Students – CMU Media Archive

Current CMU student Peter Dueck, who will graduate in 2012 with a four-year BA in Biblical and Theological Studies with a Philosophy minor, says his practicum experience was beneficial in a number of ways.

Dueck completed his practicum assignment during 2010-2011 as a Grade 7/8 teacher aid at St. Aidan’s Christian School, a private Christian school in Winnipeg that accepts students who are no longer welcome or no longer feel safe in the public school system. There, he tutored students while serving as a positive male role model for them, many of whom had none.

“My placement challenged me to think seriously about the role of a Christian institution in a non-Christian neighbourhood, and what that role should be,” says Dueck, who is currently volunteering at the school once a week during his last year at CMU.

Dueck says his practicum complemented his academic studies and helped prepare him for an education role. However, he adds that his practicum was also about growing personally and professionally.

“CMU, as a whole, has taught me less about what I should do professionally and more about daily experience and how to work my way through it,” he shares. “CMU and my practicum experience guided me along the journey of discovery within the world; I have developed a greater understanding of how to live and work as a disciple of Christ.”

Mature student Frances Paletta came to CMU in 2005 to study Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies (PACTS), years after having attended Red River Community College, where she graduated, and The University of Winnipeg, after establishing herself as a successful businesswoman in the hospitality industry.

Paletta says she had put aside her aspirations of completing another degree when the family business workload became too demanding. Then, in 2004, the family sold one of the businesses in which she was heavily involved. “This afforded me the opportunity to enroll in CMU’s PACTS program,” says Paletta. “My desire was – and still is – to play a greater role in service within the church and broader community.”

She studied part time to maintain an active administrative role in the family business, serving as secretary-treasurer since January 2011, and to manage her mother’s homecare. Paletta has completed her PACTS coursework and hopes to finish her practicum and graduate in 2012.

“CMU has provided me with tools to promote peaceful ways of communication that include respect, justice, and mercy, and has helped me solidify my commitment to ways of peace,” Paletta shares. “I’ve also been given a fresh way to look at conflict. Now I see conflict as an opportunity for overcoming, for growth, and for well-being.

“The program has been instrumental both in how I live my life and how I carry out my business affairs,” she continues. “I already use the tools I’ve learned very actively in my current position. In the future, as my involvement in the family business changes, I hope I will be able to use this knowledge to bring about peaceful solutions where there is strife.”