How has interest been for your events education this past year?

We’ve had a lot of interest from meeting professionals, on both the planner and supplier side. It’s been a banner year for events, which means that everyone is working harder to keep up. For many people, it’s challenging to think about taking on a graduate program that will require even more time.

What’s new or upcoming with SDSU’s events education and degree programs?

Our bachelor’s program, which has been in place for over 20 years, and the Meeting & Event Planning Certificate program, started over 30 years ago, both continue to grow and evolve. For our master’s program, we’re introducing new electives. We’ve known that a variety of students have varied interests and strengths, so we’ve identified some topics that we’re offering our students beginning in spring 2025. Those new electives include revenue management, event design and business writing.

Any plans to expand your events-related degrees offerings—either additional specialties or expanding to additional campuses? Any other areas of potential expansion?

The Payne School currently offers two graduate programs—Hospitality & Tourism Management and Meeting & Event Management. We are pleased to have a stream of students coming from the government sector, working in recreation and tourism, most often producing festivals, sporting and community events. We are working on some customizations that will continue to support growth in these career paths.

Additionally, we’ll be introducing a bachelor’s degree completion program for those who didn’t have the chance to finish their undergraduate studies. This will provide a meaningful opportunity to fill a gap that exists for a lot of event and hospitality professionals.

Are there any trends in the meeting/event industry that are impacting your curricula? If so, what are they and how are you responding?

From the beginning of the master’s program, we’ve stayed very close to industry trends so that we can continue to provide relevant information and knowledge and skills to our students. This is one of the things that makes our partnership with MPI so valuable. One of the specific trends we’ve seen is the increased reliance on events as a key marketing tool, rather than just something that happens occasionally and separately from other marketing strategies. With that shift comes the expectation that the people managing the events must have the ability to think and behave strategically, that they are fluent in the language of business and that they have the vision to tie the organization’s objectives to the objectives of the events they produce. All of these skills are addressed very specifically in the master’s program, with the idea that our graduates finish the program ready to step into a new or expanded leadership position.