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After weeks of discussing the ins and outs of running a professional foodservice organization, the students of the 3rd semester course ‘Managing Foodservice Organizations’ concluded the semester with an excursion to the Plaza Eurest. Many classes at MU offer the chance to see theory in action, and our students are encouraged to attend a number of field trips during their studies.

Under the guiding hand of faculty member Florian Aubke, the most recent opportunity for our students to experience concepts in action was at the Europlaza Office complex in the 12th district, an innovative food court concept is designed to serve lunch for up to 2000 employees of nearby offices. As part of the world’s largest gastronomy supplier, the Compass Group PLC, Eurest serves more than 85 businesses in Austria.

Since opening in 2008, Plaza Eurest has been considered the showpiece in office catering, generally an underestimated part of the gastronomic landscape. What other business would be more suitable for verifying the theories learned during the semester? Following an introduction to the company by the Human Resources Director Mrs. Sabine Riedel, the unit operations manager Mr. Eckelsberger gave insights into the concept and the daily operations of Plaza Eurest.

The students were impressed not only by the sheer business volume handled every day, but also by the concept and planning that went into it. It was an excellent hands-on opportunity for the students to see that food and beverage management is comprised of more than carrying plates and serving drinks in fine dining restaurants. Instead, it is a complex organization which requires careful production scheduling, procurement processes, health and safety considerations, let alone cost controlling and accounting for being successful and financially viable. It seems that the course passed its reality check!

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By day, Thomas Trinkl studies Tourism and Hospitality Management on Kahlenberg. By night he can be found, like many students, at nightlife hotspots around the city - but unlike the others he's not there to celebrate the end of exams or the start of a new semester.  Each weekend, Thomas trades in his books and calculator for headphones and vinyl as he spins his own brand of electronic music for crowds of revellers.

Born and raised in Vienna, Thomas' passion for travel and interest in how the hospitality works behind-the-scenes led him to choose MU's BBA program. Eventually, he hopes to work in event or catering management - if he's not starring as the entertainment of course!

Thomas' musical journey has been as rewarding as any of his travels. After being introduced to the art of djing by a high school friend, Thomas has honed his creative talents in several genres, spanning from progressive house to techno to deep/uk house with a hint of disco. His new surroundings at MU have put him in a fertile environment for artistic creativity: "The diversity of students and different tastes at MU have had a big influence on me. Being open-minded is crucial at a school like MU and for progressing as a DJ - searching for new music and trying new things are the keys to success." Trinkl has also joined forces with other student DJs at MU, notably playing at the 2011 graduation party.

MU is proud to have well-rounded, creative students like Thomas as a part of our vibrant community and we wish him success in both his studies and musical endeavours!

Listen to Thomas here: 
http://soundcloud.com/audio-tt/tracks or find him (as Audio TT) on Facebook to find out where he'll play next.

Though the demands of full-time school and university social lives are exacting, MU's Student Representatives still find the time to give back to their community by showing leadership and initiative.

Each fall, MU's student body votes for a slate of their peers, who are then charged with the responsibilities of making sure students'voices are heard within the various governing bodies of the institution. They also show leadership by mediating disputes between students and the administration, as well as organizing social events to bring the student community together. We're proud to have such future leaders in our midst and appreciate their commitment.

Here's a short introduction to MU's current crop of Student Reps:

BBA Reps

Simon Hala, 22, is a local Vienna boy. Simon, an avid footballer, has been active this year, playing a lead role in organizing a student football tournament and punsch holiday soiree, as well as communicating student concerns to the administration. He is interested in hotel management and plans to pursue a Master's degree.

Natalie Hood, 18, is proud of her Canadian background. This year she has helped plan several social events, applying her interest in event planning. She's also an amateur photographer.

Alexander Riemekasten, 24, is the senior member of the group, in his third term as student rep. Alexander has played a particularly important role representing students on various committees and voicing their opinion on issues relating to rules and regulations and the academic curriculum.

Daniel Rüscher, 21, is of Malaysian and Austrian background. He has helped plan several community events and has also been active at MU Cares charity cooking outings. Daniel hopes to make a career in sales and marketing.

Marie-Louise Schütz, 21, of Vienna, is a two-time student rep. She helped design MU's new line of merchandise, informed new students about the role of a student rep and led a campaign to further diversify language classes. An accomplished tennis player and dancer, Marie-Louise is interested in charity event management and hopes to make a career in hospitality or real estate sales and marketing.

Nariman Zeynalli, 20, came to us by way of his native Azerbaijan and can be seen at most events on campus. Also a student ambassador, Nariman has volunteered at Orientation Week, has helped in recruiting new students and given valuable feedback regarding university campus policies.

