Fritz Knoebel News 2023 by Daniels College of Business

Knoebel NEWS

STRATEGIC LODGING MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents From the Director

New Concentration Serves Students Interested in Lodging

Ready for American Hospitality Program Wins Innovation Award

The Cossack Family Endowment

Honorary Scholarship Continues Alum’s Tradition of Giving

Hospitality Mentorship Program Provides Volunteer Opportunity for Students

Alumni Updates

FROM THE DIRECTOR

Amazingly, I have completed 16 years as the director of the Fritz Knoebel School. I have never worked anywhere for this long and never dreamed I would still be in this role. However, I am still energized every day to tackle the school’s challenges and celebrate its accomplishments with members of our team and with all of you. I cannot over-emphasize how important your support has been, and will continue to be, as we face the challenges ahead. In July, several members of the faculty team attended an annual hospitality education conference (I-CHRIE) to present our research, network with colleagues from around the world and learn how other programs are faring in this challenging time. During the first day, I attended an immersive session for program deans and directors that included time with industry leaders. After four hours together, it became clear that the greatest challenge of our time—and likely for at least the next decade—is enrollment. For almost 10 years now, hospitality programs at colleges and universities have seen fewer students walk through their doors. Needless to say, COVID had a profound effect. Major programs whose enrollments were once above 1,000 students are now in the 500-600 range. One of the largest programs in the country has contracted by about 60%! Although the Fritz Knoebel School remains a boutique program (and will stay that way), we aspire to grow by 20%. Our intake last fall put us back at pre-COVID levels, which was critical. We rebounded in a down market. Scholarships are as important as ever for attracting and retaining talented students. My deepest thanks to all who help us provide this support. We are also working on new partnerships with high schools in California and Arizona we believe can help us attract students who, to this point, have not considered DU.

What awaits you in this issue is information about a strategic curriculum change we believe will make us more appealing to some prospective students. We folded up the tent on the Revenue Management & Analytics concentration in favor of one we’re calling Strategic Lodging Management. This new concentration headlines this issue. I hope you find it compelling. Finally, I am happy to share more about our major food and wine events and hope many of you can join us. Keep an eye on our website for dates and tickets, which are required: daniels.du.edu/hospitality-management. The Public Good Gala and DU Vin Festival dinner and grand tasting are Cossack Family Guest Chef dinners. (You can read more about the Cossack Family Endowment on Page 6.) Over the years, we have welcomed 10 James Beard Awardwinning chefs to lead these events. This past spring, Fariyal Abdullahi, chef at Marcus Samuelsson’s Hav & Mar in New York and judge on three Food Network shows, came to Denver to work with our students. Please plan to join us for one or more of our signature food and wine events. In hospitality,

David L. Corsun, PhD Director & Professor Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management

2023 | FRITZ KNOEBEL NEWS

NEW CONCENTRATION

SERVES

— By Lorne Fultonberg

he Breakers resort in Palm Beach, Florida, offers “unparalleled luxury.” It boasts 10 restaurants, four pools, two golf courses and one 22-year-old Daniels College of Business intern, who feels remarkably at home. “I am able to look at our [revenue] numbers and know what’s going on before they tell me,” said Josh Clark, a senior at the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. “Everything I’ve been learning [at DU] has been so helpful.” Clark is one of the first students in the newest Fritz concentration, strategic lodging management, designed to prepare graduates for property level roles that lead to becoming a general manager and eventually a corporate operations role. Through five classes—one in hotel investment, two in sustainability, one in advanced human capital and one more on creating the guest experience—students can gain an immediately applicable skillset that falls in step with the industry’s current needs, according to David Corsun, director and professor at Fritz. “We are addressing issues that hotel organizations and their operators are currently facing and will be facing into the future,” he said. “This program is right for a student who aspires to a leadership role in a hotel or resort.”

When Corsun looks at the hospitality industry, he sees a number of new, interesting challenges on the horizon. There is an increased focus on ecological sustainability and an establishment’s place in its local community. AI and robotic technologies have become more prevalent and are increasingly working their way into the guest experience. “These are all things that are really top of mind for owners and operators,” Corsun said. “There are no easy answers.” Fritz faculty have begun the process of finding some solutions. The curriculum for the new concentration came from discussions between faculty, staff and industry partners. Each step of the way, Corsun solicited feedback from professionals who recruit and hire management talent. The new coursework reflects an evolving industry, Corsun said, in which general managers are running real estate assets and dealing with increasingly competing interests. Clark fits that description. Though he has long loved hotels and travel, he transferred into Fritz partway through his DU career. As a student, he has found his place within hands-on classes, alongside a tight-knit cohort of classmates.

