Addressing the Challenges Facing Hospitality Academic Programs in the USA: Portfolios and Action Learning

Abstract

This chapter identifies the challenges hospitality programs face both in their task environment—i.e., those factors that directly influence the input and output of the schools offering these programs—and in their institutional environment. Based on interviews with hospitality students, educators, and administrators of various academic programs around the USA, the authors report a too narrowly defined field with its consequences for graduates’ career perspectives, a focus on technical rather than “soft” skills, educational shortcomings, and poor marketing as the main issues for hospitality programs. Improvements must be sought, they argue, in expanding the career focus, a stronger emphasis on “soft” skills, updating didactical approaches, and adjustments in marketing and recruitment policies that clarify the broader career perspectives. However, rather than addressing all these issues at once, the authors propose selecting “pressure points” or “leverage points” to promote change, in particular the introduction of portfolios to have students reflect on their learning process in “soft” skills and apprenticeships allowing for practitioner development through action research.