Keyword: CMU

Stitching together community and sustainability

Anna-Marie Janzen's earliest childhood memory is sewing.

She recalls sitting on the kitchen floor with her grandmother, playing with giant, oversized plastic needles and shaped cards as her grandma taught her the fundamentals of stitching and threading.

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Through the lens: How CMU helped an Indigenous storyteller find her voice

Gindalee Ouskun points to the great paradox in her life—she is shy and introverted, yet her work is public-facing and relational. "It's kind of ironic that I would choose a career where ... I'm always interacting with people and really putting myself out there," she laughs. "But being in the role brings out a sort of confidence that I don't necessarily always have."

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Advancing reconciliation through storytelling

"I have always been a storyteller," says Ben Borne over a Zoom call from his home in Saskatoon, SK. "And what I'm really good at is bringing people together."

Since graduating from CMU with a Bachelor of Arts in 2013, Borne's various endeavors and accomplishments—which are far too innumerable to list but include podcast host and founding his own public relations firm—all share that similar theme: storytelling.

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From newcomer to community-builder: A CMU alum’s journey of purpose, justice, and leadership

When Gode Katembo thinks about his time at CMU, he doesn't just remember classes and assignments. What stands out is how the experience reshaped his sense of direction.

"For me, CMU did not prepare me for a career," he said. "It prepared me for purpose."

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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 Dr. Chris Huebner, Professor of Philosophy and Theology. 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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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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Sunday@CMU: September 2025

Reading the Gospel of Luke with Junior High Students

This month on Sunday@CMU, we hear from CMU alumna Julia Thiessen. Julia is a teacher at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate and a member of Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. In this series of meditations we are rebroadcasting, she reflects on teaching the Gospel of Luke to grade eight students, and seeing the biblical stories through their lens.

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