PEI Premier Pat Binns joined Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF) Chapter President Shari Gass on January 14 to present University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) students with the CCFF's "Best Secondary Fundraiser" award. The award honours UPEI students for their creativity in raising money for the Foundation's Shinerama campaign, Canada's largest post-secondary school fundraiser involving students at 57 universities and colleges.

UPEI's success stems from a combination of hard work, and the school's foresight in capitalizing on Shinerama's 40th anniversary. In recognition of the milestone, the students created numerous imaginative fundraisers, most notably "40 Holes of Mini-Golf for 40 years of Shinerama".

"We were thrilled to learn we had won this award," said UPEI's Ryan McDermott, Shinerama and Orientation Week coordinator. "I think it's a real testament to our community. Although we may not have the highest number of participating students, we outperformed many large campuses, and collected more money then ever before."

"When the campaign began, students raised money solely by shining-shoes in exchange for a donation, on a school's designated 'Shine Day'," explained Lyne Kyle, Manager, Annual Giving and Donor Relations, CCFF."Over the past four decades, Shinerama has grown to become so much more.Students are now very creative, and organize pretty well any fundraiser they think will work in their community."

UPEI has been involved in Shinerama since 1977. The school enjoyed a banner year in 2004. Last fall, its student 'shiners' raised close to $15,000 for cystic fibrosis research and care. This sum almost doubles the previous year's total, and is the highest amount ever raised by the university.

In addition to a number of well-received events leading up to Shine Day, Ryan and his team solicited corporate sponsors to donate campaign items, helping to decrease event costs. They also invited the media to attend all of their initiatives.

"Come Shine Day, no one had any excuse to say they didn't know we were raising money for the fight against cystic fibrosis," said Ryan.

Students at the University of Prince Edward Island are very excited to receive this honour. Although Shinerama 2004 has just wrapped up, UPEI students are already looking at ways to better their success in 2005.

During the first week in February, the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) will celebrate International Development Week, which is held each year to increase Canadians' awareness of their role in international development, and to learn more about life in developing countries. UPEI has chosen to highlight issues in Africa, and has organized several events for the week.

On Monday, January 31, there will be an information display in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre. Representatives will be available from the Faculty of Education, School of Business, and Student Services, as well as NGOs such as CUSO, PEI Association for Newcomers, Canada World Youth, WUSC, and Canadian Crossroads International. This information display will be held from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm.

A panel presentation entitled "Perspectives on Development in Africa: Lessons from the Tsunami and Beyond," will be held on Wednesday, February 2. Sponsored by the Dean of Science, the event is scheduled to start at 6:30pm. The panelists include Winston Johnston (Chair of Farmers Helping Farmers), Donna Malone (CUSO), and Momo Kanneh (UPEI graduate student and former Liberian journalist). The panel will be moderated by Karen Mair, from CBC's Island Morning. Following the panel, at approximately 8:30pm, there will be a cultural presentation (including a fashion show and trivia) organized by the Society of International Students. Light refreshments will be available. Both of these events take place in the AVC Lecture Theatre C.

At 10:15am on February 4, the Faculty of Education presents a video-conference between various NGOs on PEI and NGOs in Africa. The focus of the video-conference is AIDS. The conference will take place in ITEC Theatre and will last for approximately an hour.

International Development Week concludes with the Fourth Annual Fundraising Luncheon at the Rodd Royalty Inn on February 4. Alexis MacDonald, Acting Executive Director of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, will be the guest speaker and will speak on the AIDS crisis in Africa. The luncheon begins at noon, and tickets are $30 each or $270 for a table of ten. A portion of every luncheon ticket sold is donated to a UPEI International Student Scholarship. For tickets please contact Rose Barbour at 566-0615 or rbarbour@upei.ca. Individuals, businesses, or organizations may also sponsor a UPEI international student to attend. During the luncheon, international student awards will be presented.

All activities and presentations are open to the public and, with the exception of the Fundraising Luncheon, are free. For more information regarding any of these events, please call Christine Gordon at 566-0417 or cgordon@upei.ca.

The Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC)launched Pets, Professors, and Politicians: The Founding and Early Years of the Atlantic Veterinary College on January 27 in Charlottetown. Written by Marian Bruce, it tells the story of the people and political wrangling behind the building of AVC. This includes people like PEI's former premiers Alex Campbell, "who had sown the seeds [for AVC in the 70s]" and Jim Lee with his "bull-dog like determination to get the job done," says Bruce on page 72.

"Although it may be bold to write the history of AVC when we are barely 20 years old, we're growing fast and it's important we capture first-hand all that went into building the College," says Dr. Tim Ogilvie, AVC Dean . "It was an energizing and exciting time. It still is for AVC."

