News and Releases

Vic Pankratz (CMBC '81), Winnipeg, MB, was granted the Manitoba Choral Association Award of Distinction for Artistic Excellence in September of 2024. Earlier that summer, he retired after a 39-year career as choral director and music educator at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate. He continues to be actively involved in Manitoba's music scene as a conductor-curator with the vocal ensemble Dead of Winter. He is also a member and assistant conductor for All The Kings' Men. Pankratz was previously artistic co-director of the Winnipeg Singers and artistic director of Prairie Voices, and has a wealth of experience as a vocal soloist with orchestras, operas, and choirs. Currently he is a sessional instructor in the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba where he is teaching a conducting course and a fourth-year Choral Literature and Development course. [Photo by Matt Duboff]

Tanis McLeod Kolisnyk (CC '00), Winnipeg, MB, is Red River Métis and an ordained Anglican minister (2013) who serves at Epiphany Indigenous Anglican Church in Winnipeg and St. Bartholomew's Anglican Church in Winnipeg Beach. She is designated as a Knowledge Keeper by the Elders Circle of the Diocese of Rupert's Land and is a Manitoba Métis Federation member in the Kinew Métis Local. Rev. McLeod Kolisnyk received her Master of Arts in Theology from The University of Winnipeg (UW) in 2015. She is a sessional instructor at CMU, UW, and St. John's College, teaching courses in religion, Indigenous studies, and Indigenous/Christian spirituality and theology. She previously spent more than two decades working in Indigenous student services at UW.

Amelia Winters (Wiens, CMU '18), Winnipeg, MB, is a professional fiction editor. She started her independent editing business in 2019, specializing in fantasy, speculative, and historical fiction. She has worked on projects such as Morvelving by C. J. Switzer and Bitter for Sweet by Daryl Potter. Winters is also a writer and is currently working on her own fantasy novel.

Johanna Klassen (CMU '22), Winnipeg, MB, graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Education in 2024, after completing a Bachelor of Music with a music education concentration at CMU. Later that year, she became a teacher at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate and the director of the school's choral program. One of her first big projects in the role was directing the senior high production of Urinetown: The Musical. Klassen is also active in the broader music community—she performs as a vocal soloist in a variety of settings and has sung in choirs like Prairie Voices, Dead of Winter, and the CMU Festival Chorus over the past several years.

Jubilee Dueck Thiessen (CMU '23), Winnipeg, MB, is the newest Executive Director of the Manitoba Down Syndrome Society, a non-profit organization that provides accessible support, educational resources, and inclusive social opportunities for individuals with Down syndrome and their communities. She has over six years of experience in Manitoba's disability services sector, including roles like Coordinator of Fund Development and Communications at L'Arche Winnipeg Inc. Her work and personal life is informed by social and human rights models of disability, which she first learned about in a 2020 CMU course titled, "Disability and Difference." These lenses shape her belief that disability is a perfect part of creation rather than an imperfection to be fixed, and this belief fuels her commitment to dismantling the inaccessible and exclusive structural and societal barriers that disable people.

Jordyn Van De Kerckhove (CMU '25), Winnipeg, MB, entered the Addictions and Community Services Worker Diploma program at CDI College in the summer of 2025, working toward licensing in the Canadian Addiction Counsellors Certification Federation. She completed her first practicum placement at Clubhouse Winnipeg, a rehabilitation community providing social opportunities and work skills development for people living with mental health diagnoses. Van De Kerckhove is employed at Clubhouse, where she facilitates art therapy sessions and works closely with individuals experiencing addiction, providing individual counselling support and organizing structured activities designed to support recovery and personal development. She also volunteers with Manitoba Possible, contributing to initiatives that aim to increase public awareness and understanding of individuals living with disabilities. Jordyn's CMU Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, complemented by additional studies in systems thinking from a sociological perspective, gave her a well-rounded understanding of how individual behaviours are influenced by broader social, cultural, and institutional systems, which continues to shape her learning and work. She also shares her passion for hockey and community building through managing and coaching two teams in the Winnipeg Rec Hockey League.