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HILTON COLLEGE STUDENTS GAIN EXPERIENCE AT CULLEN PERFORMANCE HALL
Conrad Hilton College students are getting real
world experience and valuable training through a partnership
between the college and Cullen Performance Hall (CPH). The
partnership began this year to create venue training and
volunteer opportunities for two Hotel and Restaurant Management
(HRM) courses that will also give the participants an edge in
their future careers.
Lecturer Anthony Caterina teaches both the Facilities Management
and Entertainment and Venue Management courses at the Hilton
College. He was looking for opportunities for his students to
get hands-on work in an actual facility and had approached
several areas including UH�s athletics and theatre departments
as well as the Hobby Center in downtown Houston. When Tina
Newhauser became the Theater Manager at Cullen Performance Hall,
the two worked together to establish two programs for Hilton
students in the nearby entertainment venue.
The first program included a class held at CPH where students
learned about the venue itself and its policies and procedures
from CPH staff followed by a presentation on evacuation and fire
awareness training from UH�s Fire Marshal Joe Tremont. Then,
students were given a list of upcoming events where they could
volunteer to usher and work alongside professionals in the
entertainment industry.
�Many of our students were impressed with the discussion. I hope
to be able to provide this presentation each year,� Caterina
said. �I want students to know as they go into the hospitality
management they can reach out to a local fire department for
help with such programs for their staff. I explain to our
students that the safety of their staff and customers is their
number one priority as they go forward in the industry. This
presentation makes them aware of how quickly fire can spread and
why fire safety codes are important.�
The second program for the upper-level Entertainment and Venue
Management course involves crowd management training. First, the
students must complete an online program provided by the
International Association of Venue Managers (IAVM). Then, they
receive training within a facility, in this case CPH, where they
discover key terminology, fire and life safety codes as well as
audience types and their behavior patterns. Once completed, the
students receive a certificate that designates them as a
�Certified Trained Crowd Manager,� a valuable inclusion on their
resume that could give them a boost during their job search.
�I find that offering the UH students firsthand real life
working experiences opens their eyes to what it actually takes
to manage a public facility. Being able to quickly and safely
solve problems and emergency situations only comes through real
life work experiences,� Newhauser said.
Caterina said along with his students getting real world
experience with customers, he hopes it will also open their eyes
to other opportunities on campus, performances they may not have
otherwise seen, and will also teach them to look outside the box
when they are searching for jobs in the service industry. He
said he hopes these experiences will also give them a connection
to the campus to make them better alumni.
�I want to say how grateful I am to CPH and the athletics
department for giving our students the opportunity, and if there
are other programs out there looking to help, try reaching out
to colleagues on campus,� Caterina said. �When I got here, I had
no contacts with the athletic department and one with the
theatre department. I picked up the phone, I sent out an email
and found opportunities for our students to get experience and
help the university. This is what it is all about.�
For more information on the Cullen Performance Hall, visit
www.uh.edu/cph. For more information on the Conrad
Hilton College, visit
www.hrm.uh.edu. |
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