The Canadian Career Virtual Symposium for Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars will be three half-days jam-packed with career and professional development content. 

A selection of session titles include:

• Keynote: Motivation...It works!
• Ten healthy habits of financial management
• Building cultural and career competency through networking conversations
• A recruiter's perspective to applying and interviewing
• Panel: Career Roads: how to make the most of pit stops (featuring UPEI's own Rebecca Mok, Business Development Officer with UPEI Office of Commercialization, Industry & Innovation!)
• + more! 

For Agenda & Full Program, visit: https://gpdn-rpesp.ca/Career-symposium

Dates and Times:

• 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Tuesday, October 21
• 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Wednesday, October 22
• 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Thursday, October 23

UPEI graduate students and post-doctoral scholars are able to view sessions live and access session recordings, slides, and handouts for up to one year thanks to event sponsorship from the UPEI Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Registration open now: https://forms.office.com/r/gnN0Xa9dUW

For more information, contact: Kendra Mellish, Graduate Programs Officer at: kmellish@upei.ca

This week’s Tea(ching) Break features a study on using student blogging as an assessment tool. It shows that blogs can increase engagement, reflection, and alignment with professional skills, especially when paired with instructor scaffolding and peer feedback, offering instructors a concrete, evidence-informed alternative to traditional assessments. Rethinking assessment strategies to improve authentic representations of learning: using blogs as a creative assessment alternative to develop professional skills.

What an instructor communicates to students can be highly impactful, but it is constrained by the limits of time and subject matter. What if additional dimensions of topics were folded into classes in a way that only becomes apparent later? A student who realizes stealth teaching has happened can react by thinking "Ahh, I see what you did there." This is how stealth teaching can carry the benefits of learning beyond the classroom. Join Etienne Cote on October 29 at 12:30 pm in the TLC Robertson Library Annex Room 230 to discuss how and why you might want to incorporate elements of stealth teaching into your courses. 

Every day, our colleagues go above and beyond to make our university a vibrant, supportive, and inspiring place to work and learn. “Recognizing Remarkable Colleagues” is your space to give a shout-out to those who embody our mission and values—whether they’re championing a new initiative, supporting student success, lending a hand to a teammate, or bringing positivity to the workplace. You can also use this program to congratulate a colleague on a new role or wish them well in retirement.

Let’s celebrate the big and small wins that make our campus shine! Submit your note of recognition, and let’s cheer on our amazing colleagues together.

How to submit:

Complete this short form: https://forms.office.com/r/766cg9JsT6 

You’ll be asked to share:

• Who are you recognizing? (Name and department/faculty)
• Why are you recognizing them? (Briefly describe what they did or the impact they made)
• Your name 

Submit your form(s) by the last Friday of each month. Human Resources will collect the submissions and work with Communications to feature them in the Campus Connector. Please note, we now have a dedicated page for this program on the Human Resources SharePoint: Recognizing Remarkable Colleagues.

Not a current subscriber to Campus Connector? Click here for information on how to subscribe.

The deadline for our next issue is Friday, October 31, 2025

Please contact Human Resources at hrengage@upei.ca should you have any questions. 

You’re invited to join the campus community at the next event in the President’s Town Hall series on the audit results for years 0 and 1of the UPEI Action Plan that were received by the UPEI Board of Governors at its last meeting.

President’s Town Hall: UPEI Action Plan Audit Results
Friday, October 17, 2025 – 9:30 am
Amphitheatre in the Performing Arts Centre and Residence (PAC 121S)

As with past town halls, there will be brief updates provided and opportunities to ask questions. If you are unable to participate in person, you are welcome to join us virtually at this Teams Town Hall link. 

We look forward to seeing you!

Please join us for Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) student Fairouz Gaballa's thesis defence. The thesis is entitled “Understanding Barriers and Supports for Physical Activity in Alzheimer’s Disease Care on Prince Edward Island" and is supervised by Dr. Jessica Strong (Department of Psychology, UPEI). Committee members are Dr. Margie Burns (Faculty of Nursing, UPEI), Dr. Etienne Myette-Cote (Department of Applied Human Sciences, UPEI), and Dr. Kyle Rich (Department of Sport Management, Faculty of Applied Human Sciences, Brock University). The external examiner is Dr. Christian Borg-Xuereb (Gerontology and Dementia Studies, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta). 
 

Date and time: October 14, 1:00 pm
Location: Memorial Building, Room 104

If you would like to join remotely, please email brinklow@upei.ca for the link.
Everyone is welcome to attend!

There will be a UPEI Bloodborne Pathogen Training Session on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 1:30 pm.

This session is for those individuals whose research involves human blood, tissue, and other bodily fluids. If you wish to attend you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell at HSE@upei.ca before Friday, October 17, 2025. Please provide your name, department and email address. 

If you have any questions about this training session, please contact Dr. Rhoda Speare, rspeare@upei.ca.

There will be a basic biosafety training session on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at 1:30 pm. 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, Tuesday October 14, 2025, 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!

Did you know your research might support Canada’s defence and security priorities...even if it doesn’t seem obvious? The Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) program funds a wide range of projects, from technology and engineering to health, data, social sciences, and more.

IDEaS offers:

• Funding opportunities up to $3M
• Collaborations with academia, industry, and government
• Opportunities to test and advance solutions with defence experts

This session will show how your work, whether directly or indirectly connected, could align with national defence challenges and open new opportunities for funding and collaboration.

October 16 | 11:00 am | Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering building, Room 301

For more information, visit Canada.ca/Defence-IDEaS

The Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, invites all to attend Vincent Salabarria’s public dissertation defense presentation of his PsyD research titled: “A Neurocognitive Operationalization of
Reminiscence in Older Adulthood”

Date and Time: October 17, 2025 at 10:00 am
Location: SDU Main Building, Room 213

The title of this year's Murray Lecture is Water as Teacher: What water can teach us about hope in hard times

What can water teach us about hope? Biomimicry is the design of structures and systems based on natural processes, and this approach might just offer the insights that education needs in times of crisis. In this distinguished lecture, educator and author Dr. Kari Grain extends the ideas from her book Critical Hope to explore what the behaviours of water can teach us when our most important efforts in education are blocked by obstacles and interruptions. In an era of austerity, political polarization, and fatigue from ongoing crises, many people who are committed to social change efforts face a damming of their life’s work. By observing four habits of water, Grain invites us to reimagine how hope itself can move: Bending, pooling in deep places, going underground, and persisting. In this reflection, critical hope offers an alternative to toxic positivity, shifting from an emotion that we either have or lack, to a complex relationship that we navigate continually. When it embodies the habits of water, critical hope is a practice of relentless incrementalism, discernment, and creativity, fluid enough to forge new pathways forward. 

This year's distinguished speaker is Dr. Kari Grain.  Dr. Grain is the author of Critical Hope and teaches at the University of British Columbia in the Faculty of Education, where she leads the Master’s in Adult Learning and Global Change (ALGC) Program. Her scholarship in experiential education, anti-racism, climate action, and community engagement has been featured in peer-reviewed journals, books, and podcasts. At the nucleus of Grain’s body of work is the belief that education has the potential to be a vibrant pathway toward systemic change; and vital to that process of transformation is an attunement to relational, creative, and vulnerable ways of being in the world with others. Kari is the co-editor of a forthcoming (2025) volume on Community Engaged Research (CER) with University of Toronto Press. Kari lives on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories. 

The Shannon K. Murray Lecture on Hope in the Academy was established in 2023 to celebrate Shannon's receipt of the Christopher Knapper Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Shannon K. Murray Lecture on Hope and the Academy will take place on Monday, November 3, at 3:30 pm in SDU Main Building, Room 117. 

The Health, Safety, and Environment Department (HSE) is offering Basic (previously called Emergency) First Aid/CPR training sessions on the following dates:

• November 7, 2025, 8:30-4:00 pm. Registration cut off: October 31, 2025
• December 8, 2025, 8:30 am–4:00 pm. Registration cut off: December 1, 2025

**Seats are limited, please register early to guarantee your spot!

To register, please email HSE@upei.ca. Include your name, department, contact number and the session date you are registering for. 

The cost of registration will be covered by HSE for all UPEI faculty and staff, including students who require training for on-campus employment. Students who do not require training for on-campus employment are welcome to attend; however, the cost of registration will not be covered by HSE. 

Intermediate (Previously called Standard) First Aid/CPR training is a comprehensive two-day course that offers first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills for those who need enhanced training as a work requirement. Please contact HSE at HSE@upei.ca if you require this training.

The UPEI Department of Music is hosting a three-day chamber music workshop for adult amateur brass and woodwind musicians October 17-19. If you would like to spend the weekend with like-minded community musicians and receive coaching from faculty members of the UPEI Department of Music, join us in mid-October! 

Weekend workshops will include large group sessions, like-instrument sessions (e.g., clarinet class, low brass class, etc.), mixed-instrument sessions (e.g., mixed quintets), workshops on special topics (e.g., breathing and technique classes), a faculty recital, and a final performance by participants.

For more information and to reserve your spot, go to https://bit.ly/UPEIChamberMusic.

Program fee: $200 + HST

The Island Lecture Series and the Vinland Society present a talk by Dr. Helen Kristmanson, "Memories of Osland: a historical Icelandic village in northern British Columbia." The Island Lecture Series will be held on October 21, 2025, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge, SDU Main Building, Room 201. 

