Winding Down at UNI

Today (Monday July 21^st) is my last full day in my NACUFS internship here at UNI. My family is driving out to Cedar Falls tomorrow, and we will be road-tripping back to Wisconsin. I will be home sweet home near Milwaukee by Thursday evening. My time here has absolutely flown by, especially because I have made so many good friends and close connections with other Department of Residence and food service employees.

The few days following my special event were eventful in themselves. The morning of one of the days was spent in the campus garden which is called Panther Plot. A few of the workers were doing weekly harvesting of produce and herbs from the garden, so I had the opportunity to assist. We harvested onions, basil, peppers, lettuce, and tomatoes. In the afternoon of the same day, I worked a busy lunch shift at the Rialto dining center. The guest count for that day exceeded 600 (summer counts have been around 100-300 for most of the summer), and so the extra help was greatly appreciated. During the school year, counts in the 600s are normal and expected, but in the summer serving this many guests in only a 90 minute time span with limited employees is challenging. I served on the grill line for a bit and then spent a few hours in the dishroom helping get caught up on dishes. It was very hot and a bit messy, but I felt like I was really contributing to the group dynamic. The following day, I worked on my menu project in the morning and had a fun afternoon. I met with the assistant director of residential dining, Carol Fletcher. We discussed budgeting practices and human resource issues, as these are major parts of her position. In addition, we met with the NACUFS interns from UW-Madison and four of the food service leaders from the university. We spent close to two hours with the Wisconsin group (Yay Wisconsin!) and gave them a tour of UNI’s food service centers. Carol led the tour, but I jumped in with extra details, especially if I had a comment that I thought the interns (Kyle and Leah) would like to hear. It was awesome to meet some interns in the same program but at a different university because we got to compare and contrast our work. At the end of our tour, I exchanged contact information with Kyle and Leah so we can get in touch in the future. All three of us are starting our final years in dietetics at different schools in the fall, and will all be applying for dietetic internships.

Last week was my final full week, and it consisted of a lot of office work on my menu project. I cannot believe how many hours I have spent building the special diet cycle menu for the new dining venue. It was much trickier than I initially anticipated because of the need to cater to diverse tastes, while adhering to the specific dietary concerns while simultaneously considering how much extra labor or cost certain menu items would contribute to the overall menu. Aside from project work days, last week also included two tours on Iowa schools---the Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary and the University of Iowa. The Faith Baptist Bible College was included on the tour list because of its very small size which is about 250 students in the entire student body, with about 180 of these on a meal plan. It was shocking to me to visit a campus that could be walked end to end in about three minutes. The way the dining center was run was very different from UNI’s or UWSP’s. The main difference was obviously a huge decrease in scale of the dining services. The college has very few venues and has a somewhat limited menu. A benefit to feeding less than 200 students each day is that it is easy to see and hear feedback on the food. It was mentioned that the students are not very hesitant to speak their opinions on the food service, and also that it is fairly easy to see which items are taken and which are skipped during the menu cycles. University of Iowa was a complete contrast the college, as expected. With an enrollment of over 31,000 students, the dining services were much more extensive. It was a beautiful day for a walking tour of most of the main campus dining centers. We had several different tour guides that led different parts of the tour, and this structure allowed for us to get more detailed descriptions and information about the centers. It was fun to get out of Cedar Falls on those little road trips and to meet some people for other schools.

Me with a Hawkeye at U of IA

Susan, myself, and Lisa on our tour of U of IA

This weekend was my last weekend here, so I made an effort to make the most of it. I tried to spend as much time with my Cedar Falls friends as possible and to say a few goodbyes. I worked for four hours on Sunday at Rialto setting up and tearing down a reception for a football event taking place on campus. It’s going to be hard transitioning back to my normal life in Wisconsin after living in Iowa for two months and building so many strong relationships and such deep connection with the town and university. Tomorrow I am hoping to visit the offices and centers that I worked at during my time here to say goodbye to everyone before leaving town. UNI and the people of Cedar Falls have treated me so well, and I would not have wished to complete my internship anywhere else!