MSc Reps

Philipp Redl, 22, calls Linz home and is a graduate of MU's BBA program. Philipp hopes to keep an ear to the ground for student suggestions to improve campus life - and started by suggesting improvements to MU's email system. A member of the MU Wine Society and the university's Sustainability Committee, he is also interested in sustainable tourism.

Dmitry Stetsenko, 20, is from Moscow. Like Philipp, Dmitry is also a BBA alumnus, and is currently pursuing his graduate degree in International Tourism Management.

MODUL University recently added two new members to its international staff, Stephanie Reeves and Antonia Baumgartner.

Stephanie Reeves has joined the Admissions team as the first contact for many future Modulians. Our new Admissions Officer comes to us fresh off the plane from England, following her love of all things Viennese (and in particular to practice her German) to experience life in the cultural heart of Europe.

A native of London, Stephanie was Communications Officer of the Erasmus Society of the University of Reading, UK, where she graduated with a BA Hons in History and German jointly awarded by the University of Augsburg, Germany.

MU’s tourism focus suits Stephanie well; she spent two years circling the globe with Qatar Airways as part of the 5 star Cabin Crew on one of the world’s top airlines. In addition to her high flying days, she has held positions with the Canadian High Commission and in an international law firm, as well as in a university environment as personal assistant to the Deans at St. Mellitus College, London.

Alongside improving her German, learning Spanish, and playing piano, Stephanie is involved in numerous sponsored bike rides for the Cystic Fibrosis charity.

Once applicants successfully pass though Stephanie’s office and make the transition into an MU student, Antonia Baumgartner is there to welcome them to their home away from home on Mt. Kahlenberg.

Replacing fellow American Kristen Riedrich, Antonia has taken over the position of International Officer in the Student Service Center. The daughter of Austrian émigrés, she grew up in Washington D.C. and attended a German school, making her one of the most perfectly bilingual employees at MU. She received her Bachelor degree from New York University in 2007, and shortly thereafter moved to her ancestral homeland.

She was recently received a Master of Arts in Education, Counseling and Human Development at the University of Vienna, submitting her final research thesis on “Third Culture Kids – Development of a Current Phenomenon”. Her experience with young people from a variety of backgrounds is particularly suited to interaction with MU’s multicultural student body.

In addition to her studies, she has extensive experience working in education, as a school administrator and substitute teacher at Vienna Elementary School and as a summer camp counselor in Salzburg.
Antonia prefers to spend her holidays exploring distant corners of the globe, and closer to home she enjoys Vienna’s many theatres and cultural opportunities.

Stop by Admissions and Services to say hello to our new team members!

Admissions Team: Markus Bernhard and Stephanie Reeves; Student Service Center: Jesse Alexander and Antonia Baumgartner

Sometimes all it takes to go from struggles to smiles is a little bit of help from someone who's willing to share. Just ask Bachelor students Roman Kollar and Sara Hanulikova, who are smiling wide after their recent performance in accounting class. Theirs is among the first of the MU Learning Program's success stories.

The project, launched by the Student Service Center and faculty last fall, pairs student-tutors with their colleagues who need help in demanding courses such as statistics and accounting. This peer-to-peer learning process complements classroom instruction and allows students in need to get an extra boost to help their results and their confidence.

Roman and Sara, who both hail from neighbouring Slovakia, had this to say about their experience: "The Learning Program was very beneficial for us and it helped us to pass the course. We were being tutored by students, the atmosphere was relaxed. This made us feel confident enough to ask questions that we might sometimes hesitate to ask in front of the whole class - our tutors Renata and TaiAnne were always patient with us!"

We certainly wish Roman and Sara further success, and congrats to accounting tutors Renata Csebi and TaiAnne Marinho Da Silva for a job well done!

The entire staff and faculty are looking forward to a prosperous and productive 2012, and none more so than four of our faculty who are working towards the academic right to place ‘Dr’ in front of their names before the year is out.

Alongside the task of researching and writing their doctoral dissertations, they have actively participated in various research projects and committees throughout their time at MU, and taught courses in the bachelor program from e-marketing to mathematics and statistics to academic writing.

Working under supervision of MU's PD Dr. Astrid Dickinger in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality Management (THM), Clemens Költringer is near completion of ‘’Evaluating Destination Online Representation Measurement: Leveraging Online Media for Market Research’’, investigating how conventional destination images are affected and represented in today’s online media sphere and aims to transfer conventional destination image measurement techniques to an online setting.

