By Amanda Alaniz

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – UTRGV Hospitality and Tourism Management focuses on bringing experts in the same industry to speak with students and offer valuable career advice.

This month the focus continues with the virtual program “Castell@College.” The purpose of the program is to help students prepare to take on leadership positions in the hospitality field and hear from a panel of industry leaders.

Several female executives from various aspects of the hospitality and tourism industry will make up the panel and share their career experiences, as well as formulas for success and lessons they learned. Students will get the opportunity to ask the panel questions they may have relating to the field.

The program will be led by Massiel Muñoz, a Hospitality and Tourism Management lecturer and assistant director of the UTRGV Student Union.

The goal of the program is to give students the opportunity to hear from different industry executives and leaders, she said, while creating awareness of the opportunities within the hospitality field.

“The industry is really broad, and we want to expose students to those ranges. A lot of the time people think hospitality is very much just hotels and restaurants. But you can have a business student go into the lodging industry, someone in real estate, engineers who are just focused on the industry. This is exposure more than anything,” she said.

Some of the program speakers include a Pure Wellness regional director and an RLJ Lodging Trust vice president.

Muñoz said having programs like these available at the university is helpful in creating partnerships and exposing students to professional networking.

“Students will have the opportunity to ask questions of professionals in the hospitality industry,” she said. “Since the hospitality program started, Dr. Singh has been bringing ‘Hospitality Speakers of Distinction.’ We want to continue to expose our students to industry leaders and industry professionals. So, learning is not just from a textbook, but rather from people who are currently working in hospitality and who can share their experiences and stories.” 

Castell@College takes place virtually 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9. Any student interested in attending or seeking more information can email host@utrgv.edu or Muñoz at massiel.munoz@utrgv.edu.