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CMU professor awarded prestigious Canada Research Chair
Dr. Heather Campbell-Enns, Associate Professor of Psychology at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), has been awarded a Canada Research Chair (CRC) Tier 2 in Families and Aging.
This is the first time CMU has received a CRC award, which will contribute $120,000 to the university annually over a period of five years, for a total of $600,000 in funding.
"While CMU scholars have been actively producing community-based, social science, and theological research for decades, this honour of hosting a CRC allows us to continue strengthening our research infrastructure, ultimately supporting us in building a better world and equipping students for lives of service to the community," said Dr. Jodi Dueck-Read, Director of Research and Program Grants at CMU.
The Canadian government announced in June its investment of $94.5 million into this cycle of the Canada Research Chairs Program, supporting 121 new and renewed chairholders across the country.
Tier 2 CRCs are awarded to exceptional emerging scholars recognized for having the potential to lead in their field of social sciences, humanities, health sciences, engineering, or natural sciences.
"In addition to the recognition of our faculty member Dr. Heather Campbell-Enns as a researcher of international significance, the award also recognizes the quality and potential of CMU's research environment," said Dr. Jonathan Dueck, CMU's Vice-President Academic and Academic Dean.
As the CRC in Families and Aging, Campbell-Enns' research will focus on family-provided care for older adults, particularly in the context of dementia. As Canada's population of older adults is growing and families continue to provide essential care for persons living with dementia, the needs and desires of intergenerational families need further study.
"Families provide so much unpaid care to older adults in Canada. In fact, if they weren't doing that and healthcare had to pay for it, the system would crumble," she said. "We count on families to provide care, but we don't have a lot of resources that go to families when they start struggling."
While she has been researching in this field for several years, Campbell-Enns said the CRC will enable her work to grow substantially by equipping her with more time and resources. Over the next five years, she will conduct new research exploring intergenerational family-provided care for persons living with dementia, including ways families provide care from different cultural perspectives.
She's looking forward to expanding her network of collaborators and together finding opportunities to discuss family research methods, learn from each other, and ultimately develop better understandings of how to study families—a process that itself is relatively understudied.
Ultimately, the goal of Campbell-Enns' research program is to design and implement services to support family-provided care for older adults. "It's interesting to learn new things, but if we haven't developed something in the end that can help patients and families, then we haven't really done the job," she said.
"Dr. Campbell-Enns' work is a perfect fit for CMU's strengths," Dueck added. "As an institution, we engage with community to an unusual degree within the landscape of Canadian universities; and we are driven to ask interdisciplinary questions, drawing together the best resources across disciplines and approaches, as a university."
A celebration and official acknowledgment of CMU's CRC designation, followed by a reception, will take place on Thursday, August 22 at 2:30 PM in Marpeck Commons on the CMU campus.
Learn more about the newest CRC recipients here: https://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/media-medias/lists-listes/2024/spring-printemps-eng.aspx.
About CMU
Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CMU is a Christian institution offering undergraduate degrees in arts, business, humanities, music, sciences, social sciences, and social work, as well as graduate degrees in Business Administration, Theology and Ministry, and Peacebuilding and Development. CMU is a proud member of Universities Canada.
For information about CMU, visit cmu.ca.
Kevin Kilbrei, Director of Communications & Marketing
kkilbrei@cmu.ca; 204.487.3300 ext. 621
Canadian Mennonite University
500 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, MB R3P 2N2
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