Hotel schools are ‘inn’ p1 - Military - College News and Information - Military Times EDGE

In a classroom on a hill next to New York’s Cayuga Lake, more than 50 Cornell University hotel management students take notes as their instructor explains how to triple-sheet beds, provide turn-down service and schedule housekeepers.

“Housekeeping is about managing people,” lecturer Reneta McCarthy explains to the young Ivy Leaguers taking her required course, Introduction to Hotel Operations.

Cornell’s prestigious hotel school, founded in 1922 and the nation’s oldest, was once one of few academic options for students wanting to be managers at hotel or other hospitality companies. But the thriving Cornell institution no longer has the corner on training the nation’s innkeepers.

About 200 schools now offer bachelor’s degrees to students majoring in hospitality management, a five-fold increase over the past quarter-century. A record number of students — about 50,000 — are enrolled, said Widener University Dean Nick Hadgis, a board member of an association representing schools with hospitality programs.

For graduates, it often means a choice of high-paying jobs. And hospitality educators argue that travelers benefit from greater staff professionalism when they check into the nation’s hotels.

This spring, most hospitality school graduates looking for hotel jobs will get multiple job offers at an annual salary of at least $40,000, hotel school deans say. Many graduates have annual salaries of more than $70,000 within three years, said Richard Zurburg, interim director of the hospitality school at the University of Memphis.

Hotel school grads have a big edge getting jobs in the industry, say some of those who do the hiring.

“We believe a hospitality program graduate is best-prepared to hit the ground running in our operation,” said Steve Bauman, Marriott International’s vice president of talent acquisition.

(Originally published Feb. 4, 2008)