The following message was distributed to UPEI students, staff, and faculty on March 3, 2021, to their @upei.ca emails and via the UPEI SAFE app.

The University of Prince Edward Island wishes to update students, faculty, and staff following today’s announcement by the PEI Chief Public Health Office (PEI-CPHO).

With this weekend’s announcements by the PEI Chief Public Health Office (PEI-CPHO) to introduce circuit breaker restrictions and move to a modified red alert level for a period of 72 hours, UPEI will implement several measures and close the campus, effective immediately.

The Atlantic Veterinary College’s Animal Welfare in Practice Symposium, hosted by the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre (SJDAWC) and the AVC Animal Welfare Club, will be held virtually on March 4 and 6, 2021. The theme of the symposium is animal abuse and neglect, including the link between cruelty to animals and violence against people. 

Dr. Laurie McDuffee, professor of large animal surgery at the Atlantic Veterinary College, has won the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada’s Dr. Carol Morgan Memorial Award.

Established in memory of Dr. Morgan who passed away in 2015, the award is to be used for continued education and training-related costs in the areas of ethics and/or animal welfare for veterinarians working to increase the application of these subjects within the profession broadly.

U SPORTS, the national governing body of university sports in Canada, gives special recognition to student-athletes across the country with an academic standing of 80 per cent or better. UPEI is proud to announce 87 of its student athletes in the 2019–2020 season have been named U SPORTS Academic All-Canadians. That’s more than 43 per cent of the student-athlete population, and the highest number of Academic All Canadians at UPEI in a single year.

The next presentation in the Institute of Island Studies’ Island Lecture Series will feature Irish researcher Rory McCabe, Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway, via Zoom on January 19, at 1 pm AST. 

The University of Prince Edward Island is proud to announce that Dr. Caroline Ritter, Assistant Professor of veterinary epidemiology at the Atlantic Veterinary College, has been appointed Canada Research Chair (CRC) specializing in veterinary social epidemiology. Dr. Ritter is also the recipient of a John R. Evans Leader Award (JELF) from the Canadian Foundation of Innovation (CFI).

The University of Prince Edward Island received the sad news on Saturday that UPEI’s first president and president emeritus, Dr. Ron J. Baker, passed away in Vancouver last week at the age of 96. The flags in front of the Kelley Memorial Building have been lowered to half-mast in his memory.

In a statement to the University community, UPEI President Dr. Abd-El-Aziz, expressed condolences to Dr. Baker’s family, friends and colleagues, and described his immense impact.

Health PEI will open a COVID-19 testing clinic on the UPEI campus on Thursday, December 10, 2020, from 9 am–6 pm.

The testing clinic is primarily for students, faculty, and staff from 20–29 years of age, but will also be available to anyone from the greater Charlottetown area in that age group.

In separate messages sent to students and to faculty and staff, the University announced that, effective Monday, December 7, 2020, UPEI will move back to an essential services model and suspend in-person classes for two weeks.