Principal’s Welcome
This autumn, as campus fills again with the energy of students, I am reminded that the season, itself, is a teacher. With its turning leaves and crisp air, fall signals both endings and beginnings, inviting us to reflect on what to let go and what to take up anew.
Recently, I had the privilege of addressing our interfaith student body on the theme of “starting again.” The phrase first brought me back to childhood games of Snakes and Ladders, when one unlucky roll of the dice would send me sliding down a long snake, undoing all my progress and forcing me to begin again. I remember the disappointment of those moments, the sense of being set back. With time, however, I’ve come to see “starting again” differently—not simply as failure or loss, but as a sign of sacred hope, an act of courage, and a willingness to lean, once more, into the goodness of life.
Spiritual wisdom traditions remind us that renewal can be both a one-time event and an ongoing rhythm. From my own Christian tradition, the threefold path of life to death to new life is both a central faith narrative and the primary rhythm of the spiritual life. Starting again often presupposes an ending of some sort and an inner turn toward acceptance, forgiveness or letting go that enables the new beginning. Especially in the face
of painful losses or unwanted changes, the turn to start again signals an investment in life and trust in goodness.
Even as nature struggles right now, it continues to teach us about the rhythms of renewal. The sun rises and sets, the trees shed and renew, the seasons turn. Each cycle offers its own invitation to let go and to rest, to begin again and to grow.
In the life of Emmanuel College, we also know this rhythm. Each September follows upon the restful days of summer and marks a new academic year, with fresh opportunities for teaching, learning, research and community. New students arrive marking a whole new chapter in their lives. Continuing students return, recommitting themselves to ongoing growth. And alumni—near and far—re-engage meaningful vocations of care, compassion and justice in the world. All of you remain part of our ongoing story.
As we welcome another year at Emmanuel, may we each find strength in this truth: whether in small, daily choices or in profound transitions, starting again is an action of hope—hope that affirms sacred possibility.
Dr. Pamela McCarroll Acting Principal, Emmanuel College
Principal HyeRan Kim-Cragg will return from sabbatical in January 2026.
Who in the Emmanuel College Community Inspired You?
Do you know an Emmanuel alum whose work deserves to be celebrated? This is your chance to recognize their impact. Nominating someone for an Emmanuel College Alumni Award is quick and easy— and a meaningful way to honour those making a difference in the world.
Click here to learn more about the awards and submit a nomination. Nominations are due by Dec. 31, 2025. Read about the 2024 award winners here.
Questions? Please contact Helena Herscovici, alumni affairs officer, at h.herscovici@utoronto.ca
Web Editor: Dan Blackwell
Photo Editor: Neil Gaikwad
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Cover photo by Neil Gaikwad
Editor: Leslie Shepherd
Photo: Neil Gaikwad
Q and A with Rev. Kimberly Heath Emm 9T9
The Right Rev. Kimberly Heath Emm 9T9 was recently elected Moderator of the United Church of Canada, the church’s spiritual leader and most senior elected official. We asked Dr. Heath to reflect on her time at Emmanuel and share her thoughts as she steps into this new chapter of leadership.
Q. How did your time at Emmanuel College shape your spiritual journey and prepare you for leadership within the United Church of Canada?
A. My time at Emmanuel College was both rich and formative, preparing me well for ministry in the United Church. The courses challenged me to think critically and theologically, but they were also practical. I still remember Prof. Paul Scott Wilson’s homiletics class, where he introduced the four-page Sermon framework. I used it for years— sometimes I still do!— to guide my weekly preaching.
Emmanuel also gave me opportunities for action and reflection, such as volunteering at the Yonge Street Mission and connecting that experience to classroom learning. I especially valued the ecumenical spirit of studying alongside Anglican, Presbyterian and Catholic students at the different colleges. That kind of shared learning remains so important, and I know Emmanuel has deepened this commitment even further with inter-faith opportunities in recent years.
Q. What do you remember most about Emmanuel?
A. When I visited last spring—my first time back since graduation—I remembered the chapel, the student lounge and the library. But what stands out most isn’t the beautiful buildings—it’s the people.
Q. What message or encouragement would you offer to current Emmanuel College students who are discerning their own call to ministry or spiritual leadership?
A. You’ll never regret answering a call to ministry or spiritual leadership. It’s rarely convenient, and sometimes it is risky and costly, but it is profoundly worthwhile. Investing in your faith, developing leadership skills, and building relationships with other leaders will sustain you in ways you can’t yet imagine. We are living through uncertain and challenging times, and the formation you receive now will not only shape you but also ripple out to bless others through you.