Capturing much of the early years the book describes how inaugural Dean Reg Thomson worked with a tight AVC team from a makeshift basement office at UPEI. Today, at about four football fields in size, supported by the expertise of more than 100 faculty from around the world, AVC has graduated more than 800 students from the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine program.

The story of AVC goes back to the early 1970s, when national staffing forecasts called for more veterinarians, and more capacity to train them. But how to address that needand#151;and, more importantly, whereand#151;turned into nearly two decades of controversy and negotiations among politicians, government officials, and academics.

UPEI History Professor Ed MacDonald, editor of the book, wrote the Foreword in which he says: "Institutional history is often as instructive as this and occasionally as judicious, but it is seldom so colourful". With a cast of colourful characters featuring the Hon. Eugene Whelan, federal minister of Agriculture, and several Atlantic premiers, Bruce's narrative is packed with anecdotes about people and animals. It tells AVC's story from the beginning to present day.

Marian Bruce was born on a farm in PEI, and has worked as a writer and editor on magazines and newspapers across Canada. She has written, edited, and/or collaborated on a number of books including Making it Home: Memoirs of J. Angus MacLean (Ragweed Press 1999) and is writing a history of Prince of Wales College.

Adding visually to Pets, Professors, and Politicians is Lindee Climo's full-colour painting on the cover. Climo is recognized for her work as an Atlantic realism artist. As well, the book features a number of animal illustrations excerpted from a poster designed specifically for AVC by Jay Ryan, Chicago-based poster artist with an uncommon light-hearted style. Liberally stocked with black and white photographs as well as two signature sections of colour photographs, the 232-page hardcover book sells for $29.95 CDN (or $24.95 US), and is available in most bookstores across Atlantic Canada. Online and print quality photographs available upon request.

A $45,000 grant from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and PEI Business Development will allow thirty PEI small- and medium-sized businesses to undergo the Jump Start Your Business process developed by Doug Hall, founder and chair of the famous Eureka! Ranch in Cincinnatti. The training will be run by ProfitLearn PEI, a unit within the Centre for Life-Long Learning at the University of Prince Edward Island.

The Jump Start process begins with a one-day coaching workshop which inspires companies to develop the marketing messages that drive sales and marketing success. After the workshop, the companies will receive two research reports from the Eureka! Ranch headquarters, quantifying the improvement in their marketing messages and giving ideas on further enhancements. As an additional support, PEI Business Development will provide follow-up coaching to help ensure the companies translate their new insights into business success.

The Jump Start Your Business process on PEI will be exactly the same as the process offered by Eureka! Ranch in Cincinatti to companies such as Procter and Gamble, Ford Motor Company, Bank of America, and Walt Disney.

Doug Hall, a summer resident with great affection for PEI, made his business fortune advising major corporations. Eureka! Ranch think tank has been named Number One in America by Inc. Magazine, CIO Magazine, and AandE Top 10. While he spends much of his time working with Fortune 500 corporations, his heart remains with smaller entrepreneurs, as can be read in his books and heard on his national public radio show "Brain Brew".

The University of Prince Edward Island has won a major international contract to provide English language training to student teachers from the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIE). UPEI was one of just two successful bidders selected from high-profile universities in Britain, Europe, Australia and Canada to deliver these highly specific and demanding programs.

"UPEI is very proud to be awarded this important contract. It means we have gained international recognition for our expertise as teachers of English as a second language," says Vianne Timmons, Vice-President of Academic Development. "The application process was extremely rigorous and competitive. It says a great deal about the quality of our programming to have edged out larger universities such as McGill."

The Hong Kong Institute of Education is a 7,000-student institution specializing in teacher training. It has a strict mandate from the Chinese government to increase the number of highly-skilled Chinese English teachers. As the first stage in what is expected to become a long-term agreement, UPEI has been awarded a contract to provide an intensive 10-week summer English program for 21 students. During the first five weeks, the student teachers will take two custom-designed, 36-hour courses and will participate in a 30-hour in-school placement to observe teaching methods. In the second five weeks, they will take part in the UPEI Summer Language Program alongside 175 Francophone and international students.

Before entering the UPEI summer program, the pre-service teachers from Hong Kong will have completed two years of a four-year honours Bachelor of Education majoring in primary teaching and will have taken at least one-third of their courses in English. When they arrive in PEI they will be proficient enough in English to interact comfortably. An integral objective of the UPEI program is to broaden and deepen the students' awareness and understanding of the culture in which they are studying, so students will live with local families and take part in related field trips, cultural, and social activities.

The Hong Kong students will arrive on June 4 and the university is currently organizing the homestay component of the program. Anyone interested in hosting a student is invited to contact Reiko Dolan, UPEI Homestay Coordinator, at 566-3322.

