Portland State University President Dan Bernstine and Mt. Hood Community College President Robert Silverman, in a ceremony at PSU Thursday, announced a co-admission agreement that will make it easier for Mt. Hood Community College students to transfer credits to PSU.

Students can earn their associate degree at Mt. Hood and complete a baccalaureate in business administration or a bachelor’s degree for hospitality and tourism in business, liberal studies or social science. PSU’s Culinary Arts Program has also been incorporated into the mix. According to the Office of Marketing and Communications at PSU, careers in tourism and the restaurant industry can be expected to rise considerably.

The Hospitality and Tourism Operations instructor for Mt. Hood, Court Carrier, said this is a “unique new partnership,” between the schools. Students can start out in the classroom and “cross the hall to a real facility with real people.” He also said that over the next two years, the schools plan to “phase things in slowly.”

The former downtown Doubletree Hotel is now being used to teach real world experience to students in the hospitality and tourism field. It has a restaurant, and 235 rooms and nearly 8,000 square feet of conference space. This comes from the unsuccessful attempt by Carrier to raise enough funds to build a small hotel on campus at Mt. Hood.

In addition, University Place, a PSU dining hall, has been remodeled to offer classes to culinary arts students from Mt. Hood. University Place’s general manager, Dennis Burkholder, said, “Not only do you have a specific degree, but you’ve worked in a laboratory; you’ve worked in a hotel.”

There are classes available for Mt. Hood students at PSU. The hospitality and tourism programs also provide management instruction in areas that include hotels and resorts, travel and tourism, restaurants, conventions and meetings.

According to Carrier, specific classes to be added in Winter Quarter at PSU will include “Intro to Travel and Tour, Beverage Management, Wines of the World, Hotel and Resort Operations, Culinary Arts Food Preparation, and Food, Beverage and Labor Cost Control.”

He also said, “It will be second year students but their first time at PSU.”
Students can also acquire some hands-on experience working at the school’s University Place Educational Conference Center while enrolled at Mt. Hood.