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Graduates 2012 Video

Alumni Profiles – Daniel Paetkau (CMU ’12)

This video features Daniel Paetkau (CMU ’12) at In Gratitude, April 21, 2012, a CMU graduation weekend event at which class members share their experiences through spoken word or musical performance. The event brings together family members, graduates, students, faculty, and staff.

Daniel Paetkau
Bachelor of Arts, 4-Year
Major: English

Video Production: Laura Tait and Thomas Krause, CMU Communications & Media Students (2012)

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Graduates 2012 Video

Alumni Profiles – Christina Scheerer (CMU ’12)

This video features Christina Scheerer (CMU ’12) at In Gratitude, April 21, 2012, a CMU graduation weekend event at which class members share their experiences through spoken word or musical performance. The event brings together family members, graduates, students, faculty, and staff.

Christina Scheerer
Bachelor of Arts, 4-Year
Major: Business and Organizational Administration

Video Production: Laura Tait and Thomas Krause, CMU Communications & Media Students (2012)

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Graduates 2012 Video

Alumni Profiles – Lori Schroeder (CMU ’12)

This video features Lori Schroeder (CMU ’12) at In Gratitude, April 21, 2012, a CMU graduation weekend event at which class members share their experiences through spoken word or musical performance. Schroeder, soprano, performs with Abigail Graff, soprano, and Gabrielle Wiebe, piano. The event brings together family members, graduates, students, faculty, and staff.

Lori Schroeder
Bachelor of Music Therapy

Video Production: Laura Tait and Thomas Krause, CMU Communications & Media Students (2012)

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Graduates 2012 Video

Alumni Profiles – Abigail Graff (CMU ’12)

This video features Abigail Graft (CMU ’12) at In Gratitude, April 21, 2012, a CMU graduation weekend event at which class members share their experiences through spoken word or musical performance. Graff, soprano, performs with Lori Schroeder, soprano, and Gabrielle Wiebe, piano. The event brings together family members, graduates, students, faculty, and staff.

Abigail Graff
Bachelor of Music Therapy

Video Production: Laura Tait and Thomas Krause, CMU Communications & Media Students (2012)

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Events News Releases

Worship + Imagination Inspires and Equips

Powery
February 8, 2013 – CMU’s 2013 three-day, biennial music and worship conference, Worship + Imagination (W+I), opened on February 7 with CMU welcoming, among its special guests, Rev. Dr. Luke A. Powery, Dean of Duke Chapel and Associate Professor of the Practice of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School, and Graham Maule, liturgist, artist from the Iona Community, and trainer in lay leadership with Wild Goose Resource Group.

An influential church leader and keynote speaker, Powery led the plenary session, “More than a Song: Worship, Justice, and Suffering,” helping to set the tone for the conference. He also led the W+I clinic, Preaching in the Valley of Dry, exploring African American spirituals as resources for contemporary preaching.In 2008, the African American Pulpit named Powery to its “20 to watch” list, an honour given to outstanding black ministers under age 40 who are helping to shape future direction of the church.

MauleMaule, who studied Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art, focuses in the areas of participative biblical exploration of worship, creative reflection, and lay adult training with the Wild Goose Resource Group (WGRG). Maule has published a wide range of books and recordings of liturgy and song with his colleague, John L. Bell, and, along with another colleague, Jo Love, he also co-ordinates “Holy City,” the WGRG’s monthly workshop and liturgy event in Glasgow. Maule, joined by others, lead the daily worship services, “Fencing God’s People In.”

The CMU Worship + Imagination conference, previously known as “Refreshing Winds,” brings people together to share music and participate in clinics and workshops that open the imagination to wonder and praise. “What began as a church music seminar decades ago has become a symposium that equips, inspires, and encourages persons involved in worship planning, worship leading, pastoring, preaching, music leading, and other church leading roles,” says conference co-organizer Abram Bergen, Church Relations Director at CMU.

Serving on the 2013 W+I organizing committee with Bergen were CMU faculty members Irma Fast Dueck, Dan Epp-Tiessen, Tim Rogalsky, and Rudy Schellenberg.

“The 2013 conference theme, “Worship & Witness,” invites us to consider how worship bears witness to the imagination of God in the world and shapes us for witness,” says Bergen. “Our times of worship, plenary addresses, workshops, clinics, field trips, and visual arts challenge us to greater faithfulness. We also explore how worship and the arts resist injustice and oppression and enable God’s peace and reconciliation in the world.”

