Hospitality Design - September 2014 - 129

SCHOOL'S IN

Photos by ZAID HAMID (headshot) and BRUCE DAMONTE (Georgetown buildings)

We sought out industry veterans
who are also teaching, and checked
in with some of the top interior
design and management programs
in the country to ﬁnd out what drives
hospitality education today.

Gray Shealy
Georgetown University School of
Continuing Studies

Georgetown University's
School of Continuing
Studies building-
completed by Studios
Architecture and
opened in 2013-
houses the master's in
hospitality management
program.

Gray Shealy has always been
passionate about education. Even as
the former global design director for
W Hotels he says he was somewhat
of a teacher. "I was essentially in
charge of creating a strategy for the
evolution of the W brand and how
it was delivered as an experience
for the guest," he explains. "I was
responsible for teaching how
that brand strategy needed to be
manifested-from design consultants
to GMs and housekeepers. It wasn't
only about the design of a space."
When Georgetown University
approached him to start a hospitality
management master's program, he
was intrigued, albeit nervous: "I was
tasked with creating a curriculum for
a hospitality management degree, but
I had a master's and undergraduate
degree in architecture. I told them,
'You do realize I don't have this
degree,'" he remembers. "Their
response was, 'That's why we want
you. We don't want you to repeat your
scholastic experience.'"
To create the practical-based
program Georgetown wanted, it
made sense to hire an executive
director who came from both the
creative and strategic sides of the
business. "They were supportive
of innovation from the outset and
thinking outside of the box, which
is one of the things I do best: turning
things upside down and challenging
convention," Shealy says.

Where most hospitality schools
are focused on undergrads, this will
be a master's program for full- or
part-time students (timeline: 16
to 24 months). The curriculum
centers on real industry issues
using the resources surrounding
the Washington, DC-area campus-
global and regional standards;
development and asset management;
and, most importantly, brand
management and guest experience
design. "We are in an experience
economy, and we are looking at what
that means and how do you teach
faculty to approach that," he says.
Instead of fulltime tenured faculty
(the only fulltime staff members are
Shealy and a program manager),
the program will feature adjunct
professors drawn from various
management groups, associations,
and degrees of hospitality. Taking
that one step further, the thesis
project will pair students with an
industry mentor who will investigate
whether the student's idea is
implementable. "We want to be
connected with the industry at the
hip so the students have almost direct
access, with firsthand case studies
instead of theoretical ideas that don't
have application," says Shealy, adding
he was surprised by how many
people in the industry were eager to
teach.
The first class of 10 to 14 students
starts this fall, with two courses: one
on ethics and leadership taught by
an industry expert with a doctorate
in psychology, who will give insight
on a variety of skills from how to
climb the corporate ladder to how to
network, those "that aren't always
taught," says Shealy; and another
on finance and accounting by a
Marriott veteran who now runs
a local restaurant group and will
partner with a nearby hotel to use
as a classroom. "I don't see this as
a program where students sit in a
classroom and take tests and listen to
lectures-they will be out and about
at hotels and restaurants to see how
they are run firsthand," explains
Shealy. "We will show students
that going into hospitality doesn't
mean you have to take a front desk
manager job."

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Hospitality Design - September 2014

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