The Cadre +

9 February 1999

Food bank for students one year old

BY MELISSA DOUCETTE

Baby food, canned goods, and macaroni. These are but some of the hundreds of items available at the Cam- pus Community Cupboard (CCC), UPEI’s own food bank that has been in opera- tion for one year.

Last February, the Chaplaincy Centre initiated the creation of the CCC. To- gether with the Student Un- ion and Student Services, the Chaplaincy Centre had a food drive to stock the CCC lar- der.

The stores were run- ning low in the fall, and so another drive was held in De- cember 1998 to replenish the stocks, and gifts of money for the CCC were also received. The library and School of Nursing both raised funds, and all proceeds for the dress down days in November went towards the CCC. The President’s office also do- nated money in the CCC’s

first year.

“We had a fantastic re- ome from the campus fam- ily . . . people are so gener- ous,” commented Sister Joan Chaisson of the Chaplaincy Centre. She was particularly impressed by three students last May, who took some money they had left over and

“People lose their self, their dignity, because they have to account for everything.” - Sister Joan Chaisson, on why the government should

offer greater assistance to those in need.

bought a huge box of grocer- ies for the CCC.

The CCC was begun out of a perceived need for a food bank on campus. Sister Joan, who has been at UPEI for three years, felt that the need for a food bank grew

every year. Before the CCC was started, she often came into contact with students who skipped several meals, simply because they hadn't the resources to buy food.

“Things start to look up when you re fed — no one should go hungry on cam- pus,” added Sister Joan.

Pauline Tran, Vice- President Internal of the UPEI Student Union, has also received several e-mails from hungry students. Tran believes the CCC is helpful to students on campus who can’t make ends meet.

Students who tend to have the most need of a food bank are mature students with families, and students who don’t have access to family support, according to Sister Joan. Many different

ople access the CCC, and

it is regularly visited by stu- dents.

*Continued on page

UPEI News ~ UPEI physics students host

unique conference

For the first time, the Undergraduate Physics Society and the Department of Physics at the University of Prince Edward Island will host the Atlantic Undergraduate Phys- ics and Astronomy Conference [AUPAC].

Estimates prior to the conference were that approxi- mately 150 of the most gifted undergraduate physics stu- dents from the Atlantic Provinces and faculty from nine universities were to gather at UPEI from February 5 - 7, 1999. The students chose Much Ado About Nothing as this year’s conference title because “nothing” is sometimes very much “something” in the field of physics.

“The annual AUPAC conferences provide students with the opportunity to give presentations on their research and observe what their peers are doing at other universi- ties,” says Dr. Derek Lawther, a physics professor at UPEI.

In addition to the student presentations of their work, keynote addresses will be given by four noted Canadian physicists. Dr. Martin Grant, a 1978 UPEI Bachelor of Sci- ence graduate, who is currently a professor at McGill Uni- versity, presented “Something from Nothing? Pattern For- mation in Non-equilibrium materials.” His talk focused on how the properties of most materials depend on the microstructure formed during non-equilibrium processing.

A professor at Laurentian University, Dr. Douglas Hallman, presented “Much Ado About Neutrino’s at Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.” Hallman will provide insights into the quest to detect and quantify the different types of neutrinos which exist in our universe. It has re- cently been discovered that the neutrino’s mass is not, in fact, “nothing.”

“Surfaces and Interfaces: Scientific Mysteries and Technological Miracles” was the title of Dr. Juergen Kreuzer’s talk. Kreuzer, a professor at Dalhousie Univer- sity, will spoke on the physics and chemistry of nanoscale devices and the growing list of potential uses for such tech- nologies. “Nanoscale” means the size is measured in nanometres, or a billionth of a metre (almost nothing).

Dr. William Unruh, a faculty member at the Univer- sity of British Columbia, reviewed the evolution of our notion of time and explained the role of time in quantum gravity. The title of his presentation was “Time and the Universe”.

“Even though UPEI students and faculty have been attending the conference for many years, we decided to host the event this year because we wanted to give Island- ers the chance to see the many applications and uses of physics,” says Gerry Shepperd, Conference Co-Chair and third year UPEI honours physics student.

The conference was still in process at press time. A more complete review of the conference will follow.