“We were pleased to feature a commissioned work for Worship + Imagination, Psalm 46, by Tim Corlis, CMU music faculty member,” says Bergen. The CMU Singers and Conductor Rudy Schellenberg presented the choral work during the opening service.

“We extend our thanks to the many gifted leaders and engaged participants who are involved in the Conference, to our staff and volunteers working behind the scenes, and to exhibitors present at this year’s conference. Our prayer,” says Bergen, “is that during these days together, our imaginations will be sparked and our witness strengthened through worship, presentations conversations, and interactions.”

For detailed conference information, visit the CMU Worship + Imagination Conference website:
http://www.cmu.ca/wi/

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General News News Releases

CMU Press Publishes Gordon Zerbe Book on Apostle Paul

IMG_5287Gordon Zerbe webJanuary 31, 2013 – CMU PRESS is pleased to announce the publication of Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics, by Gordon Zerbe. Citizenship is a collection of essays that offers “a revisiting of Paul’s theological  vision and practical activism around the theme of citizenship.”

Gordon Zerbe is Professor of New Testament at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the author of Non-Retaliation in Early Jewish and New Testament Texts, as well as numerous articles in books and journals. Zerbe recently contributed two essays in The Colonized Apostle: Paul through Postcolonial Eyes (edited by Christopher Stanley; Fortress Press, 2011): “The Politics of Paul: His Supposed Social Conservatism and the Impact of Postcolonial Readings;” and “Constructions of Paul in Filipino Theology of Struggle.”

Mark Reasoner, author of Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation, describes this book as “a wonderful introduction to social and political issues in the Pauline corpus, making a significant contribution in Pauline studies and in political theology.”

Neil Elliott, author of The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire, describes these essays as “exegetically judicious and boldly creative,” and adds that “by organizing these essays around aspects of ‘citizenship,’ Zerbe provides the most nuanced and compelling description we have yet seen of the political dimensions of the apostle’s thought and praxis.”

The chapters in the book are organized according to the citizenship themes of loyalty, mutuality, and security. Essays in the first section, “loyalty,” draw attention to the fundamental personal and corporate dynamics of citizenship in the context of Paul’s ecclesial politics. The second section, “mutuality,” is centred mainly on the internal features of the Messianic assembly as a citizen community, including its approach to social diversity and economic disparity. The third section, “security,” includes essays that investigate the questions of violence, peace, and warfare in and pertaining to Paul’s writings. A last section, “affinities,” engages Paul’s perspective with broader conversation partners beyond the fields of biblical and theological studies.

Zerbe attributes his most significant inspiration for the interpretation of Paul to four years of learning and teaching in the Philippines, as visiting professor at Silliman University Divinity School, Dumaguete City (1996-98, 2002-04). Born and raised in Japan, Zerbe continues to take an interest in inter-cultural engagement, having completed an MA in Cultural Anthropology from Western Washington University (1987).

Professor Gordon Zerbe holds a PhD in New Testament from Princeton Theological Seminary (1991) and has taught at CMU since 1990.

CMU PRESSis an academic publisher of scholarly, reference, and general interest books at Canadian Mennonite University. Books from CMU Press address and inform interests and issues vital to the university, its constituency, and society. Areas of specialization include Mennonite studies and works that are church-oriented or theologically engaged. Visit www.cmupress.ca

For more information about Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics, or to request a review copy, contact:

Paul Friesen at cmupress@cmu.ca or 1-204-885-2565 ext. 659.

Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics is available from theCMU Bookstore, locatedat 500 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg.

Contact cmubookstore@cmu.ca; telephone 204.487.3300.

The book can also be ordered online at cmupress.ca

Citizenship:

Paul on Peace and Politics

Gordon Mark Zerbe

CMU Press, 2012 | xii + 276 pages, paper | $26.00

ISBN 978-0-920718-93-3

 

An Excerpt from the Introduction

From Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics (CMU PRESS)

While the specific language of citizenship may not be frequent in Paul’s writings, I am increasingly finding it to be a vital framework for understanding Paul’s apostolic letters, and for reflecting on the contemporary implications of his legacy. Indeed, whereas discipleship (or “following,” German “Nachfolge”) has been the core watchword in my own Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I find that word easily susceptible to an individualist interpretation or practice. The notion of citizenship, however, not only conjures up the crucial element of personal loyalty and practice, but also that of a social and global-ecological vision, formation, and identity (even if an identity that confounds prior identities, or undermines the very notion of identity)—that is, altogether, a politics.

