Engaging the Real World: Principles of Catholic Education (Spring Courses 2024)

Instructor: David Douglas

David Douglas studied at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and double-majored in Catholic Theology and Sociology. After a career in employee benefits funding consulting, he decided to realize his goal of living abroad by earning a TEFL certificate to work as an English language instructor. He found a teaching job in Korea, and for most of the next decade, worked as an independent educational contractor, ultimately earning a teaching license and a master’s degree. He moved from language academies to international school classrooms, taking on a wide variety of instructional, mentoring, editing, and education leadership roles across South Korea, Malaysia, China, and the USA.

David Douglas is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota and his wife, Charmaine, is originally from Saskatchewan. David met Charmaine in Seoul in 2009; they came to Canada to be married in her family’s home parish outside Melfort, SK, in 2010, and then went back overseas together. David was raised Protestant but had studied the Catholic faith since encountering it in college. Shortly after the birth of their first son, he was received into the Catholic Church on Easter, 2012, in Sungai Petani, Malaysia. When Charmaine and David eventually decided to settle in North America in 2018, they came to her mother’s home in Bruno for the transition. They got to know some wonderful people related to the St. Therese Institute that summer and were both amazed by the vibrant Catholic community of the town; Their seventh child was also born while they were in Bruno baptized at St. Bruno Parish.

From Bruno, they moved to Cloquet, Minnesota in August 2018, where David served as the principal of Queen of Peace Catholic School.

Five years later, the Lord’s path directed them back to Bruno and in 2023 David took on the role of Executive Director here at St. Therese Institute.