Hidden along the Skeena River's sylvan shores are the remains of a small historical village known as Osland. Settled by Icelanders who migrated west between 1870 and 1914, Osland was part of a thriving network of communities that formed an economic hub supported by the fishery and canneries. Today, though a few families preserve their ancestral houses at Osland, these historical buildings are interspersed with the fading remains of those long gone. This presentation draws on a range of primary sources, including memories gathered about thirty years ago from Osland's children and grandchildren.

Dr. Helen Kristmanson was the Island's first provincial archaeologist, serving in this role from 2009 until 2021, when she joined the L’nuey team as Senior Archaeologist. L’nuey is an Epekwitk-based initiative focused on protecting and implementing the constitutionally entrenched rights of the PEI Mi'kmaq. Helen is an Institute of Island Studies Executive Committee member at the University of Prince Edward Island, past president of the Canadian Archaeological Association, and sitting president of the Vinland Society of PEI. Current scholarly research includes an examination of the underrepresentation of historical Mi’kmaq archaeological sites on Epekwitk through collections, archival, and field research. Helen descends from Friðrik August Kristmansson and Elín Jonasdottir, first-generation Osland settlers, and Guðmundur Bjornsson and Thorbjorg Guðny Bjornrdottir, also vesturfarars, who settled in southern British Columbia. In her spare time, Helen researches Icelandic and Scottish history.

The lecture is free, and all are welcome. 

For more information, contact Laurie Brinklow at 902-894-2881 or brinklow@upei.ca.

Please join us for Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) student Fairouz Gaballa's thesis defence. The thesis is entitled “Understanding Barriers and Supports for Physical Activity in Alzheimer’s Disease Care on Prince Edward Island" and is supervised by Dr. Jessica Strong (Department of Psychology, UPEI). Committee members are Dr. Margie Burns (Faculty of Nursing, UPEI), Dr. Etienne Myette-Cote (Department of Applied Human Sciences, UPEI), and Dr. Kyle Rich (Department of Sport Management, Faculty of Applied Human Sciences, Brock University). The external examiner is Dr. Christian Borg-Xuereb (Gerontology and Dementia Studies, Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta). 
 

Date and time: October 14, 1:00 pm
Location: Memorial Building, Room 104

If you would like to join remotely, please email brinklow@upei.ca for the link.
Everyone is welcome to attend!

UPEI values their employees and recognizes the importance of programming such as "Take Our Kids to Work Day" whereby grade nine students join their parents at work as an opportunity to expose our youth to future job possibilities and to teach the value of education and the rewards of hard work.

To ensure the safety of all, the following criteria must be met before your child may be permitted to participate in the program at UPEI.

1. Permission from your supervisor
2. Appropriate precautionary measures are taken, and hazards have been considered or removed during the visit
3. Supervision of children is required at all times
4. Supervisors may require additional safety measures prior to such visits and may require written parental consent authorizing the site visit

Examples of high-risk safety areas include, but are not limited to:

1. Shops, mechanical rooms, confined spaces, food preparation areas
2. Any areas, indoors or out, containing power tools or machinery with exposed moving parts or rotating equipment
3. Areas with excessive noise, temperatures, inadequate ventilation, or potential for exposure to chemicals or hazardous biological material
4. University vehicles, heavy duty, or other motorized equipment
5. Any other high-risk areas such as rooftops, construction zones, etc.
6. Laboratories or specialized work areas that include chemicals, biological hazards, radioactive hazards, flammables, explosives, compressed gases, sharp objects, lasers, research animals, hazardous wastes, or other environmental hazards. Please refer to the UPEI Laboratory Safety Manual for specific laboratory visitor guidance.

Supervisors must email HSE@upei.ca prior to November 5, to notify that a child will be at the workplace and to include date, workplace location(s), and activity.

For any questions or concerns please contact your supervisor.

There will be a UPEI Bloodborne Pathogen Training Session on Tuesday, October 21, 2025, at 1:30 pm.

This session is for those individuals whose research involves human blood, tissue, and other bodily fluids. If you wish to attend you must pre-register by contacting Jacky Buell at HSE@upei.ca before Friday, October 17, 2025. Please provide your name, department and email address. 

If you have any questions about this training session, please contact Dr. Rhoda Speare, rspeare@upei.ca.

There will be a basic biosafety training session on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, at 1:30 pm. 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, Tuesday October 14, 2025, 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!

UPEI Chi-Wan Young Sports Centre and Fitness Centre will be opened 9:00 am - 5:00 pm on Thanksgiving day, Monday, October 13.

The UPEI Writing Centre (Robertson Library 274) will be open during the mid-semester break. This service is free and available to anyone in the campus community. For more information and to book an appointment, please go to: https://upei.mywconline.com/ 

We look forward to your visit!