Building from the ground up: Black Business Student Association empowers Black student community
The transformation of Black business student leadership at Ted Rogers School started with an email.
“Hey, I was wondering if you were interested in the EVP position for a new student group called BBSA.”
“There was no, ‘nice to meet you, my name is Mo, nothing,’” fifth-year law and business student Nya Martin-Hemming laughs as she recounts her first time meeting fellow Ted Rogers School student Mohammad Badawy. “He did introduce himself in the email eventually, but got straight to the point asking me about the EVP position. Mo and I didn't know each other before that. We're in the same program, so we knew each other, but had never spoken to each other,” she says.
“And he was like,” she laughs. “Hey, can you be the EVP?”
It was the start of a student group that would have a considerable impact on the Black community at the Ted Rogers School of Management and the student population at Toronto Metropolitan University at large.
The Black Business Student Association (BBSA) was founded in 2020 by TMU alumnus Edmund Sofo. The BBSA strives to increase the representation of Black students at Toronto Metropolitan University, by empowering, educating and elevating the Black student community at the Ted Rogers School and TMU. The association empowers student leaders by organizing events and initiatives around community engagement, professional development, and academic excellence. They are the biggest and most active Black-focused student group within TMU.
But, at the time, the association wasn’t active and at risk of losing their status as a Ted Rogers Students’ Society subsidiary group. Mohammad Badawy, then a third-year student in hospitality and tourism management who was on the TRSS board of directors, was adamant the group would be successful and was trying to keep it afloat. But, he needed help.
“It took me a millisecond to say yes. This was exactly what I wanted to be doing,” Martin-Hemming said. “After all of the social injustices that had happened in 2020, I wanted to create support for Black students in my community. I think it's something that I felt really passionate about and I felt like we needed… I felt like my heart was calling me to BBSA.”
Then, as a team of two, they started the BBSA from the ground up. “We were kind of doing the work of an entire team just amongst the two of us,” Martin-Hemming explained.
The big challenge was finding Black-identifying business students for board positions. The outreach was virtual, which made it difficult.
“We wanted to find a sense of representation,” Badawy said. “Because as a student leader, both Nya and I, we didn't really see a lot of Black-identifying student leaders around us. And we found that disheartening because we definitely wanted more people from our community to kind of take advantage of leadership opportunities.”
Badawy used his connections through the TRSS to spread the word about the society and get support for funding.
Martin-Hemming had to be creative in building the membership. She followed Black students, followed people she knew, did takeovers on the TRSS Instagram stories and collaborated with several other student groups at TRSM. “We were always doing takeovers, just takeovers on other Black student associations’ pages, just trying to get the word out,” Martin-Hemming said.
Followers slowly started trickling in online. Applications for board positions did, too. And before long, all of the board positions in 2021 were filled with Black-identifying students.
“We had a larger application pool in our second year than our first,” Martin-Hemming said. “We found that when we did hire for the next year, we hired 35 people.”
Since then, the Black Business Students Association has grown. They built their membership by having a good balance of professional and social events. Their board is 35-strong, with an executive and admin team, finance team, corporate relations team, marketing team, events team and a growth and development team.
“Since we started our events on campus we have grown and improved exponentially as each one passed by,” said Badawy. “Our events sell out quickly. Students know the quality of our events and the value we bring. We've built our reputation which has allowed us to become recognized in the Black community, the Ted Rogers School school and TMU, and beyond.”
“I think, our purpose, which is like growing Black student leaders at the school, I feel like we've achieved that already because we have people in our club who are in Fit for Business or they're student leaders with other groups in clubs,” Martin-Hemming said.
This year, BBSA wants to focus on building their community and expanding the capacity of their events, the co-presidents said.
“We found a lot of our success year throughout our events, especially since September because as each event went by, we saw that our engagement increased, especially engagement within the community. We’ve seen a lot of growth and engagement. Our team really focuses on mixing that passion with hard work and dedication so that we can get things done for our community,” Badawy said.
In their first year, BBSA collaborated with a lot of other TMU student groups to hold events.
They held events focused on professional development, including collaborating with TRSM’s Women in Technology Management & Ted Rogers Pride Alliance for an event called “Working Without Worries,” (external link) focusing on how to navigate sexual harassment conversations in the workplace. They held a Masterclass of Success (external link) focusing on interviews and professional development in collaboration with the Ted Rogers Sales Club and the Human Resources Student Association. They also held a 30 Under 30 event, which aimed to highlight diversity at TRSM by inviting 30 industry professionals with diverse backgrounds - 50 per cent of whom were Black-identifying - to meet and network with students.
In their second year, BBSA held an IT speaker series and a finance speaker series.
They held a career fair featuring 15 top companies in finance, business and entertainment including American Express, TD Canada, KPMG, P&G and MLSE. They also held events that engaged the community, like their Open Mic nights and Trivia nights, which allowed them to expand their reach outside of the university setting.
Going forward, BBSA wants to organize larger events, like conferences, off campus. They also want to create a community of Black student associations across Canada and to grow their alumni presence and corporate partnerships this year, as well.
“I think BBSA has grown to a place where it's been recognized throughout TRSM as a strong student group that is willing to go above and beyond for students,” Badawy said.
As for the co-presidents, they’ve grown the organization to a point where they’re comfortable passing the torch to next year’s team. They’re both graduating this year.
Badawy will take fond memories of his time as BBSA’s president with him. “I put in so much effort and dedication into it,” he said. “And I really wanted to make sure that it was a student group that was going to succeed and prosper far beyond expectations and well beyond my time at the university.”
As recognition for all of their hard work, the BBSA won the Associate/Subsidiary Club Award (external link) this year at the CABS awards. The CABS awards celebrate excellence with business students and business student associations. The Associate/Subsidiary Club award recognizes a subsidiary club in the CABS membership who saw large improvement, made meaningful contributions to their student community and had a significant impact this past year.
“The amount of work that myself and my team put into BBSA, every single day, going through all the challenges that we've faced and the journey… the recognition has just been really fulfilling,” Badawy said.
Martin-Hemming and Badawy are proud of the work the BBSA team has done.
"To be able to look at our team, people who have never been on student associations before, to see what they have been doing every day - it's not going unseen and it's being recognized,” Martin-Hemming said. "When I see people impacted and inspired by stuff that I'm a part of, that's the reward for me, and I think that's what fills my cup. So, I feel like that recognition is like a bonus, you know? So, it means a lot. It means a lot,” she said.
“Being recognized by my own team and by my own community was more than enough for me. But, being recognized by the whole country, Canada-wide,” Badawy laughs, “I think there's no better way to end my journey with BBSA. A true full circle moment. This award will open doors for BBSA and allow us to provide more opportunities for Black students.”
For more information about BBSA, check out tmubbsa.com (external link)