2019 | Formal Analytical Report

How to Make a

Diverse RPTM: More Diverse Environment

in RPTM Classes

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Diverse RPTM
Date of Submission
December 16, 2019

How to Make a
More Diverse Environment in RPTM Classes

Prepared for:

Peter Newman - Department Head/Professor of the RPTM major

Prepared by:

Jungwoo Choi

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 RPTM Undergraduate Student (Senior)

Memo of Transmittal
To: Peter Newman, Department Head/Professor of the RPTM major
From: Jungwoo Choi, RPTM Undergraduate Student
Subject: Recommendations Report for Increase of Diversity in the RPTM Major
Date: Dec 16, 2019

Dear Peter Newman,

My name is Jungwoo Choi. I am an undergraduate student majoring in RPTM at Penn State.

This is the report regarding an analysis of strategies to increase diversity in the RPTM major.

The major RPTM at Penn State has been providing high quality education for students who
want to professionally learn about recreation and tourism since 1946. Those students who
graduated from the major at Penn State are now playing a role of leader in the RPTM fields.
Meanwhile after the year 2000, the RPTM fields are changing in terms of globalization due
to development of transportation and promotion of societal atmosphere that pursues
happiness. Now people look around all over the world to enjoy their own special RPTM
experiences beyond their original countries.

In order to keep the leader position that Penn State RPTM people have in the field, the
RPTM major needs to pay attention to this change. To be more specific, the RPTM major
should start to diversify its white-based population to make RPTM students study in
diverse environment. This is because diverse population environment is a great
opportunity to learn about other cultures in class so that students would adjust to
globalized RPTM fields.

Thus, this report includes 2 possible solutions to attract more international students to the
RPTM major. One is introducing a new program that international students probably like,
and the other is giving a small support for the current internship policy that is a part of
graduation requirements. These would be discussed in a more detailed way in the report.

To excogitate the solutions, I contacted Deborah Houser, the academic advisor of the
RPTM major to research current population status in the RPTM major, interviewed some
international students to figure out their thoughts and opinions about the RPTM major,
and studied policies and programs of other school’s tourism management department. As
the final step, I analyzed the data and research results to connect to the suggestions.

Thank Deborah Houser, interviewees, faculties and other departments at Penn State for
giving me assistances that allowed me to complete this project. Furthermore, I also
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appreciate Dr. Darragjati who motivated me to start this project. As a RPTM student I am
glad to have this opportunity to work for my major. I hope this report would be helpful for
having a more diverse population environment. If you have any questions or concerns,
please feel free to contact me at jzc6193@psu.edu.

Sincerely,

Jungwoo Choi

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PSU Ford Building (Recreation, Park and Tourism
Management)
Image Provided by PSU
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 Table of Contents

Executive
Summary…………………………………………………………………………………………
……5

Introduction – Why Diversity

Matters……………………………………………………………..6

Globalization: Why We Need to Learn Diversity for RPTM

Fields…………………………6

PSU is Diverse, RPTM is

NOT………………………………………………………………………………7

View of International
Students………………………………………………………………………….8

Recommendations…………………………………………………………………
………………………………9
Analysis of
Interviews…………………………………………………………………………………………
…9

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 Recommendation
1………………………………………………………………………………………………….9

Recommendation
2………………………………………………………………………………………………..11

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………13

Work
Cited………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………14

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Executive Summary
This report contains an analysis about current diversity status in the RPTM major and
recommendations for increase of diversity in the RPTM major at Penn State. This
report’s purpose is to contribute to that RPTM students study in a more diverse
environment, and ultimately that RPTM students and alumni keep the leader position
in RPTM fields and expand its reputation around the world.

Diversity is Insufficient
To put it simply, currently diversity of the RPTM major is very scarce. According to my
estimated statistics, the percentage of non-White students in the RPTM major is about
only 5%. Out of 360 students in the 2019 Fall semester, less than 20 students who are
not White study in this major. This level of diversity is also less than whole PSU University
Park Campus’s diversity (about 40% of non-White population).

Why Diversity - Importance of Diversity in RPTM Education

The RPTM major in Penn State is a major that is founded for the purpose of transforming
human health and well-being through engaging people in recreation, park, tourism and
leisure settings. To realize this goal, the major’s vision is to look to be an international
leader by research, teaching and service activities that advance the intellectual and
professional development of graduate and undergraduate students. Under this kind of
mission, RPTM is designed to help students learn about interacting with people through
many group projects, and promote leadership and teamwork.

Now, RPTM fields have been and continue to be globalized. Therefore, having diversity in
RPTM classes is very important for RPTM students dreaming to be international leaders
for inclusion of all people. Diversity in a class naturally teaches students different cultures
from all over the world by communicating and interacting with students from other
countries. If RPTM students do not study in a diverse environment, they would go
through difficulties in being engaged in people from the world in the future when they
work. For this reason, diversity is essential in RPTM classes.

2 Recommendations
 Instruction papers of RPTM 495 Internship Course should have translated
versions for international students. If international students can show translated

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 instructions of RPTM 495 to HR managers who cannot speak English, it would be
easier to take internship opportunity for graduation.
 The RPTM major should have its own career fair, and international tourism &
recreation companies from other countries should be invited. Currently PSU
career fair does not have many companies for RPTM students. Therefore, this
would attract many international students.

Introduction – Why Diversity

Matters
Recently, tourism industry including RPTM has become to the world’s
largest and fastest growing industry. The economic power that
tourism industry in the world
has is tremendous. According
to UNWTO (United Nations
World Tourism Organization),
tourism took 10% of whole
global GDP in 2017. The
primary and biggest factor of
2017 Global Tourism Market Data / Provided
by UNWTO this trend is globalization.
Globalizations makes people travel to other countries to experience
new things.

Globalization: Why We Need to Learn Diversity for RPTM

Fields

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Every year, the number of international tourists is increasing with
between 3 to 4 percent of growth rate. 1.4 billion of people visited
other countries last year, and 1.8 billion of people are expected to

travel internationally in 2030 (UNWTO).

This huge number of international tourists creates a huge tourism

market around the world. In order to be successful in this market,
students who study RPTM should know different cultures, thoughts,
and behaviors that people from other countries have. Moreover, by
learning about the diversity at Penn State, Penn State’s RPTM could
keep its reputation as well as the position of leader and pioneer in
global RPTM fields. Next section will discuss about how much diverse
in RPTM now.

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 PSU Official Population Data / Provided by PSU

PSU is Diverse, RPTM is Not

Fact Book

Under the mission statement on diversity, equity and inclusion, “We

embrace individual uniqueness, and foster a culture of inclusion that
supports both broad and specific diversity initiatives,” Penn State has
been progressing to get more and more diverse. In this Fall 2019
semester, about 40% of undergraduate students are not White. This
value is an increased value than in 2014 by 5%. Now, it is not difficult
to see many students of other races in different major/elective
courses or public places such as libraries or HUB.

Diversity/Ethnicity in RPTM According to Deborah

Houser, the academic
Black, 6,
Asian, 8, 2%
Etc, 5, 1%
advisor of the RPTM
2%
major, 360 students
White registered in RPTM
Asian
this semester (2019
Black
White, Etc
Fall). About 95% (341)
341, of RPTM students are
95% Referred by Deborah
Houser White, and other
* Estimation Based
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races of students are less than 20. In fact, it is not easy to see non-
White students in RPTM courses. Unfortunately, there was no exact
official RPTM’s diversity/ethnicity population data. Therefore, to
acquire the estimated statistics, I counted all RPTM international
students who I know, and asked them to count who they know.

View of International Students

To seek some hints that can help to find some solutions, I had depth
interviews with 2 international students (1 RPTM student and 1 non-
RPTM student) to listen to international students' miscellaneous ideas
about the RPTM major. The RPTM student interviewee asked for the
anonymity of his/her identity.

