In CMU’s long history of April Fools’ Day pranks, this one was gold

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This article was published 01/04/2025 (215 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian Mennonite University unveiled a phony “elite gold unlimited prestige student card” Tuesday to honour the post-secondary institute’s longstanding legacy of pranking and tease the launch of a real rebrand.

In celebration of April Fool’s Day, senior administration released a 2 1/2-minute promotional video touting exaggerated upgrades on the Christian campus in southwest Winnipeg.

Among them? Professors marking only with golden ink and a Michelin Star dining hall serving up “Mennofusion.”

CMU has often used April 1 as an opportunity to challenge and poke fun at stereotypes of Mennonites being “very modest and unassuming,” said Kevin Kilbrei, director of communications and marketing.

Kilbrei said this year’s stunt — a reference to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “gold card” visa program that offers wealthy foreigners an opportunity to buy permanent residency for $5 million — also sought to drum up excitement for a new school logo.

The university, which has been surveying community members about the status-quo brand in recent months, is slated to reveal a new design, school colours and programs in the fall.

The planned rebrand coincides with the institution’s 25th anniversary.

Ken Steele, a marketing consultant in the post-secondary sector and president of the Eduvation firm, is a proponent of pulling off harmless pranks to boost morale among staff and students.

Steele, who is based in London, Ont., is known to compile an annual roundup of practical jokes on college and university campuses.

By his count, there’s been a sharp drop in pranking both locally and across the globe over the last decade.

In 2017, Steele recorded more than 30 pranks — one of which was CMU’s fake equestrian studies program announcement. Halifax’s Dalhousie University advertised its “Dal-Kea” furniture line that year while Simon Fraser University in Burnaby launched poutine-flavoured lattes.

Steele’s tally dropped to zero in 2020, following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has yet to rebound above 10 over the last five years.

For him, the trend reflects school budget pressures and labour shortages, as well as administrator anxieties tied to the rise of online misinformation, Trump’s “fake news” rhetoric and recent world events.

“I get the sense that people are sobered,” Steele said.

“There’s a fear of, if higher education institutions need to be the voice of sanity, of science or truth and we’re surrounded by fake news all year, do you want to be contributing to it on April 1?”

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca