Centennial College is preparing the next generation of hospitality leaders who are prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities of an industry experiencing a global resurgence.
As social and economic conditions change, one thing remains the same. That means people still want connection, comfort, and compassion. And that’s exactly what the hospitality industry delivers – through memorable meals, welcoming hotel stays, or innovative travel experiences. But what skills do you need to lead in an industry rife with digital transformation and cultural complexity that relies heavily on the human touch?
At Centennial College, we believe the answer lies in an education that is forward-thinking, entrepreneurial, and deeply rooted in real-world experience. And they have powerful stories to share about how successful hospitality education sparks innovation, fosters change, and then develops the leaders the industry needs.
Centennial University’s Leadership in Canadian Hospitality
Centennial University is the first public university in Ontario, Canada. Its curriculum is shaped by input from more than 1,500 industry leaders, and its students have won the Ontario Skills Award of Excellence seven years in a row, and has been ranked No. 1 in Canada for student engagement in applied research for the past four years. The college’s world-class training is reflected in its programs in hospitality, tourism and culinary arts, supported by state-of-the-art experiential learning facilities, including a student-run full-service restaurant and event centre, hotel-style rooms, state-of-the-art culinary labs, and interactive classrooms, all taught by faculty with extensive industry experience who have worked in top-class facilities across Canada and around the world.
Cyrus Cooper, a professor at Centennial University’s School of Hospitality and Culinary Arts (SHCA), is one of the school’s top specialists who brings a wealth of experience to the classroom, having led a variety of restaurant and event operations at some of Canada’s top companies, including Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality, Pusateli’s Fine Foods, Granite Club, and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.
Professor Cooper, who has taught full-time at Centennial for the past eight years and is the program coordinator for the university’s Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Management program, said: “There are increasing opportunities for professionals to not only lead, but thrive in the hospitality industry, moving beyond the traditional roles of hotel manager or restaurant manager.”
At Centennial, our classrooms evolve with our industry. University faculty endorse this perspective as experienced professionals who bring decades of personal experience in the industry into their instruction. Students will discover that today’s hospitality extends far beyond restaurants and hotels to include entrepreneurship, event management, marketing, finance, and digital innovation, including the growing influence of social media.
“Each of our professors brought fresh ideas that have worked in industry and applied them to the classroom,” Professor Cooper said. “They’re always asking, ‘How can this help my students?'” That way, what we’re teaching is always relevant and immediately applicable. ”
Through an educational approach that combines academic excellence with deep experiential learning, students stay abreast of the latest trends in the industry and create the perfect recipe for success in the new era of hospitality.
Career formation through work-integrated learning
Centennial’s hospitality programs are known for integrating classroom learning and hands-on experiences, including capstone projects, business start-ups, and other work-integrated learning (WIL) programs where students work with real companies and apply what they’ve learned. These partnerships include top employers in the Greater Toronto Area and provide centenary students with a rare window into the real world that will shape their future careers.
“We are very proud of our work-integrated learning collaborations with a variety of restaurants, hotels and destination marketing organizations, as well as other academic institutions,” Professor Cooper said. “Students have the opportunity to go into industry and apply the knowledge they learn in the classroom.”
Entrepreneurial education: the magic ingredient
Beyond collaborations with industry, Centennial College also offers internal WIL opportunities where students embark on an entrepreneurial project over a semester and develop their own product by the end. This allows us to innovate within the industry rather than simply joining it. A focus on fostering student entrepreneurship sets Centennial’s hospitality program apart.
Professor Cooper sees his students develop this competitive edge firsthand. “At Centennial, students not only graduate with a wealth of knowledge and skills in various areas of the hospitality industry, but also with a very important business acumen – industry entrepreneurship,” he said. “That’s something we’re really proud of.”
“My program has an entrepreneurship capstone where students work together in groups to solve problems within an industry and create products and services,” Professor Cooper explained. “They go through the process of Lean Startup methodology, which is actually moving from an idea to a real market, and they learn all about it over the course of 14 weeks of work-integrated learning.”
In this way, students not only learn how to run a restaurant or hotel; You’ll also learn how to market your company, innovate internally, and even launch your own venture. And this unique combination of hospitality expertise and entrepreneurship will be further strengthened as Centennial’s School of Hospitality and Culinary Arts becomes part of the university’s new School of Global Business and Creative Industries.
Incorporating sustainability into every layer of hospitality
Along with experiential learning and entrepreneurship, the last of Centennial’s three elements is sustainability. In other words, we teach students how to channel hospitality to bring about social and environmental change.