In the usage of this volume, politics does not refer narrowly to the business of governing or to relating to a government. Rather, it is used in its more general sense as being and forming a polity, a citizen-community, participating in a social formation, whether as a particular community, or in relation to a society (and its ruling, political structures) or the global neighbourhood more generally. The Jewish historian Josephus (ca. 37-100), a near contemporary of Paul and similarly both a Pharisee and a dual citizen of Judea and Rome, is the first writer to use the Greek term “theocracy” (theokratia), as a way to describe the distinctive polity of Israel-Judea, relative to other political formations (e.g., kingship, democracy, oligarchy). This notion involves the basic concept of all of life under the rule of God, and roughly a synonym of “the kingdom of God.”

As with Josephus, the kind of personal and global vision that motived Paul cannot be subsumed under the constricted category of what we think of as “religion,” having to do with what is specifically spiritual or narrowly supernatural, or that which pertains to matters of personal, private encounter in relation to the divine, as somehow sequestered from other arenas of living and interacting. Instead, the horizon of both Josephus and Paul is much better described as “theo-political,” and in Paul’s case, the particular polity under construction could be called a “christo-cracy”—a specifically Messianic political formation, something that would have made the elite, high-priestly Josephus uncomfortable. Granted, in both Josephus and Paul, the “ruling power” (kratia, whence “-cracy”) of God is mediated: for Josephus, it was properly mediated through high-priestly oligarchs (and thus represents what the Greeks called “aristocracy,” the “rule of the best, most worthy”); for Paul, it is mediated directly through Messiah, although that direct rule also requires a kind of interim, provisional mediation (a flexible leadership structure gifted through the Spirit, and otherwise anarchic), insofar as it is socio-political formation, as Christ’s very body, yet to be fully realized. While Josephus and Paul may have agreed in principle on the notion of “theocracy,” their visions diverge dramatically. Paul’s Messianic politics is a world-transforming (not world-ending) vision of politics from below, from the margins, from the inside, or as he also puts it “from above” (“from heaven,” Phil 3:20; “from Zion,” Rom 11:26)—a radical future impinging on the present (1 Cor 7:29-31; 10:11). It is oriented to the “Jerusalem above,” God’s “free city,” the “mother” city (Gal 5:26) of a domain that will one day reunite the entire world (1 Cor 15:24-28; Col 1:15-20). The sacerdotal, high-priestly politics of Josephus is much more a politics as usual, not needing to embrace the radically disruptive. Still, the common Christian slogan—that the Jews longed for a purely political Messiah, whereas Christ was a merely spiritual Messiah—is actually wrong on both sides of the comparison.

Endorsements

Citizenship provides a wonderful introduction to social and political issues in the Pauline corpus, making a significant contribution in Pauline studies and in political theology. In ways at once accessible and profound, Zerbe articulates pressing questions and meta-questions in the ongoing quest to read Paul’s letters in light of their contexts and message for the church.

     Mark Reasoner, Associate Professor of Theology, Marian University, author of Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation

These exegetically judicious and boldly creative essays spring from Zerbe’s sustained reflection, over a number of years, on the challenge that contemporary national claims on our allegiance pose to the higher claims of baptismal commitment. By organizing these essays around aspects of “citizenship,” Zerbe provides the most nuanced and compelling description we have yet seen of the political dimensions of the apostle’s thought and praxis. This welcome volume deserves the close attention of every interpreter of Paul. The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire

     Neil Elliott, adjunct instructor, Metropolitan State University and United Theological Seminary, author of The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire

With scholarly rigor and keen insight, Zerbe has captured a striking angle on Paul’s vision of the new messianic community of Jesus, too often overlooked or minimized in Pauline studies. Citizenship identifies Paul’s multi-faceted plea to adopt only one pledge of allegiance in the world of competing powers and politics: God’s Messiah-Jesus. Inquiring readers will find this exposition of “loyalty,” “mutuality,” “security,” and “affinity” in Paul’s writings richly rewarding.Jesus and Paul before Christianity

     V. George Shillington, Professor Emeritus of Biblical and Theological Studies, Canadian Mennonite University, author of Jesus and Paul before Christianity

In this stimulating volume Zerbe has brought together the fruit of a long scholarly engagement with Paul. Fully conversant with contemporary scholarship, both within and outside the church, Zerbe explores Paul’s thought with a clear and sharp eye, looking for what “citizenship” looks like for members of “Messiah’s global politics.” He succeeds brilliantly in “un-domesticating” Paul, only to reintroduce the prophetic envoy of the Messiah to those struggling to be loyal to Jesus within a world of power and violence.

