Texas Tech Restaurant and Hotel Institutional Management Partners with Overton Hotel

Texas Tech Restaurant and Hotel Institutional Management (RHIM) students will have an opportunity to work and learn in the brand new Overton Hotel.

The 15-story 303-room hotel will provide a classroom on the second floor where students can experience software programs provided by 1859 Historic Hotels Ltd, the hotel’s management, and take classes to further their education. Shane Blum, chairperson of the Department of Nutrition, Hospitality and Retailing, said this is a rare chance and an advantage for Texas Tech RHIM students.

“It will give our students an advantage over other students from universities that do not have state-of-the-art hotel facilities,” Blum said. “Very few hospitality programs have hotels associated with them, and none have one as new as the Overton Hotel.”

In the fall hotel operations, a class which examines the principles and practices of managerial functions relating to hotel and motel operations will be offered at the hotel.

“The class has a laboratory component and students will have rotations at the front desk, reservations, housekeeping, maintenance and sales,” Blum said.

While this is the only class offered in the second-floor classroom in the fall, Blum and Hunter Carmichael, general manager of the Overton Hotel, look forward to offering more in the future.

Texas Tech will not be the only one benefiting from this partnership; Carmichael said he looks forward to RHIM students working and learning in the hotel.

“The students who are looking at hotel management as a career will allow us to have more professional, goal-oriented associates at our line level,” he said. “This should be a big win for our students, our hotel and especially our guests.”

The Overton Hotel is set to open July 25 and RHIM students and faculty will help the hotel staff set up rooms and prepare for its opening.

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