‘Professor-for-a-Day’: An Initiative to Nurture Communities of Learning and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism

Abstract

Inviting industry professionals as speakers in university classrooms for the benefit of future managers is essential to an applied field of higher learning. This study examines the role of "Professor-for-a-Day" in nurturing communities of learning and practice in hospitality and tourism programs at universities. Data were collected (auto-) ethnographically over five years (2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017) in Hong Kong, through in-depth interviews with guest speakers from the industry, subject lecturers who invite industry executives to their classes, and students who are exposed to these industry professionals.Simultaneously, participant observations of, and documentary sources about, industry executives' guest lectures, are also used in the analysis and report. The research results reinforce and reiterate the role of industry professionals as guest speakers in building communities of learning and practice in an applied field of study. Implications of this discussion for applied higher education are then deliberated, so are the study's constraints acknowledged, and directions for future research explored.

Career choice of tourism students in a triple-whammy crisis

“…Workplace technology application should be enhanced across the curriculum in tourism programs to prepare students for a career and meet organizations’ and customers’ needs [ 88 ]. For vocational orientation programs, voices from industry practitioners carry equal, or sometimes stronger, credibility than those from academia [ 89 , 90 ]. Guest speakers from the industry could be invited to share their real-world experience and insight about industry prospects.…”

Re-Strategizing Tourism and Hospitality Assessments in a Post-COVID-19 Higher Education Landscape

“…Then, by extension, it can be argued then that these assessments may not necessarily have to rest within the confines of the classroom (physical or virtual) but could instead be nested with practitioners who possess the necessary skillsets. Even before the COVID-19 outbreak, some institutions have appointed adjunct lecturers or guest professors to complement their teaching staff in specialty areas such as culinary or wine studies (Hui, 2016;Xiao et al, 2018). These opportunities widen students' learning and applied skills by exposing them to different ways of acquiring valuable skillsets for graduate employability.…”