School of HTM Partners With Women’s Hospitality Initiative for New Course

Bolstered by the first-year success of the glass ceiling-breaking women’s leadership course, the Women’s Hospitality Initiative (WHI) and L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management announce that SDSU will join existing partners Florida International University (FIU) Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Harrah College of Hospitality in bringing a new semester of “From the Classroom to the Boardroom: Leadership for Women In Hospitality” to three campuses in Fall 2021.

The three-credit, bachelor’s degree-level course examines the role of women leaders in the hospitality and restaurant industries with a rotating guest speaker series and business-specific topics and skill sets embedded into the curriculum. The course expands students’ knowledge of business and leadership skills providing strategies to recognize and mitigate gender and unconscious bias. The goal is to bring awareness to obstacles that currently hinder the upward mobility of women into leadership and ownership roles in the hospitality industry.

“From the Classroom to the Boardroom” will be taught by Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management Associate Professor Lisa Cain at all three campuses. She is an author of two hospitality textbooks, associate editor for International Journal of Consumer Studies and assistant editor for the International Hospitality Review, and President of the Southeast, Central, and South American section of the International Council on Hotel Restaurants and Institutional Education.

“Bringing this course to San Diego State University is another victory for women who aspire not only to lead, but to also remove the obstacles that have held so many back from progress in these industries,” Professor Cain says. “With the guidance of faculty and the incredible contributions of our guest speakers, we are making progress, taking what we’ve learned, and making the path to success more manageable for tomorrow’s graduates.”

As “From the Classroom to the Boardroom” was conceived and is intended for future women leaders, the cornerstone of the course is its rotating guest speaker series, which allows students to have face-to-face conversations with women making transformative contributions to their industries.

Issues that are core to the advancement and development of women in leadership are addressed by the guest speakers and include topics such as leadership branding, emotional intelligence, navigating politics and power dynamics, building relationships, networks, and allies, as well as building an inclusive team culture – all from the perspective of women leaders.

The content within this article has been edited by Lizbeth Persons.