A Full-Circle Journey

Growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, with her missionary parents, Katie Carline [BA 2012] discovered Tyndale when considering post-secondary education. She knew it would be a place where she could cultivate her faith. She also loved the idea of being immersed in Toronto’s international culture. She considers this city a hub for global migration and notes how Tyndale primed her to engage in a global context.

Katie felt encouraged by the faculty to continue her studies after earning her BA in History. She completed her MA degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where she received the Governor General’s Gold Medal Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences. She is currently pursuing her PhD in African History at Michigan State University.

Coming full-circle, she recently returned to Tyndale to teach a course. “Christianity today is becoming a religion of the global south. Christianity in Africa and Latin America is a really vibrant and powerful force in the church and in wider society, so that’s something the students that I teach today want to learn about,” she remarks.

Katie observed the inquisitive nature and level of engagement of Tyndale undergraduates as something she had not encountered in other places she had taught. “I really appreciate that because it allows me to open up the classroom beyond just lecturing and engage students in debate and instruction. Tyndale students see the material they’re learning as necessary and relevant to all aspects of their life,” she notes.