The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (NRAEF) is accepting nominations for its 2014 “Restaurant Neighbor” and “Faces of Diversity” awards.

Entering its 16th year, the Foundation’s “Restaurant Neighbor Award,” founded in partnership with American Express, celebrates the outstanding charitable service performed by restaurant operators. Likewise, the “Faces of Diversity” award, sponsored by PepsiCo Foodservice and founded in 2007, is presented to members of the restaurant industry who, through hard work and perseverance, have achieved the American Dream.

Sullivan University’s Louisville campus and the National Center for Hospitality Studies congratulate associate department chair of culinary arts chef Rob Beighey and director of baking and pastry arts chef Derek Spendlove and team coach chef David Wheatley on their most recent victory at the American Culinary Federation Chefs Competition in Indianapolis.

The Collins College of Hospitality Management breaks ground for LEED Gold-certified expansion.

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona’s Collins College of Hospitality Management commenced construction of its $10 million building expansion during a groundbreaking ceremony on Nov. 7.

The 15,000-square-foot expansion includes two buildings and addresses the college’s growth needs in a sustainable way by striving to achieve LEED Gold certification. In addition to more classrooms and faculty workspace, the project will create a home base for the college’s three-year-old graduate program and a social space for students. Classrooms will utilize cutting-edge technology and innovative “flex” furniture designed to move and adapt to the evolving needs of today’s classroom. The project was designed by Ontario-based HMC Architects. Gilbane Building Company is the project’s construction management at-risk firm.

A veteran educator takes a road trip in search of the perfect bite.

By Bruce Konowalow, CCE

Finding good food in out-of-the-way places has been second nature to my wife, Carolle, and me. We have traveled 300-plus miles for a smoked-beef sandwich at Ben’s in Montreal, midnight trips to Chinatown in New York City, early-morning sojourns to the backdoor of Bridgeport, Conn.’s Zeislers bakery for fresh pastries still hot out of the oven, and have taken trips to eastern Long Island, Cape Cod and Connecticut for a good lobster roll.

Part of this quest has always been to find the holy grail of burgers, beefy nirvana. I do not know if there really is a best burger, but the experience is the thing. Those trips have taken us to quaint seaside clam shacks, rustic barbecue venues and hole-in-the-wall joints in big cities.

That being said, it came as no surprise to my wife when I asked her if she wanted to go to Amarillo to have a great burger at a little joint called the Coyote Bluff Café, a burger restaurant we had just seen on the Travel Channel. We were living in Dallas, so Amarillo was a good six-hour drive with few pit stops. The trip required a couple of tanks of gas and an overnight stay, so we knew these $8 burgers were going to cost about $75 each.  We scurried to the library for a couple of tour books and hit the road.

Chicago’s top-ranked hospitality school predicts international knowledge and digital branding will drive global opportunities

The Kendall College School of Hospitality Management, ranked the No. 1 program in Chicago for preparing students for hospitality careers, has released its trends outlook for the hospitality industry in 2014.

1. Global Going Strong: International Knowledge in Demand
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the travel and tourism industry is currently among the largest and fastest-growing industries worldwide, forecasted to support 328 million jobs, or 10% of the workforce, by 2022.¹ A top 10 industry in the United States, travel and tourism provides one out of eight jobs, with that number increasing at an exponential rate, adding approximately 55,000 jobs per month in 2013.^2,3

Specifically, with the United States a global travel hub, forecasting nearly a 30% increase in international arrivals through 2018, and Chicago already reaching 65% of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s goal of 50 million visitors by 2020 in just two years, Kendall suggests the No. 1 trend is “International Knowledge in Demand.”^4,5

“It’s an exciting time to be part of a fast-paced and evolving industry, and it’s our goal as thought leaders to provide an unparalleled, well-rounded education that positions students ready for opportunities in the U.S. and beyond,” said Emily Williams Knight, Kendall College president. “Chicago is one of the most vibrant hospitality and business centers in the country, so students have a unique opportunity to literally be in the center of such a dynamic and important global industry, which ultimately gives them a professional edge.”

Famous artwork by Lou Dorfsman, to be showcased in The Culinary Institute of America’s new Marriott Pavilion, will support the Hudson Valley as a destination for art and culture.

For the last 25 years one of the world’s largest modern typographic artworks has been hidden away in a basement on Long Island. This will change in January 2014 when the work, “Gastrotypographicalassemblage,” will become the focal point of The Culinary Institute of America's new Marriott Pavilion and Conference Center in Hyde Park, N.Y. The creation of legendary CBS art director and designer Lou Dorfsman, the work measures more than 33 feet wide and 8 feet tall, and consists of more than 1,650 individual letters spelling out culinary terminology and expressions, as well as 65 food-related objects.

