FGCU’s Resort and Hospitality Management program is its best kept secret

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In the lobby of the Hospitality building at FGCU. Photo via WINK News.
In the lobby of the Hospitality building at FGCU. Photo via WINK News.

If you ask the Director of the Resort and Hospitality Management program Randy Upchurch, he will tell you Sugden Hall houses Florida Gulf Coast University’s best-kept secret.

“It’s management; it’s marketing; it’s HR; accounting and finance,” Upchurch said. “What you’re hearing are the components it takes to run resorts, restaurants, private clubs, hospitality businesses.”

It is decked out with a food and wine lab, a fully functioning spa and a golf swing lab. These are among the rooms that 500 students in FGCU’s Resort and Hospitality Management program will become familiar with.

To meet the growing demand in the hospitality industry, the university gives students access to internships while in school and connects them with potential employers after graduation.

“They really focus on their students and getting them to the next level,” said Maria Pastrana, director of human resources at Hyatt Regency Coconut Point. “I love that investment that they have in the students.”

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