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Hospitality program booming even as industry just now rebounding
By David J. Craig
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James Stamas Photo by Kalman Zabarsky |
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The current economic recession and 9/11 dealt the hospitality industry a devastating blow in Boston and around the world. But even as many hotels and restaurants are struggling, BU's School of Hospitality Administration is thriving: more than 90 percent of graduates looking for jobs in the industry find them, says SHA Dean James Stamas, and the number and quality of applicants increases every year.
“The hospitality industry, especially the segment that involves corporate and international travel, obviously has taken some hits since 2001,” Stamas says. “But our school hasn't been seriously affected.”
Nor is the school likely to want for students in the foreseeable future, as U.S. hotels and restaurants, after experiencing layoffs between 2001 and 2003, have started to report growth. “New York City has already seen the return of very good business,” says Stamas, “and experts are predicting that the recovery will spread to cities like Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco at the tail end of 2004, and especially in 2005.”
Stamas attributes his school's stability in part to the strong liberal arts component of its curriculum: SHA, which has the same admissions standards as the rest of BU, requires that of the 128 credit hours students need to graduate, 52 of them be earned in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Our curriculum combines the strengths of both a management education and a liberal arts education,” says Stamas. “We're not a culinary institution or a vocational school. In fact, I like to think of us as BU's other management school. Employers like the broad education our students receive. In a hotel manager, for instance, they want someone who in addition to having a complete understanding of the way hotels operate and how their departments fit together, has excellent communication skills, is great with people, and can solve problems.”
And students like SHA's curriculum because if they decide that a career in the hospitality industry isn't for them, “the mistake is easily correctable, because so many of their credits are transferable to other schools,” according to Stamas. “Enrolling at SHA, compared to many similar schools of hospitality administration, is a prudent choice.”
Each year, between 60 and 75 percent of SHA's graduating seniors go to work for large hotel companies, often in managerial positions in human resources, sales and marketing, customer service, and food service, Stamas says. Another 15 to 25 percent are hired for similar positions by national restaurant companies and companies that provide dining services to large corporations. A smaller number of graduates, he says, take jobs with technology companies that provide software and hardware services to hotels and restaurants, while others go to convention and visitors bureaus or hospitality consulting companies.
“Both in the case of hotel companies and restaurant companies,” Stamas says, “our students may be placed in a management development program or directly into management positions, depending on the company and on the person's work experience.”
Such work experience, Stamas says, is another of the school's strengths: SHA students must complete two 400-hour professional internships and are encouraged to look for them in different areas of the hospitality industry. “Our students don't leave here with empty résumés,” he says. “And with market conditions being what they are, we've stepped up our efforts to counsel students on how to find a job and how to network. We've brought to the school many industry professionals and alumni to meet our students and talk to them about job hunting. Being a relatively small school of about 270 students, our faculty are able to develop close relationships with students and offer them a lot of advice and assistance in that area.”
In addition, SHA recently strengthened its curriculum by creating a cross-minor concentration with SMG. And currently, the school is in the quiet phase of a fundraising campaign to help underwrite its move to a larger facility.
“A new building will double our space and allow us to grow to about 400 students,” says Stamas. “It also will enable us to have state-of-the-art classrooms, facilities for student activities, a computer room, a library, an alumni center, and a career center. All of that is very important, because we're preparing people to work in what is essentially an image industry, and the setting in which you get your education should be consistent with that. Our new facility will do that — it will be a very attractive place to go to school.”
To learn more about SHA's programs, visit www.bu.edu/sha.
19
March 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations