According to its formal mandate, the UPEIFA Research and Advocacy Committee is: “tasked by the Executive with completing research and making recommendations on issues being discussed by the Executive. In addition, the Committee serves an advocacy function to external groups and organizations, and to governments.” In practice, the Committee has generally focussed on its research role, supporting the FA Executive (and the Negotiating Team, in years when negotiation positions are being prepared), and this continued

May 2022 – May 2023 The communications committee included the following members: Michael Arfken (Co-Chair) Kim Mears (Co-Chair) David Hickey (Member-at-Large) Ariana Patey (Member-at-Large) Nia Phillips (Member-at-Large) Chris Vessey (Member-at-Large) Activities this year focused on communications to support the collective bargaining process, including significant email and social media campaigns. The FA website also required maintenance. A new theme was selected and implemented on the site and it migrated to a new hosting service (WP Engine

The Awards and Scholarships Committee oversees awards and scholarships that are sponsored and co-sponsored by the Faculty Association, as well as the events celebrating FA award recipients. As Chair, I was assisted this year by committee members Cora Gilroy, Susan Graham, Krishna Thakur, Sarah Hewko, Shannon Murray, and William Stoughton. We celebrated on February 10, 2023, the Faculty Association entrance scholarship recipients, and medalists. Thanks to the support of the Faculty Association Office and the

After UPEIFA members and the UPEI Board of Governors ratified the collective agreement, there was a period of reconciliation to ensure that the parties were in agreement on the final language. Last week, UPEI Administration indicated that if we wished to have the new salary scales implemented by the next payday (Friday, April 28), this process would need to be concluded by this Tuesday. After much work by your negotiations team, the final language was