Exploring the Untapped Workforce Potential of Employees With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in the Hotel Industry: Where to Start

The hotel industry struggles with high employee turnover and labor shortages. Employing individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (EIDD) offers a solution, providing benefits such as improved loyalty, reduced turnover, and greater workplace diversity. Successful integration of EIDD requires addressing challenges like communication barriers, stigma, and the need for tailored support. Key to success are job coaches, who provide on-the-job training, support, and communication between EIDD and supervisors. They also educate coworkers to foster a more inclusive environment. Hotels should implement structured onboarding, provide reasonable accommodations, and offer socialization opportunities to ensure long-term success. Regular job coaching, performance feedback, and clear job roles promote retention. Managers can leverage job coaches to provide personalized training and create a culture of inclusion. By aligning EIDD employment with corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals and partnering with external agencies, hotels can reduce turnover, improve workforce stability, and enhance their public image

Sustainable Practices in the Restaurant Industry: Review 2020-2025

This review examines sustainability practices in the restaurant industry from 2020-2025, analyzing environmental, social, economic, and technological dimensions. Using a rigorous methodology including comprehensive database searches and thematic synthesis, we identified significant fragmentation across research streams and persistent gaps between theoretical frameworks and practical implementation. Our analysis reveals how contextual factors—including geographical location and restaurant segment—significantly influence sustainability approaches, challenging universal prescriptions. The review highlights critical methodological limitations in current research, particularly regarding measurement approaches, system boundaries, and ethical considerations of technological innovations. These findings provide a foundation for developing more integrated, context-sensitive sustainability frameworks for both researchers and practitioners

Moments

Photo spread of DePaul students with mascot DIBS in St. Vincent\u27s Circle on the Lincoln Park Campus

Elizabeth Ann Seton to George Weise, undated

https://via.library.depaul.edu/seton_family_papers/1168/thumbnail.jp

Integrating Transversal Skills in Hospitality and Tourism Curricula: Practical Recommendations from Faculty.

Transversal skills have gained increased attention due to rapid technological advances. As AI solutions emerge and new jobs arise from digital access and growing work-age populations (World Economic Forum, 2025), academics must reassess teaching methods and the skills needed in a changing workplace. Incorporating hard and soft skills in hospitality and tourism curricula is vital (Ezeuduji et al., 2023). However, research found that many faculty do not feel prepared to incorporate transversal skills in their teaching. This article presents an innovative approach with recommendations for integrating transversal skills through curriculum enhancement and teaching methods. The authors propose a three-step framework: 1) foundations alignment, 2) planning and capacity building, and 3) implementation and engagement. This research provides a practical approach for universities, faculty, students, and industry partners to cultivate future-ready graduates equipped with adaptability, critical thinking, and interpersonal competencies essential for success in a global workforce

ZEEMAN EFFECT OBSERVATIONS OF WATER MASERS IN THE STAR FORMING REGION NGC 7129 FIRS2

Magnetic fields likely play an important role in star formation, yet their influence remains poorly understood due to the observational challenges in measuring them. The only direct method for measuring magnetic fields is through the Zeeman effect, the splitting of spectral lines in the presence of a magnetic field. Water masers, which trace high-density shocked regions, are known to occur throughout some of the earliest stages of the star formation process. They provide an excellent opportunity to observe the Zeeman effect. However, Zeeman detections in H2O masers have so far been limited primarily to isolated, high-intensity maser lines with simple velocity profiles. This thesis presents a study of the Zeeman effect in the star-forming region NGC 7129 FIRS2, which hosts water masers with velocity-blended components. Two maser spots were observed toward this source; they were designated as maser A and B. Maser A was fit with four Gaussian components, and maser B with two Gaussian components. Statistically significant Zeeman detections were made in three of the four components of maser A and one component of maser B. These detections yielded significant line-of-sight magnetic fields of 26-66 mG, well within the range of fields detected in H2O masers. Using an empirical relation from the literature for field strength vs. density, and under the assumption that the field is amplified in proportion to the gas density, we conclude that the post-shock particle density behind the outflows in NGC 7129 FIRS2 is 108 cm−3, in agreement with models that predict that H2O masers are excited in gas with densities 108-109 cm−3. We also find that the shock velocities in this region are well over 30-50 km s−1, and conclude that the outflows from the protostar in NGC 7129 FIRS2 are causing fast, discontinuous, J-shocks. Finally, we find that the magnetic energy density dominates over the kinetic energy density by at least an order of magnitude, indicating that the fields are likely playing a dynamically significant role in regulating the outflows in this star-forming region. We conclude that even though the detection of the Zeeman effect in velocity-blended maser spectral line profiles is challenging, we can still obtain reliable magnetic field measurements that can be used to evaluate the role of the magnetic field in star-forming regions