UNI Weeks 6-7

Yesterday was the big day—it was finally time for my African Safari themed lunch! I would say that it was a success, as I heard a lot of positive feedback from staff and guests. Last week was spent planning and preparing before the holiday weekend.

Last Monday, I worked on creating a special diet cycle menu that will be my ongoing project for the rest of my internship. The rest of the day was spent on special event tasks. I went back to Hobby Lobby with Susan to purchase our cartful of craft supplies we had to leave behind during the power outage the previous week. She dropped me off at my apartment after shopping so I could put my craft supplies away. When I was getting ready to head back to the office after this, it started down-pouring and flash flooding outside my building. Needless to say, I worked from my apartment on my laptop for the rest of the day.

Last Tuesday, I started the day at Essentials, the retail store in the student union. I observed the year- end inventory audit process for over an hour. There were two representatives from the state conducting the audit. Several of the many dining locations are chosen to be audited at the end of each fiscal year (which ends in June here). The representatives selected 10 items in the store from the inventory list, found them in the store, and checked if the number of items on the shelf matched the inventory record. After this, they chose 10 items off the shelf, verified they were on the inventory list, and cross-referenced the count. The whole process seemed very tiresome, but is necessary for accurate record keeping and budgeting. I also assisted in interviews for an assistant retail manager, as I had done the week before. There were three candidates total that I helped interview and the position was filled this week.

Last Wednesday was spent mainly in the office working on special diet menu planning, special event decorations, and special event menus. Last Thursday was completely dedicated to special event tasks. In the morning, I went to the bakery and rolled and cut out close to 250 elephant shaped sugar cookies. I was than able to bake and freeze the cookies to frost later. I worked a long day on Thursday and was scrambling to throw together some of the fine details of my event before the three day holiday weekend.

I was off on Friday because of the holiday and definitely enjoyed it! After a long run/walk in the morning, I spent the afternoon cooking dinner with some friends from work. In the evening, I went to Independence, IA for fireworks. I used Saturday and Sunday afternoon to craft leaves, flowers, and other decorations for my special event.

Monday and Tuesday of this week seemed like one long, continuous day. On Monday, I worked on finalizing event decorations, cutting out posters, preparing some menu items, and consulting with staff members. I stayed at the dining center from breakfast through dinner working on event preparation. After dinner, I took a power nap, did some reading, and went to the bakery at 9:30pm to frost my elephant cookies. I knew that the decoration process would be a bit long and daunting, but did not expect it to take until 1:30am to finish! The cookies turned out very nicely, and were well worth the time and effort.

When Tuesday finally rolled around, I felt prepared and excited for my safari lunch. I started decorating at 8am with help from a few very helpful employees. It took three of us until 10:45 to get the center decorated how I envisioned. The decorations consisted of grass table skirts, large photograph posters, stuffed animals, paper leaves, paper vines, animal print paper flowers and windmills, earthy fabrics, animal print bandanas, live plants from the campus greenhouse, and decorative menu tags. We had lots of trouble with taping up the posters and grass skirts, but got everything to hold long enough to last through lunch. I could not have been happier with how the decorations looked, especially the dessert station. Guests started arriving at 11:30, and 304 guests were served. I walked around the center throughout lunch, mingled with guests, checked on the punch bowl supply, and monitored the desserts. I heard a lot of positive comments from staff and guests about the event, especially about the decorations and desserts. I was very happy that everything ran smoothly and was successful! The only thing I would have changed, would have been adding an African-inspired soundtrack to set the mood in the facility. I was so focused on the menu and decorations that I ran out of time to put together music, unfortunately. After lunch service was over, I spent the afternoon tearing everything down and sorting out the decorations. By the time I finished everything at 3:30, I was exhausted and more than ready for a nap! I took a few hours off to sleep and get dinner, but somehow found enough energy to play volleyball at night.

