. The survey collects important information on students' participation in programs and activities, as well as their perceptions of personal growth and university support. Results from the survey will inform initiatives to improve student experience. 

Many first- and fourth-year students in Arts, Business, Nursing, Science, and Sustainable Design Engineering have been invited to fill out the survey. Students are encouraged to check their UPEI email for the invitation and to complete the survey. If you have questions about the survey, please contact Dr. Yuqin Gong, Manager of Institutional Research at the Office of VP Academic and Research, via 902-566-0361 or ygong@upei.ca.

Thank you to the students for responding to the survey and to all who helped spread the word about the survey.

The UPEI Department of Music is thrilled to be hosting its first Contemporary Music Festival, March 6-13, 2026. All events are open to the public and take place in Steel Recital Hall or the Performing Arts Centre Theatre.

The festival continues this week with our New Music Spotlight: Proxima Centauri, an ensemble of saxophone, piano, percussion, and electronics, presents "Mouvements," a multidimensional, immersive sonic experience not to be missed! This event takes place on Thursday, March 12th at 7:30pm in Steel Recital Hall.

Other performers/presenters this week include Indigenous cellist Cris Derksen and UPEI students in recital.

Tickets are available online or by cash at the door.

Join UPEI President Wendy Rodgers for casual "coffee chats" at Tim Horton's in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre on Wednesday, March 11 from 8:00-9:00 am.

These coffee chats offer a relaxed setting where any member of the UPEI community can drop by, grab a drink, and chat with Wendy about anything on your mind. Whether you want to share ideas, ask questions or simply say hello, these chats are a great way to connect with the president in a comfortable and informal environment.

Students are invited to the Climate Career day, Wednesday, March 11 from 10-12:30 in the Faculty Lounge, SDU Main Building (Room 201) to meet with local professionals and organizations that work with climate issues. This opportunity is intended to connect students with potential employers while also learning about different career paths. 

Guest speakers will take part in a panel discussion at 11am where they will chat about their roles, how they found their way into climate work, climate projects their organization is working on, and how to find joy in a challenging field of work. 

Free to attend.

Join Sharon Meyers, William Whelan and John VanLeeuwen for a panel and Q & A session on Preparing for Tenure / Permanency and Promotion where they will talk about Putting it All Together. They will share observations from their experiences serving on review committees at the department and university level. Bring your questions about preparing your file to the Teaching and Learning Centre on Friday March 13 at 12:30pm.  

New poetry collection speaks to and from the Island

In her third poetry collection, Judy Gaudet “brings us heart-deep and eye-level with Prince Edward Island’s fields, woods, and shores,” says Deirdre Kessler, former PEI Poet Laureate. Published by Island Studies Press, the book will be launched on March 24, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge, Main Building Room 201, University of Prince Edward Island.

Another Landscape addresses the ordinary wonders of a life shared with her partner and their dog, where “Nothing is needed. Everything is here between us.” Though the poems grow out of this one life on the Island, Gaudet takes the long view of time. She sees at once the molecules of the red sandstone cliffs and her own, that have held together for greatly different timespans. The poems gather small but notable moments of Island life and insist we look closer, for “this is life, as long as we have it.”

Readers will recognize the “fishing boats and their bright primaries” and “that open spot where the water is moving fast enough to not freeze up.” Gaudet’s poems, writes Richard Lemm, professor emeritus in English, speak to the human capacity to be renewed and deeply transfigured by observant intimacy with nature. And they return again and again to gratitude: “What luck to spend a lifetime / seeing what things are” and to her uplifting faith that there is “good luck and gold / flying up everywhere.”

Judy Gaudet is a Prince Edward Island poet and painter whose books include Conversation with Crows (Oberon, 2014) and Her Teeth Are Stones (Acorn, 2005). She is the editor of 150+: Canada’s History in Poetry (Acorn, 2018). 

The event is free, and all are welcome. Thanks to Bookmark, books will be available for purchase. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at Island Studies Press, 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.

The Moodle Gradebook can be a useful tool for keeping track of grades and keeping students informed of their performance throughout the course. This session will cover the basics of setting up and using a Moodle gradebook with opportunities for instructors teaching Spring semester courses to have their gradebooks set up as part of the demonstration. This session will be held online on March 24 from 1:30pm to 2:30pm. Please register to get an invite for the online session. 

Fisher Scientific is having an open information show in the foyer of KC Irving Chemistry Centre on March 11, 9:30 am-11:30 am.

