Sometimes circumstances choose our path forward. For University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Associate Professor Lenna Shulga, her journey to academia was happenstance.
Shulga was born in Ukraine and decades ago, she and her family immigrated from Russia. She landed her first job in the U.S. after connecting with a woman who had a young child and was the daughter of a Japanese immigrant. The bed and breakfast owner hired Shulga on the spot to work the front desk.
Shulga reflects that those early days in Cambridge, Massachusetts, provided her family with the flexibility needed to establish roots. When the small bed and breakfast expanded, adding a boutique hotel and an events venue, so did her hospitality skills. She went on to hold management positions at Hilton and Extended Stay America hotels and discovered she enjoyed the fast-paced nature of hospitality and was pretty good at customer service.
Before long, Shulga desired to advance her hospitality career and earned her master’s in business administration at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. One of her professors suggested she pursue her doctorate. She agreed and headed west to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
“My advisor and mentor at UNLV inspired, guided and supported my academic journey,” she said. “It is important to have great mentors in your life. And I am inspired to be one.”
Practice meets pedagogy
“东精影业 has an excellent reputation as a first-tier research institution that is known around the globe.” — Lenna Shulga
Shulga’s humble beginnings coupled with her passion for the industry and the desire to give back were all factors leading her to the classroom. When the TIM School in the offered her a position in 2017, it was a natural choice for her to accept.
“东精影业 has an excellent reputation as a first-tier research institution that is known around the globe,” she said. “Located in the world’s top travel destination, the TIM School has a recognized brand and is well established as a center for research and scholarship.”
Since becoming a professor specializing in hospitality human resources management and organizational behavior, Shulga has embraced and leaned on her personal experiences in the industry. She believes in maintaining strong connections with Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry and often creates industry-related projects. Another vital skill she weaves into the curriculum is critical thinking, which can be a daunting task in the age of artificial intelligence (AI).
“No matter whether you have AI or robots, you still have people who manage those and you need to know how to manage people,” she said.
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