Time is money, and when you’re trying to advance your career, you can’t waste either. To help students dive into the world of hotels, restaurants and service-driven enterprises, Northern Arizona University is now offering a three-year bachelor’s degree in hospitality and business administration.
This newly accredited degree contains all the core classes required by its four-year, 120-credit counterpart, minus the electives, allowing students to finish with just 90 credits, saving them time and money. It is being offered as a hybrid program at NAU’s Mesa Workforce Development Center.
Carmen Newland, manager of student development in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management (HRM), said this in-person and online hybrid program gives working professionals in the hospitality industry the flexibility they need to get a degree and advance their careers.
“We’re targeting the professionals who are already in the hospitality industry,” Newland said. “This isn’t a traditional college degree for a student who’s coming in and wanting to explore what they want to do. This is for individuals who are focused on hospitality. They know they want to get that bachelor’s to move to the next phase of their career, and this is going to help them do that as quickly and economically as possible.”
Students who are currently enrolled at the Mesa center in the traditional four-year degree program will have the option to switch to the three-year degree if desired. Those who enroll as freshmen will be able to take advantage of the academic scholarships and financial aid programs provided to first-year students.
“This is the first time NAU has offered all of the years of a bachelor’s degree somewhere other than the Flagstaff campus,” Newland said. “We have spent a lot of time talking to local high schools, community college students, hotels and restaurants in the Mesa and East Valley- Phoenix area, and there’s a lot of interest in the program. The future goal is to offer the program through NAU Online so students outside of the East Valley and outside of Arizona can also benefit.”
John Deflieze, associate professor of practice in the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management, said the program may also be of interest to those students who are in the Phoenix metropolitan area and are looking for a business-related career, even if it’s not in hospitality.
“The hospitality field is incredibly broad,” Deflieze said. “It includes roles ranging from a general manager of a resort or running a restaurant to positions in stadiums, tourism, golf, travel and many other sectors. Hospitality touches nearly every sector in some capacity or another. We always ask students where they would like to live and how they envision their careers developing, because a degree in hospitality opens the door to so many possibilities. It’s a career that has allowed me to travel the world, and I want students to see just how far it can take them.”
According to the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association, there are more than 347,000 jobs related to the hospitality industry in the state, making it Arizona’s fourth-largest growing job sector.
“There are a lot of opportunities, especially when individuals have that combination of experience and a college degree to help them move into management and leadership positions,” Newland said. “Our real goal is to take people who are already working in the industry and get them up into those higher-level management positions.”
Mariana Laas | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5050 | mariana.laas@nau.edu