STUDENTS

INTERESTED IN LODGING “In order to succeed working in a hotel, you want operational experience,” he said. “With the lodging management concentration, you definitely get inside the hotel, see the inner workings of it and actually interact with your guests.” The strategic lodging management offering joins a trio of concentrations in lodging real estate, and restaurant/food and beverage management. Corsun says these foci will help Fritz address a longtime decline in collegiate hospitality enrollments as higher education approaches an “enrollment cliff”—a demographic drop-off in the number of college-age people. “I think one of the hallmarks of the school is that we are never so self-

satisfied that we ever stop looking at our curriculum and comparing it not to what other programs are doing, but to what industry needs—which is not always the same as what industry asks for,” Corsun said. “[The strategic lodging management concentration] will help us attract prospective students because of how we’re preparing them and educating them. Despite a shrinking market we will continue to be in a steady state or grow slightly and achieve more than our fair share of the market.”

Ready for American Hospitality Program Wins Innovation Award gaining skills like job design, skills assessment, interviewing, hiring, training, managing and performance appraisal. “This program quickly became part of our DNA [at Fritz] and has provided our students with a competitive advantage as they enter the world of work,” said Young, an associate professor. “It enhances their cultural intelligence and empathy and prepares them to create humane workplaces. Plus, they receive direct experience working with the population they will manage on the industry’s front lines.” At the end of the course, refugees and Fritz students collaborate with a highly acclaimed chef to prepare a multicourse dinner at the Public Good Gala or DU Vin celebration, both of which are routinely sold out. Proceeds from the dinner fund subsequent RAH cohorts. The Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management took home the Bobby G. Bizzell Innovative Achievement Award for its unique Ready for American Hospitality (RAH) program. Fritz faculty David Corsun and Cheri Young accepted the honor at this spring’s Southwestern Business Deans’ Association meeting. Since 2012, the Knoebel School has partnered with the Ethiopian Community Development Council’s African Community Center, delivering the skills and knowledge newly resettled refugees need to thrive in a new country. Over the course of five, intensive weeks, immigrants from all over the world learn the ins and outs of working in a kitchen, customer service skills, interview prep and how to fill out American tax forms. “Our vision is: Be bold. Do good. Change lives,” said Corsun, director of the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management. “The most visible and impactful way we have embraced this vision is via the collaborative service learning embodied in RAH. What began as a single-course partnership with a refugee resettlement agency has blossomed into a cross-course collaboration that facilitates learning and changes the lives of the refugees.” Students enrolled in the school’s Managing Human Capital in Hospitality class mentor the recently resettled refugees,

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RAH has been recognized by the U.S. Department of State and U.N. High Commission on Refugees as an example of the kind of innovation that is possible in refugee resettlement. The employment rate and average hourly wages of RAH graduates are well above national averages for recently resettled refugees. Perhaps most important for the RAH students is that their connections with Fritz students— to whom they refer as their “first American friends”—help them integrate more successfully and rapidly into American society. “The program was created to facilitate our students’ learning and has a huge impact on refugees from all over the world who fled persecution in their home country and arrived in the United States with few possessions, but immeasurable hope about America,” Corsun said. “The University of Denver’s mission is to be a great private institution dedicated to the public good. I can’t think of a better way to make a lasting impact in our community.”

Cossack Family Endowment Brings World-Class Chefs to Campus The Cossack Family Endowment for the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management at the University of Denver was established in April 2018. The purpose of the gift is to provide support for the Fritz Knoebel Guest Chef Series, ensuring that future students will have the chance to partner with a celebrated chef to create an exceptional dining experience like no other.

2022-23 VISITING CHEFS Fariyal Abdullahi hails from Ethiopia and earned a bachelor’s degree in clinical child psychology before switching career paths. Instead of getting a graduate degree, as she had intended to do, she bet on a dream and applied to the Culinary Institute of America. While Abdullahi was waiting to hear if she got accepted to the prestigious institution (she did!) she decided to hone her culinary skills by traveling to 18 different countries. During her three months of travel, Fariyal sampled dishes and studied flavors from around the world. Since becoming a chef, Fariyal has worked at the three-Michelin-star eatery, Noma, in Copenhagen, and was previously the culinary manager at five Hillstone Restaurant Group locations. Her dishes tend to include nods to her Ethiopian roots and have been featured in spaces such as the Met Gala and Vogue. She is currently the executive chef at Marcus Samuelsson's Hav & Mar in New York City. You can also see her on Food Network as a judge on "Chopped" and "Alex vs. America." Fariyal has also partnered with friends to launch a nonprofit organization, Take Care of Home, that builds schools and gives families access to water in rural parts of Ethiopia. This year, the organization has begun construction on its sixth school.

