by Peter Johansen
Selling paper bags. Counting soup labels. Promoting good study habits. Arguing both sides of a legal case in Canada’s most prestigious moot court competition.
For second-year Law student Shanelle Manhue, all that is part of extracurricular life at Carleton.
Take the paper bags, for example. She sold them at $5 a pop to raise funds for the campus edition of Relay for Life, a fundraiser sponsored by the Canadian Cancer Society. Each bag was decorated, lit from the inside by candle, and used to decorate the Field House at evening receptions honouring cancer survivors and their families. ”It was a time for them to get together, remember their fight with cancer, and celebrate that they beat it,” she says. “It turned out really well.”
As part of the relay’s finance committee, she also sorted, counted and rolled donation money. She remembers having to sort out one bag with $150 in coins. “People who brought cheques were very much appreciated,” she laughs.
But that was good preparation for the soup labels. For the past two years, Shanelle has volunteered for Carleton’s Day of Service, and this year was assigned to a local agency that teaches literacy skills. She helped prepare activities for young clients, but also counted some 4,000 Campbell’s soup labels the agency could cash in to buy computers.
During her first year, she was a wellness representative for the Health and Counselling office, promoting residence sessions aimed at helping students adjust to university life. “First-year students are stressed out. They’ve moved out of their parents’ house, are in a foreign city, and don’t know how to cope,” Shanelle says.
She benefited from the speakers herself, she says, learning how to avoid being overwhelmed. “In high school I’d lock myself in my room for days before exams. But I now realize I can take a breather once in a while – walk, read a book, watch TV, anything to take my mind off studying. And it helps me to remember what I was studying for those four hours before.”
But her biggest activity is surely being part of Carleton’s moot court team, organized by the Law Student Society (CULSS). As one of a dozen members, Shanelle spent the last few months preparing to argue a case at Osgoode Hall Law School, in an annual undergraduate competition that attracted a record 52 teams this year. Though she’d been a member of CULSS, she admits she wasn’t really involved until she tried out for the team.
The team prepared for the competition by practising mock trials based on actual court cases. After finding out in mid-February what this year’s case would be, Shanelle and the others researched both sides. Participants weren’t told what side they would have to argue until five minutes before they were to appear in court. “It was very intense, very fast-paced,” says Shanelle, “but it was so much fun.”
Here involvement in CULSS goes up a notch next year when she’ll head the finance portfolio.
Shanelle’s extra-curricular activity has always been on the upswing. She says she wasn’t active in extracurricular life until Grade 12 – and even then, just to have something for her resume. But after participating in a Salvation Army toy drive and organization of the senior prom, she says, “I thought it was incredible, amazing.”
Until high school, Shanelle wanted to be a doctor (“and then biology happened”), but a career test suggested a career in law. “I watch a lot of CSI, some Law and Order,” she says, “and it’s exhilarating. It’s my passion.“
Pointing to work she’s done with the Wrongful Conviction and Injustice Association, Shanelle says: “The legal system, which says it’s to be helping people, is hurting people at the same time. I want to fix that.”