Outlook Magazine - Fall 2017

ON CAMPUS

Serving up success Hospitality programs marking 50 years, professor 40 years

PROGRAM STATS

GAME DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT AT UW-STOUT COMPRISES TWO PROGRAMS, A BFA (ART FOCUS) AND A BS (COMPUTER SCIENCE FOCUS). TOGETHER THEY HAVE ASSEMBLED SOME SERIOUS CRED: PROGRAM RANKED #21 IN THE NATION

REACHING A NEW LEVEL

Hotel, restaurant and tourism management students are photographed during Associate Professor Peter D’Souza’s Principles of Food Service Operations class at Rendezvous restaurant.

Phil McGuirk, a professor in UW-Stout’s School of Hospitality Leadership.

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2017 INTEL UNIVERSITY SHOWCASE WINNER

n 2017-18, the School of Hospitality Leadership at UW-Stout will celebrate 50 years of turning out graduates to work in hotels, restaurants, tourism, golf operations management, sales, real estate management and related fields. Approved in 1967 and beginning in 1968, the hotel and restaurant management undergraduate program put UW-Stout on the map in hospitality education. It’s still going strong. In 2016, the university’s hospitality programs were ranked No. 10 in the world and No. 7 in the U.S. by CEOWorld magazine of New York. The golden anniversary will be marked with several special events, to be announced, and will include one professor who has seen more than 80 percent of the 50-year history firsthand. Phil McGuirk has taught hospitality at UW-Stout for approximately 40 years, a career that he began in the mid-1970s after he graduated from the program. In March, McGuirk received a plaque in Orlando, Fla., from the Club Managers Association of America for 40 years of service to that organization and the industry. While he was a student at UW-Stout, McGuirk helped start the school’s CMAA chapter, one of the first two in the U.S.; there are 50 student chapters today. McGuirk, 78, like the industry he represents, remains dedicated to serving. “I could have retired 15 years ago, but I really enjoy pushing the students. When students come back to campus, there’s always a big thank you. You’re part of a kid’s life when you’re teaching. I’d really miss the kids if I wasn’t teaching. I’d probably die within a year,” he said. McGuirk, who was born in Ireland, currently teaches classes in Club Management and Principles of Food Service Operations as well as overseeing the 150-plus students who have co-ops at clubs each year. Along with his hospitality degree from UW-Stout, he earned a master’s in vocational rehabilitation from UW-Stout and was trained at the Culinary Institute of America. He taught Quantity Food Production — training students how to use a commercial kitchen — for 30 years and was one of the forces behind the extravagant Haute Cuisine dinners in the 1970s and 1980s that brought UW-Stout national attention. “I love the beauty of this campus and working with the students and alumni, who are very, very loyal to UW-Stout because they’ve had a good experience,” McGuirk said. His years of service extend back to the Vietnam War, where he did five tours in the Army Special Forces.

2013 E3 COLLEGE COMPETITION WINNER

GAME DESIGN PROGRAM SCORES WIN AT INTEL NATIONAL CONTEST

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W-Stout’s game design and development program is turning some heads for the second time in four years. A student-designed game, Everend, www.thatowlgame.com , about a young owl caught in a massive cave after an ancient volcanic eruption, won the Best Visual Quality award at the Intel University Games Showcase. The award was announced March 2 in San Francisco at the world Game Developers Conference. The competition included 11 colleges invited by Intel. Two other colleges

Los Angeles sponsored by the Entertainment Software Association. Everend was created in 2016 by 12 students in a class taught by Associate Professor Dave Beck, the game’s executive producer who also oversaw the Flash Frozen team. “To have UW-Stout’s student team take first place in the Best Visuals category amongst so many large, internationally known art schools demonstrates that we can and will continue to compete on a national level in myriad art and design disciplines,” Beck said. UW-Stout’s two game design and development programs, one science-based and one art-based, were ranked 15th in the U.S. this spring by Princeton Review. An example of the programs’ cutting edge approach is a collaboration with McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul. Students at McNally Smith composed music for Everend and have done the same for other games and projects created by UW-Stout students the past two years.

ONLY CAC-ABET GAME PROGRAM

also earned awards. UW-Stout will receive $10,000 worth of Intel products for its game design programs. In June 2013, the video game Flash Frozen by a UW-Stout team was named co-champion in the E3 national video game competition in

Students, including Emily Dillhunt, working on their projects in Dave Beck’s class.

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