Greg McCallum, a business and food and beverage management instructor for the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook, British Columbia, is one of a growing number of educators who appreciate the benefits of incorporating emerit products and resources into post-secondary curriculum. “Its standards were developed by industry professionals and are applicable nationally," he says of emerit, "which amongst other things gives students a degree of career mobility."
Mike Granek, academic director of the Event Management Diploma Program at the Art Institute of Vancouver, agrees that employers value emerit credentials. They provide "an additional level of credibility to a career-seeker’s résumé,” he says.
emerit Tourism Training, developed by the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council (CTHRC) in collaboration with industry professionals, includes Occupational Standards, Professional Certification, training materials and business tools. It is being extensively promoted by organizations like LinkBC, which is dedicated to best practices in tourism education. “One of our goals is to help identify connections between the academic community and the emerit program,” says LinkBC's general manager Terry Hood.
Terry Hood
LinkBC |
LinkBC has facilitated a series of provincial curriculum handbooks with 19 institutions that offer tourism and hospitality programs. The organization promotes emerit resources as an effective way to create a strong link between industry-developed certification and the academic credentials outlined in the handbooks. One recent publication, the BC Provincial Hospitality Management Degree Programs Resource Handbook, provides a common frame of reference to address the needs of prospective students, educators and employers. It offers a framework for curriculum development, features sample courses, and identifies hospitality-specific credentials, key contact information and useful online links.
While some educators learn about emerit through promotional venues, others discover its benefits by chance. Three years ago, while working as clubhouse manager for a Cranbrook golf club, McCallum obtained his Tourism Certified Manager designation and was so impressed by emerit that he approached the College of the Rockies with the idea of developing and teaching an online hospitality management course using emerit products. “I got the green light because there were hospitality management courses in Calgary and Nelson [BC] but nothing in between,” he recalls.
McCallum stages two 20-week courses every year, and each typically accommodates between five and 10 people ranging in age from 18 to 45. “It’s a great primer for people to develop their skills and to eventually obtain their certification,” he says, pointing out that his course currently provides a continuing education certificate but not a credit.
Mike Granek
The Art Institute of Vancouver |
Although Granek does not use specific emerit products in his classroom (his students are taught according to emerit international occupational standards), he supports students who want to achieve emerit certification. “The event management industry is constantly looking for entry-level staff with qualifications, and emerit is one way for high school graduates and people seeking a career change to demonstrate their knowledge of national standards,” he says.
In fact, the Art Institute established a unique liaison with emerit when it officially aligned its curriculum with emerit standards in September 2010. “The CTHRC deemed our Event Management Diploma curriculum to be the equivalent of the knowledge component of the emerit Tourism Certified Professional Event Coordinator designation,” says Granek. “This means our students who finish our program with an overall cumulative grade point average of 3.0 will automatically qualify to receive credit towards the knowledge component of the TCP-EVC certification and will not be required to complete the written exam.”
CTHRC President Wendy Swedlove said that the liaison between her organization and the Art Institute “is proof that Canadian tourism businesses and the education community are keen to recognize the merits of one another's programming and credentials. The big winner in this agreement is the student who leaves a post-secondary institution with not only a highly regarded diploma, but credit towards nationally recognized, industry-developed professional certification."
Tania Loken, go2’s program manager, emerit, envisions an ideal scenario in which emerit is used in educational institutions throughout BC. "Interest has been growing recently," she says, "and we get inquiries from instructors wanting to use emerit products and resources to develop new courses. So we’re making progress.”
