Week 8

Hey y'all,

I can't believe it is already time for me to say goodbye. My internship here with Housing and Foods has come to an end. I have had such a good time here learning about food management. Everyone I have worked with was awesome and taught me something different that I can take moving forward in my career. I was able to participate in so many different activities and operations while I was here, but I know that there will still be more for me to learn in my career. I tried to soak up as much knowledge as I could from everyone here. This includes continuing to do new things all the way up until I left.

I was very excited this week that I got to sit in on one of Dot's famous food allergy awareness training classes. All new food services employees are required to attend a food allergy awareness training to help educate them on the proper procedures for helping customers with food allergies and specialty diets. This training covers not only proper procedures but educates employees on the signs and symptoms of food allergies, the seriousness of food allergies, and the proper responses to food allergies. This training also includes specialty diets students on campus may follow for religious or other medical conditions.

I also got the opportunity to spend some time at Wagner this week. Wagner dining hall is located inside the "athletic" dorms, Headington Hall. Forty-nine percent of the students living in Headington Hall are athletes. Because of the high volume of athletes dining at this operation the sports dietitian plays an integral part in menu planning. Unlike other dining facilities on campus the menu options in Wagner are served with a red, yellow, green light system to help athletes maintain proper nutrition for their sports and provide education on how to make a healthy plate. For example vegetables are a green light food meaning they are an important part of a healthy balanced diet, while bacon is a red light food meaning it should be consumed less often, 1-2 times a week.  Along with the stoplight system many food items offered at Wagner offer healthy swaps to increase nutritional value at each meal such as baked chicken rather than fried chicken.

Finally, I went to the Union Market. There is a lot going on at Union Market. They offer a salad bar, soup bar, hot bar, grab and go retail items, and have a made to order grill station. Despite the large variety of food options available at the Union Market their kitchen space is not very big. Communication is key to this operation running smoothly and accident free. The staff was always talking to each other whether to communicate order specifications, walking around a corner, or walking with a knife or sharp object everyone knew what was going on. 

Between visiting different operations on campus this week I was able to help with ingredient ID cards and finish talking with housing and food employees to finish up my internship assignments. 

I have had so much fun learning about management here and working with the food service department. Everyone I have worked with during my time here has been so informative and a pleasure to work with. Thank you to everyone I worked with over the past two months for answering my millions of questions, showing me your jobs and helping me to increase my management knowledge.

Week 7

It's OU/Texas week in Norman!

I started my week at the residential colleges. These twin buildings share a single kitchen that produces food for each college's dining hall. The college's were designed to house upperclassmen and the kitchen works very hard to make sure the food produced in each hall is of equal quality.

Monday I filled in at the salad station for lunch service. While the salad station was recently converted to self serve I had to make sure to keep all the salad items stocked and was responsible for making sandwiches and wraps when ordered. While my sandwich skills are decent, my wrap making skills could still use some practice. Luckily all the students were patient and I was able to hold down the salad station! Tuesday morning I got to help prep stir fry station and then during lunch I even got to try my hand hat preparing a stir fry order. It is funny how much different it is to cook for people other than yourself. I also spent some time learning about the grill and pizza stations. Residential colleges is the only place on campus where you can get freshly made pizza crust!

Next, I got to hang out with the food service dietitian. We worked on calculating calories that will be added to menu boards throughout campus, the Fitter Foods options in Couch Restaurants, and nutrition education. Look out for my blog post about gluten-free food and celiac disease on Fran's student nutrition education blog! We also got in the spirit of OU/Texas and helped serve longhorn ribs at the Bevo BBQ on Thursday.

BOOMER SOONER, GO OU!

Week 6

Heyo,

It happened guys...Monday was the opening of Credo to the public. Despite the fact that there are still some procedures that need to be ironed out and that it was all of the students first day working at Credo, things went very well. Students living in the building seemed happy to finally have a food option in their building and a few said they would be back for dinner. Monday was also the first day anyone got to really play with the POS system and the students working the register seemed to pick up on the procedures pretty quickly. It was fun seeing all the preparation and planning come together and being able to serve the public. Rumor has it that Glow will be opening the first week in October and I can not wait!!!

After seeing Credo up and running it was time for me to get ready for the food sustainability fair. This event helps educate students on the marketing labels used on food packaging. What does Organic really mean? Is it important if the word Natural is on the label? Is No Hormones Added milk worth spending extra on? It is illegal to add hormones to milk, thus making all milk free of added hormones. As always we had some delicious free samples to give away during this event.

Mexican Hummus 

Chocolate Cobbler

Mexican Quinoa

Savory Cake & Guacamole

This week I also had the opportunity to learn about the department of Talent and Organizational Development (TOD).  This department is responsible for the recruiting, on-boarding, development, and off-boarding of staff for Housing and Food Services. They help provide many development opportunities for employees such as classes, training, and seminars. They also run the applaud program used to help recognize people for their hard work and going above an beyond in the work place.

I ended my week learning more about the ordering products at Couch Express. This brought back a lot of information from class. It was interesting to learn how the ordering process changes every year with new groups of students to reflect the current student populations preferences and needs.