Ted Rogers Students' Society’s continued commitment to supporting students

The Ted Rogers Students' Society (TRSS) (external link)  has a long history of supporting Ted Rogers School of Management students, and continues to do so with a number of new and existing initiatives including awards, bursaries, welcoming programs and unique learning opportunities. 

The student-elected group represents over 13,000+ full-time undergraduate students at the Ted Rogers School, and believes that its three pillars – academic, professional and social – play a role in shaping and building the leaders of tomorrow.

“As the society that represents over 13,000 students and 30 student groups of the Ted Rogers School, we wish to contribute to events and initiatives that create new opportunities for our students, provide the experience that they require to succeed in everything they do and remove any sort of barriers, especially financial, that come in the way of their success,” says Jathavi Shanmuganantham, TRSS’ Vice President of Finance.

“Giving back to the community and encouraging all of our students, departments and groups to host valuable initiatives, in addition to our own, only makes the Ted Rogers School a better place to learn, innovate and succeed,” she adds. 

Here are some of TRSS’ initiatives:

Ted Rogers Students’ Society Leadership Award

The Ted Rogers Students’ Society Leadership Award will be presented to 40 full-time students within the Ted Rogers School who have portrayed excellent leadership qualities within or outside of the school. The leadership criteria will align with TRSS’ mantra of “Leaders of Tomorrow.” Leadership experience of any kind (e.g. professional, academic and student life related) will be taken into consideration. Students with more of a financial burden will be preferred, all else equal.

Breakdown = $500 for 40 students

Black Business Students Association Leadership Award

The Black Business Students Association (BBSA) was founded in 2020, and is committed to unifying the Ted Rogers School community by increasing the representation of Black student leaders. TRSS created this award in collaboration with BBSA to encourage Black students to remove barriers in pursuit of their goals and recognize those who give back to the surrounding community. This award will be presented to five full-time students within the Ted Rogers School  who self-identify as Black (including those who identify as Afro-Caribbean or African-Canadian).

Breakdown = $1,000 for five students

Ted Rogers Pride Alliance Leadership Award

Ted Rogers Pride Alliance (TRPA) was founded in 2018, and is committed to providing a safe, inclusive space for all students to feel welcome while working toward breaking barriers for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals in the business world. TRSS created this award in collaboration with TRPA to encourage 2SLGBTQIA+ students at the Ted Rogers School to remove barriers in pursuit of their goals and recognize those who give back to the surrounding community. This award will be presented to five full-time students within the school who self-identify as 2SLQBTQIA+.

Breakdown = $1,000 for five students

Ted Rogers Students’ Society Indigenous Student Award

This award was created by the Board of Directors to acknowledge the Indigenous community and provide support to five full-time Indigenous students within the Ted Rogers School.

Breakdown = $1,000 for five students

Ted Rogers Students’ Society Fall and Winter General Bursaries

TRSS supports full-time students of the Ted Rogers School with a bursary on a semesterly basis. The Fall 2021 and Winter 2022 bursaries were intended to assist students who were experiencing financial need, especially in relation to covering mandatory tuition fees. Recipients received their funds in time to cover semester expenses.

Breakdown = $500 for 30 students in Fall 2021, $500 for 30 students in Winter 2022

Startup Certified

Students are given the opportunity to go through a unique and intensive program with the DMZ's Entrepreneurs in Residence and DMZ founders through a semester. Upon completion of the program, students are placed in a talent pool where they are matched with the city's top tech startups to gain critical real-life experience and implement the skills they learned.

TRSS reimburses the tech startups to pay our students’ salaries as they contribute their time and expertise.

Community Thanksgiving Luncheon

The Ted Rogers School hosts a Community Thanksgiving Luncheon on an annual basis and provides meals to the Church of the Holy Trinity. This academic year, TRSS co-sponsored the program and provided $5,000 to support the initiative.

Winter Welcome Committee

As students returned to on-campus activities earlier this year, a Winter Welcome Committee was set up to welcome students and assist with finding classrooms for the first two weeks in-person. TRSS assisted by providing volunteers and by purchasing 200 T-shirts for all volunteers including staff, faculty and students.

Free Coffee and Free Panini Program

As students returned to on-campus activities, TRSS worked in collaboration with Ted’s Kitchen to implement the Free Coffee and Free Panini program where students and staff who had a coffee voucher could redeem a medium-sized coffee, and those who received a panini voucher could redeem any panini with dipping sauce for free from Ted’s Kitchen. TRSS then covers all expenses associated with the vouchers. Thus far, TRSS has distributed thousands of vouchers across the Ted Rogers School, and even placed them in locations such as the Academic Success Centre, Business Career Hub and Dean’s Office.

HTT 510 Experiential Learning Trip

This course includes two full days in the classroom, then three days up in Algonquin with Explorer’s Edge. The region of ‘Explorer’s Edge,’ also known as RTO12, is the closest wilderness to the metropolis of Toronto and is looking to develop a package for the new type of tourism they are seeing come to their region.

Students will learn about sustainable tourism and work on a sustainable tourism project with Explorer’s Edge. This is one of the unique courses in the HTM program and an opportunity to have hands-on, experiential learning in the area of sustainable tourism. Assignments will be analyzing cases as well as a group assignment.

TRSS contributed $2,500 to assist the HTM department with successfully implementing this trip and allowing their students to receive hands-on experience.