TMU Alumni Achievement Awards for Amorell Saunders N'Daw and retired judge Greg Regis
December 7, 2022
When the time came to go to university, Amorell Saunders N’Daw had several choices.
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), however, was the easy pick as she was seeking an institution that provides marketable skills.
Before graduating from the three-year journalism program, Saunders N’Daw had job offers.
“That proved I made the right selection,” said the 1988 graduate who was presented with an Alumni Achievement Award (AAA) on October 27. “With a TMU degree, I have never been unemployed. I got a lot of support while I was here and I think it is important that I pay it forward.”
Toronto Metropolitan University Chancellor Janice Fukakusa (r) & VP of Advancement & Alumni Relations Ian Mishkel presented the Alumni Achievement Award to Amorell Saunders-N'Daw (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Saunders N’Daw recently created a $2,500 Equity Leadership Award at TMU’s Creative School.
“I really believe in giving back and I feel blessed to do that,” she said.
Her first job as an intern at the Montreal Gazette lasted six months.
“I was an East Island reporter and being there helped me with my French,” said Saunders N’Daw. “Back in Toronto, I called some of the Professors in my journalism program and they helped me get an Information Officer job with the Ministry of Health. I was able to leverage the skills I learnt as a journalist to do corporate communications and executive management work.”
In her second year in university in 1987, she was the recipient of a Harry Jerome Award that is prominently displayed in her home.
The honour, said Saunders N’Daw, boosted her confidence.
“It reassured me that if I work hard, I could accomplish my goals and dreams,” the former University of Toronto Scarborough campus Equity & Diversity Senior Advisor pointed out. “It continues to be something that is motivational for me.”
While in Vancouver last summer with her family, they visited Stanley Park where a bronze statue of Harry Jerome was unveiled in 1988.
“We took so many photos and I explained to my sons the legacy of Jerome,” noted the York Mills Collegiate Institute valedictorian who migrated from Jamaica in 1974. “That was so uplifting.”
Toronto Metropolitan University Alumni Achievement Award winner Amorell Saunders N'Daw with her 77-year-old mom Edris Fritch and sons Amari N'Daw (r), Mamadou N'Daw (adopted), Daniel Newell, Ibrahim N'Daw & his girlfriend Judy Liu (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Since March 2019, she has been a Partner at Knightsbridge Robertson Surrette National Academic Search Practice and the firm’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Lead.
Saunders N’Daw, who completed a Master of Education in 2013 at the University of Toronto Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Cornell University’s Inclusion & Diversity Certificate program two years ago, uses her unique combination of corporate, communications, governance and EDI skills and experience to assist organizations in the search and recruitment process.
“I also do a lot of consulting around equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-Black racism and this year I helped write a document for the Ontario College of Teachers that spoke about anti-Black racism,” she added. “I just think it is important for us to be able to have these conversations, particularly at this time in human history.”
Being the mother of three young Black men, noted Saunders N’Daw, is her most consequential role.
They are aged 31, 20 and 17.
“When I showed them certain academic institutions, they rejected them outright because they said to me, ‘I don’t see myself there’,” she said. “I don’t want young learners to be able to reject academic institutions because they don’t feel a sense of belonging. In institutions of higher learning, there should be faculty members, teaching staff and administrative staff who bring a similar lived experience.
“I am working to help break down the barriers to access so that people like my three young male sons can enter spaces where they feel like they can be their authentic selves and enjoy all types of freedoms and privileges that come with being a first generation Canadian.”
In 2007, Greg Regis made history as the first non-White Senior Court Judge in the province’s Central East Region, eight years after becoming an Ontario Court judge.
Prior to entering the legal career, journalism was his first love.
With no writing or broadcasting degree programs offered in the Caribbean at the time, Regis left St. Lucia in 1974 to pursue media studies at TMU.
Toronto Metropolitan University Chancellor Janice Fukakusa & VP of Advancement & Alumni Relations Ian Mishkel presented the Alumni Achievement Award to Greg Regis (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
“If I was really serious about becoming a world-class journalist, I decided I should get the best possible training,” he said. “I was looking at universities in the United States and Scotland, but I chose TMU because of its reputation for inclusivity. I had friends who graduated from the university describe the institution that way. I had also spent a week in Toronto in the summer of 1972 on my way back home from a three-month training program with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) in England and loved what I saw in the short period here.”
The three-year journalism program also impressed Regis who graduated in 1977 and returned to St. Lucia to work for the government-owned Radio St. Lucia.
“The combination of practical and academic work was what I was looking for,” he added. “Part of the training included working on the then daily student newspaper and with the television station they had at the time. TMU was everything I expected and more. The programs were great, my instructors were very solid and the school’s location allowed me the opportunity to see shows featuring top artists, including King Curtis.”
A Distinguished Visiting Professor for a year in 2017-18, Regis was bestowed with a TMU honourary doctorate last year.
Greg & Althea Regis with their daughters Nicole (l) & Dr. Chantel Regis (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Other Alumni Achievement Award recipients were Canadian television personality Sangita Patel who graduated with an Electrical Engineering degree 20 years ago, H2O 4 ALL Chief Technology & Public Health officer Timothy Muttoo who completed his Chemical Engineering degree in 1996, Fashion Designer Curtis Oland who graduated five years ago, CIBC Worldwide Senior Executive Vice-President Christina Kramer and Vaccine Hunters Canada Directors Sabrina Craig and Andrew Young.
Chancellor Janice Fukakusa said the Alumni Achievement Awards are ‘a wonderful celebration of the university’s values’.
“I see those values in the remarkable individual stories of our award recipients, values including excellence, enterprise inclusion and opportunity,” she pointed out. “When opportunity meets talent and the passion of our students, magic happens. Tonight, we celebrate that magic and eight incredible stories. This fundamental commitment to opportunity is what has always attracted me to this university. It is reflected in the diversity of our community and the fact that many of our students are the first in their family to attend university.”
In the last two decades, the AAA has shone a light on over 100 alumni.
Krishna Mehta, TMU’s Assistant Vice President, Engagement, said the faculty, staff, students and alumni numbering nearly 300,000 share a distinct commitment to create and change.
“Whether that is taking a complex idea to transform the landscape or exposing an injustice so that everyone can win, whether that is drawing on a creative talent to show the complexity of human nature or leading a team to create spaces where an impossible dream becomes a reality, the alumni we are honouring tonight are joining a growing community of change makers, city builders, risk takers and problem solvers,” he said.
Previous honouress include Member of Parliament Marci Ien, World Bank Clinician Stephanie Asare Nti, Metrolinx Chief Planning Officer Karla Avis-Birch, actor/playwright Lisa Codrington, former Grenada honourary consul general in Toronto Jenny Gumbs, city builders Emily Mills and Lekan Olawoye, CBC anchor Dwight Drummond and late sports broadcaster John Saunders.
