The School of Hospitality Business
Real estate specialization offers career options
All Michigan State students can now take advantage of a new undergraduate specialization in real estate development offered by The School of Hospitality Business, an industry-specific school affiliated with the Eli Broad College of Business. The Hospitality Business Real Estate and Development program introduced last fall integrates the hospitality industry’s two major components: the real estate development business and the businesses associated with managing the hospitality enterprise.
According to Ronald F. Cichy, director of The School, the specialization will present more career options to hospitality business and non-hospitality business students alike. “Hospitality students in the specialization will be in position to pursue careers in the real estate segment of the hospitality industry such as hotel real estate development firms, hotel consulting/appraisal firms and mortgage lender specialization in hotels, real estate acquisition fund and asset management companies,” he says.
“Non-hospitality business students with hospitalityspecific skills, such as finance, construction management, landscape architecture and urban and regional planning majors, will be able to work in their respective areas such as mortgage lending, property construction and development, architecture or real estate finance,” Cichy explains. “This preparation is that added element on students’ résumés that will make them compelling candidates for this industry.”
In the first year of the program, The School of Hospitality Business admitted 10 students. Of those 10 students, three obtained internships at leading hospitality business real estate companies and consultancies: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Partners in Development and Reynolds Plantation. Two graduates of the Specialization in Hospitality Business Real Estate and Development have positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Hotel AVE, an emerging hospitality asset management company. “Prior to the launch of the specialization, none of these firms had hired MSU student interns or recent graduates,” says Cichy.
As a result of the scope and success of the program, four of its faculty members – Academic Specialists Authella Collins Hawks and Sherri G. Henry, and Professor Raymond S. Schmidgall and Associate Professor A.J. Singh – received the Broad School’s 2005-06 Richard J. Lewis Quality of Excellence Award.
The team that helped develop the new undergraduate real estate specialization, from left to right: Associate Professor A.J. Singh, Authella Collins Hawks, Professor Raymond S. Schmidgall, Sherri G. Henry, Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Michael Mazzeo and Director of The School Ronald F. Cichy.
Research
The School faculty were ranked in first place in terms of highest mean research productivity in a study published in the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. The authors of the article examined 11 leading journals related to the hospitality field for a period of ten years and found that The School faculty had one-third more publications than its closest competition.
Enrollment, 2005-06
| Undergraduate | 700 |
| Graduate | 20 |
| Total The School enrollment | 720 |
Degrees Conferred, 2005-06
| Undergraduate | 220 |
| Graduate | 7 |
| Total The School degrees conferred | 227 |
Faculty, 2005-06
| Full-time (tenured, tenure track and full-time lecturers) | 11 |
Faculty editor, 2005-06
Bonnie Knutson, Journal of Marketing Theory & Practice