     Thomas Yoder Neufeld, Professor of Religious Studies and Theological Studies, Conrad Grebel University College, author of Killing Enmity: Violence and the New Testament

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General News News Releases

CONNECT Campaign Reaches $8.4-Million

CONNECT CMU exterior night 5webJanuary 29, 2013 – Thanks to its committed volunteer fundraisers and donors, Canadian Mennonite University’s Board of Directors has unanimously agreed to move ahead with plans for construction of the CMU Library & Learning Commons and Bridge in 2013. The Board’s decision was prompted in part by positive momentum in fundraising which saw gifts and pledges grow from approximately $5.4-million in October 2012 to $8.4-million as of January 1, 2013.

“Our CMU Board concluded that the time is right to move ahead, thanks to the generous commitments thus far of a diverse and growing community of supporters,” says CMU President Cheryl Pauls in announcing the Board’s decision to proceed. “Our constituencies are clearly behind this project and want it to proceed at the earliest possible time, as a means to benefit both our University and the broader community.”

“It is gratifying to reach the $8.4-million level this early in the public phase of our CONNECT capital campaign,” says Campaign Chair Elmer Hildebrand, who is C.E.O. of Golden West

Broadcasting Co. Ltd. “While the end-goal of the CONNECT campaign remains set at $12.6- million, the generosity of CMU supporters puts the University in a position to move confidently into the building phase and the final stretch of fully funding this important project. This Board decision will continue to build positive momentum for the Campaign.”

Next steps are for the project architects (ft3) to complete final drawings by March 1.

“At that point, we will seek City of Winnipeg permits and put the project out to tender through the builder, Concord Projects Ltd.,” says Pauls. “Once the tenders come in, we will establish the construction start date, which is likely to be early summer 2013.”

“We have reached this phase thanks to the remarkable support of our donors and the excellent leadership by our CONNECT Campaign cabinet members – Chair Elmer Hildebrand, Art DeFehr, Philipp R. Ens, Bill Fast, Janice Filmon, Bert Friesen, Charles Loewen, Jake Rempel, and Tamara Roehr,” says Pauls. “There is a groundswell of support as a result of people across the country catching the vision of what this project can be. Now that we are close enough for people to know that this is really happening, it is helping our campaign.”

The CONNECT Campaign will establish a Library & Learning Commons at the heart of CMU’s Shaftesbury campus in south Winnipeg, generating vital resources and services, study and collaborative spaces, and welcoming the constituency and broader community into the life of the University. The project integrates CMU’s Bookstore with Mennonite Church Canada’s Resource Centre, and in addition includes a cafe and a pedestrian bridge to span Grant Avenue, connecting the new library to CMU’s south side campus and providing safe passage for the CMU University community.

For Campaign information:

Visit CMU’s CONNECT campaign website: www.cmu.ca/connect

Contact CMU Director of Development Abe Bergen | agbergen@cmu.ca

 

 

 

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General News News Releases

CMU Congratulates Hildebrand, Filmon, Boldt

January 14, 2013  – His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on December 30, 2012 announced 91 new appointments to the Order of Canada. The new appointees included two Companions (C.C.), 33 Officers (O.C.) and 56 Members (C.M.).

Of particular pleasure to Canadian Mennonite University (CMU), the recent appointments to Members of the Order of Canada included Mr. Elmer Hildebrand, C.M., O.M., and Ms Janice Filmon, C.M., O.M., two Manitobans who are special friends to CMU and who serve as volunteer Cabinet Chair and volunteer Cabinet member, respectively, for Canadian Mennonite University’s CONNECT Campaign.

Also honoured, receiving the appointment of Officer of the Order of Canada, is highly decorated Paralympian Arnold Boldt, O.C., of Saskatchewan, who is a CMU alumnus. Boldt is a 1981 graduate of Canadian Mennonite Bible College, a founding college of CMU, and is a legendary athlete and role model in Canada’s athletic community.

