72% of Athletes Earn “Scholar –Athlete” Title
Members of the CMU varsity athletics teams recently gathered to celebrate the accomplishments of 2010-2011 – a year that saw the Blazers achieve some new personal bests. At a banquet held March 20 to recognize annual athletic achievements, most worthy of note was the academic performance of the current team of CMU athletes.
“We were pleasantly surprised to see our current group of student-athletes achieve an even higher academic performance than last year,” raved CMU Director of Athletics Russell Willms. “In 2010, we recognized 69% of our team members for achieving the title of “Scholar-Athlete” as instituted by the MCAC for student-athletes that achieve a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. We led the conference last year with that total, and I would hasten to guess that we will do the same in 2011.”
This year, 54 of 75 CMU student athletes achieved Scholar-Athlete recognition, improving to 72%. “This statistic is very worthy of recognition,” said Willms, who informed guests that the national average of scholar athletes recognized by colleges and universities across Canada is approximately 24%. “This shows that CMU student-athletes are applying themselves whole-heartedly to their studies and finding success in the classroom. It is something that we are truly proud of.”
The Blazers formally recognized 11 student-athletes that achieved a GPA of 4.0 or higher – a true standard of academic excellence.
Other major award winners were Evelyn Kampen and Todd Reimer, who were recognized as the female and male Athletes of the Year for their outstanding performances on the CMU volleyball teams.
Carrera Lamoureux and Wyatt Anders were honoured as female and male Rookies of the Year, for their contributions to the CMU basketball teams in their first seasons. Nina Schroeder of the women’s basketball teams was recognized for a second-consecutive year with the Trailblazer Award, recognizing excellence in team leadership and community service.
Competing in the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference , CMU plays in a league comprised of nine universities and colleges in Manitoba and Minnesota. CMU is also a member of the Association of Christian College Athletics (ACCA). CMU Blazer teams compete in soccer, volleyball, and basketball from September to March, playing MCAC league games as well as a number of tournaments with universities and colleges in Canada and the US.
Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) is an accredited Christian university offering undergraduate degrees in the arts, music, music therapy, theology, and church ministries, and master degrees in theological studies and Christian ministry. CMU is a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) . Located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CMU has over 1,700 students at its Shaftesbury Campus in Southwest Winnipeg, at Menno Simons College in downtown Winnipeg, and enrolled through Outtatown, CMU’s adventure and discipleship program.
Visit www.cmu.ca/blazers
For Blazer information, contact:
Athletics Director Russell Willms – rwillms@cmu.ca
For CMU information and photographs, contact:
Communications and Marketing Director Nadine Kampen – nkampen@cmu.ca
Far Off Destination Brought to Life on Stage
CMU Women’s Volleyball Team Captain Evelyn Kampen has been named two-time MCAC League Most Valuable Player in volleyball regular season play.
CMU Press is pleased to announce that Dora Dueck’s novel, This Hidden Thing, has been nominated for two Manitoba Book Awards: the McNally Robinson Book of the Year award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. Published in 2010 as Dueck’s second novel, This Hidden Thing explores the story of Maria, a Russian Mennonite woman adjusting to life in Winnipeg from the 1920s up to the 1970s.
On the women’s side, CMU was the odds on favourite to comfortably cruise to a third-consecutive title. With a record of 15-1, the Blazers only loss of the season came in a tie-breaking set at Providence College in February. Their first-round opponents were Assiniboine Community College from Brandon. Despite dropping the third set 22-25, the Blazers had little trouble righting the ship in the fourth set to record a 3-1 victory and sail into the Saturday’s gold medal match – a meeting with the only team to tarnish their perfect season, Providence College.
The men’s match was equally thrilling and high on confidence, CMU was certainly ready to challenge for gold. The three-time defending champions and undefeated Red River Rebels were a formidable opposition. The teams see-sawed through the first match, exchanging points, serves, and sideouts. The Rebels eventually emerged to take the first set 27-25 and a 1-0 lead. But the Blazers battled back. Great defense from Nick Reimer, Todd Reimer, and all-conference libero Josh Ewert, propelled CMU to a 25-21 win in a match delayed 15 minutes due to an on-court injury suffered by Rebel middle David Glass. Glass collided with a teammate at 17-18 and was not able to return to action until the third set. League MVP Tom Oosterveen provided the muscle for the Rebels down the stretch and despite the incredible defensive plays at the net and in the backrow, CMU was unable to get back on the front-foot. The Rebels took the third set 25-20 and the fourth set 25-15 to win gold on home court. Rebel Tom Oosterveen and Blazer Todd Reimer were named players of the game.
The instructor for the course, Edmonton’s Myrna Kostash, encounters this question quite often. “I’ve found that there is much confusion about what is meant by the term. People often ask me: what could be ‘creative’ about ‘nonfiction’? So in this course we will look at definitions and examples, do classroom exercises, and workshop participants’ writing.”