Alumni Profiles: English
Alumni in their own words - Alex Tiessen (CMU '16)
This installment of Alumni in their own words features Alex Tiessen who graduated from CMU in 2016 with majors in English and Counselling Studies. In March 2026, Alex will return to CMU as its new Director of Advancement.
Where has your life taken you since you left CMU?
Right after I graduated from CMU, my life brought me straight back to campus. I took a role at CMU as an Admissions Counsellor, an opportunity that opened up in part because I had been a student ambassador. That work really set me up well. It allowed me to lean into my natural ability to connect with people—working with churches, meeting families, and inviting students into CMU. I quickly fell in love with that work and discovered that admissions and advancement were places where my skills and interests aligned.
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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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Alumnus explores the relationship between art and commerce in daring new novel
In 2017, André Forget was asked by friend and collaborator Joel Peters (CMU, 2011) to write a short story about a fictitious underwater organ. The only rule was to keep the story around 2,000 words. Forget ended up writing a 10,000-word academic dissertation about the mythical instrument, which he named the hydroöganon. Complete with invented scholars debating each other's theses and extensive details as to the engineering of the instrument, the story, originally titled The Lower Registers, served as the impetus for writing his debut novel In the City of Pigs, published by Dundurn Press in the summer of 2022.
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CMU alumna wins international writing competition with short story
With only 24 hours to write a short story from concept to completion, some writers might buckle under the pressure. But not Katie Doke Sawatzky (CMU '10). The CMU alumna won NYC Midnight's second annual 250-word Microfiction Challenge, chosen for first place out of more than 5,400 other contestants from around the world.
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On Speaking Truth to Power: reflections from an English student working in Communications
CMU is introducing a new combined Major in English and Communications & Media. Formalizing the combination is a progressive move, but the pairing itself is nothing new.
My first year at CMU, fresh off the Outtatown program, I took a Major Authors course focussing on the works of Charles Dickens. (At the time, my absolute favourite author.) In that course, I learned one of the most valuable things I would learn in undergrad overall:
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