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Finding Connection as an Outsider: How CMU Shaped a Public Servant
Thursday, September 11, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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.
Read MoreNotes, Nursing, and New Horizons: A Journey of Learning and Service
Wednesday, September 10, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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.
Read MoreEducation, Performance, and Healing: How CMU Shaped a Multifaceted Musician
Monday, September 8, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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."
Read MoreFrom Courtroom Dreams to Restorative Justice: A Journey in Conflict Transformation
Sunday, September 7, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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.
Read MoreFrom Engineering to Pastoral Leadership: The Impact of Theological Study
Saturday, September 6, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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."
Read MoreRelational Learning, Lasting Impact: Carrying the Spirit of CMU into Education
Friday, September 5, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
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.
Read MoreConviction in the Courtroom: How CMU Prepared a Future Prosecutor
Thursday, September 4, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
These days, you'll find Nathan Dueck in Thompson, MB, arguing bail conditions, speaking to sentences, and prepping for his first trials. It's a serious role, but he admits law school itself wasn't quite as grueling as people imagine.
"After the first month of first year, I didn't open a single textbook," he says. "But at CMU, I did every single reading. That's the difference—the environment made me want to show up prepared."
Read MoreResponding to Crisis with Compassion: How CMU Shaped a Global Leader
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
When a humanitarian disaster makes headlines, some people read about it while drinking their coffee or share it on social media during their bus ride. Bruce Guenther, however, is already at his desk, organizing responsive action in the disaster's region.
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Faith in Practice: How CMU Inspires Community-Centred Leadership
Wednesday, September 3, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
For Kyle Penner, CMU was where he learned how to think about faith, community, and leadership in ways that continue to shape his life today. "My time at CMU helped shape who I am and how I think in the world," he says.
After graduating in 2005 with a major in youth ministry, Penner reflects on the practical lessons CMU offered. Courses on preaching, church history, and biblical texts didn't just give him knowledge, he says they taught him how to communicate with clarity across generations. Something that he says comes in quite handy in his current role as the pastor of Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach, MB.
Read MoreRooted in Faith, Growing Through Ecology: A CMU Alum's Path of Environmental Leadership
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
Sometimes the most pivotal moments are only possible because of the communities we've already been part of. For Joanne Moyer, that moment came at an airport.
While seeing off a friend who was volunteering in Iraq with Christian Peacemaker Teams (now Community Peacemaker Teams), she bumped into Esther Epp-Tiessen who then worked for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). Because they already knew each other through CMU's close-knit circles, the conversation quickly turned into opportunity.
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