Keyword: alumni update
Alumni in Their Own Words - Wyatt Anders (2010-12)
Where has your life taken you since you left CMU?
After CMU, I was offered a full scholarship at the University of Manitoba. I completed two degrees and played professional basketball. I am now juggling the life of coaching, playing (traveling the world through basketball), refereeing, and teaching in the Winnipeg School Division. CMU was the start of my academic and playing career—I would not have had these opportunities without CMU.
Alumni in Their Own Words - Nicole Richard Williams
Nicole Richard graduated from CMU in 2013 with a Bachelor of Music Therapy.
Where has your life taken you since you left CMU?
After finishing my Bachelor of Music Therapy at CMU, I worked as a music therapist in Winnipeg for about three years. During this time, I started working with many clients on the autism spectrum and noticed that doing rhythmic and drumming interventions with these folks really seemed to help them reach some of their therapeutic goals. I wanted to deepen my understanding of how exactly music therapy could help autistic children. Going to grad school had always been a dream of mine, and so I decided to take some time off working to do a Master's in Music and Health Science at the University of Toronto. During that degree, I decided I wanted to continue on and do a PhD and was accepted again at the Music and Health Science Research Collaboratory (the lab out of which the master's and PhD are based) at the University of Toronto.
Alumna explores intersection between land, people, and faith at Yale
Anika Reynar (CMU '17, Interdisciplinary Studies – Social Ecology) lives her life with one foot in the library and one foot in the garden—and also the classroom, the church, and around the table. She's pursuing her passions by doing not just one, but two, master's degrees simultaneously at Yale University.
CMU graduates chosen for prestigious Manitoba Legislature internships
Two Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) graduates have been accepted into the highly competitive Manitoba Legislature Internship Program. Kyla Willms and Nicholas Harder, both graduates of 2023, will be a part of the prestigious 10-month internship from September to June.
Breaking barriers: CMU alumnus defends doctoral dissertation on disability theology
Daniel Rempel is smiling from ear to ear.
Having successfully defended his doctoral dissertation at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland just a week before the Zoom interview for this story, Rempel was visually, and rightfully, excited to share on his research on the often-overlooked field of disability theology.
CMU alum recontextualizes art song through queer, ecological lens
At first glance, it may not seem like music, climate justice, and queerness would cross career paths. But Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) alum Anna Bigland-Pritchard has built a life that weaves together these strands.
The 30-year-old soprano lives in Victoria, BC, where she divides her time between studying under renowned soprano Nancy Argenta, managing marketing at Vancouver Bach Choirs, directing music ministry at Oak Bay United Church, and teaching through her small business, ABP Music Studio. She also dedicates time to advocating for climate justice and facilitating workshops on eco-mindfulness, which she has done for institutions like KAIROS, University of Toronto, and CMU.
Two CMU alumni prove the value of creative veterinary care
The first veterinary college was created in response to a cattle plague decimating southern France in the middle of the 18th century. Though microbiology had not yet been established as a concrete area of study, the first veterinary scientists worked tirelessly in search of a remedy, and within a few years, the plague was controlled, the cattle population was revived, and France resumed economic stability.
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.
Summer 2022 alumni updates (new content)
Readers of CMU's The Blazer magazine often say they flip right to the Alumni News section before reading anything else.
Again, as with the past several issues of The Blazer in its digest format, we were unable to squeeze in alumni news. Below is a compilation of updates provided to CMU by alumni.
MBA alumna protects data of millions at innovative tech company
CMU alumna Tomisin Bolorunduro moved to Vancouver, a city where she knew no one, in the midst of a pandemic. But what she moved for was worth it: a job at Trulioo, an innovative tech start-up and global leader in online identity verification and data privacy.