Heroes of Hospitality Education: A positive take on COVID-19

I am sure many of you would join me in concluding that this week has been the weirdest (work) week ever. I have taught students “live online”, as opposed to “traditional” asynchronous online education, and I ran a role play with the students in the same online environment. I also spoke with many of our visiting professors about the opportunity to convert their courses to such live online mode.

My class of master’s students really rose to the challenge. An interactive live role play is not a benign task to begin with, and to do this in an environment where both intra- and intergroup communication is virtual ups the challenge further. The students grew with this challenge, and at the end of the day the outcome was impressive. What may have been lost in not having face-to-face interaction was compensated by learning new ways to solve problems and tackle tricky tasks.

The overwhelming majority of the visiting professors I was in contact with were also amazing: ready to adapt, be flexible, and come up with innovative ways of achieving learning outcomes in this new environment. “We are all in this together” and “This is what hospitality is all about” were just a few comments to accompany their fantastic dedication to give our final year bachelor students a chance to finish their program on time and be ready for work or masters’ studies. 

Thank you, students and colleagues. During this strange week you have given me great hope that through teamwork, flexibility and dedication we will overcome the global challenge that faces us all. We should never forget what supporting each other really means. For me, you are the heroes of hospitality education!

Henri Kuokkanen
Associate Professor, Institut Paul Bocuse
Director of Education, EuroCHRIE