Shujanaa Mahendraraja

UTSC's Anna Sullivan coached tennis while completing her undergrad degree and is now working with the organizing committee for wheelchair tennis at the 2015 Pan Am Parapan Am Games

Elaine Smith

Shujanaa Mahendraraja with files from Elaine Smith

Author legacy

Shujanaa Mahendraraja with files from Elaine Smith

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Coaching tennis and hockey, mentoring students, taking to the stage for drama and TEDx

As Spring Convocation ceremonies come to a close, more than 12,500 of U of T’s newest alumni are celebrating their hard-earned degrees, flashing that one piece of paper that attests to every fulfilled requirement, finished essay and passed exam.

But what that paper does not attest to are the hours of effort, creativity and dedication graduates have applied to their non-academic endeavours.

And what advice do graduating students have for future students when it comes to co-curricular experiences?

“As overwhelming as the academic element of U of T can be, don't let it take over entirely – my greatest experiences at U of T have not been in the classroom, they've been in my involvement in extra-curricular activities,” says Lauren Dineley.

Graduating with a major in Cinema Studies and a double minor in American Studies and Book and Media Studies, Dineley credits her most fulfilling undergraduate experiences to her time with the Victoria College Drama Society.

Like Dineley, �ؿ�ζSM Mississauga graduate Sarah Adnan found that her best U of T memories came from her co-curricular involvements. As president of the Student Management Association, Adnan worked along with 10 of her peers to create professional development events for management students, including U of T Mississauga’s first ever TEDx conference.

“The reason I got involved so much is because I really enjoyed coming to school every day, so naturally I wanted to contribute to it as well.”

Adnan is about to begin working with Nikon as a communications and project coordinator. But she says she’ll never forget how gratifying it felt to integrate herself into the U of T community, getting involved with a number of UTM clubs and societies.

And now, there’s a way to preserve some of those memories officially: U of T’s Co-Curricular Record (CCR).

A new online searchable database that helps students find co-curricular opportunities beyond the classroom, the CCR also doubles as an official U of T validated record. It allows students to track and showcase their experiences, contributions and skills to employers, graduate and professional programs, and awards and scholarship committees.

“The CCR opens doors for students, whether it connects them to new opportunities, helps them build community, or even just meet new friends,” says Kim Elias, coordinator of the CCR and campus involvement. “It will broaden students’ awareness of the richness and diversity of things they can get involved with beyond the classroom. The centralized database will help students to find opportunities outside of their faculty, division, or even campus, which opens up the possibility for students to collaborate and boosts awareness of all that U of T has to offer.”

The “sheer size” of the opportunities available to students sets U of T’s co-curricular offerings apart from any other schools, Elias says. Students can get involved in societies that propel them towards their careers, just as much as they can engage in clubs that cater to personal interests.

For the �ؿ�ζSM Scarborough's Anna Sullivan it was the latter. Sullivan, who graduated with a double major in English and Philosophy, is an avid tennis player. She has been coaching on campus for three years, as well as coaching local underprivileged youth as part of a tennis program funded by the Norrington Foundation.

“Tennis has been my sport forever… Both the kids and the adults in the wheelchair tennis program are the sweetest people you will ever meet.”

Sullivan is now working as a member of the sports organizing committee for Paralympic wheelchair tennis for the 2015 Pan Am Games.

For Trevor Carozza, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in French and a Bachelor of Education from the concurrent teacher education program, attending UTSC not only meant he could play hockey for the school – he also branched out into sports administration, serving on the executive of the Scarborough Campus Hockey Players Association and the Scarborough Campus Athletic Association, as well as on the campus’ athletic advising committee the next year.

As he looks for a job as a French teacher for the fall, Carozza hopes he can continue to participate in both academics and athletics and promote them to his students.

“There are a lot of things you learn playing sports that are more difficult to teach in a classroom, things like leadership and teamwork,” he said. “I hope I can combine my two passions.”

Bushra Joarder and Hossai Furmli, both Human Biology graduates, are both enrolling in medical school this fall. For these young women, co-curricular opportunities offered a way to extend their curricular curiosities beyond the classroom.

For Joarder (pictured left) co-curricular involvement meant making a difference in underprivileged communities by mentoring local students from a low socioeconomic status community, as well as developing screenings for cervical cancer in Bangladesh.

“With the top notch education and facilities I have had access to as a student of U of T, the resource inequality in our world became even more obvious to me," said Joarder. "While we U of T students are privileged enough to be pursuing our dreams, there are homeless people in our city and children around the world, especially girls, who are deprived of a basic right or privilege to education.”

Furmli (pictured left) who did a minor in Sociology, participated in a Sociology Undergraduate Symposium and created a sociology research project, funded by the �ؿ�ζSM Excellence Award, on the education of Afghani youth in Toronto.

"It let me open my mind and increase my breadth of knowledge, as it indicated that not only had I engaged in a different field but was able to gain the skills to excel in it.”

U of T’s CCR database currently includes more than 1200 opportunities. That number is expected to increase to 4,000 by the fall of 2014 and to 6,000 by the fall of 2015, ensuring that students across U of T will have no shortage of opportunities to get involved, gain experience, and enact change, says Elias.