Dessert Station

Punch Bowl Station

Greeter Station

Deli Venue

Today, I am looking forward to my low-key day in the office wrapping up a few projects and reflecting on my event. Can’t believe I only have two weeks left in Cedar Falls!

University of Northern Iowa Week 5

This week was another great one! I was focusing on my special safari themed lunch this week. I finished designing, printing, and posting promotional posters, recipe testing five different items for my menu, and gathering some decoration supplies. The lunch is in just under two weeks and I still have a lot of work to do, despite this week’s advances.

Monday and Tuesday were scheduled very similarly, in that both mornings were dedicated to a diversity workshop and both afternoons to recipe testing. The diversity workshop was put on for UNI faculty and involved around 25 attendees and facilitators. The focus of the workshop was claiming our own identities and membership to various groups, as well as learning how to break stereotypes and change attitudes towards diverse groups. It was a powerful experience to listen to some of the attendees share their personal stories of discriminations, healing, and activism. Through the course of the workshop, I was able to recognize my own learned discriminative thoughts, and also how to effectively respond to discriminatory or intolerant comments.

In the afternoons on both Monday and Tuesday, I spent several hours in the dining center kitchen preparing samples of some of my special event menu items. I tested recipes for orange mango punch, sweet potato lentil soup, cucumber couscous salad, and tropical fruit pizza. On Monday, I gathered, measured and organized all of the ingredients that I needed so that on Tuesday all I had to do was cook the ingredients appropriately. The recipes turned out fairly successfully with only minor changes needing to be made. The cucumber couscous salad was the most troublesome because the recipe’s preparation method did not lend itself well to the kitchen equipment, and also because there was not enough dressing. I had to double the amount of dressing and consult with the cooks about using a more efficient cooking method.

On Wednesday, I spent the day with Lisa, my internship coordinator, and we discussed purchasing procedures and attended meetings. Lisa is the purchasing manager for UNI dining and she walked me through some of the behind-the-scene details of the job. Later in the day, we went to the residential dining staff meeting and listened to a presentation by a candidate for a Department of Residence assistant marketing manager position. In the evening, I watched Lion King for the first time in a long time to get some decorating ideas for my African safari event.

Thursday involved a few meetings and miscellaneous tasks. At 7am I went to the bakery to test out my elephant sugar cookie cut outs. I found a small, elephant cookie cutter to use and made about 50 cutouts with the sugar cookie dough the bakers had ready for me. When the cookies were cooled I colored two different types of icing and decorated half of the cookies with each kind. I tried out several different piping designs as well, and came up with a cute design that is fairly simple. When evaluating which icing to use for the cookies, I considered quality, visual appeal, and time efficiency. The icing that was preferred by the taste testers was very time consuming to decorate with because it needs to be spread, leading to a messy look. The other icing can be melted so the cookies can be dipped and cooled. The cookies with this icing were much neater looking, still had a high quality taste, and were much quicker to decorate. Throughout the rest of the day, I went to another presentation by a job candidate and worked on some designs for my project.

The bottom cookies are the design and icing I chose.

Friday was a bit of an unusual day, but it turned out positively. I was scheduled to work with Lisa all day, but she ended up being unavailable. Instead, I organized my own schedule for the day and completed many important tasks. In the morning, I went to the student union and assisted with making ID cards for incoming freshmen during their orientation. The process of making ID cards is part of the Department of Residence, which the dining services are also a part of. I was able to use Lisa’s office to work on projects and event planning details. After lunchtime, I went craft shopping with Susan, one of the dining managers and internship coordinators. We went to Hobby Lobby and found a cartful of supplies for me to use for decorations for my event. But as we were heading for the checkout, the POWER WENT OUT in the store. We weren’t really sure what to do because it did not seem like it would be fixed soon, and only cash and check could be taken for payment during the outage. We waited for a while but ended up leaving the cart at the front of the store and will have to go back on Monday. We braved the storm and ran to the car to carry on with our shopping trip. Several of the surrounding stores and stop lights were without power as well, but we were able to go to Dollar Tree and the grocery store further down the road to get a few other items. After our eventful trip, I visited the catering storage facilities to look for decorations to borrow for my event. The remainder of the day was spent typing up a few evaluations.

