A group of Cornell hospitality management students said "yes" to a rare opportunity Jan. 2-4: to study with the masters while experiencing luxury service firsthand at one of the most elegant boutique hotels in Beverly Hills.

Master Classes, a new series of yearly seminars run by Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, held its first classes – in luxury brand management – for students in the Hotel School's Master's of Management in Hospitality (MMH) program.

"We asked ourselves what makes a successful hospitality manager today?" says Associate Dean and Professor Thomas Cullen. The school's new research mission, to create new knowledge for the hospitality industry, also meant it needed to find a way to bring more real-world knowledge into the classroom, he said, but with a focus on "teaching students what to think rather than what to do."

The Master Classes were inspired, in part, by the school's guest chef series, in which students interact with well-known chefs who prepare signature meals at the Statler Hotel on campus, Cullen said. The new seminars take their name from the original master classes offered by diva Maria Callas to Juilliard music students in the 1950s, dramatized in a Tony award-winning play.

For its first seminars, the Hotel School engaged four of the best practitioners of luxury brand management in the hospitality business: Wolfgang Puck, star chef on the Food Network and owner of Spago restaurants; Ali Kasikci, Western United States general manager (GM) of the Peninsula Hotels, whose Peninsula Beverly Hills luxury hotel was where the seminars took place; Stan Bromley, regional vice president and general manager of Four Seasons Hotels, a luxury chain; and Dietmar Wertanzl, senior vice president for hotel operations of Los Angeles-based Crystal Cruises, which serves the high-end of the cruise market. Also on the lineup was NBC News travel critic Peter Greenberg, author of the guide The Travel Detective.

"It was an unparalleled opportunity to ask questions of industry executives in a classroom setting," said student Efthemia Kyricos of the three days of intensive classes with the masters.

"For me the most useful part was discussing the Peninsula Beverly Hills case," said student Patrick Candrian. "As the third GM in only one year, Mr. Kasikci has turned around the money-

losing hotel. The session was of the greatest value because it was a real case, with the main player, Kasikci, leading the discussion and pointing out the lessons learned." It also was helpful to observe how the U.S. owners of the hotel, which has an American clientele and market, worked with its Asian management company, he said.

Candrian was excited as well about travel industry critic Greenberg's talk on how travel itself has become newsworthy since the events of Sept. 11. "I enjoyed hearing his insights on the critical situation the airlines are in and what was going wrong in that industry," said Candrian.

"To understand luxury service, you first need to experience it yourself," said Kasikci. A graduate of the Hotel School as well as a believer in the master class concept, he made sure that the students received the full range of amenities offered to regular guests and that executive staff were included in discussions with students on management issues.

"The accommodations were incredible," said MMH student Kimberly Young. Between classes the students were served specially catered meals from the hotel's five-star menu, which lists such dishes as pasta with crushed truffles and taleggio cheese, and potato-crusted Chilean sea bass. After class they swam laps in the 60-foot heated pool on the hotel's garden rooftop, which has sweeping views of Los Angeles, tested the state-of-the-art fitness equipment in the Peninsula spa and listened to piano jazz while sipping drinks and trying to spot stars in the Club Bar. Their rooms, which featured Renaissance décor and furnishings, feather pillows, complimentary baskets of fresh fruit and bathrooms lined with Italian marble and equipped with oversize bathtubs, were a haven between lectures.

Brad Walp, director of graduate enrollment and student services for the MMH program, raved about the presentation by chef and restaurateur Puck. "He talked about his vision for the United States becoming the world leader in hospitality management, led by the work at Cornell and the Culinary Institute of America, and he was candid not only about his own success in the restaurant business but also his failures and what he'd learned from his mistakes. These are the kinds of lessons that really stick with students."

Walp also noted that master instructor Wertanzl called the MMH students "the industry voices of tomorrow." After class one afternoon the entire group was invited aboard one of Crystal Cruise's luxury liners docked in a harbor not far from the hotel.

Future Master Classes are being planned in leadership, hospitality and service.