Education

Ed.D., Temple University
M.S., Syracuse University
M.S., Syracuse University
B.S., Syracuse University

Background

Brian J. Mihalik is a professor in the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management and in the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management and former Dean of the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management. Mihalik received his Doctor of Education from Temple University, and two master's degrees with an undergraduate degree in business administration from Syracuse University. Throughout his career, Mihalik received tenure at Clemson University, Oklahoma State, S.U.N.Y Brockport, Virginia Tech, and the University of South Carolina. With more than 20 years of administrative experience in both the academic and public sectors, Mihalik has served as an administrator and / or faculty member at six state universities. Additionally, Mihalik served approximately eight years in administration at Virginia Tech University beginning with his duties as a department head and culminating as the Associate Dean of the Graduate School.

At USC, Dean Mihalik and his team raised more than $34 million in the latest USC Carolina’s Promise capital campaign under President Pastides’ leadership. He has published more than 100 articles ranging from refereed journal articles to land grant extension publications and his research on global and mega-events has appeared in publications such as USA TODAY and Atlanta Journal Constitution. Dr. Mihalik has also received more than $1 million in external grant funding.

More recently, Dean Mihalik became a campus leader in the production and integration of 360-degree Virtual Reality (VR) educational productions. He and his wife, Linda, have published over 50, 360-degree VR projects on YouTube regarding Olympic legacies and global tourism. These 360-degree VR projects have been integrated into each of his classes. Because of these efforts to produce, develop and integrate educationally specific, 360-degree VR content about global tourism and Olympic Games legacies, Dr. Mihalik received the 2021 USC Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation. Dr. Mihalik and his wife continue to develop 360-degree degree VR projects hosted on YouTube with their recent productions focusing on gender discrimination in women's ski jumping, Olympic Games legacies and our national parks as global tourism attractions.

Mihalik and his wife, Linda, were "high school sweethearts." They have two children, and four grandchildren. He is an avid reader, intermediate skier, scuba diver, and hiker. He enjoys bodysurfing at the beach, and throwing batting practice to his grandchildren. During his college days, Mihalik played three years of baseball for Syracuse's intercollegiate team and continued to play club rugby for the following 13 years.

Creative Scholarly Exhibits and Research

• 360-degree Virtual Reality educational productions focused on Olympic Games legacies and our national parks as global tourism destinations
• Investigation the Olympic Games legacies and challenges
• Internationalization of education via study abroad

Honors / Awards

• 2021 USC Garnet Apple Award
• USC William McFall “Mac” Pearce Professor
• Scholar-in-Residence at Beijing Sports University, Beijing, China and Southeast University, Nanjing, China
• Certificate of Honor Award; Temple University, Fox College of Business (2007)
• Pamplin College of Business Award for Excellence in International Education (2005-2006)
• Executive of the Year; River Valley Chapter of the International Association of Administrative Professionals
• Charles W. Lanphere Professor of Hospitality Administration; Oklahoma State University
• Oklahoma Congressional Appointee for the White House Conference on Travel and Tourism

Select 360-degree Virtual Reality (VR) Creative Projects

"Fly Anna Fly. (2023). Via immersive 360 VR, experience the gender discrimination faced by USA and international female ski jumpers: YouTube link: https://youtu.be/cDLmlsBtPiM

"Grant Tetons & Climate Change." (2023). Via immersive 360 VR, see the impacts of climate change and western wildfire deadly smoke on iconic Teton Mountain vistas. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/fnHZRU1LWdA

"Ride the Comet Bobsled in 360 VR." (2023). Via immersive 360 VR, experience 4 Gs on the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Comet bobsled run. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/fnHZRU1LWdA

"The Mighty 5 National Parks Whirlwind Tour in 360-Degree." (2022). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "visit" the five National Parks of Southern Utah. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/ETIzAqiN_18

"Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park." (2022). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "visit" the world famous Old Faithful Inn. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/ETIzAqiN_18

"Yellowstone Tourist Experience." (2022). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "visit" the world-famous Yellowstone National Park. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/_2IRKdIVN8E

"The Comet Bobsled Park City Utah Olympic Park." (2022). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "ride" the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games legacy bobsled. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/yroH0JRWTQc

"Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park." (2022). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "visit" one of the legacies of the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympic Games. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/rOuz2AnCovA

Lago Grey Glacier Boat Tour in Torres del Paine, Patagonia, Chile. (2021). Via 360-degree VR, take a boat trip in the Torres del Paine National Park to "visit" the glaciers of Patagonia, Chile. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/fN965oaTsas

"UofSC Tours Olympic Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland." (2020). Via immersive 360-degree VR, "take a tour" of the International Olympic Committee Museum located on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/9Q04PlNdiUY

