This is the end! A whole two months has come and passed in the blink of an eye. We've done so much and I'd have to say that this has definitely been my most productive - while still very fun!- summer yet.
Tonya and I started our last week out by continuing our shadowing at Mrs. E's. On Monday I spent the day with Sergio Banos the assistant manager. I followed him around and learned how different the role of the manager is supposed to be from the supervisors. While the supervisors should be taking care of the finer details of the operation, the manager should be able to trust his/her supervisors to do this part for him/her in order to focus on the larger picture. We also discussed the difference between a customers point of view and a managers point of view. The first time we walked around the cafeteria, I pretended I was just coming in for something to eat as usual. The second go around I put on my managers goggles and noticed that I had higher expectations for nearly everything around me including the appearance of the food, the cleanliness of the area and even the manner of the servers.
The next day I shadowed Mark Maranell, the general manager of Mrs.E's as well as The Studio. Before our day really began however, Tonya and I were able to sit-in on an interview and actually participate as an interviewer. I had never been on the this side of one before - it was much less stressful! It really put into perspective the idea that people want to hire someone who fits the job well- not just someone who is a wonderful person and is very knowledgeable. The way they are able to communicate or the style in which they work is also taken into account, as well as many other factors.
My time with Mark was spent discussing the various duties of his daily work. We talked about orchestrating staff scheduling and how it ties in with the budget that always has to be kept in mind. I was also able to sit in on meetings between Mark and supervisors- most of the discussion didn't revolve around minuscule things; even if they seemed to start out that way, the conversation always ended up turning into discussing the broader vision and how to make the solution work towards that.
Mark also gave me a pretty sweet mug:
Wednesday was the day of the special event dinner Tonya and I have been planning practically since we started our internship. The name of the event was Opa! and had a Grecian themed menu that highlighted the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet.
With the help of so many people in KU dining, we designed the entire menu, the menu signage that included nutrition and allergen information, the station diagrams, created many new recipes, wrote up daily work assignments, gathered all the decorations and created three activity booths for customers to participate in. We had a nutrition information table that explained the Mediterranean lifestyle as well as a dice-roll-and-questions game to win some some fruit medley snacks. There was a spin-the-wheel activity where people could win prizes such as fruit stress balls, mini jayhawk buttons, KUDS coupons, pedometers and various other things. Lastly, we build our own photo booth and stocked it with silly props for people to play with; the photos from the event will be put up on the KUDS Facebook page so everyone can see how much fun they all had.
Since this really was our event, Tonya and I served as the managers of the dining hall that night as well. I had just about four days of supervisory/manager shadowing experience under my belt, but it was time to jump into the deep end. There were some hiccups here and there (some planned tricks- er, I mean, "learning experiences" - were thrown into our night by Mary and the rest of the E's crew) but Tonya and I were able to get through the evening without part of the building catching fire or blowing up, so I think we did a pretty good job. In all seriousness though, I think our event was a beautiful success and were glad that so much of the KUDS support staff and management were able to come support us and lend a helping hand.
The entire staff at Mrs. E's was also very helpful to us, not only during this event but throughout the entire three weeks we have spent flitting around their kitchen at all hours of the day. Everyone was very involved and lively during the event and we hope they all enjoyed themselves even though they were working hard!
Enjoy these pictures of the evening:
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| The staging area |
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| Balloon wrangling |
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| Keftethes- Beef and Lamb Meatballs |
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| Domates Yemistes- Stuffed Tomatoes |
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| Thanks ladies for helping us out! |
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| Here they come! |
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| Apricot-Cherry Ambrosia Punch |
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| Baklava.....yummmm |
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| Sergio had fun making his voice squeaky when deflating the dice |
After managing our event late into the night, we were up the next day bright eyed and bushy tailed to discuss the night with one of our project mentors Sergio Banos. We talked about what went well and what we could have done better.
Then it was off to prepare for our end-of-the-internship presentation! For part of our presentation we were preparing and serving food for which we had designed recipes for our various projects. These included a mole-smothered chicken skewer over a bed of rice, vegan-friendly baked tomatoes and blackberry cheesecake bars and last but not least a tropical frappe.
Tonya and I had a group project with the goal to create an entirely vegan food station at North College Cafe and Oliver Dining Hall, the two smaller sized residence halls. We created an entire business plan for it that included a market analysis, goals, objectives, financial information as well as a one week cycle menu. Marketing created a new logo as well as two posters for us to display.
The point of Nature's Finest is to provide a nutritious, sustainable and plant-based, vegan-friendly option to the KU community. It was designed to offer alternative meal options to meet the needs of a diverse group of students and staff.
Tonya's solo project was to design a large Earth Day special event meal for the three residential dining centers. Her goals was to utilize all food products from within a 250 mile radius of Lawrence, Kansas. She did a lot of research to find companies that would provide what they would need.
My solo project was to create a marketing plan for the university's rooftop garden, employee education materials and develop ways to utilize the harvest around campus. Marketing created a logo for the rooftop garden that was fresh, simple and appealed to college students (aka "hip"). They also designed a poster and table tent in order to get the word out even more about it.
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| Table Tent |
My time here at KU has been even better than I had ever imagined. I've learned so much over these eight weeks about the whole scope of university dining- all the way from procurement and accounting, through ware washing and production, to supervision, management and, of course, nutrition! Everything Tonya and I participated and worked towards was very valuable to us as well as KU dining services. Every person we met through KUDS was very welcoming to and patient with us as we stumbled our way through all of these new experiences. I would like to take a moment to thank everyone who has made this internship into the most productive, worthwhile and fun summers I have ever had. You have all been so supportive and kind and I appreciate all the time that has been spent teaching us about what makes the whole process work like a well oiled machine. I'm glad to have been paired with such an outgoing, intelligent and amiable intern as Tonya- I really think we worked like a true dream team! I also deeply appreciate all the work that was put into creating such an overreaching and extensive internship by Mary Rondon, our internship coordinator.
Everything I have learned this summer will always stay with me as I continue on in my education and eventual career in dietetics, no matter where it takes me.
So, for the last and final time this summer,
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