News

The halls of education have been where Vic Winter is at home. From the fall of 1972, through the completion of serving as Senior Residents in 1978, Conrad Grebel University College was a second home for Vic Winter. He and his wife Marilyn have kept in touch with Grebel through their children, as all three have also lived and studied at Grebel – Art (BSc '05), Jesse (BSC 07) and now Ben (BSc '09).

Ched Myers and Elaine Enns from Oak View, California are a couple who have spent decades working in the fields of restorative justice, conflict transformation, and faith-based witness for justice. Enns is a mediator, consultant, educator, and trainer who provides mediation and consultation services for individuals, churches, schools and businesses. Myers focuses on building capacity for biblical literacy, church renewal and faith-based witness for justice.

Music lovers and musicians from across North America and around the world will converge at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, June 4-8, 2009 for the highly anticipated Sound in the Lands 2009, a sequel to the acclaimed music festival and academic conference held at Grebel in 2004.

This year’s festival celebrates and explores Mennonite-related music across borders and boundaries. Concerts, performances, workshops and academic presentations will feature music from every corner of the world, across musical genres from Afrobeat to choral singing, gospel to alternative, improvisational to classical.

Grebel is uniquely poised to host such a conference, chiefly due to the global connections and vision of Carol Ann Weaver, festival organizer and Associate Professor of Music at Grebel. Weaver, whose vision for the festival was

a vibrant exchange of voices which will help redefine Mennonite music,

regularly leads student music culture trips to South Africa and has played her own compositions around the world. A prominent Canadian composer, Weaver has built relationships and connections across North America and beyond, in the Anabaptist and music communities. She hopes the conference and festival will offer an opportunity for these voices to come together in dialogue across geographical and cultural borders, as well as borders of style, genre, aesthetics and other diversities among Mennonite people.

Weaver’s passion for this project has proved infectious and persuasive – Mary Oyer, celebrated Mennonite musicologist and songleader, and Alice Parker, acclaimed American composer and choral conductor, will offer keynote addresses. Performances will include South African guitarist Mageshen Naidoo, Cuban troubadour Amós Lopez, Congolese composer Maurice Modengo and other musicians from around the world.

Another element of the festival which is distinctive to Grebel is the Mennofolk concert which will be held on the first day of the gathering. Mennofolk was initiated nearly 20 years ago as part of the young adult ministry of Fred Martin, then a conference minister and now the college’s Director of Development. He imagined a musical gathering of local Mennonite musicians and artists, some of whom might be found at the fringes of the church, but who could find commonality and fellowship through music. The movement has since been driven by Wendy Chappell-Dick and has spread beyond Ontario to Mennofolk festivals in Manitoba and Michigan, Kansas and Virginia.

Mennofolk performers at the June 4 free concert include Moglee, Alan Armstrong, the Shady Js, Spencer Cunningham, Bush Wiebe, Andru Bemis, Those Rowdy Corinthians, Annie James Project, The Land, Dale Nickel and more.

Discounts will be applied to those who register for Sounds in the Lands 2009 before May 4, 2009.

While the closing of a church is never easy, Warden Woods Mennonite Church turned some of their sadness into joy with a unique gift to Conrad Grebel University College.

Seventeen Conrad Grebel University College students traveled to Durban, South Africa on a 19-day music culture trip in May 2008. They attended concerts, visited AIDS clinics, met anti-apartheid and refugee workers, visited local markets, beaches and slums. They also unexpectedly found themselves in the midst of the violence that plagued South Africa in May.

On the occasion of the retirement of Conrad Grebel University College professor of theology, Dr. A. James Reimer, the college announced that the A. James Reimer Award at the Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre has reached its goal of $250,000.

This award was initiated by alumnus Alan Armstrong (Systems Design Engineering ’94) and enhanced through the generosity of many additional donors and matching funds from the Ontario Trust for Student Support.

Where can you pursue graduate studies in theology at a major university, study with outstanding Mennonite professors, interact with students from many faith traditions - and have your tuition fully paid?

Conrad Grebel University College and the University of Waterloo have established a new partnership in Graduate Theological Studies which provides all these benefits. This partnership was approved by the Ontario Council on Graduate Studies (OCGS) on March 14, 2008. The Master of Theological Studies degree will now be conferred conjointly by the college and the university.

Ernie Regehr of Waterloo, senior policy adviser for Project Ploughshares and adjunct associate professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, has received the 2008 Arthur Kroeger College Award for Ethics in Public Affairs.

Regehr is a founder and former executive director of Project Ploughshares, one of Canada’s leading peace organizations, and teaches Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College where Project Ploughshares began over 30 years ago.

Conrad Grebel president, Henry Paetkau, said:

Conrad Grebel University College student Leah Reesor is the winner of the college’s annual Peace Speech contest and will represent Conrad Grebel’s Peace and Conflict Studies program in the bi-national C. Henry Smith Oratorical Competition in May.

Spring Break often conjures up images of students flocking south for a good time in the sun – and this year, a number of Conrad Grebel University College students did exactly that. Their idea of a good time, however, was less traditional: a group of 23 Grebel students along with the college chaplain, Ed Janzen, drove 20 hours south of the University of Waterloo to New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama to help with the ongoing reconstruction after Hurricane Katrina.