No abstract

No abstract

It is widely known that the hospitality industry is rife with sexual harassment of especially female employees, yet every year hospitality programs send out thousands of students to complete internships making them vulnerable to sexual harassment, which is a violation of their Title IX rights. The purpose of this descriptive study was to be the first to survey US hospitality students to see if they experienced sexual harassment during a recently completed internship. The majority of the 297 respondents did not experience sexual harassment but a sufficient number experienced sexist and sexual hostility mostly from male managers, coworkers, and customers. The majority of respondents were not informed as to the inappropriate sexual behaviors they may encounter during their internship; over half were given no training by the internship coordinator or employer on what to do if harassed. It is clear that more needs to be done by internship coordinators and employers to protect student interns Title IX rights.

Problem solving, interpersonal skills, information literacy, and critical and independent thinking are essential qualities that employers seek, yet many undergraduates lack. We structured an interdisciplinary classroom and experiential learning environment where students from three undergraduate courses (Hospitality and Tourism Management, Landscape Architecture, and Forestry and Natural Resources) designed a sustainable community master plan by investigating the economic, social, and environmental components of a U.S. highway relocation project. Interdisciplinary teams of students were charged with a “problem” that was articulated in the form of a Request for Proposals (RFP). This RFP served as the basis for the group work, which required an interdisciplinary approach. The ability of students to work together to complete the project was analyzed using the construct of synergistic knowledge development (SKD), a process by which a group constructively integrates diverse perspectives of individual group members. We posited that SKD would increase over the semester and that SKD would be influenced by various team dynamics such as task conflict, psychological safety, social interaction, attitudes toward problem‐based learning (PBL) in a team setting, and behavioral styles of team members. Assessment of SKD and the variables hypothesized to influence it were assessed via a survey administered after the initial phase of the project and a post‐project survey. Results confirmed how social interaction, psychological safety, and attitudes toward PBL in a team setting influence SKD.

No abstract