Tag: ClemsonGradSchool

“When you are a student in the PRTM Master’s program, you have me for life.”

Over the past 40 years, Tom O’Rourke has spent every day of his working career in the management or administration of parks, recreation and tourism in the Charleston, South Carolina region. Between directing two large park systems and his service as a Board Member of the Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, he’s seen and managed it all.

Tom applies that on-the-ground knowledge and expertise to two classes in the Clemson University Master of Science in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management (PRTM) program: Innovative and Creative Funding Strategies in PRTM (PRTM 8210) and Enterprise Development in the Public and Nonprofit Sectors (PRTM 8240). He also provides strategic planning support to the department.

Tom recently answered a few questions for us about the program, his experiences in the community recreation field and the future of the profession.

Tell us a bit about what you see as your most significant contribution to the online MS program.

As Executive Director of the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission I oversaw the agency through its most significant growth. What separated CCPRC’s growth from most others is that we accomplished this with very little reliance on tax subsidies. As our profession advances into the future, it is clear that we will need to create entrepreneurial opportunities and business management principles that will ensure its sustainability. My contribution to the master’s degree program is to work with the students and other faculty members to institute programs and services that can financially sustain themselves into the future.

What knowledge and skills do you feel are most important for our MS students to have in order to advance in the field?

The skills necessary to advance the field of parks, recreation and tourism into the future will be grounded in creativity. A department’s end goal of making communities and the people in them better doesn’t change. What will be completely different is how we do it. Graduates should leave our program understanding how to fund their parks and programs without relying on the government to fund their operations.

The future leaders in parks and recreation will be managing more than doing. Our students learn the contractual skills necessary to protect their community, while controlling the activities that take place in their department.

Our program also focuses on innovation. Government is changing, parks and recreation is changing, and so are people and society. Our students will learn through innovation the skills necessary to lead our profession into the future.

What do you enjoy most about teaching in the MS online program? 

What I enjoy most is my relationship with the students. Most of our MS students are currently working in the field. The personal relationship I have with the students extends far beyond the learning outcomes of each class.

I want to be the type of professor that is always there for the students not only in class, but beyond the class and even after they graduate. Education does not stop after the student leaves Clemson. When they contact me, I don’t want to give answers, I want to ask questions so that the student can reach the answers themselves. When you are a student in the PRTM Master’s program, you have me for life.

What advice do you have for potential students who will be taking this program while working full-time?

I actually think it is better to enroll in the program while working full-time. The advantage is that you have faculty resources for the problems that you are undertaking at your immediate disposal.

Our current method of teaching is designed to consist of discussion topics and group work. This forces students to get to know each other. The other students provide a professional network that will last well beyond graduation. When we discuss current issues, students that are currently working full-time always offer the best and most current examples.

How is this program a good value for students? Or who do you think would benefit most from this credential in your field of expertise?

The knowledge gained in the MS program will benefit a student even if they choose to switch fields. Gaining knowledge in strategic planning, funding and working in political environments is essential, whatever you are doing. Most advanced senior management positions currently require a master’s degree. Having one with an emphasis in innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship separates our program from any other.

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About the Master of Science in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management

Clemson University is among the nation’s top universities in graduate education in the fields of parks, recreation, tourism and related disciplines. Research shows that the average annual salary of a person holding a M.S. in the PRTM field is $16,000 more annually or $480,000 more over a 30-year career. The top 25% of people in the field with a M.S. make $88,000 or more annually.

Students learn from a mix of leading university faculty and world-class practitioners and take 10 classes over two years (one class at a time), meeting online in the evening once a week with faculty and fellow graduate students – making sure you can continue to work full-time while earning your Master’s degree.

Visit Clemson Online to learn more about the MS Online (non-thesis) program in Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, including how to apply for either a spring or fall program start.

Dr. Jenn Thomsen, assistant professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at the University of Montana, was recently honored with the Dwight A. Holder Award by the Clemson University Institute for Parks in recognition of her outstanding work as a conservation researcher and teacher in the environmental field.

