President's Message
Flourishing as a university for 25 years
Dr. Cheryl Pauls speaks at the CMU 25th Anniversary Celebration
This year we celebrate the story of Canadian Mennonite University at its 25-year cadence. This is a worthy breathing place—a time to say thank you, tell stories, reckon with the times, and attune ourselves to gifts in much vaster spans.
We offer tribute to generations of people who had a stake in building and nourishing CMU since long before the notion of coming together as a university was even a dream. We're inspired by thousands of alumni of CMU and predecessor colleges, whose lives bear witness to why this place matters to church and society.
We're humbled by visionary, sound leaders of the Province of Manitoba and of founding church bodies (Mennonite Church Canada, Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba).
We're grateful for gifts of Indigenous welcome that enable us to live and learn on lands and waters that have been kin with Anishinaabeg, Cree, and Dakota First Nations since ancient times.
The range of CMU education offerings and student demographics have extended considerably over 25 years. Along the way we've continually asked: How does the heart of the university's mission endure through times of change? How is CMU led in its discernment?
In response: Hear and heed the yearnings and callings of those who see CMU from unique vantage points.
Let's start with a blustery day in 2023, when alumni, friends, and faculty took time to reckon with the university's story and renew its path forward. Rev. Dr. David Widdicombe of St Margaret's Anglican Church offered this:
For mostly happenstance reasons, Canada is somewhat adjacent to mainstream imperial structures. Your voice as a university emerges from a tradition that's always been intentional about being somewhat adjacent to mainstream society powers. Not everyone at CMU identifies as Anabaptist, but the university itself does. Be intentional in remaining somewhat adjacent to society. It's a gift that extends far beyond yourselves.
The phrase somewhat adjacent grabbed me, yet I wrestled with what it means. It wasn't about being irrelevant, better, worse, out of touch, or leaning to the left or right politically. Eventually I got a sense of a two-way vertical extension, with a bandwidth stretching beyond what's common. It's as if Widdicombe said,
You extend deeply into the grit of the soil. You're really practical as you attend to experiential learning, service learning, livelihoods, and good stewardship. For the sake of the other, you're not afraid to get your hands dirty. You face stuff that's hard, for justice and mercy are refrains by which you live.
And, you behold the extravagance of Christ ever reconciling all things – abundantly far more than all you can ask or imagine. These phrases sound fantastical when spoken, so you keep singing. The world needs that persistent voice to cut through disastrous noise.