Dr Cheryl Cockburn-Wootten

Director of Teaching & Learning. Senior Lecturer in Organisational, Tourism, Hospitality & Communication
Co-Founder of the Network for Community Hospitality

Keywords

Adult Education; Ageing; Classroom Management; Communication; Culture; Disabilities; Education Research; Inclusive Education; Inclusive Learning; Management; Pedagogy; Poverty; Social Movements; Tourism; Women and Gender Studies

Tourism & Hospitality

Qualifications: BA Communication Studies (Hons), Post Graduate Certificate in Education (FE), PhD Wales, UK

Contact Details

Papers Taught

About Cheryl

Dr Cheryl Cockburn-Wootten aims to facilitate research that informs and makes a difference to our society. She adopts critical organisational communication perspectives to examine social issues within tourism and hospitality. Her work examines issues relating to stakeholders, community engagement, and social change. She is currently Director of Teaching & Learning and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management & Marketing, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

As a 'flipped academic', she facilitates research and learning environments that  draw on  experiences, external community issues and reflection with academic content. She encourages her students to work with community organisations (not-for-profits and community organisations). When the opportunity arises, students are encouraged to undertake an 'internship' or volunteer to work with the community, an organisation or in the context that they hope to focus their work on. Students are also encouraged to work in a creative, co-participatory ways, as well as, considering different channels for inclusion and dissemination of their research findings.

Network for Community Hospitality: Cheryl is co-founder of the Waikato Management School Network for Community Hospitality. The Network for Community Hospitality brings together both academics and community, charitable and not-for-profit organisations to work together to share resources, knowledge, research, training and support each other around social issues.

Academic background information: She is currently Director of Teaching & Learning and Senior Lecturer in the School of Management & Marketing, Waikato Management School, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. She has held previous positions in the UK and completed her PhD in 2002 at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Wales, UK. Her PhD investigated gender and leisure discourses within the United Kingdom's grocery supermarket sector.

Current research projects include: Meaningful employment for those who experience a disability; senior tourism; community engagement;communities & stakeholders, critical hospitality; critical tourism;

Interested in supervising the following student research topics: Engagement with community stakeholders; Cultural and communication aspects of tourism & hospitality; Advocacy; Social issues; Critical hospitality; Disability and accessibility; Hospitality professionalism;

Teaching: In 1994, Cheryl completed the United Kingdom's qualification for teachers in universities (Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Further Education).

Awards & Grants: She has been awarded Waikato Management School's Outstanding Teaching Award and the University of Waikato's Staff Medal for Overall Excellence Award. She has received and worked with community stakeholders to gain a variety of external community funding for social change projects.