Next week will consist of project work, meetings, inventory review, and assisting with job interviews. I have about three and a half weeks left here, and still have quite a bit to accomplish!

U of Northern Iowa--Week Four

Week four was another busy one that included lots of hands-on food prep and rain! Sunday night I worked an overnight shift in the bakery from 9:30pm—5:30am. I have never worked a third shift before, so it was a brand new experience. It was surprisingly easy to stay awake all night, but I do not think I could adapt to a regular schedule of overnight shifts. I assisted in making and rolling raised donut dough, doughnut frying, doughnut filling and frosting, cookie prep, muffin making, pizza dough making, assembling carts for transfer, and baking homemade cinnamon rolls. I loved comparing equipment, procedures, recipes, and products to my UWSP bakery! The rotating ovens in the UNI bakery looked very shiny and new, and had digital temperature and timing controls. I was amazed by these ovens because the one I am used to working with is highly outdated. By the time was shift was done on Monday morning, the sun was just starting to rise and the campus was extremely peaceful. I had to take advantage of the beautiful morning and go for an early run before heading home to crash for a few hours.

Tuesday began bright and early with a 5:30am shift at the central commissary. The Fresh Beginnings commissary is responsible for fruit, vegetable, meat, and cheese slicing for all other dining venues on campus. I spent the day slicing, weighing, and packaging vegetables, as well as assembling catering orders and kits for retail. It was fun to actively prepare items for a full eight hour shift. The day went quickly because of the diversity of food items that I got to work with. Tuesday night brought another evening of sand volleyball, even though the court was essentially underwater from the previous day’s torrential downpours. It was pretty messy and yucky, but that didn’t stop us!

Wednesday was a very relaxed day that involved quite a bit of office work and planning for my African Safari Lunch that will be held in two weeks. I worked with Mike, one of the dining managers, to pre-cost the menu for my event which required adding and deleting items from the cycle menu to reflect my special menu. This process allows for production schedules and food ordering to be completed prior to the event. On Wednesday night, I volunteered at the Northeast Iowa food bank for a few hours with a church group. The food bank serves 16 counties and serves as a food distributing center for surrounding area food programs. The food bank site also has an on-site food pantry that offers shelf-stable items as well as perishables and produce donated by local grocery stores and other donors. My volunteer shift involved filling orders for food for other local food programs and stacking the bulk items on labeled pallets for delivery.

Thursday was my day off, and it rained pretty hard all day. I spent the day relaxing, running a few errands, and tying up a few loose ends with my special event menu.

Friday was my catering food production day. My day was spent rotating around the kitchen completing various tasks as needed. The busy weekend of catering events required a large amount of food production, so the catering cooks were happy to have an extra set of hands to help. I began the day by slicing buns and rolls for sandwiches with an electric knife—a tool that I have not used previously. After slicing, I was tasked with trimming the ends off of 21 pounds of pea pods that would be steamed for a wedding the following day. This duty took almost three hours to complete because each pod needed to be trimmed individually on both ends. These two tasks alone took up my entire shift leading up to lunch. After lunch, I worked on pre-prepping a filling for stuffed potatoes, measuring ingredients for a roasted potato medley, slicing fruit for a fruit tray, and assembling cold roast beef sliders. Through completing this variety of tasks, I had the chance to work in both the hot and cold food areas of the kitchen which are separated and contain equipment specific to the type of prep completed in the area. UNI Catering prides itself on providing customers with fresh, high quality, visually appealing food items and I experienced this dedication to quality first-hand on this shift. There was an art festival going on a few blocks away on Friday evening that I had to attend! The rainy week had finally turned to sunshine, making for a perfect evening for browsing through some amazing art. There was live music and over 70 different artists that had work for sale ranging from paintings to pottery to sculptures to blown glass. Each artist had such a unique style and detailed work that was reflected in the price tag. The best part about the event was being to ask the artists about their methods and inspirations.

