Tyndale University College and Seminary - History

History

The Toronto Bible Training School was founded in 1894 by a group of brethren under the supervision of Elmore Harris pastor of Walmer Road Baptist Church. Elmore Harris became the first President. William Boyd Stewart (former pastor of Bond Street Baptist Church) was the first Principal. Courses were held at the Walmer Road church for the first four years until they relocated to new facilities at 110 College Street in 1898 financed chiefly through generous contributions of the Harris family. (This land had been leased from the University of Toronto). The name of the school was changed to Toronto Bible College in 1912 and in September 1928 relocated to 16 Spadina Rd (just north of Bloor St.) when the lease expired. It became the first permanent Canadian Bible school and only the third in North America. The founders' vision of TBC was to train laypeople as "Sunday School teachers, Pastors' Assistants, and as City, Home and Foreign Missionaries." The institution's leadership was largely Baptist and Presbyterian, but also included Methodists and Anglicans. The TBC graduation service was always a significant Toronto event, held initially at Massey Hall, and then moved to the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium to accommodate crowds as large as 6,000.

In the 1940s, the school's president, John McNicol, steered a path between modernism and ultra-fundamentalism (specifically dispensationalism)--both of which McNicol denounced as threats to the health of the church. This unique position gained TBC the support of evangelicals in a variety of mainline denominations.

In 1968, Toronto Bible College merged with the London College of Bible and Missions from London, Ontario. LCBM began in 1935 as London Bible Institute, led by Dr. J. Wilmot Mahood. The newly merged institution was named Ontario Bible College (OBC). This merger brought more students to the Toronto-based institution from other evangelical denominations including the Associated Gospel Churches, the Brethren, and the Mennonite Brethren. In 1976 OBC relocated to a former Jesuit seminary (Regis College) in Willowdale, Toronto (formerly City of North York), designed by modernist architect Peter Dickinson. In the same year, the institution also established a graduate school named Ontario Theological Seminary (OTS). OBC/OTS was given degree granting powers by the Government of Ontario in 1986, and received full accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools in 1989.

By 1995, the institution had become insolvent and filed to make a proposal to creditors under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act in Canada. A new president, Brian Stiller, and CFO, Winston Ling, were brought on and a new board was chosen. In 1998 the school was renamed Tyndale College and Seminary after William Tyndale, a Reformation theologian of the sixteenth century. The leadership intended the name change to indicate their vision to build "a world-class centre of Christian higher education in Canada."

In 2003, the Ontario Legislature authorized Tyndale to change its name to Tyndale University College & Seminary. Tyndale was also given the right to confer the Bachelor of Arts degree in the humanities, social sciences and business, as well as undergraduate, graduate and doctoral level degrees in religion, theology, and divinity. On December 5, 2007, Tyndale was given ministerial consent by the Province of Ontario to offer a 12-month Bachelor of Education program to prepare teachers for primary, junior, and intermediate grades.

In June 2006, Tyndale entered into an agreement to acquire a neighboring facility, St. Joseph's Morrow Park, from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto. A key reason for Vatican approval of the pending transfer of the campus from Catholic to Protestant hands was Tyndale's commitment to maintain the aesthetically significant chapel as "sacred space". The facility transfer will be completed Spring 2013. The Catholic girls' high school will continue to operate in a wing of the property until at least June 2015.

In the 2009-10 academic year, Tyndale Seminary was the largest accredited seminary (by head-count) in Canada with more than 650 students and the University College received high rankings in the 2009 Maclean's University issue's measure of student satisfaction (see below). In 2011, student satisfaction was amongst the highest of all Canadian universities. While students ranked the quality of teaching and classroom discussion above average, the Maclean's study also found the institution below average in some educational practices, including active and collaborative learning.