About CMU

CMU Faculty

Christine Kampen Robinson she/her

Faculty Lead, Program Development; Director, Centre for Career and Vocation; Practicum; Teaching Assistant Professor

Christine Kampen Robinson

Program(s)Program Development; Practicum

Emailckampenrobinson:@:cmu.ca

OfficeC346

Christine is interested in stories, and how they matter in how we make sense of ourselves in our relationships with others. As a settler of Mennonite descent on Treaty 1 territory, story has become an important anchor in understanding and shaping her relationship to this land, her community, and her neighbours. An interactional sociolinguist, she examines the minute details of how we say what we say and what this means for the stories we tell and for us, the (co)-tellers. Her research projects have followed the threads of language, learning, and identit(ies), initially through the stories of migrants to Canada and now focusing on transcultural and transformative experiential learning of university students. 

As a story collector and story teller, Christine has specialized in using narrative to support people to imagine and tell new stories for themselves. Having worked for a decade as a career advisor, and having developed programming and curriculum in K-12 and post-secondary contexts, she is particularly invested in facilitating both individual and institutional story telling that accounts for individual agency and the systems of oppression that constrain us.

After completing her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) at the University of Winnipeg, she traded the prairies for the rolling hills of southern Ontario for a number of years, where she completed both a Master of Arts and PhD in German at the University of Waterloo. Since returning home to Winnipeg, she has also trained as a Trauma of Money Facilitator and serves as a Life Design Fellow for the Life Design Lab at Stanford University.

Christine, her husband and their three children currently attend Jubilee Mennonite Church. In addition to stories, Christine enjoys good coffee, farmers' markets, crisp Octobers, and movie night with homemade pizza on Fridays.

Areas of Teaching

Practicum

Education

PhD, German (Waterloo); MA, German (Waterloo); BAH, Language and Culture in Literary Translation (Winnipeg)

Work in Detail

Research

Current Projects

Member of the 2022-2024 Research Seminar on Work-integrated Learning through Elon University's Center for Engaged Learning

An analysis of motivations for, barriers to, and experiences with study abroad 

  • Faculty Researcher, with Tim Cruickshank, Global Skills Opportunity research grant-funded project
  • Research Team: Claudia Dueck, Kayden Brown, Cass Froese, Mia Loeppky, Micah Peters-Unrau

Narratives of work among first-generation university students 

  • Collaborative project with Neil Baird, Mariko Izumi, and Tim Diette; internal research grant funded
  • Research Team: Kayden Brown (CMU), Jonathan Kreyling-Hoag (Columbus State)
  • Previous Team Members: Kayla Bridges, Lina Heng, and Michael Lambert (Columbus State)

Publications

Kampen Robinson, C. & Penner, N. (2022). Mennonites in Waterloo Region. In: Germans of Waterloo Region. (Eds: Mat Schulze, Grit Liebscher, Sebastian Siebel-Achenbach). Ottawa, ON: Petra Books. 20-31.

Kampen Robinson, C. (2022). Mothering tongues: Dietsche migrant mothers' narratives on language learning and language maintenance. LACUS Forum. 46(1): 62-71.

Kampen Robinson, C. & Liebscher, G. (2019). Relationship building in L2 telecollaboration: examining language learner closings in online text-based chats. Classroom Discourse. 10(1): 29-45. 

Kampen Robinson, C. (2017). Speaking Mennonite at School: A narrative analysis of the role of language in immigrant educational experiences. Language and Literacy: A Canadian Education E-Journal (Special Issue). 19(3): 74-87.

Kampen Robinson, C. (2014). "i've got to go now, bis dann": Teaching Closing Sequences. Die Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German, 47: 180–192.

Applied

Dyck, J. & Kampen Robinson, C. (2019). Mennonites Talking about Miriam Toews. The Walrus Magazine. July/August issue. 

Community

Past Co-President, Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada (LLRC), SIG for Canadian Society for the Study of Education (CSSE)

(previously served as first Co-Vice President, second Co-Vice President)

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