Student A (RPTM / Senior)

“I think Penn State RPTM major’s graduation

requirement is very hard for international
students due to the RPTM 495A Internship
Course requiring students to find internship
opportunities by themselves. Most RPTM
international students find an internship in their own countries
because international students are relatively difficult to take an
internship in the U.S. However, HR managers in their own countries
are also reluctant to give the internship opportunity because they
generally cannot speak English to read the course instructions and to
do some assignments supposed to be done by the managers in
English for the students. I also worry about the RPTM 495A course
that I have to take soon.”

Roy (Engineering / Sophomore)

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“In my opinion, getting a job in RPTM
fields after graduation is not easy, because
the competition in RPTM fields for an
employment opportunity is very fierce.
Furthermore, getting a job in any other
fields with the degree in RPTM is also not
easy, because the skills of RPTM are not
specialized skills while degrees in STEM (such as Electrical
Engineering, Computer Science, Accounting or Statistics) are very
advantageous in general job market for their specialized skills.”

Recommendations
In this section, I will offer 2 recommendations that I believe will lead
to an increased number of international students within the RPTM
major. These solutions came from my ideas and analysis based on the
other students’ opinions that I agree with enough.

Analysis of Interviews
International students in and out of the RPTM major talked about the
difficulties of the graduation process caused by the RPTM 495A Internship
Course and getting a job after graduation as main barriers blocking
international students from majoring in RPTM.

These kinds of difficulties violate some of the fundamental reasons why

international students do study abroad: taking a degree in another
country’s university through graduation and getting a job in a foreign
country. As a result, it is natural that the popularity of this major for
international students is low even though the diversity is very important for
this major.

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Therefore, I decided to come up with ways that can make it easier to get an
internship for international students to complete the RPTM 495A Internship
Course and that directly helps international students get a job after or
when they graduate from the RPTM major at Penn State.

Recommendation 1 – Translated RPTM 495A Instructions

As a matter of fact, not
only the interviewee feels
difficulties in taking an
internship for the
Translated Version of RPTM 495A
completion of the RPTM Syllabus Translated by
495A Internship Course, Jungwoo Choi

but also most of RPTM

international students
including me feel
burdened to get an
internship to complete the
course. This is because
American companies do
not tend to give internship
opportunities to
international students for
some reasons such as
VISA, language skills or culture differences if the international student is
not super outstanding as much as he/she can cover all the weaknesses. As
the interviewee told, even though the RPTM international students try to
find an internship in their own countries, it is also hard. This is because
employers who do not live in English speaking countries do not want to
deal with both reading English instructions and doing some assignments
supposed to be written by English and done by the employers for the
students. Like American employers do not want to go through those
inconveniences that international students have, their own countries’
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employers also do not want to experience those unnecessary work. For
these reasons, RPTM international students are afraid of introducing the
course to employers to ask for an internship opportunity.

However, if translated versions of the RPTM 495A instructions are provided

for employers in their countries, it would be easier to confidently approach
to those employers to ask for an internship. Moreover, the chance of giving
internship opportunities would be increased, because they do not need to
experience the problems from language difference, and they could see
those students’ confidence and passion for an internship.

The above translated syllabus is an example of instructions translated by

Korean, which I made. Translating those documents does not take such a
long time and not require any money. This is because translation
technologies have been developed a lot, and we can use the technologies
on individual computers. Furthermore, most languages in the world can be
translated now. If it is hard to translate all documents in the course, we also
alternatively could produce the summaries of translated versions for each
document. This small change would reduce RPTM international students’
unnecessary stress and finally motivate international students to want to
major in RPTM.

