UW – Madison Week Seven! (July 20th – July 26th)

Monday

I spent the day with Morgan Burnett, the Student Employment Manager at Gordon Dining and Events Center! We began the day with an overview of her daily tasks, including managing Gordon’s team of nearly 500 student employees. Morgan and I also sat down with the head office supervisor at Gordon, Lea, and they walked me through the basics of the Student Employment Application (SEA), where basic information about each student (such as phone number and email address) is kept along with any information that needs to be documented, such as trainings they attended and discipline. UW – Madison has a tiered student discipline system that starts with a verbal policy reminder, progresses to written warnings with a formal letter from HR, last chance warnings, and lastly, termination. Lea and Morgan walked me through how to enter policy reminders and written warnings into SEA. The information entered into SEA generates an email that is sent to the employee being disciplined. It was very useful to see real-life examples of the discipline process as they were entered into SEA. Lea then walked me through how she uses Kronos, the scheduling software, to schedule employees, approve and edit timecards, and check her budget for labor hours. Later that afternoon, I shadowed the floor student supervisor as she checked in with employees, shuffled employees to peak areas, and worked with Morgan. 

Tuesday

Tuesday, Kaylene and I worked with Denise, the Registered Dietitian for the Housing department. We finished up our work on the Restaurant Association’s labeling act by gathering nutritional information on the fountain drinks. The nutritional information on the post mix used in the dining halls is not made publicly available, so we researched the nutritionals on 16 and 20 oz bottle drinks and made basic line signs with calorie information to put on the fountain drink machines. We also created new CBORD entries containing all the nutritional information for 16 and 20 oz bottled drinks for future reference. Kaylene and I also worked with Denise’s intern to find nutrition labels for products in the dining halls to keep the allergen information as up to date as possible.

We also walked with a health inspector from University Health Services for a mock inspection! The health inspector, James, showed us what he looks for throughout the dining hall. Most of the focus was on the temperature of food being cooked, chilled, or held before service. He also looks at aspects such as dish storage, plumbing, and even hand washing sink water temperature! I found it very eye opening all the little things that can potentially be a violation for the dining hall!

Wednesday

Kaylene and I reported to Gordon Dining and Events Center for our last allergen meeting! We talked a little more about the equipment each unit will need, since the lists each unit provided got a little extreme. It was decided each unit will be provided one full allergen equipment cart and additional equipment would be decided on a case-by-case basis after seeing the carts in action during fall semester. We also discussed an action plan the housing dietitian, Denise, put together based on our past discussions and the FARE allergen document. The action plan is very close to being done, as we were just editing specific language in the document!

After our meeting with the allergen committee, we were able to sit in on a meeting led by Monica, the food science professor, regarding a healthy lifestyle/cooking class she is putting together for the UW Police Department. We met with two representative police officers and a few more people on Monica’s team to discuss a tentative schedule of weekly classes and answer questions they had. I really enjoyed hearing what is involved in creating and teaching a healthy lifestyle course for police officers as I volunteered in something similar that I absolutely loved. Monica had some great advice for us once again!

That afternoon, we reported to Mark Gauthier, the Unit Manager at Four Lakes Market. We talked about Mark’s background and how he became the Unit Manager. Mark graduated from UW – Madison with a degree in food science, and shortly after he went on to culinary school and worked as a chef before working for Dining and Culinary services. We discussed the major aspects of his job as Unit Manager, including the process to hire new employees, disciplining full time staff, and what his day-to-day schedule looks like! 

Thursday

Kaylene and I reported to Four Lakes Market to assist Chef Damian with a PKU Camp Indian themed dinner! People who suffer from PKU, or phenylketonuria, lack the enzyme necessary to turn phenylalanine into tryptophan and therefore cannot consume normal amounts of protein. We began the day by setting up the room for the event! We tore down extra tables and rearranged the setup for the PKU dinner:

After the tables were set up, we moved to the cold prep kitchen! We began by making the PKU dessert, which was a mango parfait, made with non-dairy whipped topping and mango puree, with some low protein crunches on top! Kaylene and I carefully weighed and layered the whipped topping and mango into cups:

After we completed the parfaits, we made the dough for a low protein naan bread:

We mixed together the low protein “flour” with lots of yeast, salt and pepper, oil, and water before leaving the dough to rise!  We also prepared lemonade, iced tea, and water to chill in the refrigerator before mealtime!

After our cold prep was done, we set up the buffet line in the Mendota room with tablecloths, decorations, chafers, line signs, and serving utensils.

We then moved to the hot prep area to help before service and make our naan bread! We had to carefully weigh out balls of dough and flatten them into naan shapes before baking them in the oven. 

The finished product!

We transported the food to the Mendota room shortly before the guests arrived:

Noodles and Marinara Sauce

Left: Indian Spiced Green Beans and Potatoes
Right: Indian Carrot Curry

Left: Cauliflower w/ Indian Spices
Right: Naan bread

Mango Parfait Desserts

After the event, we cleaned up the food and set up the room for what will be needed right away tomorrow morning. I really enjoyed helping with the PKU dinner because it was great practice for our theme dinner, which is next Wednesday!

Friday

Kaylene and I spend the day with Cathy Ness, the Unit Manager at Rheta’s. We began the day meeting at Carson’s with the Human Resources department about improvements being made to position descriptions. HR reviewed what makes a good position description, such as describing the position in broad activities instead of specific tasks so when the position changes slightly, the same position description can be used. We took what we learned from this meeting and begin revising the Chef Position Description for the near future when they hire new chefs! Cathy also discussed with us the other main aspect of her job: communication with employees. She deals with discipline along with more positive aspects such as Individual Development Plans (IDP’s). Cathy meets with employees on a monthly basis to discuss short and long term goals in their career! This provides a great window of opportunity for employees to learn new skills that can help them potentially gain promotions or improve their day to day work. Cathy also leads multiple meetings to convey information all the way from the director of Dining & Culinary Services, to managers, to full time employees, and lastly student employees. We finished the day by having a final meeting with Julie Luke about our presentation for the Partnership for a Healthier America marketing plan. She gave us some final tips to improve before we present next Tuesday!