Alumni Profiles
Notes, nursing, and new horizons: A journey of learning and service
When Heidi Derksen meets for a conversation in the mid-afternoon, she's wrapping up her day and going to sleep after the interview ends. This unconventional bedtime is because she's an ICU nurse in Saskatoon's hospitals, working alternating day and night shifts. The routine can be taxing, but it allows her a lot of flexibility for one of her favourite activities: travel.
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Education, performance, and healing: How CMU shaped a multifaceted musician
Heitha Forsyth decided to go back to school almost a decade after graduating with her undergraduate degree. She had a partner, a mortgage, an established career, and school felt distant. "I had to basically pivot life as I knew it," she says. But CMU staff helped her with the adjustment. "When it came to any questions I had about my student loan or anything like that where I wasn't sure what to do and I was feeling vulnerable, there were people to catch me and keep me moving forward. I really appreciated that."
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From courtroom dreams to restorative justice: A journey in conflict transformation
Odelia Duffus wanted to become a lawyer after she graduated high school in Jamaica. Many years later, she's liaising with the court—but not in the role she expected.
Duffus is a mediator and caseworker with Mediation Services, a Winnipeg-based organization offering conflict resolution and training to workplaces, families, and communities. She wants to make a safer and more just future for all people involved in conflict, by navigating it in ways alternative to conventional punishment. Through mediation, she acts as a neutral third party that hears each side's perspective. She helps create an agreement that benefits everyone and develop an appropriate solution.
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From engineering to pastoral leadership: The impact of theological study
When Everton McLennon stepped onto CMU's campus for the first time, he was not like the majority of students. He was in his 40s, with a full-time career and an engineering degree under his belt. But he had also been called to pastor his congregation, and he took that call seriously.
"I wanted to educate myself to better serve the congregation and gain a deeper understanding of theology," McLennon says. "Reading the Bible, I felt, did not provide me with full background and prepare me properly for the role of pastoral ministry, and CMU did that for me."
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Relational learning, lasting impact: Carrying the spirit of CMU into education
Heather Schellenberg was thrilled when she found out about CMU's new education degree program. As a teacher herself, she's excited about how this will allow CMU to send even more thoughtful, well-equipped grads out into the world to nurture the next generation. "I feel proud to have gone there, and I know it shaped me a lot," she says.
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