Fellow Tourism lecturer Florian Aubke is putting the finishing touches on his research entitled ‘’A Model of Effective Communication Structures in Expert-led Teams - An Application to Hotel Revenue Management Teams’’ under the guiding hand of MU president Prof. Dr. Karl Wöber. Through the application of social network analysis, Florian has contrasted the communication structures and performance measurements from 38 international hotel revenue management teams.

MRes Florian Aubke, Mag. (FH) Clemens Költringer

Down the THM hallway, Xavier Matteucci’s thesis is primarily concerned with how foreign visitors experience intangible heritage, in the form of flamenco music and dance courses, and attempts to discern the role that the body and senses play in that experience. Under working title ‘’The tourist experience of intangible heritage - the role of the body and senses’’ his magnum opus (to date) will soon be finished with the supervision of Prof. Dr. Ronald Kurt of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Essen, and MU’s own Prof. Dr. Andreas Zins.

In the Department of Public Governance, Karin Glaser is in the final stages before dissertation defense on (working title) ‘’ Why terrorism emerges. An empirical investigation’’, which deals with the causes and consequences of terrorism, and seeking out effective policy measures and reforms for countering terrorism threats. 

Xavier Matteucci, Msc, and Mag. Karin Glaser

Clemens, Florian, and Karin have been with MU since opening our doors in 2007, with Xavier following shortly after. As they began their theses concurrently with taking up position on Kahlenberg, it is a major achievement for both our scholars and the university to have four faculty members close to finishing the research they have been undertaking during their MODUL years.

In-depth dissertation abstracts from all our doctoral candidates can be found at http://www.modul.ac.at/doctoral-dissertations-mu-faculty

We wish them all the greatest success on their doctorate path!

On December 15th 2011, in MU’s largest conference hall, over a hundred people attended the preview screening of EL REY, a documentary film by Austrian director Stefan Lechner, The documentary was preceded by a keynote speech from Hartwig Kirner, CEO of FAIRTRADE Austria who explained its organization’s vision and how their actions contribute towards achieving greater global social justice.

This educational and entertaining event was generously co-sponsored by FAIRTRADE Austria and the Sustainability Committee at MU which offered fair trade beverages, chocolate and biscuits among other treats. The film has received a warm welcome by an eclectic audience which included students, academics, NGOs, journalists, and a vast number of Latin America and music enthusiasts.

More information about EL REY can be found under:

www.elreyfilm.com
www.facebook.com/elreyfilm

EL REY
2 AUSTRIANS. 1 SCHOOL BUS. A CONTINENT OF MUSIC.

''After years of working with NGOs in developing nations, both Stefan and Adi fell in love with Latin America, the people and their culture. After a trip in 2002, the boys were inspired by their newfound love for the many forms of authentic/folk Latin American music.
That journey was the inspiration for what was to come, El Rey. So in 2006 off they set once again, pooling their entire life savings to embark on a year-long musical exploration through the rural backwaters and off the beaten track of Latin America. But this time along with their guitars they brought a temperamental old school bus, recording equipment, a camera and a plan to record their adventure. The project’s goal was to meet local musicians along the way and record their music. Adi’s audio recording skills combined with Stefan’s filming and development work in Latin America made it all possible.’’

Following graduation in July, our second class of MODUL University BBA graduates are already making a splash, securing posts throughout the tourism and hospitality industries.

Edward Rowley, BBA '11, relates his high-flying success story:

''After successfully completing a yearlong internship at SWISS International Airlines and graduating from the BBA program at MODUL University in July 2011, I landed a job at Austrian Airlines. I work in the Global Sales & Distribution division as a steering specialist in the department Sales Austria & Slovakia. Our department handles all leisure and corporate accounts and related sales activities for the Lufthansa Group in Austria & Slovakia in addition to taking the lead on global Star Alliance accounts worldwide.

Specifically, the sales steering team is responsible for analyzing customer and route data in order to identify any potential revenue optimizing opportunities and uses this information to implement strategic sales actions as well as steering key account managers.

Some examples of these activities include implementing incentives for company and travel agency contracts, contract management and identifying new business leads, adjusting fare structures in coordination with revenue management, or giving recommendations for flight schedule improvements to network development department. Therefore, my tasks are quite diverse and involve allot of detective work providing me with a compelling and dynamic working environment.

My three years at MODUL provided me with the essential business skill set and tourism knowhow to lift-off my career to new horizons in this challenging, but interesting industry (pun intended).''

