What's in a name? Plenty. Before the 2004-2005 academic year, the Hospitality and Tourism Graduate Student Society (HTGSS) was formerly known as the Graduate Student Society (GSS). Why the change? The School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS) has now grown to include some 8 different graduate student clubs, ranging from the Real Estate Institute Student Association (REISA) to the Digital Arts Network (DAN). Furthermore, the Tisch Center has a second graduate student club, the Graduate Sports Business Society (GSBS).

The HTGSS Board members felt it was time for our club to change its name, so that it accurately reflects who we are as a group. But that was not the only change. The Board also decided to redefine the club's mission, in order to better align with the changing needs of Tisch Center graduate students. We believe that the best way for HTGSS to serve its members is to be a club dedicated to enriching the academic and professional development of Tisch Center graduate students by providing valuable access to the knowledge and expertise of leaders in the hospitality and tourism industries.

Our goal is to connect our student leaders to their future professions. To this end, the Board has designed and developed a new HTGSS website. This website will be a valuable tool that will facilitate the building of important connections. These include the connections that the Tisch Center students build with the industry, the connections that the industry builds with our students, and the connections that our students build with each other.

As the Board met throughout the summer discussing the changes for the club, I stopped to reflect on the importance of our actions. We were reevaluating the club's strategy to ensure that HTGSS could achieve its objectives. It was a simple task, but it had great significance. Bob Gilbert, the President and CEO of the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) in this month's Association Talk, describes how critical this action was for his own organization.

I began to think about how important it is for each Tisch Center graduate student to also reevaluate their own strategies, to ensure that their actions align with their academic and professional ambitions. No different than HTGSS has done with specifying a mission of connecting student leaders with their future professions, we as graduate students must define for ourselves a course of action to help us achieve our goals.

The first step, of course, is to actually articulate just what are the specific goals that each of us wishes to achieve. Again, a simple task, but it too has great significance. How do you know where you are going, if you have never clearly defined a target? Next, we each have to devise a plan that incorporates all available resources to assist us in reaching the target. As Jonathan Tisch, Chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels, points out in this month's Industry Insider, Tisch Center graduate students have an abundance of opportunities, but that fact alone will not guarantee success. In other words, we must be proactive in utilizing these opportunities to our advantage. Lastly, we must continually evaluate the progress of our actions to determine the effectiveness of the plan to reach the target. It is easy to forget that even the best plans might require some changes or modifications.

It is my hope that HTGSS achieves its objective of being a valuable resource for connecting student leaders to their future professions. More importantly, I hope that each of us is successful in reaching our academic and professional goals. I am certain that this year will be filled with many exciting opportunities for us all!