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Verna Wiebe | 2025 Kay and Lorne Dick Teaching Excellence Award recipient (video)

Monday, March 16, 2026 @ 2:12 PM

Verna Wiebe, Teaching Assistant Professor of Music, worked at CMU and its predecessor college CMBC for 37 years, starting in 1988 and retiring in 2025. She and Dr. Paul Doerksen, Associate Professor of Theology and Anabaptist Studies and P.M. Friesen Co-Chair in Biblical and Theological Studies, are co-recipients of the 2025 Kay and Lorne Dick Teaching Excellence Award.

Dr. Paul Doerksen | 2025 Kay and Lorne Dick Teaching Excellence Award recipient (video)

Monday, March 16, 2026 @ 11:53 AM

Dr. Paul Doerksen, Associate Professor of Theology and Anabaptist Studies and PM Friesen Co-Chair in Biblical and Theological Studies, has worked at CMU since 2011. He and Verna Wiebe, Teaching Assistant Professor of Music, are co-recipients of the 2025 Kay and Lorne Dick Teaching Excellence Award.

The award, established in 2022, is granted annually to two faculty members who best exemplify CMU's commitment to excellent teaching.

CMU adds faculty member to growing social work program

Thursday, March 12, 2026 @ 12:46 PM

CMU continues to grow and enrich its Bachelor of Social Work degree program with the addition of Dr. Felicia Owadara, Assistant Professor of Social Work, who joined the faculty on July 1, 2025.

Owadara brings to CMU a particularly global breadth of experience and connections in teaching, research, and practical social work. She has studied in Nigeria (Master of Education from the University of Ibadan), England (Master of Research in Social Policy and Social Work Research from the University of York), and Canada (PhD in Social Work from the University of Manitoba). She has been a social worker in Nigeria's medical system, and she has worked on numerous international research projects.

Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Alexander Sawatsky

Thursday, October 5, 2023 @ 2:28 PM

Dr. Alexander Sawatsky is Professor and Chair of Social Work. He joined the CMU faculty in 2023.

What are you enjoying about your work here so far?

Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Heather Campbell-Enns

Monday, March 27, 2023 @ 11:36 AM

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 Dueck

Thursday, December 15, 2022 @ 9:10 AM

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

Thursday, November 17, 2022 @ 4:33 PM

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.

Faculty: In Their Own Words – Dr. Jerry Buckland

Friday, August 31, 2018 @ 8:30 AM

Dr. Jerry Buckland has been Professor of International Development Studies at Menno Simons College for 25 years.

What do you love about your work here at Menno Simons College?

Faculty: In Their Own Words – Karen Ridd

Thursday, May 3, 2018 @ 9:00 AM

Karen Ridd has been a lecturer in Conflict Resolution Studies at MSC since 2007. Karen is a mediator, facilitator, teacher and public speaker with over 25 years of experience as a conflict resolution practitioner, including work as a human rights volunteer in war zones in Central America with Peace Brigades International in the 1980s.

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