From 1966 to 1989, Gastrotypographicalassemblage was on display in the staff dining room at CBS Network headquarters in the legendary Black Rock building in New York City. There it captured the imaginations of both visitors and employees, but in 1989 the work was removed during a renovation. Without a new home, it was saved from the landfill by designer Nick Fasciano, who stored the mural for more than two decades while Dorfsman worked to find it a new venue.

For the first time, says Technomic, a majority of U.S. consumers prefers hot or spicy flavors. And sweet is the ultimate pairing partner when staying ahead of the flavor curve.

The most familiar, tried-and-true flavors might have impressive staying power on menus, but Chicago-based Technomic’s most recent flavor findings also signal the need for operators and suppliers to stay on top of flavor trends by reinvigorating classic offerings with new and unique twists.

Three-fourths of consumers (73%) say that if they try and like a menu item with an innovative flavor, they would be highly likely to return to the restaurant for the same menu item.

“In a competitive foodservice climate, flavor differentiation is a must-have for operators,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, Inc. “Because today’s foodservice consumers have such a strong expectation for innovative flavors, operators and suppliers have to help the menu stand out by staying ahead of the flavor curve. Knowing which flavors are up and coming and truly enticing to guests will be essential in gaining their dining-out dollars.”

The advantages of peer coaching include helping people realize they can solve their own problems while helping others. It also broadens their awareness of how many people they can call on for assistance.

By Dr. Fred Mayo, CHE, CHT

Last month, we discussed helping students take charge of their lives by using a technique called the three-legged conference. This month’s column is about peer coaching, and the rest of the fall will focus on other strategies for helping students learn to take charge of their education and their lives.

Coaching Explained
Coaching is the process of one person helping another person to clarify the coachee’s goals, jointly determining strategies to attain those goals, and providing support for reaching the goals. It differs from consulting since consultants provide advice based on their background knowledge and experience; coaches commit to help their coachees do what is important to the coachees. Coaching differs from therapy since therapists are interested in why, and they focus on the present and the past; coaches are interested in what and how, and they focus on the present and the future.

The challenge in coaching is really listening to the other person and not providing advice or judging what the other person says or wants to do. It is a full commitment to helping the other person in the areas where the other person wants to focus. Many teachers find coaching hard to do since it differs so radically from their normal work as teachers, dispensers of knowledge and evaluators. It is even hard to shift from facilitating learning to coaching; these functions draw on different sets of skills.

Using games to teach will get both you and your students out of a rut. A round of Hangman, anyone?

By Adam Weiner, CFSE

As teachers we get into ruts. If we are teaching one-month classes, one-semester classes or one-year classes, we tend to do the same thing every month, every semester, every year. Even if it works well, we get bored. When we get bored, the students get bored. When the students get bored, their education and our enjoyment of teaching both go downhill fast.

At the June Leadership Conference of CAFÉ I was able to attend a seminar entitled “You Can Lead Students to the Classroom, but Can You Make Them Think?” It was led by assistant professors Deet Gilbert and Sunil Atreya, both of Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte. The thrust of that seminar was that in today’s world, standing up and giving a lecture will not get the attention of most students, and even fewer will retain the material. In other words, lecturing to your students in the academic portion of your curriculum is dooming your students and yourself to failure. The seminar went on to cover at least 10 or more different games and formats you can use to liven up your class.

What really hit me like a bucket of cold water about this was that the second article I wrote for “The Gold Medal Classroom,” in March 2009, talked about creating word puzzles, crossword puzzles and other games to get the students thinking and interacting. I even listed a number of websites that had these items available for free. To my horror, I realized at the Leadership Conference that I had gotten myself into a rut and that I was not doing any of these games any more. It didn’t take more than a few moments of reflection to realize that my students absorbed and learned the material faster and more thoroughly when I was using the games. It was also clear that I was having less fun teaching the class.

“The Gold Medal Classroom” launches a new editorial department and forum for deans and directors in 2014: a leadership think tank.

By Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC

These are challenging times for culinary-arts programs. Administrators are faced with demands for measureable outcomes from various accrediting agencies, the cost of equipping and operating viable programs is increasing exponentially, and the price of education for students has increased far greater than other indexes (one leading culinary school reported that its yearly tuition alone increased from $8,490 in 1990 to $24,550 in 2010--or 290%) while financial aid and personal loans have become more difficult to obtain.

The ever-increasing number of culinary programs across the country has skewed conversions for admissions departments and increased their cost of identifying candidates (qualified or unqualified), and faculty are faced with teaching a student body that is oftentimes ill prepared for the rigors of a career in food. On the bright side, the restaurant industry in America is strong and growing and demand for qualified graduates remains high.

How do we sift through these challenges, face them head on, differentiate between cause and effect and prepare programs and students for a successful future? This is the most important task that faces program deans and directors. Too often we find ourselves dealing with the operational challenge of today and losing sight of the issues that will keep our programs viable and our students employable.