SHARTFIELD, SK
While Shartfield Mennonite Bible School has been offering diplomas in basket weaving for decades, Mr. Peter Wiebe has become the first ever to make it all the way to Ph.D. status.
“Oba, my thesis defense was really difficult,” explained Wiebe. “I had to weave three baskets in an hour while a panel of Mennonite elders from the local Old Colony church sipped yerba and critiqued my every move.”
Considering the hundreds of undergraduate basket weavers across the continent, some have wondered how it took until 2019 to award the first doctorate in basket weaving, but Wiebe says he has an explanation.
“Everyone else just stays for a year or two and dan marries Martha Loewen or somebody,” said Wiebe. “But I just didn’t find a suitable young woman, so I kept on working on my basket weaving year after year until I got really freakin’ good at it yet.”
Wiebe says, at 24, he’s now “far too old” to get married. He has other plans, however.
“Now that I’m graduated, I’m hoping to a get a tenure-track professorship at a respected Canadian basket weaving institution,” says Wiebe. “Maybe even the ivy league of basket weaving.”
Wiebe is optimistic about his chances, but has some concern about the stressful “basket weave or perish” world of academia.
