Drs. Karla Boluk and Corey Johnson were selected as The Academy of Leisure Sciences (TALS) Teaching Innovation Award recipients for 2018 for their work to integrate the tourism curriculum in our department. The award will be officially announced and presented at the 2019 TALS Teaching and Research Conference, Feb. 26—28, 2019 in Greenville, South Carolina. Congratulations to both Karla and Corey on this impressive achievement!
As a result of Dr. Johnson and Boluk’s efforts, tourism development students at Waterloo engage directly with industry partners, participate in user experience exercises, create visitor satisfaction surveys, develop solutions to identified problems, and pitch critical interventions to industry stakeholders. While these experiences are important individually, their integration across the curriculum and in collaboration with student peers across levels of study make them even more meaningful and transferrable. The skills, values, and knowledge gained from these integrated experiences enhance the undergraduate experience, add relevance to the degree program, and build a useful toolkit available to students well after they graduate.