Emily Michaels ‘23 - Philippus Miller III ‘83 Hotelie for Life® Prize Winner

“I want to study business, but I also have a love for languages.  How can I merge these two passions into a college major?”  This was the thought going through the head of Emily Michaels ’23 while in high school.  The answer was the decision to study hospitality at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration.  Four years later, she is the 2023 winner of the Philippus Miller III ‘83 Hotelie for Life^® Prize.

In 2020, the Cornell Hotel Society (CHS) Hotelie for Life^® Senior Prize was named in memory of Philippus Miller ’83, longtime director of alumni affairs at The Hotel School and founder of the executive search firm Philippus Miller III and Associates. Phil was famously known for facilitating relationships among Hotel School students, faculty, and alumni. He was the consummate Hotelie - a people-person dedicated to serving others.

Emily was raised north of Boston and had the good fortune to travel around the world. She has always had a love of travel and took every opportunity to study languages. She was encouraged by both her parents, both of whom are multi-lingual. While in high school, she did a study abroad program in Spain and backpacked up the coast of Portugal.  Along the way, she studied Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Her father had participated in a study-abroad program while in college and encouraged her to consider pursuing her undergrad studies in Lausanne, Switzerland where he had once lived. It was here that Emily became familiar with hospitality as a course of study. Emily took a good hard look at Lausanne's EHL school before settling upon Cornell’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Aware that she wished to participate in Army ROTC while in college, Cornell was the obvious choice.

Emily arrived in Ithaca intent on learning how to   manage a hotel and later have a career in hospitality operations.  The diversity of her initial required courses exposed her to multiple potential paths within the hospitality industry, and after taking her first class with Professor Dave Sherwyn, she became interested in law.  “The class required a lot of reading, conversation, debating, and problem solving, all of which I found very attractive.”  Emily’s second law class in the Hotel School “Law for Hotel Owners and Operators” with Professor Paul Wagner further solidified her interest in the legal profession.  After that, Emily took multiple under-graduate law classes outside of Statler.

Emily’s Teaching Assistant assignments further reflect the diversity of her hospitality educational experience.  Over the past three years, Emily was a TA in both finance and food service courses.  Additionally, Emily was a member of the HEC board of directors her senior year and spent many hours performing physical training within her ROTC courses.

Emily’s summer experiences were equally diverse.  She spent her summers working in operations at the Four Seasons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, an internship at the corporate offices of SC Johnson, and ROTC training at Fort Knox.

Not only did Emily assist others by being a TA, but she was also a standout student herself.  During her senior year, Emily was honored as a Merrill Presidential Schoolar, an award granted by President Pollack to seniors in the top one percent of their graduating class.

Emily will be enrolling in the Georgetown Law School the fall of 2024.  Between graduation and law school, she will be fulfilling her ROTC obligations as an Ordnance Officer in the Army Reserve and attending a special four-month Ordnance training program in the fall of 2023.

Emily has not lost her Hotelie roots.  While in Law School she would like to focus her studies on either human resources or contract law, either of which she can later apply to the hospitality industry.

Upon arriving at Cornell, Emily thought it was funny being tagged as “Hotelie” and did not yet know what a close-knit community she had joined.  After winning the Hotelie for Life^® prize, Emily had the good fortune to have dinner at the home of Yasamin Miller, wife of Phil.  While having dinner with Yasamin, Emily heard multiple stories about Phil, and learned how he exemplified living a life of service as a Hotelie.  Emily is now dedicated to living the Phil Miller ethos beyond Ithaca and continuing to support the Hotelie community on an on-going basis.

* * *

The Cornell Hotel Society and Cornell Hotel Foundation congratulate Emily and wish her the best of success on his journey as a Hotelie for Life^®. This interview was conducted by Robert Mandelbaum ’81.