UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State School of Hospitality Management offered its first-ever workshop for the Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE) program, a professional development certification designed for post-secondary hospitality educators around the world.
Developed by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute, the CHE designation is one of the most recognized credentials in hospitality and tourism education. Supported by an internal grant from the Penn State Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence, the inaugural Penn State offering of the CHE workshop sought to enhance the career preparation of hospitality management doctoral students.
CHE is designed for hospitality educators, whether novice teachers, seasoned professors or industry professionals serving as adjunct instructors. When offered at University Park, CHE is not only open to Penn State students, but also alumni, other industry professionals, and graduate students enrolled at other universities. This first Penn State-sponsored CHE course drew more than a dozen teaching professionals from across the country and as far away as China.
Penn State offered the program with instructor Fred Mayo, a distinguished CHE trainer for more than 25 years and a retired professor of hotel and tourism management at New York University. Mayo has delivered CHE workshops at universities around the United States and in more than 10 countries, including Switzerland, Jamaica and Belgium.
Marie Ozanne, a doctoral student in hospitality management at Penn State, completed the CHE program in May.
“I believe that the CHE program helped me gain a good theoretical teaching knowledge,” Ozanne said. “It will help me to manage my time better to be both a good researcher and a good teacher. I feel much more comfortable regarding how to manage a class, how to present and how to engage students in active learning.”
The CHE program helps participants strengthen students’ critical thinking and increase students’ motivation to learn. It also helps participants share ideas with peers and receive recognition for their teaching abilities.
“Preparing future hospitality management educators is as important to us as is our exceptional training of their research and scholarly skills,” said Donna Quadri-Felitti, director and associate professor for the Penn State School of Hospitality Management.
Ozanne, who researches consumer behavior in social networks, enrolled in the program to learn more about being an educator before she teaches for the first time. After earning her doctoral degree, she hopes to serve as a researcher and faculty member at a university in the United States.
“I really enjoy doing research and I don’t see myself stopping,” she said. “However, I also chose academia because I wanted to transmit knowledge to the younger generations.”