The institute presents the annual awards program, which is named for George B. Hartzog Jr., the seventh director of the National Park Service, to showcase leading figures in the field of conservation. Specific awards were named after visionary leaders that Hartzog respected and admired. Award recipients are following in Hartzog’s footsteps by making significant contributions to the management of parks and preservation of our natural, historical and cultural heritage.

The Dwight A. Holder Award recognizes academic professionals that exemplify Mr. Holder’s illustrious career as an entrepreneur and public servant, which included leading South Carolina’s parks to a new era of service. Dr. Thomsen received this award for outstanding work and sustained achievement that fosters understanding, wise use and conservation of natural and cultural resources.

Wayne Freimund, chair of the parks, recreation and tourism management department at Clemson University, presented the award to Dr. Thomsen at a ceremony on October 22. According to Dr. Freimund, Thomsen has made a significant impact on the conservation field at a relatively young age.

“Jenn already has an impressive publication and teaching record, with a research focus that requires her to pull groups together on almost intractable issues, such as livelihood versus wildlife population management,” he says. “She does it masterfully, with an unparalleled ability to find the glue that holds several different collaborators together.”

Dr. Thomsen graduated with her M.S. in Wildlife Biology from Clemson University, where she also earned her PhD in parks and conservation area management. Her research largely focuses on stakeholder collaboration associated with large landscape conservation, sustainable tourism and protected area management. Her work has involved partnerships with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation and the IUCN Connectivity and Transboundary Specialist groups to conduct surveys addressing the challenges, opportunities and outcomes associated with stakeholder collaboration and how these groups evolve over time in their transboundary ecosystem management. She also contributes to UNESCO’s biosphere reserve network and serves on the National MAB Committee.

Her work in sustainable tourism and protected area management focuses on the management of resources that balances the environmental, social/cultural and economic needs of diverse stakeholders. Her research explores unique types of tourism, such as voluntourism in Peru and Haiti, whitewater ecotourism in Bhutan and safari hunting tourism in Botswana. She’s conducted research for the US Forest Service and National Park Service and is part of the INSAKA collaborative group that brings together partners of African universities to address social-ecological issues. Dr. Thomsen is passionate about her teaching and field experiences for students, and about engaging the next generation of conservation and protected area leaders.

“Jenn’s students love her, and her faculty and collaborators love working with her,” continues Dr. Freimund. “And now as the recipient of this year’s Dwight A. Holder award, she can be rest assured that her alma mater feels the same way. I can’t wait to see where she takes her already-impressive career.”

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The Clemson University Institute for Parks (CUIP) provides research, education, training, and outreach that enhances the management of the world’s parks and protected areas. It accomplishes this by providing park and protected area managers with innovative research to support science-based decision-making; and by developing current and future leaders in the park movement by providing interdisciplinary and transformative education and training programs. The Institute currently consists of 35 Fellows and 8 Scholars working on park-related research.

Visit the CUIP website for more information about the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards program and its recipients.

Louise Orr had finished her undergraduate degree and was working in state government, when she decided she needed a change.

“I had always loved wildlife and been interested in conservation, and had briefly considered studying zoology in college, but went a different route by studying communications instead,” she says. “I realized a few years after my graduation that not only could I still pursue that love for wildlife, but I could apply my communications background and experience to making a difference in the conservation field.”

Louise is now pursuing her master’s degree in parks and conservation management in Clemson University’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management department. Her research focuses on how our political beliefs influence what types of conservation messages are most likely to reach us, or motivate us to take action.

“Most people have never seen an animal in the wild, making them largely disassociated from problems tigers face,” says Louise. “My research is exploring several variables, such as levels of knowledge about tiger conservation, their political ideologies and their moral foundations, to find out what kind of messages they would be most receptive to, so we can help organizations working to save tigers better encourage people to get involved and learn more about the need for tiger conservation and how they can help.”

One of the variables Louise is exploring is whether a person’s connection to a tiger mascot school would have any influence on their engagement in conservation behavior. If someone is passionate about their university’s mascot, does that translate to a passion for that animal in the wild and make them more likely to participate in conservation efforts?

Louise’s research for her master’s agree transfers well to her part-time job working as an Assistant Project Coordinator for the Tigers United University Consortium. The consortium is devoted to tiger conservation and consists of four land-grant, tiger mascot universities working collaboratively on this issue – Clemson University, Auburn University, Louisiana State University and the University of Missouri.

The consortium’s universities are all raising awareness of tiger conservation through Tigers United Week, which runs from September 3 to 7 in Clemson. Several activities are planned, including a documentary screening about a man’s quest to get a Siberian Tiger on camera, a Scarcity Scavenger Hunt with a grand cash prize, and an information booth with an opportunity to meet Clemson’s First Lady Beth Clements and her daughter, Grace. The week culminates with a launch of a new, 30 second video about the consortium’s mission during the Clemson football game on Saturday, September 7. More information about Tigers United Week and its activities can be found on the Tigers United blog.

Dr. Brett Wright, dean emeritus of Clemson’s College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences, is the consortium’s Director and Louise’s faculty advisor. He says Louise’s background in communications and her current research focus makes her a valuable part of the consortium team.

“A big part of the work we do at the consortium is getting the message out in a way that motivates people to make a difference, and Louise’s research and communications expertise will help us figure out how to best get our message across,” he says. “After all, students, faculty and alumni chant ‘Go Tigers’ on a daily basis, but not many know the truth about the animal we hold so dear – and how close they are to extinction. Fewer still may know how they can help.”

Louise is excited to help organizations like the consortium refine their conservation messaging.

“It’s a great feeling to combine what I’m passionate about with my knowledge and experience in the communications field, and to use it to make a difference in the world” she says. “Especially since this work is critically important. If we don’t continue to work hard and do what we can – our children and grandchildren aren’t going to have tigers in the wild. They’re going to be gone.”

Any graduate student will tell you that earning a master’s or doctorate is a very different experience than earning their undergraduate degree.

Graduate school often presents new challenges, such as how to successfully navigate juggling school and life, securing funding support, the academic job search, and imposter syndrome. These challenges don’t end after graduate school, as new faculty members find themselves working towards and beyond the tenure track.

With that in mind, several current and former faculty members in Clemson University’s Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management department guest edited and contributed to a two-part special issue of SCHOLE: A Journal of Leisure Studies and Recreation Education that focuses on the academic profession in parks, recreation, tourism and leisure.

The special issue was guest edited by Mariela Fernandez, Lauren Duffy, Gwynn Powell, and former faculty member Lincoln Larson. Contributors included Professor Emeriti Brett Wright and Fran McGuire, current department faculty member Iryna Sharaievska, and former faculty member Dart Schmalz.

“As professors, we have a unique perspective, having experienced the academic system through the lens of both graduate students and by working as faculty members at different stages of our careers,” says Fernandez. “The special issue is a valuable resource that can serve as a guide for students at every stage of their graduate studies, up to, including, and after their job search, as well as for our colleagues working in the academy.”

Part 1 of the issue provides advice about successfully navigating the different stages of an academic career, from graduate school to the post-tenure years. Part 2 explores contemporary challenges in higher education that influence academic programs and may impact faculty members throughout their careers, such as changing approaches to governance in academic institutions, the evolving experience economy, and the ongoing struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance. The goal is to help graduate students and faculty colleagues recognize and address common challenges, ultimately enhancing success at both the professional and personal level.

Although the special issue is written to address challenges in the parks, recreation, tourism and leisure fields, contributing editor Lauren Duffy notes that the general principles could also apply to other fields.

“The challenges we all face in the leisure studies field are often not dissimilar from challenges others may encounter over the course of their academic training and career,” Duffy says. “Although information provided in this special issue is focused through the lens of our work, there are common threads that can be useful to any graduate student or academic professional.”

Contributing editor Gwynn Powell notes that the special issue can also start a dialogue about issues that are important topics of discussion, but are not often publicly discussed.