For Dr. James Lovering of Charlottetown, education has always played an essential role in his life, both his own learning, and the learning of others. The retired agricultural economist demonstrates this commitment to education in a variety of valuable ways at the University of Prince Edward Island. His most recent contribution involves an intensive tutoring program with two Chinese students who are taking the English Academic Preparation program (EAP) at the Webster Teaching and Learning Centre.

EAP is becoming increasingly popular as the number of international students attending UPEI continues to grow. The program teaches students whose first language is not English how to get the most from lectures. It develops their academic writing, research, and critical thinking skills. Dr. Lovering volunteers for up to two hours most days as an English language coach to first-year business students Jei Li, from the province of Yunnan, and Yang Zhang, from Liao Ning province. Both have a good grasp of the language already. It is Dr. Lovering's job to help them increase their confidence level and improve their pronunciation.

"I enjoy working with students this way. It is satisfying on a personal level, but I also do it because I believe that it's hard to beat education as an investment, whether it's for individuals, for nations, or internationally," he explains.

Over the last few years Dr. Lovering and his wife, Frances have established an endowment fund to support two major graduate scholarships for UPEI students. They created the valuable awards in memory of their daughter, Janet Lovering. The Janet Lovering Scholarship for Graduate Studies in Nursing is a $3000 annual award to support nurses who wish to pursue graduate studies in nursing, health education, or health administration. The Janet Lovering Graduate Scholarship in Science will be a $2000 award for a full-time student entering the first year of the Master of Science program in Biology or Chemistry at UPEI. The award-winner will be selected based on high academic accomplishment and involvement in research. The Loverings have made additional gifts as well, to fund subscriptions to nursing journals for the Robertson Library, and most recently, to purchase laboratory equipment for the Department of Physics.

"We are very grateful to Dr. and Mrs. Lovering for their gifts to the Building a Legacy campaign, and for Dr. Lovering's tutoring work," says Kevin Lewis, Chief Development Officer at UPEI. "There is a Chinese proverb that says, 'If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.' Dr.Lovering is making a lifetime of difference."

James Lovering's passion for life-long learning has prompted him to enrol in numerous undergraduate courses in recent years. And his family's leadership gifts in support of education have ensured that UPEI students will benefit for generations to come.

Wayne Gretzky has said that nothing beats hard work except hard-working talent. Steve McOrmond, a UPEI English graduate raised on PEI, is the latest unbeatable literary talent from the Island. He will be launching and reading from his first book, Lean Days, at Confederation Centre Library on Thursday, February 17 at 7:30 pm.

McOrmond earned his Masters in Creative Writing and English at the University of New Brunswick, working with Governor-General's Award-winners Don McKay and Jan Zwicky. He now lives in Toronto, and returns home every year.

Novelist Helen Humphries writes, "Lean Days is testament to Steve McOrmond's honest and originality," and Newfoundland poet and novelist John Steffler says, "The poems in Lean Days range from deft meditations on the art of Glenn Gould to disarmingly honest lyrics about the gravitational pull of hometown and the rocket fuel of desire that blasts young hearts painfully across continents."

Reading with McOrmond is another of Canada's finest new poets, Sue Sinclair, who grew up in Newfoundland and lives in Toronto. In Mortal Arguments and Secrets of Weather and Hope, Sinclair addresses issues of profound philosophical and political importance such as consumerism, privilege, and our ability to respond to the suffering of others. She writes with mature depth.

This celebration of a new Island writer, and evening of some of the finest new poetry in the land, is sponsored by the UPEI English Department with generous support from the Canada Council of the Arts and Confederation Centre Library. For further information phone 566-0389.

Researchers from the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), together with colleagues and students from the University of the South Pacific (USP), were prominent participants in The Global Symposium on Gender and Fisheries which took place in Penang, Malaysia, recently. UPEI and USP have been working together to train South Pacific fisheries researchers and support their research on gender issues in small-scale fisheries.

"Women are actively engaged in harvesting, processing and selling fish, both for family food and domestic markets, plus they are integral supports for men's commercial and export oriented fisheries," notes Dr. Irene Novaczek, Director of the Institute of Island Studies at UPEI, "yet women's work, although critical to food security and community well-being, is rarely acknowledged or documented."

Under the direction of Dr. Jean Mitchell and Dr. Novaczek of UPEI, and Dr Joeli Veitayaki of USP, Pacific researchers from Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu documented the critical roles women have in modern fisheries, and how gender roles have changed over time. Several of these studies were showcased in the Global Gender and Fisheries Symposium. Novaczek presented three papers. One told the story of Lelepa Island in Vanuatu. On this island, fisheries are severely depleted. Efforts to manage and conserve marine resources have met with limited success, in part because women and youth, who are active fishers, have no role in public decision-making. A second paper, co-authored by Novaczek and Mitchell, discussed how important it is to reject stereotypes and analytical processes that reinforce discrimination against women and perpetuate the view that women's work is unimportant. In a third paper, Novaczek looked at edible and medicinal marine plants as resources for rural women's small business development in the Pacific.