This is an opportunity to meet and connect with your local Fisher Scientific team. There will be a chemical specialist and a safety/clean room specialist present so if you have any questions or inquiries on these topics please ask.

As part of the UPEI Department of Religious Studies’ Theology on Tap series, Dr. Doug Al-Maini, associate professor of philosophy, St. Francis Xavier University, will give a talk titled “Greek Mysticism Leading into the Christian Era” on March 12 at 7 pm. The presentation will take place at the Salvador Dali Café, The Arts Hotel, 155 Kent Street, Charlottetown. All are welcome to attend.

“Scholars have long noted and been fascinated by a tradition of mysticism within the broader history of Christianity; they have also noted how much that tradition was influenced by the Greek philosophers who preceded it,” says Al-Mani. “Indeed, Augustine famously says that ‘By the Platonic books I was admonished to return into myself . . . I entered and beheld with the eye of my soul a light unchangeable.’ There is wide agreement that Augustine is referring to the influence that reading Plotinus, among other authors, had on him, and how it helped him make sense of Christianity. But what was in those Neo-Platonic texts that was so affecting for Augustine?

“In this talk, I will attempt to give an overview of the main theses of the ‘Greek Mystics’ and the thinking that brings them to the positions they hold. Included among these ‘Mystics’ are figures such as Parmenides, Empedocles, Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, some of whom are not usually associated with mysticism. In different ways, these philosophers argue to what they think is the limit of what can be properly expressed discursively and then show how that cannot give a full and satisfying account of Being itself and all that could be experienced; this in turn helps define the parameters of mysticism for future thinkers.”

For more information about the series, contact event coordinator Alexandra Durant at alexandrajdurant@gmail.com, or follow Theology on Tap PEI on Facebook.

If you have Professional/Clinical Service responsibilities and you are preparing a tenure or promotion application in the next year then this workshop is for you.  Join Aimie Doyle from AVC and Charlene VanLeeuwen in the TLC to talk about effective ways to share the many details of your professional service activities in your tenure or promotion application on May 14 at 1:30pm in the Teaching and Learning Centre. 

The Island Lecture Series presents a talk by Frank Gillan, “Finding Place: An Irish Story,” on March 17, 2026, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge, Main Building Room 201, University of Prince Edward Island. 

Join us on St. Patrick’s Day as Frank Gillan shares a personal story about one Irish family’s search for security. In 1953, Marion Gillan’s husband was killed piloting a private plane. Their only family income disappeared on that May afternoon, and employers were not interested in hiring a widow with five young children. But challenge was something Marion had seen before. In 1919, her father died, leaving her 34-year-old mother, Jennie McCarthy, with a 70-acre mixed farming operation and four young children, Marion being the oldest at age seven. In an era where women had few rights, both women were determined to find a way to keep the family together. Both had inherited resilience and resourcefulness from their Irish roots.

For generations, their ancestors had lived under oppressive British laws in Ireland. Their land was taken from them, and they were forced to be tenants in their own country, living under the constant threat of eviction. In addition, Irish Catholic daily lives were regulated under the stifling Penal Laws, intended to obliterate their culture and religion—and to keep them poor. The Gillan ancestors’ emigration from Ireland to PEI was a search for better opportunities. PEI offered hope, but also considerable challenges. 

Frank Gillan is a sixth-generation Irish Canadian. In 2022, he published The Gillan Journey: County Antrim to Peakes Road, and in 2025, he published his mother’s family story with They Can’t Take the Kids: the Mooney/McCarthy/Gillan Legacy. Frank and his wife Cathy are retired and live in Charlottetown. 

The lecture is free, and all are welcome. For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.

The deadline for Animal Care Protocol Submissions (new, renewal, or amendment) is Friday, April 3 for the April meeting. 

Please note that as of June 1, 2020 all animal user protocols must be submitted through UPEI Researcher Portal at https://upei.researchservicesoffice.com/Romeo.Researcher/

For new protocols select ‘applications’ and for renewal or amendment protocols select ‘events’.

To view any UPEI ACC SOPs and Codes of Practice, they can be accessed through myUPEI at https://portal.upei.ca/facultystaff/administrativeservices/AVCAnimalCare/Pages/default.aspx. 

Those protocols received after the deadline will be reviewed the following month. The Committee requires at least one month for processing applications.

