In early August, the Bay Region Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Initiative housed at Skyline College and the Bay Region Small Business Sector joined forces with UC to host a UCCI Institute where teams of high school teachers, faculty, and industry experts developed three UC program-status courses integrating Spanish, world history and math with the content and skills of the Hospitality, Tourism and Recreation and Business and Finance Career Technical Education sectors.
There were 3 teams of passionate, dedicated, and highly experienced teachers who worked together over three days to develop the following integrated courses:
- World History and Hospitality, which explores the impact of historical forces on the global nature of culinary arts, and the role of historical and cultural context in the hospitality field. Students investigate topics such as the rise of labor movements and unionization during industrialization and then use this knowledge to contextualize modern day labor movements and working conditions for culinary workers at home and around the globe.
- Algebra for Entrepreneurs, which allows students to learn Algebra in a nontraditional way, as they apply a variety of Algebra I concepts to the development, operation and growth of a restaurant business.
- Spanish 3 for Hospitality – In this course students develop their skills in writing, reading, listening and speaking in Spanish while exploring the fields of hospitality, tourism and recreation. The course culminates in a project in which students invent their own virtual destination property situated in an existing Spanish speaking country.
The above courses are in the process of being submitted to UC for “a-g” approval in the “e” (Language other than English), “a” (history/social science) and “c” (math) areas.
These innovative courses will provide exciting opportunities for dual and concurrent enrollment high school bridge components for the newly developed Hospitality & Tourism Management Program at Skyline College and clearly displays the Skyline College’s commitment to being a leader in the development of career technical education programs. It also speaks to the priority Skyline College gives to building high quality pathway opportunities for students with cross-discipline credit and transferability built in.
To learn more about this project, please contact Andrea Vizenor, Deputy Sector Navigator of Retail, Hospitality and Tourism.
Article by Elizabeth Tablan