Saturday was dedicated to catering service. I worked a full day serving at a wedding in the union. The venue was set up very nicely and service went very smoothly. I was assigned three tables to serve for the evening was dedicated to these particular guests for the duration of my shift. The food was extremely delicious and the guests seemed to enjoy it as well! Tomorrow starts my fifth week in Cedar Falls, can’t wait to see what this week has in store! 

UNI--Week Three

The third week went so fast that I forgot to take any pictures! I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday working at the Rialto dining center, which is the all-you-care-to-eat facility open for the summer. I worked on inventory, dishroom operations, food preparation, service, greeting, and office tasks such as bill paying and invoice verification. Monday was mostly office work with Deb, the clerk for the center, and I was able to complete some of the data entry tasks used for tracking orders and payments. In the afternoon, I attended a staff meeting consisting of all of the top managers for the summer dining services. In the evening, I worked on researching recipes for my upcoming special event (which will be a safari themed lunch) and played some late night sand volleyball with a few friends.

Tuesday was split in half with inventory in the morning and dishroom work after lunch. I have never participated in taking inventory before, so it was a very informative experience. Mike, one of the managers, read of the names of items and the counts that I then recorded in the binder. Even though the stock is much lower in the summer, taking inventory was still a daunting task! After lunch, I observed the dishroom operations and rotated through all of the stations. It was sort of a fun job because of the fast pace and constant movement.

Wednesday was focused on food prep and customer service. I started early enough to serve breakfast and clean up for the lunch switch over. I did some cooking as well and made chicken rice soup, lasagna, cheese sauce, and twice baked potato casserole. During lunch, I rotated around to the deli, pasta, home-style, and dessert stations in order to get a feel for each station. After work, I went to a Wednesday night church service that turned into a pizza and movie night with some of the other attendees.

Thursday was a tour day so Lisa, my internship coordinator, and I took a trip out to Iowa State University. The drive was about an hour and a half each way, and our tour lasted about two and a half hours which included lunch. It was a gorgeous sunny day, so our tour was an outdoor walking tour. We got to see all of the main dining centers, retail locations, and cafes. The campus was much larger than UNI or UW-Stevens Point, which also meant that there were more dining centers. Iowa State has many more students on campus in the summer and also hosts more larger conferences, so the dining centers that were open offered greater variety than here at UNI. I had fun getting off campus for a day and seeing another university and how it operates its dining services. On Thursday night, there was a “Wings and Wii” program in my hall so a bunch of us had Buffalo Wild Wings and played some Wii games.

On Friday, I worked with Dawnell, the general manager for catering. We discussed menu planning for catered events, types of service, and levels of leadership in catering. We had an unexpected conflict that needed to be resolved during our time regarding centerpieces for a customer’s wedding. We ended up having to find an assortment of vases and made up several sample centerpieces with different numbers and arrangements of flowers. We then had to photograph the rough samples, estimate the cost for each, and send the customer the options. This took a significant amount of time, but it gave me the opportunity to observe conflict resolution in the catering department. During my day of catering planning, we also attended a meeting about catering storage issues, saw a formal event being set up, taste tested peach pie, and started assembling a menu for an upcoming event. Next week I will be doing catering food prep and serving at a wedding. On Friday night, I went and saw my friend’s band play at a small local venue. The crowd was not very large, but the band’s energy and sound were great!

Yesterday was Saturday so I did not have to work, but kept busy. I took a bike ride down to Main Street with my neighbor and we strolled around and explored some of the shops and restaurants. We were limited on time, so will have to go back another day to see the other half of the shops that we missed on this trip. Tonight (Sunday), I will be working an over-night bakery shift. I love working bakery, but have never worked a shift overnight. It will be an interesting experience that will probably require a bit of coffee!

