KU Dining Week 1: Meet and Greet Spectacular

Introduction:

Wowza—what a week! From day one Leslie and I were welcomed with an overwhelming amount of care, concern and sincere warmth.  The Foodservice Management Internship offered through NACUFS at the University of Kansas is a well-established and organized program to say the least. On day one we were given a binder complete with the history of the NACUFS internships, expectations, objectives and a program overview of our specific location at KU—complete with detailed weekly and daily schedules. I can already see that his is going to be a very enjoyable and educational experience!

Our internship coordinator person for this summer is Barbara Wilson. She has already been a real treat this week! She has been a dietitian at KU for 13 years and has had experience in dietetics for over 40 years. Her hospitality and cheerful disposition has already made me feel right at home.

The Weekly Run-Down:

This week we have had the experience of meeting the KU Dining leadership team. This team includes the directors of residential and retail dining, the Human Resource department, the purchasing manager, the financial manager, the dining department’s Registered Dietitian, the procurement manager and the director of KU Dining among others. KU’s dining director, Nona College, is also the president of NACUFS for 2012! As you can assume, being able to meet with her has been a real delight. Nona greeted us warmly and made us truly feel like we are an essential part of the KU Dining team for this summer.

Bethany’s Highlight of the Week:

For every week I am going to pick out my personal “highlight” of the week—the part that made me smile, think, or inspired me.

For this week I would have to say that seeing and learning about the “KU Dining’s Strategic Plan” is what inspired me most. I am a person of vision and I realize that having a strong vision is crucial for success. KU Dining’s strategic plan included Core Values, the Core Purpose, Portfolio of Excellence and attainable goals complete with dates and percentages. While visiting many of the managers this week I saw a copy “Ku Dining Services’ Core Values” framed somewhere in their offices which gave a strong impression of cohesiveness throughout the leadership staff, which I am sure trickles down to all the employees.

The Core Values was known as their “SCRIPT”:

Support

Creativity

Respect

Integrity

Professionalism

Teach