Faculty Profiles
New Indigenous opera is a story of good medicine
This fall, Manitoba Opera will be performing the world premiere of Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera presented on a Canadian mainstage. It celebrates Métis women, languages, music, and culture, with libretto written by Métis poet and scholar Dr. Suzanne Steele and music composed by Métis fiddler Alex Kusturok and CMU faculty Neil Weisensel.
Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Heather Campbell-Enns
Dr. Heather Campbell-Enns is Associate Professor of Psychology. She has taught at CMU since 2019.
What are you teaching right now that you're most excited about?
"Identity and Intersectionality." That class has been just a pleasure. We're asking questions of identity, looking at concepts and theories of identity. Students are really wrestling with, "Who am I?" Questions around how stable is my identity and how much am I changing and who am I becoming? It's such a beautiful experience, with these students who come into this course at the end of their degree, thinking about: who have I become in this program at CMU? They come into the class with a lot of curiosity, and I see them go through this uncomfortable time of being faced with these questions. I've taught it a few times, and by the end of the course they're grounded into knowing something about themselves and accepting that they are becoming someone and that it's a lifelong journey. That has been really beautiful—including students talking about who am I in relation to the church and the God I've always known and who I am still knowing. It's been impactful for me to witness that with students because it's a journey we're all still on and to have them share that with me is pretty remarkable.
Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Jonathan Sears
Dr. Jonathan Sears is Associate Professor of International Development Studies, Affiliate Faculty of Political Studies, and Associate Dean of Menno Simons College (MSC), a program centre of CMU. He has taught at CMU since 2008, primarily from the MSC campus.
Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Jonathan Dueck
Dr. Jonathan Dueck, Vice-President Academic, Academic Dean, Associate Professor of Social Science (Ethnomusicology), and of Writing, has taught at CMU since 2017.
What do you love about your work here?
I like the sense of play that we have as an institution. We invite people to do things they care about, things they're passionate about, and to try them out. As students, as faculty members, and even as an institution, we're willing to try new things in a way that is about what we love.
Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Sunder John Boopalan
Dr. Sunder John Boopalan, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, has taught at CMU since 2020.
Where or how do students give you hope?
I got into this business precisely because of that. Every day, students give me hope. Sometimes stuff happens in the classroom—I call it a change in plot. You walk in and you think, I know how the story is going to play out...and what I think we sometimes take for granted is that actually a person's place in the story can change the plot of the story. I think that's the place where students give me the most hope, because each of those persons sitting there with me in the classroom can change the outcome of the conversation. That open-ended plot of any interpersonal encounter gives me the greatest hope, and students do that all the time.
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