Staff & Advisory Council

Wendy Kroeker is the Academic Director of CSOP.

Wendy specializes in community conflict transformation processes as an instructor in CMU's peace and conflict transformation studies department and in locations around the globe. She has over 15 years of experience as a community mediator, conflict transformation trainer, peace program consultant, program manager for international development projects and university instructor. The Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, and Palestine are some of the locations in which she has worked over the past two decades with indigenous groups, NGO staff, community and religious leaders, and various educators.

The focus for Wendy's teaching is upper level Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies (PACTS) courses such as: Models for Peace and Conflict Transformation, History and Strategies of Nonviolence, The Art of Peacebuilding and Building Workplace Conflict Transformation Systems. Wendy is also contributing to the new MA in Peacebuilding and Collaborative Development program. In addition to her teaching in PACTS, Wendy is the Academic Director of the Canadian School of Peacebuilding, an annual teaching institute of CMU, bringing students from around the globe for credit/professional development courses in the fields of development, conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

Wendy completed her MA Theology at the Mennonite Brethren Seminary in California. After significant years of practice within the conflict transformation field, she entered the Peace  and Conflict Studies PhD program at the Arthur Mauro Centre in the University of Manitoba and graduated in January 2018.

Among Wendy's contributions to the conflict transformation and peacebuilding field here in Canada are years of teaching and course development at the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute (the Philippines), the Resolution Skills Centre/Mediation Services (Winnipeg) and most recently at the Northeast Asia Regional Peacebuilding Institute in Korea and Japan. Her work with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has seen her and her family spend 5 years working in the Philippines, assisting in strategic planning and training for the peace programs in India and Bangladesh and most recently resourcing the program in Palestine and Laos.

Wendy, her partner Gordon Zerbe, and two children are all active in the CMU community.

Megan Klassen-Wiebe is the Program Assistant at CSOP.

Megan’s work with CSOP sees her managing social media accounts, attending events on behalf of CSOP, coordinating the creation of CSOP’s promotional materials, visiting classes at Canadian Mennonite University and Menno Simons College to tell students about credit opportunities with the CSOP, and generally encouraging people to consider enriching their personal and professional lives by participating in CSOP.

Megan is farmer and founding member of the Metanoia Farmers, who manage the Community Shared Agriculture farm on campus at CMU and in the village of Neubergthal. She is a fledgling seed saver and is passionate about food, farming, land, and faith. Megan has a General BA from Canadian Mennonite University and a BSc in Agroecology from the University of Manitoba.

Paul Doerksen is Associate Professor of Theology and Anabaptist Studies at Canadian Mennonite University. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Western Religious Thought at McMaster University in 2007 and Master of Theological Studies at Conrad Grebel University College in 1999.

Paul has recently published a collection of essays entitled Take and Read: ReflectingTheologically on Books; he also edited the posthumous publication of A. James Reimer's Toward an Anabaptist Political Theology, and co-edited (along with Karl Koop) a collection of essays to celebrate the career of CMU Professor Harry Huebner, entitled The Church Made Strange for the Nations: Essays in Ecclesiology and Political Theology. Paul has also authored Beyond Suspicion: Post-Christendom Protestant Political Theology in Yoder and O'Donovan. He is currently researching other topics in political theology, including moral patience, the relationship between theology and human rights discourse, and has an on-going interest in the interrelationship of literature and theology.

In addition to his teaching and research work, Paul serves on various boards and committees including L'Arche Winnipeg and, until 2016, the Canadian Board of Faith and Life for the Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. His pastimes include listening to roots music, running, and collecting used books.

Paul grew up near New Bothwell, Manitoba but now lives in Winnipeg. He is a long time member of Fort Garry Mennonite Brethren Church with his wife, Julie, and three daughters, Cecely, Hannah, and Greta.

Jodi Dueck-Read is a faciltator, instructor, social activist, and researcher. At Menno Simons College, CMU's downtown campus she is the Director of Practicum and Assistant Professor of Conflict Resolution Studies. Jodi  lived and worked at the US-Mexico border where she was Associate for Migration and Peacebuilding with West Coast Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). For a decade, she worked with MCC in Santiago, Chile; Santa Cruz, Bolivia and Tucson, Arizona. She enjoys teaching adult students, speaking Spanish, and participating in actions intended to provoke social change.

James Magnus-Johnston is a political economist whose research and teaching falls within the transdisciplinary field of ecological economics. He has taught in a number of relevant subject areas across politics, economics, and business for about ten years.

James holds an MPhil in Economics from Cambridge University, where he studied the ecological dynamics of the debt-based money system. He's presently a PhD researcher at McGill University in the "Leadership for the Ecozoic" program, a group of researchers exploring "how systems of economics, governance, and ethics might heal and restore the global community of life." He's currently studying how ecological decline constrains decision-making in mainstream institutions.

James has a keen interest in testing and integrating leading-edge principles in applied business and organizational settings. James is the Director of the CMU Centre for Resilience and a Board Director with the Assiniboine Credit Union. He previously worked as a financial counsellor and business advisor, in public policy positions with lawmakers, and as a social entrepreneur—co-founding a food cooperative (The Fireweed Food Co-op), a coffee shop (Fools + Horses), a composting service (Compost Winnipeg), and the Prairie Rivers Coliving Cooperative.

Kerry Saner-Harvey is the Program Coordinator for the Indigenous Neighbours Program of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Manitoba. He has served with MCC for the last 9 years, including working with First Nations youth in Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, and doing restorative justice, community building and advocacy work in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador. More recently Kerry worked as a peacebuilding advisor in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to a team developing an adult peacebuilding education initiative for local organizations. Trauma awareness, nonviolence theory, comparative theologies and music are other areas of continued interest and pursuit. Kerry completed graduate work at Harvard Divinity School and the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University. Kerry also studied in Amman, Jordan, spent time in various Middle East and Asian countries and has worked as a youth pastor and mental health worker.