From the Director

As we launch fall quarter and welcome a really talented group of first-year students, there is much to share with you – more than we can fit into a single issue. What you will find as you read on are articles focusing on the lodging real estate concentration— an important element of our curriculum— and the scholarships that make it accessible to many of our students.

Our curriculum, which builds on the Daniels College core courses across the business disciplines, includes three—soon four—concentrations: Lodging real estate; restaurants/food and beverage; event sales and management; and the one we will soft launch in the fall, strategic lodging operations. This last concentration will replace the revenue management and analytics concentration for which student interest was waning and from which industry, despite decrying the lack of a talent pipeline in this area, was not hiring. We will migrate interested students to the new concentration beginning this fall and it will become official in the 2023 undergraduate catalogue.

Over the last five years, we have seen growing student interest in the real estate side of the hotel industry and increasing success in placing graduating seniors in analyst roles with developers, REITs, and more. Over 10% of the class of 2022 launched their careers in this area and current seniors interned in analyst roles over the summer. In the pages that follow, you will hear from Amrik Singh, an associate professor who teaches and does research in this area, Dave Johnstone, the chief investment officer of McWhinney—a local developer—who sits on our executive advisory board and leads the teaching team for our senior level hotel investments class, and Jamie Sabatier, former CEO of Two Roads Hospitality and our executive-inresidence.

Further on, you will learn about four alumni benefactors, all of whom have newly endowed scholarships in their names devoted to Fritz Knoebel students. Their contributions and those of all our scholarship donors are critical to our future success. At a time when the competition for students is especially fierce, in part due to a national decline in interest in hospitality careers among high school students, scholarships are an incredibly important tool for us to attract, yield and retain talented students. Without the ability to provide merit scholarships offers to admitted students and layer need-based awards on top of the merit awards for those with demonstrated need, we would be at a huge disadvantage in recruiting. My deepest thanks go to Tim Benolken, Bob DiSalvio, Michael Morton and to Tom Ricca, his wife Ronnie Bray and all those who chose to honor Tom by contributing to an endowed scholarship in his honor. Tom is recently retired from his design firm and just celebrated 45 years of teaching our design class as a part-time instructor— he so worthy of being honored in this way.

On July 1, I celebrated my 15th anniversary as Fritz Knoebel’s director. I do not know how that is possible; the time has gone so quickly. Our success during my time at Fritz Knoebel would not have been possible without support from our alumni and the industry, and especially the hard work of our entire team. I am so fortunate to work with such a talented, dedicated group of professionals.

My colleague and wife, Cheri Young, and I are on sabbatical this fall to recharge and work on a pair of research projects. We are living in Malta through December and are really enjoying our new surroundings and the change of pace. My thanks to the team for pulling together to cover us in our absence. I will resume work travel after the first of the year and look forward to seeing as many of you as I am able as I make my way around the country to visit with alumni and industry.

I hope that, as we move toward a new year, you and your families are well and that 2023 brings peace, stability, good health and many reasons to celebrate.

David L. Corsun, PhD Director & Associate Professor