Sizzle - Fall 2010

of Missouri’s Campus Dining Services in Columbia, Mo.

Colby College composts and operates a small garden on campus to provide some of the food. It also brings local farmers to the campus to interact with the students.

New York University is starting to filter water and use refillable bottles to get away from plastic, Babbage says. He works for Aramark on the college campus.

Global cuisines is another area in which college dining shines, simply because it must in order to satisfy the diverse student body.

Perks galore
Quality of life, balance, better
hours and more vacation are
terms chefs use to describe the
greatest benefits of working in
campus dining. “In a restaurant,
it’s all about the restaurant, and
you don’t have the opportunity
to have a life outside that,”
Benney says. “In the college
sector, you have downtime —
spring break and Christmas
break. When I worked at a
bakery, I never saw Christmas
or Easter.” Also, college dinner
service ends at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m.,
not at 1 a.m., as may be the case
in restaurants. Benney enjoys
all this free time, even though,
in addition to supervising 120
campus employees at Colby
College, she has some culinary
oversight of Sodexo’s 122
accounts in the Northeast.

The salary for chefs in college dining compares favorably with that in restaurants, chefs say. It all depends on skill and location. “For me, the salary compares with a chef at a top-end country club,” says Notre Dame’s Miller. “For cooks, we pay a journeyman’s rate of $13.47 per hour.” “I hire a lot of restaurant chefs who want out of the rat race and to get into a more structured, corporate-supported environment for balance,” says Blaney with Chartwells. “The salary ranges are very similar, all driven by geography. Not many leave me to go work down the street because we underpay.” Besides adequate time off, reasonable hours and a comparable salary, college dining offers insurance benefits and reimbursements for continuing education. At New York University, Babbage was

For the best exposure to college and university dining career opportunities, check out all that’s offered by The National Association of College & University Food Services (NACUFS), Okemos, Mich. Get Your Foot in the Door

The organization exists for college and university dining leaders of member colleges and universities to provide further education, resources and networking opportunities. There are about 600 member institutions, says Sam Bennett, NACUFS president and assistant vice president of student affairs and enrollment management at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

them with hiring capabilities, Bennett says. “You could do very strong networking there. At the regional meetings, we have a mixture of directors, assistant directors and managers. You could get your foot in the door and find out where the job opportunities are.” You don’t need to be a member of NACUFS to attend the conferences.

The greatest opportunity for
culinary students is to attend
one of the regional meetings
or the national conference
held each summer. More than
550 people attended the
conference this year, many of
NACUFS also offers scholarships,
four $5,000 scholarships this
year. The Clark E. DeHaven
Scholarship helps to provide
financial support to students who
demonstrate a commitment to a
foodservice career.

Learn more at www.nacufs.org.

encouraged to take the ProChef II course at The Culinary Institute of America, Hyde Park, N. Y., and was reimbursed for it. He is working toward the ProChef III course leading to ACF’s certified executive chef designation. He can also receive up to a certain amount for tuition reimbursement at other New York colleges.

Aramark is the contract management company that handles foodservice for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C.

At the University of Missouri, Cartwright says he receives 75 percent off continuing education tuition. At Notre Dame, Miller says the tuition benefits apply not only to him, but to his children as they attend college.

But even above that benefit, Miller notes the many job opportunities there are on campus with 250 cook positions. Some work in the hotel conference center, the sports bar, in catering or in one of the retail outlets, for example. The opportunity is there to move around and find the one that’s the best fit.