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Keyword: profile
Unraveling the modern Mennonite story, one panel at a time
Monday, July 24, 2023 @ 11:39 AM
You may think that most books about Mennonites wouldn't dare to begin with young adults drinking, smoking, and driving a car in donuts around a church parking lot, but author Jonathan Dyck isn't so sure.
Dyck (CMU '09) is the author of the award-winning graphic novel Shelterbelts, which explores themes of Queer identity, inclusive churches, the history of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and much more, all set in the fictional, sleepy Mennonite community of Hespeler.
Read MoreCMU alumna brings climate action into the provincial election
Monday, July 17, 2023 @ 10:14 AM
In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report stating that a global average temperature increase of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels would significantly increase the severity and occurrence of extreme weather events, forever altering Earth's ecosystems.
The World Meteorological Institute estimates we are on track to hit that sustained average temperature increase in roughly a decade. Worse yet, there is a 66 per cent chance of that occurring temporarily within the next five years. The time for climate action is now.
Read MoreFaculty: 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.
Read MoreFaculty: 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.
Read MoreFaculty: 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.
Read MoreCMU student receives prestigious Terry Fox Humanitarian Award
Thursday, July 21, 2022 @ 11:14 AM
CMU student Katrina Lengsavath is one of only 17 Canadians to receive the 2022 Terry Fox Humanitarian Award. She was chosen from 503 applicants across the country for the prestigious scholarship, which honours Terry Fox's legacy by encouraging young people who are passionate about helping others and who demonstrate perseverance in the face of adversity.
Read MoreCMU student perseveres, receives one of four national scholarships
Thursday, November 18, 2021 @ 1:47 PM
If you looked at photos from CMU student Tai Linklater's childhood, you'd see countless shots of her holding different reptiles, unable to control the excitement on her face. Her dream career was to be a herpetologist, studying reptiles and amphibians. Until she found out it required calculus.
That's because Linklater has Specific Learning Disorder, a disability that in her case manifests itself in trouble with visual spatial awareness and extreme difficulties with mathematics.
Read MoreFaculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Christine Kampen Robinson
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 @ 9:00 AM
Dr. Christine Kampen Robinson has worked at CMU part-time since 2018 and full-time since 2020. She is Director of the Centre for Career and Vocation, Director of Practicum, and Teaching Assistant Professor of Practicum and Social Science.
What do you love about your work here?
One of the things I love most is the opportunity I have to listen to students' stories. Not just in order to find a placement that is a good fit for them, but really to give them the space to talk about who they are and what they care about, what kinds of connections they see between their academics and other work they're doing and problems they want to solve in the world, and working with them to find those connections.
Read MorePracticing theology from the bottom-up
Friday, December 18, 2020 @ 9:00 AM
Assuming a new position teaching theology at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), Rev. Dr. Sunder John Boopalan and his family arrived in Winnipeg in October 2020 after a move, during the pandemic, from their home in Boston, MA. Growing up in the religious context of Pondicherry, a former French colony in southeast India, Boopalan was raised by his mother, a nurse and Hindu convert to Christianity, and his father, a lab technician and preacher, who together attended the "Bakht Singh Assemblies," a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic indigenous (that is, without foreign missionary history) church movement. Describing the religious atmosphere of his upbringing, Boopalan states that "there was an interesting mix of theological influences that combined pietist, holiness, and charismatic movements. Services were four hours and included plenty of music played with indigenous Indian instruments and would always end in a love feast cooked by church members and shared sitting around mats on the floor."
Read MorePerseverance, pilgrimage, and the Bitter Sweet Trail
Thursday, December 17, 2020 @ 10:00 AM
On October 24, 2020, Kenji Dyck (BA '19, Communications and Media) premiered his documentary Bitter Sweet Trail: Japanese Canadians and the Alberta Sugar Beets, which followed a 2019 bus tour through southern Alberta. Produced by David Iwaasa, and in partnership with Nikkei National Museum, the film tells the story of many Japanese sugar beet farmers who experienced internment, dispossession, and detainment through the Second World War. Tour participants, made up of Japanese Canadians who farmed sugar beets in the mid-20th century, visited sites that played a significant role in Japanese Canadian history. For most Japanese Canadians, this was a time of racial persecution as well as a time of persistence. "The tour and the film," Dyck explains, "is to remember not only the injustice but also the perseverance of the Japanese Canadian people."
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