WIL’s pioneering initiative, Peer Sustain, transforms students’ theoretical culinary knowledge into practical applications towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This has led to the development of many in-house, student-created, and market-ready products, including:
Made from recycled wood ash and food waste, Eco Culinary Chef’s Soap shows how you can create value by leveraging resources. Inspired by Indigenous people, Woodland Berry Herbal Tea blends locally sourced ingredients with traditional Indigenous knowledge and behaviors to provide a unique learning experience about land and cultural heritage stewardship. Chipotle Espresso Spice Lab combines chipotle peppers from community gardens with recycled espresso grounds to teach students about the power of flavor reuse and creative culinary problem solving that minimizes waste. Garden Soil Nutrient Enhancer is made from composted food waste, espresso grounds, and oven wood ash, turning scraps into rich soil nutrients and instilling the value of sustainable soil management for ecosystem health. Homemade VQA vinegar, made from surplus wine from the university’s bar and beverage programs, turns potential waste into a high-value product.
Other student innovations include wild rose apple jelly made from apples and rose hips foraged on campus, orchard crabapple jelly sweetened with honey from Centennial’s own rooftop apiary, and ketchup smoked in-house using sustainable wood and recycled tomato and fruit debris, all of which incorporate local sourcing, waste reduction, craftsmanship and biodiversity into the learning experience.
Another recent initiative of WIL is the Cook’n Feed program. In this program, students transform surplus ingredients into more than 100 fresh meals and soups in SHCA’s culinary lab that are sold weekly for $1 and $2, directly addressing food insecurity within the student community.
Each of these innovative programs immerses students in a comprehensive entrepreneurial journey, from conceptualization to creating and marketing retail food and sustainable solutions. Along the way, students develop creativity, critical thinking, technical skills, and a passion for making change. The result is a generation of hospitality professionals who see environmental and social responsibility as integral parts of their recipe for success.
Investing in people for a resilient future
Ultimately, Centennial’s hospitality education focuses on developing skilled and adaptable professionals who can succeed in the dynamic, global hospitality industry. It’s not just about filling jobs. For one of the world’s most human-centric industries, it’s important to build a workforce based on empathy, agility, and transformation.
Take Muriel Asande, Class of 2024, for example. He attended Centennial’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program as an international student from Ivory Coast. The aspiring hotel owner chose Centennial because of its focus on putting learning into practice and sending students out into the world. “Something drew me to Centennial,” she recalled. “I really liked how they designed different classes and courses, and I was able to have so many different perspectives at the same time.”
During her studies, she participated in the university-wide Global Goals Jam Canada. Organized by the University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, this is a weekend-long experiential design jam that fosters transformational skills and sustainable entrepreneurship. This weekend focused on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals by designing innovative and entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges.
“We have chosen to ‘guarantee the human rights of migrant workers and immigrants.'” [as the theme]“Asande talks about her first Jam of Fall 2022. In less than three days, her team created a complete business pitch to a panel of judges. Her solution, an app called Agrirate that helps immigrant farmworkers find fair employers through workplace transparency, won the top prize at the event.
“Migrant workers who come here have no access to resources, no one to turn to because they don’t speak the language, and they live in poor working conditions,” Asande explained. “We came up with apps like Glassdoor where immigrant workers can rate employers.”
Asande will lead the first- and second-place teams at two more Global Goals Jam Canada competitions in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Following her success at Global Goals Jam Canada in 2022, Asande also entered the Tourism Industry Association of Canada (TIAC) Future Leaders Contest and presented at the industry’s national conference in Ottawa, sharing her student perspective on reimagining tourism and her vision for how the industry will change and evolve in the future. At the end of the competition, Mr. Asande was awarded a Certificate of Merit as a future leader in the Canadian tourism industry. “They said I would be making a big difference in the industry in a few years, and I was very happy to receive that feedback,” Asande said.
Mr. Asande’s journey is a powerful example of how hands-on learning, entrepreneurial skills, and a global perspective can enable students to become change-makers in their fields. It is this kind of forward-thinking talent that will influence the broader movement that Professor Cooper believes is reshaping the future of hospitality.
“A common misconception is that hospitality is not a good job. The work usually involves long hours and low pay. That’s not true,” Professor Cooper says.
“The careers that come out of this industry are very unique, fostering personal and professional growth and allowing leaders to grow rapidly. The hours are very flexible and many careers are actually very well paid. And you can even become an entrepreneur.”
At Centennial, developing this mindset of resilience and purpose is built into the learning experience. “We set our students up for success when we allow them to do what failures are unwilling to do. We owe it to the students who graduate each year to continue to produce the best talent in the world of hospitality.”
At a time of renewed growth in the hospitality industry, Centennial College is developing people who will move the industry forward with purpose, resilience, and an entrepreneurial spirit that creates meaningful change.
This article will also be published in the quarterly magazine issue 24.
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