“For example, one of the articles in the special issue focuses on post-tenure pathways – the fact that extensive mentorship is provided pre-tenure, but disappears in the decades following that achievement,” says Powell. “Highlighting challenges like this can help colleagues working in the field realize they’re not alone, while also helping them address it.”

Clemson Graduate Student Uses an Innovative Research Approach to Understand the Lives of Marginalized Persons in the Global South

Tourism is one of the world’s largest industries, responsible for the creation of one in five new jobs over the last five years, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Most of those jobs are occupied by women, including in Africa. That said, job opportunities for men and women vary throughout the African continent, says E’Lisha Fogle, a doctoral student with the Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management program at Clemson University, with gender dynamics playing a role.

“A woman’s experience in the tourism industry throughout Africa is affected by underlying societal, cultural and political influences that affect how, where and when she could be involved in – and constrained by – tourism,” Fogle says.

Past research on gender and tourism in Africa has primarily focused on entrepreneurship, empowerment and other community-based initiatives involving women. Although those are important perspectives, Fogle is applying a different approach to understanding constraints to women’s participation in tourism and its related industries.

Fogle is analyzing these relationships through collective memory work, a research tool that addresses power structures, hegemony and inequality, with a goal of emancipation through discourse analysis. Members of the collective are able to deconstruct their own narratives, which, in Fogle’s research, also creates a safe space for personal growth and empowerment. Fogle believes this approach can play an integral role towards gender equality in the Global South, which includes most countries in Africa, Central and Latin America, Asia and some countries in Europe.

“Collective memory work is still emerging in Africa as a tourism research tool, as there are fewer women of color investigating these phenomena from an academic perspective,” says Fogle. “As a result, it has been relatively underutilized as a method to understanding issues affecting women in tourism spaces.”

Fogle spent a month in Livingstone, Zambia, between December 2018 to January 2019, with a group of six participants recognized by the collective memory work methodology as co-researchers. Fogle served as the group scholar with five female community members.  Together, they used collective memory work to explore how gender could constrain female participation in the tourism industry. Her goal is to apply a new layer to existing research that can be used to help encourage confidence in the workplace among women and lead to better opportunities, both in and beyond the industry.

Fogle’s faculty advisor, Dr. Lauren Duffy, says that E’Lisha’s work focuses on an important topic that needs our attention. “Ensuring women have access to the tourism industry as a source of employment and income is vital in terms of providing the means for economic and social independence,” Duffy says. “E’Lisha’s research is pushing new boundaries methodologically and having a direct impact on the people and organizations she’s working with.”

Fogle’s impact on the Livingstone community goes beyond her academic research. Before she left for Livingstone last December, she raised $1,300 that was divided equally among six local organizations to purchase equipment and supplies, education materials and uniforms, and health and hygiene products for women and children.

Dollars were also used to address critical facility needs – for example, financial support provided to the Baobuyu Learning Center, which provides free schooling to young children in the Mwandi area, covered their water, sewage and electricity costs for an entire year, while also helping them prepare their roof for upcoming maintenance work. Kwathu Children’s Home, which operates an orphanage and free community school, was able to purchase food supplies for the first quarter of the year.

Fogle’s philanthropic efforts were supported by the Conservation and Tourism Society in Livingstone, with Society member Jacob Kampindu facilitating the relationships between Fogle and the participating organizations.

“It’s important to me to ensure that my research in Africa does more than benefit me as a scholar,” says Fogle. “The dollars we were able to raise provided direct, and immediate, benefits to the communities sharing their knowledge and insight with me, while also raising awareness of their work here in Clemson.”

Fogle is now back in Africa sharing her collective memory work research approach at two major tourism conferences – at the ATLAS Africa conference in Uganda, which explores innovations in tourism, and the Insaka 2019 Symposium in South Africa, focusing on transformative conservation. She’s hoping her presentations will raise awareness and encourage the use of collective memory work in tourism research.

