The School of Hospitality Administration is adding a second undergraduate degree, the Bachelor of Science in Hospitality and Communication, to its curriculum beginning this fall, SHA Dean Arun Upneja said.
The new major is being offered in collaboration with the College of Communication and requires students to take classes in both SHA and COM. The 2017-18 academic year will serve as a pilot phase for the program, which will officially begin enrolling students in the major for the Fall 2018 semester, Upneja said.
“You can apply to BU and apply to SHA, and specify this major,” the dean explained. “Or, if you’re already at BU, you just have to contact your academic advisor and talk about how you can transition into this major.”
Peter Szende, an associate dean at SHA and leader of the interdisciplinary working group that designed the new program, said the major was created after SHA administrators identified the need for an innovative academic partnership.
“We felt that there are certain goals we cannot achieve by ourselves,” Szende said. “We felt that the two educational fields, communication and hospitality management, are intrinsically connected and this new program can build off a strong foundation of hospitality management.”
Szende added that social media’s growing prevalence in the field of hospitality management moved SHA to collaborate with COM.
“The rise of the Internet has transformed the traditional approach to teaching hospitality management to one that requires new kinds of communication skills, such as social media,” the associate dean said. “The major was created to supplement this growing demand for hospitality professionals with knowledge of modern communication techniques.”
Szende said the new program is beginning with a “soft opening” that will initially only be available to intra-university transfer students in order to assess the needs and interest in the major.
The pilot program allows for up to five SHA students to participate in the new major during the Fall 2017 semester, and an additional five students during the Spring 2018 semester, according to Dustin Supa, a public relations professor in COM.
Supa said that COM was interested in partnering with SHA in order to explore what programs make sense for COM students and faculty members.
“Part of it is recognizing that SHA students were looking for a partner to help them expand their offerings,” Supa said. “At the same time, COM students may be interested in working in hospitality, so it seemed that there would be a pretty good synergy between the two colleges, and would allow the SHA students who are part of this program to also gain some experience working in communication as well.”
William Taylor, assistant dean of COM Undergraduate Affairs, emphasized that students enrolling in the new major will be considered members of SHA.
“The students apply to SHA and work with the staff at SHA as they are interested in pursuing this new degree,” Taylor wrote in an email. “SHA students pursuing this major will need to take 32 credits of College of Communication courses as part of completing their degree requirements.”
Several students said they thought the new major was a logical combination of the two disciplines, and many SHA students were excited to see the college expand its academic offerings.
Justin Cipriano, a senior in SHA, said the Hospitality and Communication major will allow BU students to have a narrow focus in an industry that contains many potential career paths.
“I think it makes a lot of sense considering the hospitality industry itself,” Cipriano said, “having some sort of concentration in some area or some sort of focus puts you in a much better class because hospitality administration is very broad, so if you want to be more focused you can be.”
Beatriz Da Costa, a freshman in COM, said she learned about the new program through an announcement during her COM 101 class and noticed many students who were interested in learning more about the program.
“Many people were interested and taking notes about what it was and where to find out more about it,” Da Costa said. “I think it’s a great experience and it’s something that stands out for students looking to come to BU.”
Emily Stewart, a senior in SHA, said she was excited to see a partnership between SHA and COM because several BU students have already found ways to combine the two disciplines in their academic careers.
“I know students who had communications as their major and minored in SHA so it goes both ways,” Stewart said. “They just work very well together, and it’s something different than doing SHA and Questrom because we are both business schools in that sense.”
Stewart also said she thinks the new program will be an attractive option for BU students.
“I think it’s a great opportunity for our students to be able to have that and to expand more into the BU community and not just staying in SHA,” Stewart said. “I think a lot of students will take advantage of it.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that the Hospitality and Communication major is offered jointly with COM. The updated version clarifies that the new major is offered solely by SHA.
