Bunker Hill Community College Professor Caroline Kautsire Featured on CBS Boston and WCVB Chronicle
Friday, April 2, 2021
Bunker Hill Community College (BHCC) English Professor Caroline Kautsire was featured as a notable author for Women’s History Month on CBS Boston and WCVB Chronicle. During the interview with WCVB Chronicle, Professor Kautsire talked about her journey as an author in America and Malawi and her book, What Kind of Girl? An African Child Caught Between Worlds.
In her interview, Professor Kautsire tells her story of how she did not fit in with other Malawian girls because of her outgoing and assertive personality. It turns out she was an extremely gifted student who started high school at nine years old at Kamuzu Academy, an elite private boarding school in Malawi.
“I struggled when I was young to fit into cultural norms, cultural expectations for girls in Malawi in a society where women are expected to be shy and submissive and passive,” said Professor Kautsire. “I was the opposite of that. I was very outgoing. I was very assertive.”
Professor Kautsire wrote the book What Kind of Girl? was inspired by her cultural upbringing in Malawi, her struggle to fit into the traditional African society she was born into, and how she was constantly asked the question, “What kind of girl behaves this way?” It also is a reflection of her past and what lies ahead.
“Bunker Hill Community College is giving me an opportunity to teach different kinds of literature, so I am growing as an instructor,” said Professor Kautsire. “This semester, I got the opportunity to teach Black Women in Literature which is a very interesting course.”
After high school, she ventured to America, where she attended Quincy College to study Liberal Arts and found that she enjoyed English, so she became an English major. She then went on to UMass Boston to earn a bachelor’s degree in English. Feeling like she fit in the English department, she continued to Brown University to study English literature. She became an English professor for English literature. Feeling like she needed to better her craft in writing, she went to Emerson College to earn a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing.
In addition to her adjunct teaching position at BHCC, Professor Kautsire teaches English courses at Freedom House Instructional Center in Dorchester. BHCC’s partnership with Freedom House offers a limited number of courses for dual enrollment students from the Boston Public Schools, as well as those that are open to BHCC students from Freedom House programs.