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Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)

Canadian Mennonite Bible College (CMBC), 600 Shaftesbury Blvd, Winnipeg, Manitoba, offered a Bible education to young people seeking to prepare themselves for Christian service, operating under the Conference of Mennonites in Canada.

Consideration of the establishment of such a school was begun by the Conference in 1941. Twice (1942, 1945) the conference decided that a course in theology should be added to the four-year Bible program of the Rosthern (Saskatchewan) Academy, but lack of staff prevented this. Finally a separate school was established in Winnipeg in the basement rooms of the Bethel Mission Church with a  three-year curriculum patterned after the Bible Department of Bethel College at North Newton, Kansas.

On 5 October 1947 the Bible College was opened and dedicated. A. J. Regier, president, I. I. Friesen, P. A. Rempel, Henry Wall, and John Konrad comprised the teaching staff, while the enrollment numbered 33 students. In the following year the staff increased to 7, and the student body to 49.

A building at 515 Wellington Crescent, the former Smith mansion, located in a desirable residential district on the banks of the Assiniboine River, was purchased in 1949, and the College began the 1949-50 season with a staff of 9 instructors and a student enrollment of 74. The president in the mid-1950s, I. I. Friesen, was installed in 1951. In 1956 the College moved to the Shaftesbury Blvd. location.

In 1964 CMBC became designated as an approved teaching centre of the University of Manitoba which allowed Mennonite students to be simultaneously enrolled at CMBC and the University where they could later complete their university education.

Discussions with other Mennonite educational institutions regarding the possibilities of closer ties or a joint educational venture also took place over the course of CMBC's history, especially in the 1980s and 1990s which led to the founding of Canadian Mennonite University (a federation of three colleges -- CMBC, Menno Simons College and Concord College in September 2000.

©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.

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MLA style: Funk, Henry H. "Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1953. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 05 September 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/C3635.html>

APA style: Funk, Henry H. (1953). "Canadian Mennonite Bible College (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 05 September 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/C3635.html>
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