Discover exciting summer job opportunities or kickstart your career at the 2026 Summer Job and Career Fair! Hosted by UPEI’s Experiential Education Department, this fair will bring together a diverse range of employers from various industries actively seeking to hire students and recent graduates. 

By attending, you’ll have the chance to network with employers and explore both summer job positions and full-time career opportunities. The fair will be held in person, so dress professionally and bring copies of your resume to make the most of your interactions with employers.

Key details: The fair will take place on Wednesday, March 11, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, at the W.A. Murphy Student Centre. In case of inclement weather, the storm date is March 12, same time and location.

What to expect: Attendance is FREE for students, and no registration is required. Don’t miss out on the chance to win exciting door prizes!

For any inquiries, feel free to contact Jess Cameron, Community and Industry Outreach Coordinator, at careerfair@upei.ca or 902-894-2817.

We look forward to seeing you at the fair!

The third UPEI Board of Governors meeting of the 2025-2026 academic year will take place on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, at 4:00 p.m. in Room 102, Alumni Hall. All board meetings generally include sessions that are open to the public. Certain agenda items, including but not limited to human resources discussions, may require the board to go into a closed session. For logistical purposes, members of the public who wish to attend the open session of a meeting are asked to contact board@upei.ca one week prior to the meeting. Members of the public wishing to attend the public portion of a meeting must adhere to the UPEI Board of Governors' Meeting Observer Guidelines.

UPEI's Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) program invites you to attend an upcoming online information session on Tuesday, March 17, 12-12:45 pm.

The MAIS program is an interdisciplinary, policy-driven graduate program that critiques islands on their own terms. We offer both thesis and course-based streams with specializations in Island Tourism, Sustainable Island Communities, and International Relations & Island Public Policy. Graduates from this program are trained in providing leadership in addressing the complex issues facing modern governments and policy-making organizations. In order to accommodate working professionals, the program has been designed with flexible completion timelines and classes are usually in the evening.

The information session will include general information and guidance on completing your application. Attendees will be given a promo code to have their application fee waived ($50 CAD value). The deadline for applying for the September intake is August 15; and the deadline for the January intake is November 1.

For more details on the program and entry requirements, visit the MAIS information page on the UPEI website. To register for the session, please follow the link to this Google form. A link will be sent in advance of the session.

And if you have questions regarding the program or application, please contact Laurie Brinklow (brinklow@upei.ca) or call 902-894-2881. Please feel free to share this message with anyone who may be interested in joining the session. 

Thank you, and we look forward to seeing you!

Along with many other institutions in Canada, UPEI is taking part in the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) again this semester. The survey collects important information on students' participation in programs and activities, as well as their perceptions of personal growth and university support. Results from the survey will inform initiatives to improve student experience. 

Many first- and fourth-year students in Arts, Business, Nursing, Science, and Sustainable Design Engineering have been invited to fill out the survey. Students are encouraged to check their UPEI email for the invitation and to complete the survey. If you have questions about the survey, please contact Dr. Yuqin Gong, Manager of Institutional Research at the Office of VP Academic and Research, via 902-566-0361 or ygong@upei.ca.

Thank you to the students for responding to the survey and to all who helped spread the word about the survey.

The Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR), a research institute at Queens University, works to improve the health and well-being of Canada’s military members, Veterans, and their families. By connecting researchers, government, and other interested partners, CIMVHR helps find solutions to the unique health challenges faced by those who serve, have served and their families. Their work supports better care, policies, and programs for nearly a million Canadians connected to military life.

Every year, CIMVHR hosts an annual conference. This year CIMVHR Forum 2026 will be held in Halifax. Prior to the conference, the group is organizing local engagement sessions to showcase local military, Veteran, public safety personnel, and family health research. The sessions will also offer an opportunity to learn more about CIMVHR, the Journal of Military Veteran and Family Health, and CIMVHR Forum 2026 (www.cimvhrforum.ca). 

Colleagues who might be interested in this population or who may study in a field relevant to the event are invited to attend. Space is limited. Attendance must be confirmed by registering using the link https://cimvhr.ca/conferences/ by March 20, 2026.

HALIFAX ENGAGEMENT SESSION
Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Location: The Westin Nova Scotian, Atlantic Ballroom
Time: 9:30 am–1:30 pm. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.

CHARLOTTETOWN ENGAGEMENT SESSION
Date: Thursday, March 26, 2026
Location: Delta Hotels Prince Edward
Time: 9:30 am–1:30 pm. Refreshments and lunch will be provided.