Alumni Profiles
From martyrology to herpetology: A CMU alum's global journey of curiosity, community, and conservation
A few days after graduating from CMU in 2025, Tai Linklater was in an airplane on the way to the Netherlands. The 23-year-old from Altona, MB travelled an ocean away from CMU, and yet it was present in almost every adventure of their two-week trip, a microcosm of their university experience: curiosity and community.
While at CMU, Linklater took a course on The Martyrs Mirror, a chronicle of the persecution and martyrdom of Anabaptist Christians particularly in the 16th century, with Professor of Philosophy and Theology Chris Huebner. Linklater and a fellow classmate met up with Huebner, who was on sabbatical doing research in Amsterdam, and together they toured many of the historical sites where the book's stories took place. They even did an escape room based on one of the martyr accounts, in the very area where it occurred hundreds of years ago.
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Finding Connection as an Outsider: How CMU Shaped a Public Servant
Marvin Marcial didn't mean to become a CMU student. What was initially supposed to be one music elective as a visiting student from the University of Winnipeg turned him into a full-time student who ended up graduating from CMU with a Bachelor of Music in 2007. "I ended up in choir and that changed the whole trajectory of my education, and I transferred over to CMU the next year," he says.
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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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