Enhancing Workforce Readiness in the Hospitality Industry: A Gender-Based Study of Hospitality Business Students’ Internship Experiences

Internships play a vital role in bridging the gap between academic knowledge and practical industry experience for hospitality business students. This study investigates the impact of internship experiences on workforce readiness, focusing on gender-based differences in perceived achievements and areas for improvement. Grounded in Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), the research examines how internships contribute to students’ career preparation. A survey of 373 students revealed that female students emphasized interpersonal and creative problem-solving skills, whereas male students highlighted technical expertise and leadership. These findings suggest that both educational institutions and the hospitality industry should tailor internship structures to address gender-specific learning differences, enhance professional development, and optimize career preparedness for students entering the workforce

Protestant Business Ethics Through a Matrix: the Bible, H. Richard Niebuhr, and Management-Labor Relations

Organized labor has been largely absent from discussions of management-employee relations in Protestant business ethics, which lacks a magisterium that would encourage such discussion. Given the Protestant reliance on the Bible as the main moral source for Christian business ethics, any effort to incorporate labor into business ethics needs to link the Bible to how business organizations function and to the history of labor management relations. This article first grids out Protestant approaches for using the Bible, then explores ideas drawn and developed from H. Richard Niebuhr, a U.S. theologian active in the middle of the twentieth century. His ideas of responsivity, center of value, covenant, contingency and influence are applied using fields of organizational knowledge, while being connected with the Biblical and labor history. The virtue of this ‘integrative-interpretive’ approach is that it permits determinative judgements to be made from within a thematically cohesive framework of analysis

Mental Healthcare for Us: Examining Awareness of, Barriers to, and Recommendations for Mental Healthcare among Immigrant-Origin Chinese American Adolescents

Background. Ethnic minority adolescents face elevated mental health challenges and encounter significant barriers to accessing mental healthcare compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Despite these challenges, limited research has explored culturally responsive mental healthcare for adolescents from specific Asian American communities, and even fewer studies have actively incorporated adolescents\u27 perspectives to inform treatment and policy. This study aimed to examine the experiences of immigrant-origin Chinese American adolescents with mental health and mental healthcare. Method. Ten immigrant-origin Chinese American adolescents, aged 14 to 17, were recruited through community organizations and participated in semi-structured individual interviews. Open-ended questions focused on mental health awareness, barriers to care, and recommendations for appropriate mental health treatment. The interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using a hybrid inductive and deductive approach, grounded in the reflexive thematic analysis framework. Results. The research team found five major themes from the interviews, which were organized through the lens of ecological systems theory. The themes identified were: 1) Personal Mental Wellbeing, 2) Mental Health Support from Parents and Family, 3) Mental Health Support in the Community and Schools, 4) Mental Health Access, and 5) Preferred Mental Healthcare. Discussion. This study provides a unique focus on immigrant-origin Chinese American adolescents, offering valuable insights into their experiences and preferences for mental healthcare. The findings reveal complex, multifaceted dynamics that inform how mental health care is perceived and sought by this population. The study highlights the need for increased parent education, enhanced community and school resources, and culturally tailored mental healthcare services. Further adolescent-centered research is essential to addressing mental health disparities and improving care for this underserved group