Novaczek reports that academics from all over Asia and the Pacific have shown interest in UPEI's unique Master of Arts in Island Studies Program."I hope that international exposure such as this will lead to exciting new collaborations with island researchers in Asia and the South Pacific," she notes. "In the recent tsunami, at least one university marine station in that region was heavily damaged. Tragically, a bright young marine researcher from the Andaman Islands is among the dead. The Institute of Island Studies will be looking for opportunities to develop projects that help to rebuild capacity in that region."

UPEI is pleased to announce that Dr. Irene Novaczek of Breadalbane, PEI has been appointed as the new Director of the Institute of Island Studies. She brings to this position a rich international experience in marine science, coastal resources management, and community development on small islands. Dr. Novaczek replaces Jane Ledwell who has taken a position with the PEI Council on the Status of Women.

Dr. Richard Kurial, Dean of Arts at UPEI, commented: "Under the leadership of Harry Baglole, the founding director, the Institute achieved a strong local and international reputation. Jane Ledwell built on the Institute's reputation for excellence and helped establish our unique Master's Program in Island Studies, which now involves 22 graduate students. In the past year, Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino was installed as Canada Research Chair in Island Studies. With the addition of Dr. Novaczek to the team, we anticipate continued growth, development, and success for Island Studies at UPEI."

Novaczek is known locally as an active citizen involved with environmental and social justice issues, and internationally as a marine scientist and community development practitioner. She has lived and worked on islands most of her life, in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. She recently worked with Pacific Islands researchers to document gender issues in small-scale fisheries. A book entitled, "Pacific Voices: Equity and Sustainability in South Pacific Fisheries," edited jointly by Dr. Novaczek, Dr. Jean Mitchell of UPEI, and Dr. Joeli Veitayaki of the University of the South Pacific, will be published later this year.

The mandates of the Institute of Island Studies include the promotion of research and policy analysis, and the linking of the university to the wider Island community. "This process of research, analysis and public engagement helps ensure that we understand, appreciate and conserve what makes our own island special," notes Novaczek, "while selecting development paths that are life- affirming and sustainable. The Institute also communicates and collaborates with island-based researchers all over the world, a process that helps us to learn and benefit from the experience of other islands while sharing our own expertise."

The Institute will mark its 20th anniversary this year and Dr. Novaczek points out that "this is an opportunity to celebrate the accomplishments of island artists, historians, scientists and other researchers, not only those on campus but also those active in the wider community." She adds that, "by taking time to note our accomplishments and our potential, we consolidate the base from which to launch new initiatives that will maintain the Institute as a relevant and progressive partner in public policy development on PEI."

A groundbreaking agreement that will improve the way training is delivered to federal and provincial public servants in PEI was signed on February 8 by representatives of government and academia. The agreement, the first of its kind in Canada, will bring accessible, affordable and relevant learning to public servants in Prince Edward Island

On hand for the signing were: Wade MacLauchlan, President of the University of Prince Edward Island; Alex MacAulay, President of Holland College; Janice Cochrane, President of the Canada School of the Public Service (CSPS); Dan Woodin, Second Vice-Chair of the PE.I Federal Council; Verna Bruce, Associate Deputy Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada; and Jim Ferguson, CEO of the P.E.I. Public Service Commission.

The partners will work in collaboration to achieve the objectives of the agreement, which are: to provide affordable and relevant training, development and learning opportunities to support a high-performing, professional public service; to utilize the training capacity of local learning institutions/organizations; and to increase access and participation of public servants to core and common learning offerings.

They will identify regional learning needs of federal and provincial public servants, determine the course content to meet these needs and identify trainers and subject matter experts. Each partner will also have a key specific role to play in accomplishing the objectives of the agreement. The Canada School of Public Service, as the common learning service provider for the Public Service of Canada, will determine evaluation criteria, provide curriculum, and monitor the quality and relevance of offerings.

The PEI Federal Council, which is made up of representatives from federal government departments and agencies in PEI who are dedicated to the retention and development of a high-performing, professional public service, will help determine regional federal learning needs. And as the major federal employer in PEI, Veterans Affairs Canada will contribute in identifying the regional learning needs specific to their employees.

Holland College will act as the lead for both UPEI and the College in being the point of contact for addressing these learning needs. A steering group, with representation from each of the six partners, will guide the development of course delivery. The Province of Prince Edward Island's focus in this partnership will be to explore synergies regarding core and common learning needs between federal and provincial public servants. This partnership will enhance current services provided to the Province by both Holland College and UPEI.

The agreement is in effect until March 31, 2007. For more information, contact Clive Keen, Director of the UPEI Centre for Life-long Learning, at 566-0440 or ckeen@upei.ca.