By Kenna Jenkins, September 9, 2025
The Collins College of Hospitality Management received a $3 million gift from the Larry and Jo Shupnick Family Foundation to go toward an innovation center, where students will be able to create products and services.
Larry Shupnick, who donated the money alongside his wife Jo Shupnick, has been on Collin’s Dean Advisory Board since 1990.
Larry Shupnick has been involved in the hospitality industry for five decades, specifically hotels and restaurants. He’s worked for hotel companies such as Sheraton, Hilton, Schine Hotels and Interstate Hotels & Resorts as the senior vice president of development and acquisitions.
Jo Shupnick is an entrepreneur and interior designer who founded Interiors by Jo Frank in 1991.
According to Dean of the Collins College of Hospitality Management Margie Jones, Building 79A, where the center will be held, will get a major face lift to include an ideation space or lab where students will be able to dream about what the product or the service should look like. Students will also have access to a test kitchen where they can take their proof of concept.
“We hope that industry will be interested in this space, so students will be able to engage with real businesses who are trying to solve problems,” Jones said. “… I hope it’ll be this kind of synergy of dreaming and doing.”
Jones said the college is putting the request for qualifications out now and hopes to have chosen a contractor by the end of 2025. According to the California State University website, an RFQ is a notice to contractors who are interested in providing “design, preconstruction and design-build construction services for the project.”
Then, “funding and licensing and proof of concept willing.” Jones hopes to break ground in 2026.
“We want to be careful about adding to the large classroom format in a way that is beneficial to the campus,” Jones said.
Shi also said that currently the student from Collins themselves don’t have many places to meet as groups for activities like clubs. He said study rooms that are there are usually booked.
“They’re looking to add more gathering areas, which I think is really important because we have a lot of events at Collins,” said Kailey Subia, ASI’s Collins College Hospitality Management senator and a sophomore hospitality management major.
Subia said while she’s mostly spoken with freshmen who are excited at the of experiencing the updates, upperclassmen have also expressed excitement for future Collins students.
Jones said construction will take place in two phases to lessen the impact of the reduced class space for students, including those in other colleges that have classes in the building that make up Collins, which include Building 79, 79A, 79B and 80.
Feature image courtesy of Kenna Jenkins