Project: Living conditions, quality of life, and subjective well-being in regions: A methodological pilot study with explorative interviewing and quantitative measurement

submitted by Univ.-Doz. Dr. Ivo Ponocny
and funded by the Anniversary Fund of the Austrian National Bank.

The economy is growing and growing. But is it growing in the right direction, too? Is the quantitative part the dominant goal or is there demand for a strengthened focus on a qualitative part of the overall development? The Easterlin Paradox suggests that material well-being does not automatically lead to increased happiness. Therefore it is very questionable whether it is possible to measure quality-of-life (QoL) just by taking indicators of material well-being into account.

Obviously it is not, as latest research attempts tell us, that more and more effort is taken to fill this vacuum by indicators connected to the subjectively driven part of the story. But this other side of the coin has its handicaps too, as individual self-ratings of happiness are complex constructs influenced by momentary mood, uniqueness of the individual in perceiving life conditions, adaptation processes, and comparison processes based on varying anchor levels. Construct validation studies of subjective well-being (SWB) mainly have to deal with questions like

‘What kind of information can be derived from overall subjective self-ratings?’

This missing link is going to be clarified by cognitive interviewing. First of all, the principle aim is to investigate the respondent’s interpretation of the question itself and afterwards the interpretation of the responses to the questions at hand on the interviewer's side. In the end, responses should be based on improved item material on a lower abstract level that will ease the interpretation of the data collected by SWB questionnaires.

After constructing a methodology mix of qualitative and quantitative research for evaluating regional living conditions, concrete concerns of inhabitants with various location-specific influences will be discovered, i.e. booming regions, areas with structural problems such as emigration of labor force or human capital, or geographic characteristics, as well as municipalities of special interest such as eco-villages, well-being regions, children-friendly communities or similar. One primary goal is to derive recommendations for local or national policy makers to most effectively increase the living conditions of citizens, and to help directing those interventions to address the concrete underlying problems or happiness drivers – such as immaterial patterns and green consumption behavior motivated by sustainability issues – of the local citizens. Finally, the optimization of the national average SWB may hopefully act as a major economic and political intention.

The project is carried out in collaboration with the University of Vienna (Institute for Psychology, Erich Kirchler, Thomas Slunecko) and the Sigmund Freud Privatuniversität (Elisabeth Ponocny-Seliger) and with substantial contributions by Christian Weismayer, Stefan Dressler, Bernadette Stross and Sabine Sedlacek.

Oksana Sydor, currently enrolled in the MBA in Tourism Management, is putting her education to good use. In her native Ukraine, she recently organized the “Win with the Lion” Tourism Conference, taking place from November 24 – 27, 2011 in Ukraine’s westernmost city of Lviv.

Taking on chief organizational duties, she brought together interesting speakers and participants from local, national, and international levels to discuss and reflect on important topics under the main conference theme “How to catch Trends and Travelers - Involve. Enhance. Present. Effect”.

Oksana impressively demonstrated how a conference can be successfully organized through the benefits of network links. Using the resources at her disposal, she tapped into the MU network of industry and academic partners to garner speakers and participants. In particular, she benefitted from her ties to the Vienna Tourism Board, as Dr. Wolfgang Kraus, former director and long-term supporter of MU, became one of her mentors and advisors for this new conference series, helping secure representatives of the cities of Vienna, Berlin and Graz for the speakers’ list. Furthermore, through contact and work with the Vienna Tourism Board, Oksana entered the international network of 'European Cities Marketing (ECM)'. The Chief Executive Officer of ECM, Dr. John Heeley, and Nick Greenfield from the European Tour Operators’ Association also presented in Lviv.

As Lviv will host the EURO 2012 soccer championship together with other cities in Ukraine and Poland, MU’s Prof. Dr. Andreas Zins presented on the “Economic and Social Impacts of EURO 2008”, to give insight into what’s in store for Ukrainian tourism next year. In addition, he contributed reflections on destination image building, travel trends and city marketing during panel discussions on the first and second conference day.

Win with the Lion comes at a crucial time, as Lviv is trying hard to position itself on the landscape of European city tourism destinations. Through the EURO 2012, many infrastructure impulses are triggered; among them the opening of a new airport terminal stands out as particularly monumental. However, apart from developing accommodation, restaurant and conference facilities, the organizational issues accompanying this development are still in their infancy. The conference succeeded in tacking these issues with the formation of the first partnership agreement among operators and the city of Lviv under the moniker of “The Tourism Alliance”, with the city additionally signing on to the national Tourism Association.

Details on the conference can be found at http://www.congress.lviv.ua/

Pictures from the conference are on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/win.with.the.lion