University News

WIU Alumnus Wins Prestigious Service Award

May 1, 2020

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MACOMB, IL – When Western Illinois University alumnus Jason Draper's professors in the Department of Recreation Park and Tourism Administration's graduate degree program suggested he continue his education and pursue a Ph.D, he thought the move was too much of a reach for him.

Now, a full 20 years later, Draper is an associate professor at the University of Houston, teaching in the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, and has won all three professional awards the Hilton college offers annually.

This week, Draper was presented with college's service award in a remote ceremony. While serving on the college's faculty for the past 10 years, Draper has also previously won the school's research (2013) and teaching (2018) awards. The award nominees are tenure track faculty who receive "outstanding" reviews by their deans. The winners are then chosen by previous recipients of each of the three awards.

Draper considers WIU emeriti faculty Nick DiGrino, Dale Adkins, Dan Yoder and Katharine Pawelko among those who helped instill a sense of service while he was a WIU student.

"I was not a very good student and they believed in me when others didn't," he said. "The faculty in RPTA encouraged me to go on for my Ph.D, but I didn't think it was for me – I got into two of the three schools I applied to."

After graduation from WIU, Draper won RPTA's first Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award in 2008. As he finished his education at Western, he served as an intern for the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau. After receiving his master's degree, he worked in the bureau's research and statistics division for five years, before moving on to begin his doctoral work at Clemson University. Draper's academic expertise is in the tourism arena, and he teaches an undergraduate tourism class and travel and tourism, events and statistics classes for graduate students.

Even though this week's award ceremony was virtual, Draper received a wooden plaque and a stipend, which he donated to a student emergency relief fund for Hilton College students.

Draper said teaching during the pandemic has been particularly challenging because he has never taught online, but said it has made him a better teacher.

Pawelko called Draper a student with wonderful "raw potential that was sharpened and polished into a brilliant gem."

"If his peers were to vote for least likely to attend college during his high school years, he told me he was the guy," she said. "Four years later, people close to him were not sure he would finish his bachelor's degree. Not having much self-assurance nor encouragement, he secretly applied to WIU for enrollment in the RPTA master's degree program in 1999, because he did not want anyone to dissuade or scoff at him doing so. Let's just say that becoming part of a small core group of new RPTA grad students, who studied together and supported one another, Jason blossomed."

For more information about the graduate and undergraduate programs in RPTA, visit wiu.edu/RPTA.


Posted By: Jodi Pospeschil (JK-Pospeschil@wiu.edu)
Office of University Communications & Marketing