Home to one of the country’s top-rated hospitality management programs, the University of Delaware has further enhanced its program with its new Advanced Learning Interactive Classroom Environment (ALICE), which features advanced audiovisual and interactive learning equipment along with a flexible classroom design.
The university offers a unique experience called the Lodging Module, where students in the hotel, restaurant, and institutional management major (HRIM) take courses for one semester at the 126-room Courtyard Newark-University of Delaware, which is managed by Shaner Hotel Group. When attending the traditional lecture aspect of the program, students previously had to meet in the hotel’s banquet room. As technology updates became more relevant to the students’ ability to learn about hotel management, the school decided change was necessary. “We tried to bring more technology into teaching,” says Bill Sullivan, instructor and managing director of the Courtyard. “It was clear that we needed to step up part of our process to continue our teaching experience.”
The new 1,900-square-foot learning lab, which opened last year, was made possible thanks to a $559,000 contribution from the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation and additional financial and in-kind support from Shaner Hotel Group. It features flexible design elements so professors can customize the space based on their individual teaching needs. For example, the seating can be configured in a traditional lecture hall style or students can conduct group work around one of seven flat-screen monitors. “If you are working on a case study with your team and the professor likes a concept your team came up with, he then has access to display your team’s work on the other six screens,” explains Sheryl Kline, department chairperson for the HRIM program. “It enables better classroom discussion and eliminates students trying to crowd around a single small computer.”
With two high-definition video camera systems and satellite audio/video teleconferencing capabilities, students also can interact in real-time with guest lecturers from all over the world. Additionally, the ALICE room hosts the school’s sommelier certification class. A portion of the classroom is dedicated to the study of wine and features a refrigerator, sink, and special lighting, which enhances the students’ ability to distinguish the colors of different wines. “It’s a package of technology resources,” Sullivan says of the classroom. “The teachers are still learning about how to exploit it in the most beneficial way.”
The same semester students attend classes within the Courtyard, they also complete a practicum experience in which they rotate through all of the hotel’s major operational departments. “We like to say they eat, sleep, and breathe hotel management,” Kline says. “By having that classroom [in the hotel], that makes it more fully possible. If the students are learning about revenue management in class, we usually have the manager in charge of revenue management come down and speak to the classroom, and it’s all right there.”
Students interact with guests on a regular basis and apply the concepts that are taught in the classroom to their practicum experience. They then reflect on how the experience went, and bring it back to the classroom for further discussion.
The new classroom allows students to learn in an environment that is not often offered in other hospitality management programs. University of Delaware’s hotel management graduates enjoy a 95 percent placement rate and a pathway to industry jobs with major hotel companies. “We probably get a call or a message a day from other institutions trying to figure out what we do,” Sullivan says. “The relationship between Marriott, Shaner Hotel Group, and the University really makes it work.”
Congratulations HRIM. Good news.