“Understanding gender constraints to female participation in the tourism industry is critical, given the number of women working in the field. The collective memory work approach provides invaluable new insight into what opportunities and challenges women working in tourism are facing,” says Fogle. “My hope is that the more we share information about this research technique, the more female African researchers will begin to see the value in using it.”

Carmen Nibigira knows the value of focus and persistence.

She pursued – and earned – a PhD, taking several twists and turns along the way. Carmen started her PhD journey in 2012 when she moved to Clemson from Burundi, a difficult decision that took her away from her children, who stayed with family back home while she studied.

Although she had quickly risen in her field, Carmen was conscious that dynamics in the tourism and hospitality field were changing, and that she had much to learn if she wanted to continue to advance her career. “My professional background was in hospitality, however, I began to see tourism industry discussions shift to a greater focus on conservation, preservation and community engagement,” Carmen says. “I had little knowledge at the time about how my journey in Clemson would unfold, but had faith that pursuing my education in tourism development, with a focus on policy, here was the best decision, regardless of the circumstances.”

In 2014, two years into her doctoral studies, she temporarily put them on hold to take a job as Director General of the Burundi National Tourism Office. This position gave her an opportunity to serve her country, apply her newfound knowledge and skills, and to make a difference. A year after that, Carmen was preparing for her comprehensive exams (also called comps, which are a key part of the process towards earning a PhD), when she accepted another position, this time serving as the regional tourism coordinator for the East Africa Tourism Platform. She was joined by her family in Nairobi, who had abruptly left their home country because of a political situation.

She continued to work towards her PhD part-time, and earned her doctorate this past May. Carmen’s faculty advisor, Travel and Tourism Professor Sheila Backman, says this kind of tenacity and focus is typical for Carmen. “Other graduate students find themselves needing to overcome challenges while they complete their credential, but not like Carmen,” said Sheila. “Instead of slowing her down, she always manages to navigate through anything that’s thrown her way. And she does it the right way. As a result, her academic and practitioner colleagues have tremendous respect for her and the knowledge, skills and commitment she brings to the table.”

Carmen started her academic career in the United Kingdom, earning her undergraduate degree in Brighton and her master’s in Birmingham, with experiences in Switzerland and East Africa. Earning a PhD in North America was appealing to Carmen, as she wanted to learn about tourism from a different cultural perspective. She chose Clemson because of its climate, tourism and parks management program and faculty’s international reputation.

While she studied, Carmen also continued her long-standing work to empower women throughout East Africa by creating opportunities for education and mentorship. Carmen’s personally mentored dozens of women during her 20-year career in the travel and hospitality industry, and serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Akilah Institute in Rwanda, a women’s college that prepares a new generation of African female leaders. The institute has been so successful that it’s looking to expand, with a goal of creating a network of campuses across sub-Saharan Africa within the next 15 years.

Carmen sees herself as being in a unique position to help, as an industry leader and one of a small percentage of people throughout the world who have a PhD. “Education is a great opportunity for young women. But it’s not just about education. It’s about the quality of education, equal pay, being able to get a good job and striving to have it all, just not all at once,” says Carmen. “It took me 15-20 years to work towards my PhD, when you factor in my university education and work experience. Once you understand that hard work pays, you become mentally prepared for the challenge.”

She’s now working as a Project Director for Horwath HTL, an international consulting firm that provides governments and other clients with tourism research, policy and strategy development and implementation support in East Africa. And she’s recently found a new challenge to pursue, after a conversation with one of her sons. “He asked me, why are you always focused on helping girls? Why not boys?” she said. His statement caught her off guard, and made her think.

“I’m a mother of boys, and began to wonder, are we creating the same opportunities for them? We perceive boys as having an advantage, but I’ve started to wonder if that’s really the case,” says Carmen. “I’m compelled to see how I can start engaging boys in the very near future. We have helped girls and women access education and equal opportunities, and boys are feeling left out.”

“After all, in Africa, we say that it takes a village to raise a child,” she continues. “I feel like it took several countries to raise me. If I can make a difference in any way, I will.”