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�ؿ�ζSM welcomes grads, families and friends to Convocation 2014

sgupta — Mon, 02 Jun 2014 14:36:55 +0000

�ؿ�ζSM welcomes grads, families and friends to Convocation 2014 sgupta Mon, 06/02/2014 - 10:36

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From June 3 to June 20, Convocation Hall will host 25 ceremonies and an estimated 43,000 family and friends of graduating students (photo by Ken Jones)

Shujanaa Mahendraraja

Author legacy

Shujanaa Mahendraraja

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Celebrating the achievements of more than 12,500 students

They’ve conducted research here at home and around the world, put theory to the test with service learning projects in the community, launched their own companies and volunteered their non-existent free time for events and projects aimed at making the city a better place to live.

Now, they’re graduating.

Over the next 14 days, more than 12,500 students will cross the stage at Convocation Hall to become the �ؿ�ζSM’s newest alumni. But with many graduates already at work or volunteering across Canada and around the world, it's impossible to predict the exact number.

Wade Sahni, who graduates with an MBA from U of T’s Rotman School of Management, just finished climbing Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro with classmate Deep Grewall. He was raising money and awareness for Kilimanjaro Young Girls In Need (KYGN).

Since his descent, he’s been working at the KYGN school, “painting the new building, working with the children, teaching them their numbers and playing with them and just trying to create a positive environment for them in which to grow. It’s been an amazing experience,” he told U of T News reporter Terry Lavender over Skype.

If he doesn’t return in time for his Convocation June 20, Sahni will definitely be back in town by August 1 when he starts working for the Promontory Financial Group in Toronto. But his connections with KYGN won’t end – he’ll be working on getting it Canadian charitable status.

From June 3 to June 20, U of T expects to host more than 43, 000 family and friends at 25 ceremonies held at the downtown campus. Convocation Plaza, the elegant marquee where faculty, guests and graduates can gather and mingle, returns again this year, complete with Convocation Café for snacks and refreshments, a seating area where guests can watch a live stream of the ceremonies, and a Special Photo Backdrops & Video Corner allowing graduates to take personalized photos and videos to commemorate their special day.

"Everyone in the University community looks forward to seeing our graduands processing into Convocation Hall and celebrating with their families and friends,” said Bryn MacPherson, assistant vice-president, Office of the President. “For President Gertler, Chancellor Wilson, and all the faculty and staff, Convocation is a high point of the year, seeing our newest alumni launched into the next phase of their lives.”

Organizers are also working to ensure new grads and their friends can share their experiences with a Social Wall in Convocation Plaza – a social stream of content from Twitter and Instagram that will be projected on one of the screens. The stream will pull from posts tagged with #UofTGrad14 and #UofT.

“Social media moves so fast – every year we have better platforms and technologies to celebrate grads and help them tell the world about their big day,” said Kristina Doyle, marketing and online communications coordinator, “The mash-up of tradition and technology is a lot of fun.”

Throughout Convocation, the University will also celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of a diverse range of honorary graduates: Peter Stein; David Brillinger; Ronald Daniels; Indira Samarasakeera; Annabel Patterson; and Mychael Danna.

Academy Award-winning film composer Danna is renowned for his evocative blending of non-western traditions with orchestral and electronic music. His highly awarded works include the Oscar-winning score for Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, and his many Genie Award-winning scores for director, longtime collaborator and fellow U of T alumnus, Atom Egoyan.

One of Canada’s leading Metallurgical Engineers, Indira Samarasakera is now in her second term as president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta. She is a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIMM) and an honorary member of AIME (American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers) and was awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 for her outstanding contributions to steel process engineering.

Yale Sterling Professor Annabel Patterson has written sixteen books and about seventy refereed articles on topics as varied as Holinshed’s Chronicles, eighteenth-century libel law, the reception of Virgil’s eclogues in Europe, editions of Aesop’s fables, censorship, liberalism, parliamentary history, as well as Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, John Locke, and Andrew Marvell, whose canon she has helped to reshape. Among the awards and recognitions the U of T alumna has received are: a Guggenheim Fellowship, a senior fellowship at the Society of Humanities, Cornell University, the Andrew Mellon Chair of the Humanities at Duke, a Mellon Fellowship, National Humanities Center, and a Mellon Emeritus Fellowship at Yale.

Stein, the critically acclaimed German theatre, film and opera director, is known for his landmark stagings of such productions as Edward Bond’s Saved, Schiller’s Wallenstein and Shakespeare’s King Lear. While in Toronto, Stein will take part in a number of public events, including a symposium on the art of directing, with Egoyan at University College: (http://celebratingpeterstein.weebly.com/events.html)

Brillinger, a world-renowned statistical scientist whose work has contributed to the fields of ecology, forestry, animal and marine biology, neuroscience, seismology and engineering, attended the �ؿ�ζSM Schools before enrolling at U of T. During his ceremony, Brillinger will be hooded by his former UTS math teacher and U of T Professor emeritus, Bruce McLean, who is 103 years old.

Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University and a former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the �ؿ�ζSM is the founder or co-founder of such programs as the Pro Bono Students Canada, Law in Action Within Schools, and the organization International Lawyers and Economists against Poverty.

Guest speakers at the ceremonies will include such leaders as world renowned linguistics professor and founding director of the Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives at U of T, Keren Rice and entrepreneur and STS Capital Partners founder, Rob Follows.

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