"My experiences and relationships at UPEI gave me everything."
What brought you to UPEI? Why did you choose to study here?
I grew up in Grand Valley, Ontario. It’s a small town in rural Ontario with people who know you have to chip in if you want to get things done. Moving from Grand Valley to PEI felt very natural.
Growing up in a small town meant any university I picked would require a move, so I pretty quickly started looking at places that included a flight or a very long drive. My aunt works for Air Canada and decided she would fly me standby to visit all of these schools—Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, PEI—so I could tour each of them and make my decision. My Aunt, my Mom, and my Grandma decided we would start in Charlottetown with UPEI and work our way west to see them all.
We toured the UPEI campus on a cold, rainy, windy September day (the best kind) while the quad was under construction. Everything was red mud and puddles but before we left the building to start the tour, a man from the office upstairs offered his umbrella so we had a fighting chance. The tour lasted a few hours and everyone we ran into was happy to stop what they were doing and answer my questions or share more information. My campus tour guide heard what I was interested in, what I was anxious about, and then he made sure I had someone to talk to about all of it. I never toured the other schools and when I came back in September for my first year, one of the people I met during my campus tour spotted me and made a point to come over and say "hello, you came!" I’ve never doubted I made the right choice.
What did you find unique and interesting about your program?
The professors. A liberal arts degree is about more than the topics you study and all of my professors knew that and embraced it. I was fortunate to have profs who understood I had a whole education happening outside of the English department and they not only accepted that, they encouraged me when I had a different idea for a project that aligned with a campus project. They were tough, fair, and took their responsibility as educators seriously. To this day I can hear Dr. Shannon Murray’s words of advice in my head at work.
What kinds of support did you receive during your time here from UPEI students, staff, and UPEI faculty members?
My experiences and relationships at UPEI gave me everything. I had an entire community of people committed to me succeeding as a student and as a person. If I had a project in mind, there were staff on campus who would hear me out, fine tune it, and jump on board. If I gave my time to my peers, they paid it back tenfold. I had amazing professors who identified and encouraged my instinct to reject ‘hoop jumping’ and run with more creative ideas for their assignments. I had incredibly kind accounting staff who helped me navigate paying a lot of money. I could tell 100 other UPEI stories, but the best part is that every single one of these people knew me by name and my story, and all these years later they still do. That’s pretty special and it’s why UPEI is always, always going to feel like home.
"For me, the benefit of UPEI has always been our size. We’re small enough to solve problems quickly, and big enough to be leaders in specialty fields. PEI is the same way. Small enough that you can always find someone who knows someone who can do something and before you know it, the problem is solved. Big enough that you can accomplish amazing things and be a model for other places and people."
What opportunities have you experienced because you studied UPEI, or because of the Island location?
The only regrets I have about my time at UPEI are the opportunities I didn’t take advantage of because I was too busy leaning into existing opportunities. I wish I had done an international exchange as a UPEI student, but then I wouldn’t have grown into the person I am now because of my work with student clubs, the UPEI Student Union, campus tours, assisting professors with research projects, and coordinating fundraisers, events, and projects with staff when something came up.
What's unique about UPEI, and Prince Edward Island, in your experience?
For me, the benefit of UPEI has always been our size. We’re small enough to solve problems quickly, and big enough to be leaders in specialty fields. PEI is the same way. Small enough that you can always find someone who knows someone who can do something and before you know it, the problem is solved. Big enough that you can accomplish amazing things and be a model for other places and people. It’s a wonderful place to be a student who’s still figuring things out.
What is your current occupation, and how did your time at UPEI prepare you for further study, any positions you’ve held since you graduated, and for your current work with PM’s Office?
My current role is Director of Tour and International Visits for the Prime Minister of Canada. It’s an amazing amount of work and an even more amazing opportunity to showcase the best of Canada on an international stage. I had the great fortune of working in many roles for Prime Minister Trudeau, who encouraged and empowered me to lean into what UPEI taught me years ago: Work Hard and Be Nice to People. I was happy to support the team around Prime Minister Carney in the same role and the most important lesson from my UPEI days served me well here, too: the world is a small town. My relationships with people in embassies, departments, and yes even literal small towns is how his first nine days as Prime Minister were made possible.
Big futures start here!
Read more about the UPEI students and amazing alumni featured in our 2026–2027 Viewbook!
Interested in UPEI? Contact our student advisement team today at apply@upei.ca.
Meet Kate VanGerven, Director of Tour and International Visits for the Prime Minister of Canada and Bachelor of Arts in English graduate (Class of 2013).
Meet Brennan McDuffee, Bachelor of Arts in Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture student (Class of 2025).
Meet Charlize Sahely, accountant with EY's Tax Division and Bachelor of Business Administration alumna (Class of 2024).
Meet Jenna Flowers, baccalauréat en éducation—français langue seconde graduate (Class of 2025).
Meet Kallie Drummond, Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Indigenous Studies minor (Class of 2026).
Meet Dr. Aleisha Murnaghan, UPEI alumna (Class of 2002), emergency medicine physician at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and director of medical program development with the UPEI Faculty of Medicine.
Meet Kate Doyle, Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduate (Class of 2025).
Samuel graduated in 2024 with a double-major in Mathematics (Honours) and Economics.
Meet Temiloluwa “Rosetta” Shokunbi, UPEI Sustainable Design Engineering student (Class of 2026).
Meet Tsukasa Iwamoto, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine student (Class of 2026).
