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Learning Cornellian Steven Rowe reports on how his prestigious hotel school is keeping abreast of sustainability, globalization, and shifting consumer demands. As a soon-to-be junior, I’m constantly thinking about life after the relatively carefree world of college. What do I want to do? What am I interested in? Should I go to graduate school? These are just a few of the questions that consume my classmates. So it makes sense that—despite our youth—we care about what’s going on in the world today and, more importantly, what’s going to happen in the future. For a while, the outlook was bleak. But recently, we’ve seen some signs of change we can believe in (if General Motors can pay off a $6.7 billion loan five years early, then something must be going right). However, what’s most important is that positive changes aren’t just a trend. Effective change is like dieting; it requires a commitment. You can’t hope to lose 20 pounds in two weeks; you have to have long-term expectations. Nowadays, everything seems to be about doing things differently, doing them better, and doing them for the long haul. For my age group, this is a good thing. The hospitality industry has certainly adopted this progressive attitude with open arms. Hotels were one of the first to feel the full effects of the economic downturn; many hotel projects in development have either been put on hold or completely shut down due to the severe dip in demand. Currently, average occupancy is down to around 55 percent from a norm of around 65 percent; the Average Daily Rate too has dropped by nearly 10 percent. Though the hospitality industry is cyclical, hotel companies are no longer just relying on pricing strategies to survive the temporary slump but rather are placing a greater focus on planning for both the near and distant future. Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration is doing the same. The SHA, which is currently performing a curriculum review, has always striven to remain up-to-date in its teaching philosophy and methods. Michael Johnson, in his fourth year as dean of the school, explains that “the importance of change, both in general and in our curriculum, is that we continue to adapt to what’s going on in the world, and we find a way to make ourselves scalable because, even if we don’t find a way to grow, the industry is going to continue to grow.” As the SHA is widely seen as the preeminent hospitality leadership development program in the world, it’s no surprise it’s well versed in the art of adaptation. Over the past few years, the school has broadened its scope to include courses of study such as entrepreneurship and real estate. The Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship was founded in 2006 “to help prepare students for a world where more of them are going to be creating their own realities, adapting to the change that’s going on,” according to Johnson. The school has also recently introduced a new minor in real estate. With these changes, Johnson believes the school offers “more of a first-class business education that’s grounded in the industry to train tomorrow’s future industry leaders.

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