Q. As moderator, what are your key priorities for the United Church of Canada over the next three years?
A. We are living in difficult times globally, with the rise of fascism, ongoing genocide, growing poverty and increasing transphobia. The church also faces challenges, as many congregations struggle to find ministers, pay the bills or even keep their doors open.
I will lean into the Call and Vision of the United Church: Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice. This is what the church needs—and what the world needs. We must go deeper in our faith, trusting that our call is bigger than ourselves, rooted in the love of a Living God. We must re-learn faith practices and rediscover what it means to follow Jesus. And from that place of renewal, we will be equipped to meet a world in pain and injustice, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in profound ones.
Click here to read the full version of this Q and A. Step into your calling—explore the Master of Divinity at Emmanuel College and discover fully funded pathways to ministry and leadership. Click here to learn more about the program and funding opportunities.
The Moderator at her EC graduation with daughter Anna.
Emmanuel College’s Psychospiritual Studies Program Triples in a Decade
By Sally Szuster
When Canadians seek mental health support, they often face long waits, costs or stigma. Emmanuel College’s Master in Psychospiritual Studies is helping address these gaps.
“Psychospiritual care is about tending to the whole person,” said Dr. Pamela McCarroll, Acting Principal of Emmanuel College. “It is about integrating clinical and spiritual needs so people can
find healing and resilience in all dimensions of life.”
Prof. Nazila Isgandarova, Director of Supervised Psychospiritual Education at Emmanuel, said the program takes a distinctive approach.
“We train students to see psychotherapy as a ‘care of the soul,’” she said. “Hundreds of graduates now offer spiritually integrated psychotherapy in hospitals, prisons, the military, long-term care,
faith communities, counselling centres and private practice.
To our knowledge, we are the only program offering streams in Christian, Muslim and Buddhist traditions at the same time.”
Demand for mental health has risen in Canada. Self-rated mental health has declined since 2015, especially among young adults and women. A 2024 Fraser Institute report found Canadians wait nearly
Photo: Neil Gaikwad
Hannah Athanasiadis and Blair Niblett, students in Emmanuel’s Master of Psychospiritual Studies program, bring distinct paths and shared purpose when they provide supervised counselling to Victoria College students through the Vic Well program.
six months on average to see a psychiatrist.
“For someone struggling with depression or anxiety, half a year without professional support can mean worsening symptoms or even life-threatening crises,” said McCarroll. “That is why it is so urgent that we train more professionals who can respond now.”
The MPS, formerly the Master of Pastoral Studies, offers an option for a Certificate in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy, which is recognized by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. It prepares graduates for counselling, psychotherapy, chaplaincy and spiritual care.
Enrolment has tripled in the past decade, according to Andrew Aitchison, admissions advisor and strategic recruiter, and an Emmanuel alumnus.
“This is by far our largest program. Students see this training as not only valuable but necessary.”
Since 2023, MPS students on practicum have provided supervised counselling for undergraduates at Victoria College, also part of Victoria University, in a program called Vic Well.
The need is urgent. Student mental health is one of the most pressing campus issues. Rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and psychotic symptoms have doubled or tripled in 20 years. A 2023 survey found 38 per cent of Ontario students rated their mental health as fair or poor.
For Blair Niblett, a part-time MPS student and full-time professor at Trent University, the MPS program was formative.
“I wanted to study contemplative practice with ancient roots, and the Buddhist stream seemed right,” he said. He valued building relationships: “It felt meaningful
to meet student needs as they adjusted to university.”
He says the impact carried into his career: “How I approach conflict negotiation is really different now.”
Michael Burtt, a recent graduate, continues to see students from his Vic Well practicum in his private practice. “I can only understand my faith in the context of engaging with people from other traditions,” he said. “Deep interfaith work could not happen in the same way anywhere else.”
He also found students valued his openness. “One student felt he could discuss things with me that he was not comfortable discussing with his religious leader.”
Hannah Athanasiadis, who is pursuing both a Master of Divinity and the MPS, hopes to become a United Church minister and open a private practice. After earlier work in marketing and coaching, “my passion is spirituality and supporting people with their healing. The interfaith aspect has been very expansive for me.”
Vic Well interns typically support seven to 10 clients a week, committing 15 to 20 hours. They provide counselling, coaching and group sessions. While not regulated psychotherapy, the work includes supportive care, mindfulness and solution-focused techniques.
“Having Emmanuel students serve Victoria undergraduates is a powerful example of learning in action,” McCarroll said. “It prepares them for their vocations and expands access to care for young people who might otherwise wait too long or go without support. We are delighted the Vic Well practicum has been so successful that we expanded it this year.”
What began as a small program now enrolls more students than any other at Emmanuel College. Across Canada, spiritual care and psychotherapy are increasingly recognized as essential to the health-care system.
Emmanuel is shaping the conversation about holistic health.
“Psychospiritual care used to be a hidden gem,” McCarroll said. “Now it is clear this is the future of integrated care, and Emmanuel is proud to lead the way.”
If you are interested in supporting the important work of the Master of Psychospiritual Studies program, please contact Aimee Esparaz, Associate Director of Philanthropy, at aimee.esparaz@utoronto.ca.
For more information about the MPS program, contact Emmanuel.admissions@utoronto.ca
Click here to read the full version of this story.
Photo: Shawn Kazubowski Houston
Michael Burtt, an Emmanuel College graduate, continues to support students he met through the Vic Well practicum.
Surviving the Unthinkable and THRIVING
Twenty years ago, Star Spider set out as a backpacker eager to see the world, but a chance encounter with a friendly couple changed her path. Drawn by the promise of community and friendship, she spent seven years in a cult and many more untangling herself from it. She now is pursuing a Master of Theological Studies at Emmanuel College with an interfaith focus, hoping to support others who have faced similar experiences.
“I consider my time at Emmanuel a new chapter in my life,” said Spider, who felt a connection to Emmanuel following her first visit to campus. “I quickly realized that Emmanuel is more than a place of learning. It is a supportive and welcoming community where I feel safe to ask questions and to begin authentically engaging with prayer and spirituality.”
Spider also plans to earn a Master of Psychospiritual Studies as a pathway to psychotherapy after completing her theological studies. Students who complete Emmanuel’s Certificate in Spiritual Care and Psychotherapy within the MPS program often go on to careers as chaplains, ministers or spiritual care practitioners in hospitals, prisons and other public institutions.
“I have a passion for both paths—personal care and academic learning and writing—so I wanted to complete both programs,” she said.
Spider, who already works as a counsellor supporting survivors and family members of coercive groups, said spiritual support is often part of the healing process.
“Faith and spirituality often come into these conversations in complex and tender ways,” she said.
“Sometimes it means helping survivors wrestle with whether and how to hold on to their faith after being harmed by a faith-based group. Other times, it means sitting with parents who want to pray for their children.”
For Spider, helping others who have fallen victim to coercive groups is a personal calling rooted in her own traumatic experience of leaving a cult. That experience began unexpectedly.
“It was a totally random meeting at a restaurant I worked in and this couple just pulled me in,” she said. “At first there is plenty of love bombing (the manipulative use of overwhelming affection and attention to build trust and dependency) and then it moved into a period where I ended up living with them, cooking and cleaning for them.”
Spider said the couple broke her down over time through relentless criticism and strange rituals disguised as therapy. She was manipulated into distancing herself from friends and family, and found herself doing countless hours of unpaid labour for their business. Weakened and exhausted, she eventually found her way to freedom with the help of a therapist.
Her experiences led her to found Counter, a nonprofit that tackles psychological manipulation and coercive control.
Counter offers prevention and recovery tools to help clients and their relatives identify and escape coercive groups including cults, conspiracy and hate groups and controlling intimate partner relationships. Spider said Emmanuel College gives her an opportunity to take this work further.
“I really want more tools in my toolkit to help my clients,” she said. “I’m hoping that with Emmanuel College I’ll get practical experience and a better understanding of how to help people from different faith backgrounds and integrate that into my work.”
Student Profile By Dan Blackwell
Photo: Neil Gaikwad
Research Meets Faith
Student Profile By Samantha Chater
Fatima Qaraan spent years researching the thousands of child marriages and common-law relationships that still take place in Canada. These unions, rooted in cultural traditions, cut across communities and can have lasting effects on generations.
After writing her PhD thesis on the issue at York University, Qaraan decided she wanted to shift from research to more direct advocacy and is pursuing a Master of Psychospiritual Studies at Emmanuel College.
“I realized that taking a spiritual approach would make more of an impact than just publishing a dissertation,” she said. “I want to be in the rooms, able to advocate, support survivors and connect with children at risk.”
Qaraan’s doctoral research highlighted why child marriage continues in Canada. Federal and provincial laws allow underage marriage with parental permission, while cultural and gender expectations reinforce the practice. The Child Marriage Research to Action Network estimates that thousands of Canadian youth ages 15 to 17 have entered formal or informal unions in recent years.
