Alumni Profiles
CMU taught alum how to think "inside out and upside down"
25 at 25 | Kyle Devine (CMU '06)
Kyle Devine (CMU '06), Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Winnipeg, says he distinctly remember how exciting it was to be surrounded by faculty who encouraged students to seek out different disciplines of learning.
The current Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Winnipeg came to CMU from Providence University College, by way of the University of Manitoba, where he initially planned to become a dentist.
After a conversation with a friend attending CMU, who mentioned a course on the history of rock music, he quickly changed direction. That pivot eventually led him to CMU's Music Department in the early 2000s, where he graduated in 2006.
During those years, among the cinnamon buns and formless dormitory couches, the thing that most stood out to Kyle Devine was CMU's intrepid approach to education.
"What we were doing at CMU at the time was always connected to these sorts of bigger social questions or bigger questions of injustice in the world," Devine says.
He says his professors at the time were "unlike anything I'd experienced anywhere else in terms of like how adventurous they were in what they were reading and how they were thinking."
To distinctly remember how exciting it was to be surrounded by faculty who encouraged students to seek out different disciplines of learning. The music faculty advised him to read philosophy, while philosophy professors suggested he engage with media studies. Perhaps most influentially, media educators encouraged him to explore various approaches to environmentalism.
With a mind full of interdisciplinary thought, after CMU, Devine pursued a master's degree at the University of Edinburgh and finished off his PhD at Carlton University in Ottawa. His current research explores the environmental history of the music industry.
His latest book, Decomposed: The Political Ecology of Music, argues that recorded music has always exploited both natural and human resources through its perceived disposability as an art form.
Devine has spent a large portion of his career as an educator, saying "the [students] that I really love working with are the ones that exemplify the kind of adventurousness that I think I was encouraged toward at CMU."
Holding such a distinguished position at the UW, Devine says he has modelled much of his career after what he witnessed at CMU, understanding that authentic leadership is demonstrated through service. "To lead is to serve. No one ever taught me that, but that's what I saw [at CMU]."
"I can't tell you which lecture or which professor [at CMU] did that. It's a kind of impression that was made that will never leave me or never go away," Devine said. "It's a standard that I try to hold myself to."
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