Few academic programs can say they place 100 percent of their graduates. But most doctoral programs in hospitality, restaurant, and institutional management can, and do.
"For the past number of years the market has been terrific," says Thomas E. Pearson, director of graduate programs in the hospitality and tourism management department at Purdue University. "We have placed every single one of our Ph.D. students."
In fact, not only do all of the people with Ph.D.'s from institutions such as Cornell, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Pennsylvania State, and Purdue Universities, as well as the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and Virginia Tech, find jobs, often they have multiple offers.
William Frye will attest to that. He had four offers last year before accepting a job as an assistant professor of hotel management at Niagara University. Mr. Frye, who was A.B.D. when he was hired in the spring of 2000, earned his Ph.D. from Penn State last November. "It's pretty good pickings right now for Ph.D. candidates who've fulfilled the majority of their requirements or who've just graduated," says Mr. Frye.
Dogan Gursoy, who is A.B.D., applied for one faculty position and got the job. Two months ago he started as an assistant professor of hotel and restaurant administration at Washington State University. Mr. Gursoy will return to Virginia Tech to defend his dissertation in December.
Despite a growing number of doctoral graduates -- the number rose to 22 in 1999-2000, up from 15 the year before, according to a report published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education last spring -- the demand for people with Ph.D.'s continues to outpace the supply because many four-year colleges and universities that used to hire faculty members with master's degrees now require candidates to have doctorates. To compound the shortage, many doctoral students in the field in the United States are foreigners who return to their home countries upon graduation.
"We're still in a position where most of the technical schools and the community schools can, and will, hire people with master's degrees to teach, but any major university today really can only look at Ph.D. students for the sake of its own credibility," says Mr. Pearson.
The journal report estimates that 10 institutions in the United States currently offer doctoral degrees in hospitality fields, while 144 award bachelor's and master's degrees. That number doesn't include all the community colleges and vocational-technical schools that offer training in the field. It's impossible to determine the exact number of programs because many of them offer different degrees, have different emphases, or are housed in different schools. For example, some are part of the business school or the human-ecology school; others are housed separately.
Meanwhile, the number of job opportunities has also been growing as existing programs swell to meet the needs of the large service economy in the United States. Last year UNLV hired three people to replace departing faculty members and five more to fill new positions. Virginia Tech had more modest growth last year, hiring one new faculty member and replacing three others.
And new programs are cropping up. Temple University's School of Tourism and Hospitality Management recently announced the addition of a doctoral program in business administration with a concentration in tourism. Elizabeth H. Barber, academic director of the school, has hired seven faculty members (two replacements, five new) in the last three years. This year she plans to hire two more, both for new positions. The Universities of Central Florida, Delaware, and Memphis also have new degree programs.
So the pickings are slim for employers. Some are so desperate for Ph.D.'s that they're hiring A.B.D.'s on the condition that they finish their degrees within a year of being hired.
Others are using doctoral graduates from other disciplines to staff their programs. Sara Parks, director of Penn State's School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Recreation Management, says she's had to hire some business Ph.D.'s with bachelors' or masters' degrees in the hospitality area in order to meet her program's faculty needs. "I hired four new faculty members who started this fall, and only one of the four came from a hospitality Ph.D. program."
Starting salaries for assistant professors have soared in the last two years. "We used to pay in the mid-$40s for a brand new tenure-track professor; now we're up to the $60s," says Brian Mihalik, chairman of the department of hospitality and tourism management at Virginia Tech. "And if you're teaching in a school of business, there's a good chance you're making $70,000 as an assistant professor."
Among the hottest Ph.D.'s in the field are those with expertise in information technology, finance, and accounting. Yield or revenue management -- an area of operations management that focuses on ways to maximize revenues -- is hot, too, but, according to Mr. Frye, some schools would "scratch each other's eyes out" for a Ph.D. with a strong record of research and practical food-preparation experience.
The question on everyone's mind is what impact the events of September 11 will have on the market. Mr. Mihalik warns that the effects of terrorism could tighten states' budgets. With lower tax revenues coming into some states -- especially in places like Washington and New York -- budgets may shrink, and that could lead to hiring freezes at state universities.
However, while many professors fear that new graduates of bachelor's and master's programs will have trouble finding employment in the industry, most are optimistic about the job prospects of this winter's doctoral graduates. "I think recent events will have less of an effect on Ph.D.'s," says Karthik Namasivayam, an assistant professor of hotel and restaurant management at Penn State, "because traditionally people tend to go back to school when there's a recession."
Ms. Parks says she expects the good times to continue, but for a different reason. "There is a group of faculty members -- you know, the aging baby boomers -- who will be retiring and that will increase the demand. So I see the demand for Ph.D.'s to continue through at least the next decade."