University of Northern Iowa--Week Two

My first full week of the internship is now complete, and it was a major success! I got to do more hands-on work in the dining centers during my second week that included food prep, inventory, retailing, cashiering, and venue set up. Monday and Tuesday were spent in the Maucker Student Union at the dining location called Prexy’s. Only certain food stations are open during the summer due to fewer customers, so I worked at the few that were open. These included Chats the coffee shop, Wasabi the Mongolian grill, Flares the traditional American grill, Essentials the retail snack and supply store, and the Grab & Go station. I have never used or seen a Mongolian grill before, so it was fun to cook stir fry on that during the busy lunch rush.

Wednesday involved learning about how recipes are costed out before service and also a visit to a food show on campus. The company that supplies most of the food products to the university held a food show on campus for foodservice managers in the area. There were close to 30 booths set up in a large ballroom that were promoting new products and handing out tons of free samples. The show did not look that large when we got there, but once we started walking around, tasting, and talking to the vendors the two hours of the show whipped by. At the end of the show, most of the vendors tried to get rid of any leftover samples because they did not want to take them back to their business, which meant a bagful of take-home treats. I don’t think I will need to buy any snacks for the next six weeks in Cedar Falls!

On Thursday, I spent the day with Chris, the retail manager for the campus food carts and convenience stores. He took me on a walking tour of the campus to look at all of the retail locations that serve grab and go sandwiches and salads, soups, baked goods, packaged snacks, beverages, and other such items. We talked about how the locations are set up and managed, and discussed the latest dining project which is building a tea-focused food cart in the library. I started working on my retail marketing project which will involve laying out a plan for serving specialty sandwiches at the popular deli station in the larger of the two C-stores.

Friday consisted of setting up the Rialto dining center, which is one of the large all-you-care-to-eat dining centers. Summer hours at Rialto begin tomorrow and diners from the summer camps, conferences, and summer residence halls will start coming in for meals. I worked with the full-time managers and student supervisors to get everything in its place so that service can begin swiftly and smoothly on Monday.

Outside of my internship hours this week, I kept busy playing sand volleyball, visiting the college farmers market, and celebrating my birthday on the weekend. The farmers market did not have many fresh vegetables yet because of the weather, but there were lots of plants for sale.

my plants from the market

On my birthday, I got to climb to the top of the campanile and listen to my friend and her duet-partner play the carillon, complete with a personal performance of “Happy Birthday” that rung out for everyone in the area to hear. Only a few students are trained and authorized to play the carillon organ, and one of them just happened to be a cashier that I met during my rotation at the student union during the week. It was a memorable birthday and a great week overall!

the campanile

view of campus from the top of the campanile

University of Northern Iowa--Week One

Hello! My name is Kirsten and I am the NACUFS intern at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) for this summer. I am from a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin  and am a senior dietetics student at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. I will be applying for dietetics internships next semester and will be graduating next May. At school, I am involved with the dietetics club, the campus food pantry, and work as a student bakery manager for the university dining services. It will be interesting to compare contrast the dining systems here at UNI with UW - Stevens Point!

I have been moved in to the campus in Cedar Falls, Iowa for less than a week, but is already starting to feel like home. The campus has lots of green space, beautiful landscaping, and neat outdoor sculptures. Last Tuesday, my family helped me move into my single studio - style apartment in the residence hall closest to my work place, which was thoughtfully assigned by my hall director. I spent the day settling in, exploring campus, and reading through my internship booklet.

On Wednesday, I began my internship! I met with my internship coordinators Lisa and Susan. They spent the day walking me through the internship process and schedule, showing me around campus and the dining centers, and introducing me to the office staff and dining mangers. It was great to meet so many friendly and helpful people in one day! The rest of the work week involved multiple recipe testing sessions (yum!), a tour of Cedar Falls and Waterloo led by Lisa, an informative and fun computer and technological systems rotation, several meetings, and a menu labeling webinar.

In the evenings after work, I have been keeping busy cooking, reading, exploring, playing volleyball, and hanging out with my neighbors who are psychology research interns. I am excited to see what will be in store during my first full week that starts tomorrow!