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Recommendation 2 – RPTM Career Fair
The second recommendation is also related to the background of the first
recommendation. Again, international students who are not in STEM
majors have very limit and low employment chance. This situation is almost
same as general students
of PSU. Thus, Penn State
tries to help their
students get a job by
hosting the Career Fair
event annually. However,
this event does not help
a lot for RPTM students,
especially RPTM
international students.
This is because
employers who
participate in the event
are not usually in RPTM
fields (this is because
RPTM employers already
have a lot of applicants
HTM Career DAY
Image Provided by UMass who make the fierce
Amherst
competition even though
the employers do not come to this kind of events). Furthermore, some
hotel and resort employers who participate in this event are usually
connected to Hospitality Management (HM) students. In order to solve this
problem, I searched for other colleges’ policies and programs, and I found
a good example from the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass
Amherst).

HTM Career Day that the department of Hotel and Tourism Management
at UMass Amherst organizes is a great resource of employment

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opportunity for HTM students of UMass Amherst. This event that has been
over 40 years is an event that provides opportunities to take a job in RPTM
fields by connecting their HTM students and RPTM companies. It is
interesting that UMass Amherst also has its Career Fair as PSU has. In other
words, the HTM Career Day is the department of Hotel and Tourism
Management’s event for only their HTM students.

Now, Penn State’s RPTM is also recommended to start hosting the

RPTM Career Fair for RPTM students. Moreover, in order to attract
international students for building diversity, many of international
RPTM companies should be invited.

HTM Career DAY

Image Provided by UMass
Amherst

For example, the RPTM Career Fair can invite Asian tourism
companies such as Hanatour or Dongbutour, Korean major tourism
companies that have some branches in the United States.
International companies tend to hire diverse applicants depending on
abilities and skills, regardless of race to keep their businesses in fierce
markets. Even though international RPTM students at Penn State are
very competent for the department’s high quality of education for the

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fields, they could not have enough and fair opportunities for taking a
job until now due to some identity issues mentioned above.

However, if the RPTM department provides that kind of event that

includes many diverse tourism companies around the world to
expand their limit job opportunities by directly connecting
international students and international companies, their careers
would be successful. Besides, their successes would return to be the
increase of Penn State RPTM’s reputation. Naturally, international
students would come to the RPTM major to study the fields, and the
diverse environment in RPTM classes also would be created. Finally,
by achieving the goal, the RPTM major’s level of education would go
up one step further for RPTM students and the department.

Conclusion
Although the diversity of the RPTM major at Penn State is not that
sufficient because of some disadvantages for international students,
the diversity for RPTM students is still very necessary for achieving
RPTM’s original education purpose, and opportunities to change this
situation are enough. The two possible recommendations that are
introduced in this report are:

 Providing translated versions of RPTM 495 Internship Course

instructions to get an internship opportunity easier by removing
language problems for other countries’ employers

 Hosting the RPTM department’s career fair that invites many

international tourism companies for giving direct job
opportunities for RPTM international students

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Furthermore, I believe that these two suggestions would work best if
they are implemented together. As a RPTM student at Penn State
who will graduate soon, I want the prosperity of the RPTM major even
after I graduate. Therefore, I hope this report could contribute to the
development of the RPTM department in all aspects, above having a
more diverse class environment.

Diverse Students
Provided by Liberal Arts
Colleges

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Work Cited
Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity Category. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://factbook.psu.edu/factbook/StudentDynamic/HistoricalMinorityEnro

lByEthnicity.aspx?YearCode=2019&FBPlusIndc=N

Getting Ready. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://sites.psu.edu/rptminternship/syllabus-page/.

HTM Career Day. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.isenberg.umass.edu/programs/undergraduate/on-

campus/majors/hospitality-and-tourism-management/career-day.

International Tourist Arrivals Reach 1.4 Billion Two Years Early. (n.d.). Retrieved

from https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152.

What a Truly Diverse College Campus Looks Like. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.liberalartscolleges.com/what-a-truly-diverse-college-campus-

looks-like/.

1.8 billion tourists set to travel world by 2030 | UN News. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://news.un.org/en/audio/2017/12/640532.

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