20 “Corporate Heroes” are partnering with the University in its pursuit of sports excellence. The businesses are supporting UPEI’s push to enhance teams, programs, and community outreach activities though a new initiative called the Heroes program.

For more information: www.upei.ca/news/upei-celebrates-its-panther-sport-heroes

Religious studies chair Joe Veladium grapples with the “big” questions during a podcast to be broadcast on December 14 as part of the 2010 Olympics’ Intellectual Muscle program.

An innovative Student Success Program developed by Student Services director Tamara Leary caught the attention of MISR University in Cairo. While there, Tamara met Charlie, the camel!

Enthusiasm, motivation and a caring hearts; UPEI students worked to raise over $25,000 for Cystic Fibrosis Research during the 2010 Shinerama campaign. UPEI has been involved in Shinerama since 1977.

This year, the new Mentorship@upei initiative, launched through the Coordinator of Student Retention and Engagement, provides an avenue for faculty and staff to interact with new students, recognizing that many of them have basic questions or anxieties about adjusting to university, or simply require a person whom they know they can talk to. As universities everywhere, especially in the Atlantic region, identify enrolment and retention as critical challenges and a front for ever-greater competition, the imperative is clear to enhance the overall level of student engagement and success. This begins with the individual student, and with a human touch, and provides us collectively with an opportunity to show that at UPEI students truly do come first. To date, more than 80 staff and faculty colleagues have signed up to participate in the Mentorship program, and there is room for more....

Mandy Lise McKenna, a fifth-year player with the soccer Panthers, was the 2008 recipient of the Student-Athlete Community Service Award. An Academic All-Canadian, she is an exceptional Engineering student and athlete who gives back to her team and to the entire community.

Mandy has been a co-leader of the UPEI Athletic Council which, over two years, has raised more than $10,000 for the IWK Children's Hospital, Cancer Research on PEI, and other charitable causes. Her team has supported a wide array of sport and community outreach activities that benefit food banks, seniors, newcomers, sick children, and people in developing countries. And it is Mandy who has inspired her fellow athletes to participate in full force.

The UPEI Wind Symphony is a major ambassador for UPEI through its concerts. It consists of music majors, other UPEI students, and members of the community. In recent years, under the direction of Dr. Karem Simon, the symphony has performed in venues throughout the Maritimes.

Performance locations include Souris, Summerside, Elmsdale, and Montague, PEI; Middleton, Greenwich, Halifax, Dartmouth, Pictou, New Glasgow, Antigonish, and Sydney, NS; and Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton, NB.

For more information: www.upei.ca/music/upei-music-department-concert-series

At least one member from every UPEI Atlantic University Sport (AUS) team contributes to the UPEI Student Athletic Council, working tirelessly on the University's behalf. Over the past three years, close to $15,000 has been raised by student athletes as they network broadly across PEI and with alumni.

Recent fundraising and volunteer work includes:

- The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's Run for the Cure
- IWK Spin-a-thon
- Breast Cancer fundraiser through Basketball
- UPEI Passion for Life Award, in memory of Rene Ayangma
- Charlottetown Food Bank Drive

Holland College and UPEI Athletics have a strong partnership, working to develop and support post-secondary recreation and sport opportunities. Holland College also calls UPEI home for all their basketball, soccer, and rugby home games.