"Waterfalls of Southern Iceland." (2020). Via 360-degree VR, experience the popular waterfalls of southern Iceland. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/N9LSZhIcMm8

"The Gullfoss Waterfalls: Iceland.” (2019). Via 360-degree VR, hear, view and experience the most visited waterfalls of Iceland. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/_yymag5siPY

"The Eiffel Tower in 3600 VR." (2019). Via 360-degree VR, experience the world-famous Eiffel Tower in Paris, France which will become a 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games temporary venue. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/UNZc_kzbSwo

"1932 Berlin Olympic Stadium Tour in 360 (revised ver. 2)." (2018). Via 360-degree VR, tour the internal event and below-ground training space of 1936 Berlin Olympic Stadium. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/63oOto1C3ek

"Historic Tour of Berlin Olympic Stadium (revised ver. 2)." (2018). Via 360-degree with facts provided by author Dan Brown’s Boys in the Boat book, visit the 1936 Berlin Olympic stadium exterior sites and its WW II history. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/0__c-z-ond0

"USOC Lake Placid, NY 1980 and 1932 Olympic Ice Rinks." (2018). Via 360-degree VR, tour the 1932 and 1980 Lake Placid, NY Olympic legacy ice rinks. The 1980 rink was made famous by Team USA’s Olympic "Miracle on Ice" hockey game against the Russian national team. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/rTlA_RB_tAE

"USOPC Lake Placid Van Hoevenberg 1932 Olympic Bobsled Run." (2018). In 3600 immersive VR, ride the bobsled traversing the 1932 Lake Placid, NY Olympic sliding track at 40 mph. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/cVsywi4VRvg

"2008 Beijing Olympic Stadium and Water Cube" with Mr. Fei Gao, videographer. (2018). Via 360-degree VR, take a day and night tour the famous Beijing Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. YouTube link: https://youtu.be/rSn-RCFF8nk

Select Research Publications & Conference Proceedings

Mihalik, B. J., Kim, H., & Mihalik, L. (2023). Integrating 360 degree, virtual reality (VR) content via head mounted displays (HMD) into social sciences classes. In C. Stephanidis, M. Antona, S. Ntoa & G. Salvendy (Eds.), HCI international 2023 posters (Vol. 1834, pp. 296-302). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35998-9_41

Kim, H., So, K. K. F., & Mihalik, B. (2022). Disentangling the dynamics of service failure and service recovery in peer-to-peer accommodations: A triadic perspective. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.103086

Kim, H., So, K. K. F., Mihalik, B. J., & Lopes, A. P. (2021). Millennials’ virtual reality experiences pre- and post-COVID-19. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Management, 48, 200-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2021.06.008

Kim, H., & So, K. K. F., & Mihalik, B. J. (2021, July 7-9). A bibliometric analysis and thematic analysis of 21 years of customer experience research in hospitality and tourism. The 90th 2021 TOSOK Seoul International Tourism Conference, Seoul, Korea.

Kim, H., & So, K. K. F., & Mihalik, B. J. (2020, Jan. 3-5). Who should we really blame? Service failure and recovery in peer-to-peer accommodations. The 25th Annual Graduate Education and Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism, Las Vegas, NV, United States.

Gao, F., Heere, B., Todd, S. Y., & Mihalik, B. (2020). The initial intentions for social leveraging of a mega sport event among stakeholders of a newly formed interorganizational relationship. Journal of Sport Management, 34(2), 147-160. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2018-0026

Mihalik, B. J., Lopes A. P., & Kim, H. (2019, Oct. 16). Tracking public opinion of the United States Olympic Committee (USOC). 3rd World Association for Sport Management, Santiago, Chile.

Mihalik, B., Corr, C., & Mihalik, L. (2019, May 28-June1). 360 virtual reality's impact on Olympic legacy venue tourism. 2019 North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) Conference, New Orleans, LA, United States.

Lu, Q., Mihalik, B. J., Heere, R., Meng, F. & Fairchild, A. (2019). Media effect on resident attitudes toward an Olympic bid. Tourism Management Perspectives, 29, 66-75. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2018.10.009

Mihalik, L., & Mihalik, B. (2018, Sept. 5-8). A case study of the impact of 360 virtual reality on the destination image of the 1936 Berlin Olympic stadium. 2018 European Association of Sport Management, Malmö, Sweden.

Mihalik, B., Gao, F. & Mihalik, L. (2018, June 5-9). Knowledge retention of a 360 virtual reality tour of a traveling team sport complex. 2017 North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM) Conference. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Professional Affiliations

• Council of Hotel, Restaurant and International Education (I-CHRIE)
• North American Society of Sports Management (NASSM)
• Sigma Chi Alumni Organization at Syracuse University