Zoe Adjonyoh is a chef, writer, entrepreneur and founder of Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen. Through her mission to bring the great flavors of West Africa to a wider audience, Zoe has been pioneering modern West African food in supper clubs (in London, Berlin, New York, Accra, Wales and Russia), her own restaurant in London’s Brixton district, pop-ups, street food and events since 2010. In 2017, she released her debut cookbook “Zoe’s Ghana Kitchen,” which was republished and released nationwide in the U.S. in October 2021, earning a spot on The New York Times "Best Cookbooks of 2021" list. Based on Zoe’s work and impact, she was named one of “London’s hottest chefs” by Time Out and one of “The 44 Best Female Chefs” by Hachette Cuisine France. She was honored at the James Beard Foundation in New York and given the Iconoclast Award in 2018. In February 2019, Zoe spoke at TEDxOxford, delivering a talk called “Food: Its Importance to Cultural Stepping Stones of Understanding and Exchange.” In 2022, she spoke at Harvard University about the “History of African Food: How African Food Has Shaped the Global Food Ecosystem.” At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zoe converted her entire catering operation into an online spice store, selling house spice blends, salt mixes and single-origin ingredients from small, independent organic farms in West Africa. She also created a community kitchen to feed those most impacted by the pandemic in her East London community of Hackney—serving 500 meals per week out of her home. In April 2020, Zoe launched Black Book Global, a representation agency and platform for people of color in the food industry, and released her new podcast, "Cooking Up Consciousness." Most recently, Zoe joined the boards of The New American Table and God's Love We Deliver. 2023 | FRITZ KNOEBEL NEWS

Honorary Scholarship Continues Alum’s Tradition

of Giving — by Joe Ponce

In a dining hall in Vietnam, a young man from the U.S. Army Transport Corps noticed that the soldiers in the room needed a place to relax and enjoy themselves after arduous, difficult days. So he took it upon himself to fix up the mess hall. That set Tom Ricca (BSBA 1969, MBA 1975), on a path of creative entrepreneurship that began at the University of Denver—first as a student, and then again as a faculty member, mentor and steward to future generations of students at the Daniels College of Business and its Fritz Knobel School of Hospitality. “In a lot of cases, in hotels and restaurants, people might already be enjoying themselves,” Ricca said. But in other situations, he added, such as at a university (or in a military mess hall) the dining experience can serve as the "bright spot": the sanctuary amid the noise. Fritz staff, faculty and students know Ricca for his friendly nature, his creative skills and his entrepreneurial spirit. The founder and namesake of Tom Ricca Design Studios brings nearly 50 years of experience designing award-winning food service to the classroom, where students can lean on Ricca’s knowledge to jump start their own imaginations. Last year, a scholarship was established in Ricca's name, supporting undergraduate students, particularly those focused on lodging real estate or restaurant/food and beverage management.

The ingredients for a successful career After studying architecture at Notre Dame, Ricca left for the Army and found himself “fixing things,” while in charge of Officers and NCO Clubs. He credits curiosity and a willingness to try new things for his interest in hospitality and the University of Denver. The foundation for his finance and business expertise came from his personal experience, and from his time inside and outside the classroom at Fritz Knoebel. During his time at the “Hospitality School,” (as Fritz Knoebel was known at the time) he got the opportunity to roll up his sleeves, working as a cook in the Towers and Halls

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dormitories as part of his Quantity Foods course "to experience what people who work in kitchens go through, what it's like to stand on quarter tile all day long." For almost 50 years, Ricca has been teaching students about everything from mise en place (“everything in its right place” in a kitchen) to the bartender’s 5-foot radius to the intolerable “flying deuce”: a two-person table in the middle of a dining space, an “inhumane” experience Ricca said drastically cuts down on how much diners are willing to spend.

“I want them to understand how to put functions in the right place,” Ricca said of his students. “And I also want them to understand how to critique, and how to look at relationships of flow and access. Just to understand and be critical when they look at things and wonder, ‘What can I do to make this better?’” Ricca’s resume features designs on all seven continents, with big-name clients like corporate campuses for Visa, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Nike and the Dallas Cowboys. All of that experience culminates in his Facility Layout and Design course, where students engage with the cutting edge of restaurant design and innovation, learning how to emphasize sustainability alongside efficiency and aesthetic perfection. Tom Ricca Design Studios has collaborated with many clients in hospitality.

Serving the future of hospitality In 2022, Fritz Director David Corsun, Associate Professor Cheri Young and other third-party donors established a scholarship fund in Ricca’s name, to be given to students pursuing a career in lodging real estate or restaurant/ food and beverage management—similar to the path that Ricca took during his early days at Fritz Knoebel. When he looks at the future of the industry, Ricca sees robotics and ethically sustainable practices at the forefront. “We’re designing for the future of the planet,” he said, “but I think the basic elements of design are going to be the same.” For Ricca, the industry and his courses are grounded in two fundamental concepts: creating specific spaces that serve many purposes and quickly diagnosing and solving problems. Building relationships is paramount too. “A lot of people, especially younger people, do their connecting

digitally, but I don’t think anything beats face-to-face getting to know someone,” he said. To future entrepreneurs in food service, Ricca advises seeking out as many ways to learn (and avenues for education) as necessary. “Having been at Fritz Knoebel and having worked in restaurants and hotels allows me to be on the same communication level as the chef, or with the beverage manager or the hotel manager.” Now retired, Ricca hopes his endowed scholarship will help students find the spark in hospitality work that originally inspired him. “I think hospitality is the kind of profession that hooks you,” he said. “Once you’ve been in it, you love it. It’s hard work: physically hard, emotionally hard and financially hard. It’s sometimes thankless work. But once you get into this industry of serving people the best you can, you’re stuck.”