“Every single time I mentioned that my research was focused in Canada, the reaction was the same — people had no idea it was happening,” she said. “That was a big part of why I wanted to study it, to show that this isn’t just a ‘somewhere else’ problem.”
But her research also made clear that evidence alone wasn’t enough. To push for change, she wanted tools that would allow her to engage directly with families and communities. That’s what led her to Emmanuel College, one of two colleges that make up Victoria University in the University of Toronto.
The MPS program at Emmanuel College prepares graduates to serve as counsellors, spiritual care providers and psychotherapists, integrating clinical skills with
spiritual depth. For Qaraan, that training — combined with the program’s emphasis on interreligious engagement — was exactly what she was looking for. Since child marriage spans faith and cultural traditions, she believes an interfaith approach is critical.
For Qaraan, this perspective is both professional and personal. Her own background spans Islamic, Christian and Hermetic traditions, and she hopes to write comparative theology that highlights common ground across sacred texts.
“It’s about finding the common ground that makes real healing possible,” she said.
Qaraan’s commitment to the issue stems from her own upbringing. Raised in a conservative Muslim family, she saw how expectations around gender shaped her mother’s and other relatives’ lives, many of whom married young.
“It wasn’t something to be discussed,” she said. “It wasn’t something to be spoken out against. I thought, I have freedoms and choices the women in my family never had and I want to use that to help.”
Her first weeks at Emmanuel College affirmed her decision. Counselling training and practices such as gathering in the Indigenous Healing Garden gave her a sense of what it means to combine healing with scholarship.
“My years in academia showed me what was missing,” she said. “At Emmanuel, I see space for the artistic, the spiritual and the grounding practices alongside the academic.”
Looking ahead, Qaraan sees her future in direct service to survivors and children at risk.
“I want to bring advocacy and healing together in a way that makes real change possible,” she said.
Photo: Neil Gaikwad
Missing Methodist Cane Found at Vic U
By Leslie Shepherd
Construction workers were preparing the Birge-Carnegie Building at Victoria University for extensive renovations when they cleaned out a wooden cabinet in a ground floor office. At the back of one of the cupboards they found an old wooden stick decorated with the names of Methodist Church leaders from eastern Ontario.
“It was carefully wrapped in bubble wrap so we thought it might be something important,” said Ronnie Darroch, the site superintendent for Urbacon.
It was indeed important to the United Church of Canada, which had been searching for more than 15 years for the “President’s Cane of the Bay of Quinte Conference” and was delighted to get it back.
According to church archival records, the cane was carved from wood from the Old Bay Hay Church in Adolphustown, Ont., the oldest surviving Methodist church in Canada. It was presented to the Bay of Quinte Conference, an administrative region for the Methodist Church, in 1892.
The Conference engraved the names of its presidents on the staff and used it in ceremonies to install conference presidents at annual meetings until 1924, the year before the Methodist Church joined with Presbyterian and Congregationalist denominations to form the United Church of Canada.
Somehow, the cane arrived at the United Church of Canada archives, which were housed in the BirgeCarnegie Library at Victoria University until 2008. Victoria University is home to Emmanuel College, the largest theological school associated with the United Church of Canada.
The Bay of Quinte Conference borrowed the cane for its annual meeting in Peterborough, Ont., in 2005. But by 2010, it had vanished. That’s when Erin Greeno, the newly appointed archivist for the Central Ontario Conferences, began searching for the cane after receiving inquiries from Methodist historians Rev. J. William Lamb and Rev. Newton Reed.
“For many, the disappearance of the staff was a considerable loss for the history of the Conference
and many with a vested interest in that history routinely reopened the mystery in hopes of one day locating the staff,” said Greeno, who now is the digital archives system lead for the United Church of Canada.
But years passed. The Conference dissolved. The historians died and the cane was presumed lost.
Then, as Urbacon, was preparing the BirgeCarnegie Building for renovations, they found the wooden stick in a cabinet in what was once the office of the librarian of the Birge-Carnegie Library.
Earlier this year Vic U archivist Jessica Todd reached out to the United Church of Canada to see if they recognized it.
“As soon as I heard that a ‘cane’ had been found at Birge-Carnegie, I just knew that it had to be Bay of Quinte Conference staff,” said Greeno. “It’s too bad that those many who worked on trying to find the staff are no longer with us. I so desperately wanted to share the news with them.”
The cane has been returned to the United Church, where it is being stored in an archivalquality container in a climate-controlled vault.
A cane the United Church of Canada had not seen in 15 years has been found in the BirgeCarnegie Building and returned to the church’s archives.
Photos: Mayes
Rihani, Archives of The United Church of Canada