“CMU cherishes its connections to friends and alumni,” says CMU President Cheryl Pauls. “We take particular pleasure in seeing fine Canadian citizens such as these receiving recognition for all that they do for their communities through the many civic causes to which they lend their leadership and efforts. We extend our congratulations to Elmer Hildebrand, Janice Filmon, and Arnold Boldt for the high distinction they have received through their Order of Canada appointments.”

The Order of Canada was established in 1967, Canada’s centennial year, by Queen Elizabeth II. Appointments are made upon the recommendation of the AdvisoryCouncil for the Order  of Canada. The motto for the Order of Canada is the Latin phrase, desiderantes meliorem patriam – “they desire a better country.” There are three levels of service within the Order of Canada – Companion, Officer, and Member. Services of investiture will be held in 2013.

A Christian university in the Anabaptist tradition, CMU offers undergraduate degrees inarts, business, humanities, music, sciences, and social sciences, as well as two graduate degree programs. CMU has over 1,600 students, including Menno Simons College and Outtatown students, and is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC)

 

Government of Canada Citations*

 

MEMBERS OF THE ORDER OF CANADA

Elmer Hildebrand, C.M., O.M. – Winnipeg, MB

For his contributions to the development of community service radio in western Canada and to various charitable causes.

 

Janice Filmon, C.M., O.M. – Winnipeg, MB

For her tireless commitment to a variety of charitable causes, ranging from cancer research and treatment to youth and human rights.

 

OFFICERS OF THE ORDER OF CANADA

Arnold Boldt, O.C. – Saskatoon, SK

For his achievements in sport and for his contributions as a role model for people with disabilities.

 

 *http://www.gg.ca/document.aspx?id=14904

 

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Events General News News Releases

Weaver and Campbell Perform “Paraguay Primeval” at CMU

Weaver, on piano, and Campbell
Weaver, on piano, and Campbell

January 11, 2013 – CMU welcomed guest artists Carol Ann Weaver, composer and pianist, from Conrad Grebel College, University in Waterloo, Ontario, and Rebecca Campbell, singer and songwriter, to present their unique recital, titled, “Paraguay Primeval.” The recital took place on January 11, 2013 in CMU’s Laudamus Auditorium before an appreciative audience.

“Paraguay Primeval” by Carol Ann Weaver is a musical work featuring stories of Mennonites who fled to Paraguay from Russian and Canada in the 1920s and beyond.

“The January 2013 Manitoba tour takes this music to some of the very people who were born in Paraguay but have moved back to Canada,” says Dean of CMU’s School of Music, Dr. Janet Brenneman. The hope is that the stories will be thus celebrated.

Recently released on CD, “Paraguay Primeval” helps to tell the extraordinary story of Mennonites finding new “Promised Land” by moving to Paraguay from Canada in order to retain their own schools, and from Russia to flee the Bolshevik Revolution and the Stalinist regime. Once in Paraguay, theseMennonites settled in the “green hell” of the Chaco, suffering typhoid and other illnesses, but ever building colonies, growing crops, and maintaining livestock, while creating schools, churches, hospitals, and industries that lured back many indigenous peoples.

Weaver says about the work: “My brief visit to the Chaco, in July, 2009, following the Mennonite World Conference in Asuncion, Paraguay, was a moving experience. What stole my heart, while travelling to these colonies, was a sense of incredible dedication to this new land as voiced by these Mennonites in their strong singing. I was particularly struck by a statue of a woman behind a plow, representing women who had lost their husbands during Stalin years in Russia.”

Weaver notes that texts are derived from Rudy Wiebe’s Blue Mountains of China (with its vivid and poetically written Paraguayan sections), Dora Dueck’s Under The Still Standing Sun, and Henry and Esther Regehr’s translated Schoenbrunn Chronicles, compiled by Agnes Balzer and Lieselotte Dueck and written by Paraguayan Mennonite settlers. “Basic journal entries (in Schoenbrunn Chronicles) yield starkly perfect lyrics,” says Weaver, “especially those recounting deaths in the Harms family, or adventures of Uncle Hans in the well.”

Carol Ann Weaver is an eclectic composer, pianist, writer, and music professor atConrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo. Her music has been heard throughout North America, in Europe, Africa, Korea and Paraguay.  She has produced seven CDs and tours extensively with vocalist Rebecca Campbell, often doing African or Mennonite-themed music. She previously taught at WLU, at [then] Mennonite Brethren Bible College (a founding college of CMU) in Winnipeg, and at EMU in Virginia.

Acclaimed singer and songwriter Rebecca Campbell is one of the most evocative, exquisite vocalists in Canada. Singing professionally since 1986, she has toured extensively with Justin Haynes, Jane Siberry, Fat Man Waving, Three Sheets to the Wind, Lynn Miles, Ian Tamblyn, and Carol Ann Weaver. She has performed across Canada, the United States, England, Ireland, Spain, and Trinidad-Tobago. Her CDs receive high critical acclaim.

For a description of the project and performers, recital schedules, and information on purchasing CDS, visit

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~caweaver/concert.html

 

 

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General News News Releases

CSOP Instructor Ouyporn Khuankaew – Activist, Peace Trainer, Role Model

CSOP 2012 Instructor Ouyporn Khuankaew
CSOP 2012 Instructor Ouyporn Khuankaew

January 11, 2013 – Ouyporn Khuankaew travelled a long way to teach at the 2012 Canadian School for Peacebuilding (CSOP) at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) last summer – and she says that it was well worth her journey.

Khuankaew is a Buddhist feminist peace trainer who has been working with activists in South and Southeast Asia since 1995. In 2002, she co-founded International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice (IWP) which runs its own center and workswith activists in Burma, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, teaching Buddhist peacebuilding, non-violent action, counselling for trauma survivors, leadership for social change, gender, and sexuality, feminism and Buddhism for change, and meditation retreats for activists. On a personal level, she is a domestic trauma survivor – and that experience, along with the injustices and gender inequality she has witnessed in South and Southeast Asia – led her to pursue a life dedicated to peacebuilding, and to inspiring a new generation of women to do the same.

“My experience at the Canadian School of Peacebuilding was wonderful,” Khuankaew shares. “I loved how the event was organized, with an emphasis on small groups and integrating diverse groups of people. Everyone was so welcoming, so eager to know each other. We were really able to accomplish a lot in a very short period of time. The students especially were very analytical and engaged – especially the young women – and it was exciting to see.”

“I hope that the course that I taught inspired them,” she continues. “When I was young, we didn’t have role models for women doing this kind of work. I hope that I can be that kind of mentor, increasing women’s confidence and helping them connect with likeminded people so they don’t feel alone in their passions and their efforts. I feel a responsibility to help create a space for women to feel connected and empowered. No one is alone.”

“Peacebuilding has become one of the major issues of this generation. We are all in need of peace, whether in family conflicts or widespread war,” says Kuankaew. “I admire CMU’s commitment not just to peace, but to peacebuilding, and the way they are involving women in the solution. In my work, I have seen the impact of feminine involvement. In Burma, when we teach women to be peacebuilders, they can go back and teach men and women, and they help to increase the role and status of women in their communities.”

Khuankaew feels strongly about equipping women as leaders in the peacebuilding process. “In our culture, we assume that women are natural peacemakers,” she says. “We see this role at work in our families – and as important as that is, this role should not be confined to the home. We need it on a global level. A woman’s perspective and approach is different than a man’s. We are uniquely qualified to be peacebuilders. From a young age, we are trained through gender roles to be caring and loving, to share and listen and experience – and that is the foundation of peacemaking. It doesn’t need to be taught. We intuitively understand the emotional and psychological aspects of peacebuilding. We need to be committed to deliver the training required to empower women to take that understanding and use it to impact the world around them.”

“We need to use our hearts, and use more than intellect and logic to solve our issues,” says Khuankaew. “Our world is in trouble because we use our heads without our hearts. When we use our hearts, there’s no argument or anger there – it equalizes us. Women are more in touch with that. But in the end, we all need to work together. It’s not a matter of men versus women, it’s humans working toward a solution, together.”

Canadian Mennonite University, through its Menno Simons College (located at The University of Winnipeg) and its Winnipeg Shaftesbury campus, and through CSOP, offers one of the most comprehensive undergraduate programs in peace and conflict studies in the world. Located in Manitoba, CMU has over 1,600 students enrolled through its two campuses and its Outtatown discipleship program. CMU is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Visit www.cmu.ca

For CSOP 2013 information:
Visit www.csop.cmu.ca or contact: csop@cmu.ca

Article: by Linsday Wright for CMU