2023 | FRITZ KNOEBEL NEWS

Hospitality Mentorship Program Provides Volunteer Opportunity for Students Fritz Knoebel students recently helped package food at the Women’s Bean Project in Denver — by Nick Greenhalgh

Professional mentorship can be the key that unlocks the door to unlimited career potential, but finding that perfect mentor can be a struggle. As it guides the next generation of industry leaders, the Fritz Knoebel School of Hospitality Management is making it simple for students to find mentors, connect with them and prepare for their respective careers. For the last 14 years, Fritz Knoebel students have joined the school’s Ann and David Hoffman Learning By Example, Attaining Distinction (LEAD) Mentorship Program to connect with peers and professionals, build important relationships and gain hands-on experiences. In April, student volunteers, Fritz Knoebel staff and one LEAD mentor embarked on a new opportunity to grow and positively impact the local community. Inside Denver’s nonprofit Women’s Bean Project, the Fritz Knoebel team helped chronically unemployed women package soup kits, baked goods and spices, which stock the shelves at more than 1,000 retailers. Then-student Marco Canclini (BSBA 2023) leapt at the chance to participate. Having grown up in a small community, volunteering has been a crucial element in his life. “Volunteering is something I want to continue to instill in my life and in the place I plan to work in the future,” he said. “I enjoy giving back to my community and find it satisfying to listen to the wisdom I have learned from others throughout the years.”

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The Women’s Bean Project was founded in 1989 and provides transitional employment to women in the nonprofit’s food production area. After a maximum of six months of classes including job coaching, life skills and interview prep, professional development and work experience, 90% of the temporary workers gain full-time employment. The local organization recently transformed a 20,000-square-foot used car dealership into its current headquarters, offering community space, a computer lab, meeting rooms, food production and much more. Kaycee Jones, an engagement coordinator at the Women’s Bean Project, said the nonprofit has employed over 1,000 women since its inception, and hopes to employ 100 more this year.

Alumni Updates Nick Adolph (BSBA 2014) Director of business development-Northwest at Ponant Sam Blinderman (BSBA 2015) Senior manager of the implementation team at BentoBox Dallas Bushaw (BSBA 2020) Meeting and event planner at Accenture Lorenzo Carriedo (BSBA 2016) Membership account manager at Exclusive Resorts LEAD mentors are frequently invited to take part in on- and off-campus service events, displaying the importance of community involvement to their student mentees. Amanda Parsons, general manager of the Thompson Hotel Denver and a LEAD mentor, joined four Fritz Knoebel students to volunteer at the Women’s Bean Project in April. As part of LEAD, Fritz Knoebel students are matched with a professional mentor to help guide them through their hospitality journey. Mentors and protégés are matched for one year based on a questionnaire and “speed dating” event. Students are then matched with a new mentor the following year. Stephanie Van Cleve-DeHerrera, associate director of hospitality career services at Fritz Knoebel, said the LEAD Mentorship Program provides an ideal setting for ambitious students to prepare for their careers. “It’s a volunteer program, but it’s a huge professional opportunity for the students,” she said. About threequarters of Fritz Knoebel students take part in the mentorship offering.

Jeanna Hine (BSBA 2015) Vice president of revenue management at By The Sea Resorts Ryan Maclin (BSBA 2017) Revenue manager at TakeUp Duke Mahr (BSBA 2021) Finance analyst at Aspen Hospitality Zara de Matran (BSBA 2020) Sales and marketing associate at Aman Marc Rios (BSBA 2014) General manager, bar + restaurant, at Marriott International Andrew Stahl (BSBA 2016) Senior escalations expert at Toast Teresa Wechsler (Pomrening) (BSBA 2019, MS 2020) Manager, investments and asset management, at Aspen Hospitality

The off-campus service opportunities drive home the importance of partnerships. Canclini says the lasting community impact of the Women’s Bean Project visit will stick with him. “I learned about the perseverance that each and every woman had to begin working for the Women’s Bean Project,” he said. “Furthermore, understanding every individual’s gratitude to the program and how it has changed their lives was incredible to hear about.”

2023 | FRITZ KNOEBEL NEWS

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