Part I
Welcome and overview
Welcome to the University of Prince Edward Island. Congratulations on your new role with the University. You are joining an institution that opened its doors in 1969 and now boasts more than half a century of achievement, including a tradition of teaching excellence.
Whether you have been hired as a tenure-track professor, research chair, term faculty, or sessional instructor, your job will involve teaching students. UPEI has a strong commitment to quality teaching, as is reflected in the University’s Mission and Goals and its overarching academic outcome statements.
UPEI’s Strategic Plan 2018–2023
The priority placed on teaching is reflected in student comments about their UPEI experience. In the 2022 Survey of First Year Students from the Canadian University Survey Consortium (CUSC) that UPEI participated in, 89 per cent of UPEI respondents indicated that they are satisfied with the quality of teaching at UPEI1. In addition, in the MacLean’s 2023 Ranking of Canadian Universities , UPEI ranked 8th among the 19 primarily undergraduate universities in Canada.
You are joining a team of dedicated and gifted educators who can help you to develop your own practice and who can model excellence in teaching. For example, Dr. Ann Braithwaite, Diversity and Social Justice Studies in the Faculty of Arts, is the most recent UPEI faculty member to receive the prestigious 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2021. Other 3M National Teaching Fellows at UPEI are Dr. Sue Dawson, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; Dr. Shannon Murray and Dr. Brent MacLaine (retired), Department of English; Dr. Brian Wagner, Department of Chemistry; Dr. Philip Smith, Department of Psychology; Dr. Fiona Walton (retired), Faculty of Education; and Dr. Étienne Côté, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Read about Dr. Ann Braithwaite’s 3M National Teaching Fellowship.
In addition, UPEI instructors have been recognized with regional awards such as the Association of Atlantic Universities Teaching Awards. Dr. Stacey MacKinnon is one of the recent AAU award recipients with the Anne Marie MacKinnon Award for Educational Leadership in 2023. In addition to these national and regional recognitions, there are teaching awards presented by UPEI and the UPEI Faculty Association (UPEIFA). There are the University Awards of Excellence for faculty, librarians, clinical veterinary professionals, clinical nursing instructors and staff and the UPEIFA presents the Hessian Merit Award for Excellence in Teaching, Merit Award for Scholarly Achievement, and the Janet Pottie Murray Award for Educational Leadership. There is a separate section with additional information about teaching awards in this guide.
If you have been hired into a term or tenure-stream faculty position, teaching is only part of the multi-faceted and complex role that you are undertaking. As part of your interview package, you would have received the UPEI Faculty Association’s Guide for New Members, which touches broadly on all facets of your role. It is intended to help ease your transition into your new position by orienting you to the teaching aspects of your role and supporting you in your early days as an instructor at UPEI. These guides offer information to help you through your first years of teaching, and will point you to resources to help you develop your teaching practice.
Although we will give you a general introduction to services at UPEI that touch on teaching, your department or program will most likely have unique requirements and practices that you should also familiarize yourself with.
We hope that you will find the information and resources in this guide useful. If you have a question that isn’t addressed here, please contact us, and we will find an answer for you as quickly as possible—and add it to the guide if appropriate. If you notice any outdated information, broken links, or other problems, please let us know as well.
Best of luck as you embark on this new phase of your career at UPEI.
1 More results from the CUSC survey is available through UPEI’s Office of Institutional Research
