COMMUNITY SERVICE & ACTIVISM

My experiences as a teacher and my graduate education have helped me to understand and to enact service and leadership in more nuanced and specific ways. Specifically, the critical stance that informs my teaching and research also informs my service and leadership. In addition to serving on numerous committees and projects within my faculty and at the University of Manitoba, I enjoy working with my fellow teachers, schools, school divisions, education partners, students and community organizations on other initiatives. This means that a critical stance is an ethical one, one that holds a responsibility to attend to the “shape of the collectively inhabited world” (Butler, 2005, p. 110). A critical stance, attending to the power imbalances that lead to inequities and injustices within systems, guides my work in regards to service and leadership. Thus, aside from seeing my service and leadership as simply being a part of my duty to participate (pitch in), I also see it as a greater responsibility—that is, to speak out. 

Butler, J. (2005). Giving an account of oneself. New York Fordham University Press.

Melanie with fellow ArtsJunktion mb Board of Directors members Andrea Bell Stuart, Dianne Harms, Heather Campbell, Jessica Dilts, and Marcela Mangarelli at annual Earth Day celebration/fundraiser on Saturday April 23, 2016. (Credit: David Lipnowski, Winnipeg Free Press).

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Selected Community Volunteerism

• ArtsJunktion mb, Board of Directors Co-Founder and Co-Chair
• Canadian Association of Young Children (Man.), Executive Member
• Canadian Association of Young Children, National Board of Directors, Secretary