Week 2: Northern Michigan University

Week 2: Northern Michigan University

            After my fun week in Grand Rapids at Gordon’s Food Service, I was excited to finally arrive at NMU in Marquette. I arrived on a Saturday night, and felt immediately welcomed by Robin and her family. I moved into my amazing apartment, and Robin did me the huge favor of bringing me dishes—an added perk of an amazing internship coordinator!

            On Monday, I had to get all the paperwork out of the way, and while it was slightly overwhelming to meet so many people at once, it was comforting to see a few familiar faces from the GFS trip. The week was somewhat helter-skelter, as we were trying to solidfy goals for the summer and ensure Robin’s goals matched my goals as well as Stephanie Raboin’s goals. Stephanie is the Marketing Manager for NMU Dining, and I will be working with both Stephanie and Robin equally throughout the summer.

            One of the biggest challenges of the internship was made clearly immediately—everyone has the same end goal in mind, but a constant communication between the marketing and nutrition departments was lacking. That’s where I come in! My main project for the summer is to get the NetNutrition website up and running. NMU has been working with CBORD for a number of years in an attempt to upload all nutritional information from their kitchens to an online database so that students and faculty who utilize the dining halls have access to that information. A huge concern in dining facilities is food allergens, and NetNutrition would be a tremendous help in alleviating concerns of students with dietary restrictions.

            Another of my goals is to develop a set of educational programs for different topics in nutrition for each month of the 2012-2013 school year. I worked with Robin to choose several topics of interest to both her and I, because she will be the one presenting the material in the fall and spring. I will be contacting federal agencies and non-profit organizations seeking educational resources to hand out at the presentations.

            Robin and I finalized the calendar on Friday, and we talked about the potential field trips that we could go on if I were interested. Robin’s interest in my learning during the summer is a very encouraging start, and I can’t wait to gain new knowledge!