$1,200,000,000,000!

That number is how much money was lost in the stock market yesterday -- 1.2 Trillion dollars! It makes it clear that we need to step away from the lectern, as it were, and have a very serious conversation with students to help them connect the dots from Wall Street to the prospects of their careers in hospitality industry in the near, and quite possibly long term. Reason being, HR forecasters are probably going to change the assumptions they had for the economy which will no doubt lead to a hiring freeze and reduction of new hires until the economy gets back on track -- we hope -- meaning fewer jobs come December 2008 and May 2009 graduation! It also means that those wanting to have their own restaurant will find it absolutely difficult to find financing for what most banks already perceive to be risky investments even in good times. The ramifications go on and on.

It is also a great time to have students comprehend the reason the global financial network was effected like a tsunami yesterday when the bailout bill failed to pass (right or wrong) in the House which lead to a huge drop in the value of financial instruments and institutions on Wall Street that dropped the stock prices of every stock market around the globe as they were able to open for trading.

So the time for provincialism should be tempered with the sobriety of the way in which the world is inextricably linked together for good or ill and unless our students clearly grasp that they are going to find themselves ill-equipped to handle the economic reality of tomorrow, which is at our doorstep today.

Call for Proposals

The Foodservice Educators Learning Community is pleased to announce its first call for proposals to be showcased at the First Annual Summit to be held in Charleston, South Carolina, February 26-28, 2009. The call for proposals is designed to give culinary arts and hospitality educators a chance to enrich our learning community and add to their vitae by proposing to do stand-up presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and poster sessions in either a refereed (double-blind peer review) or non-refereed track (reviewed openly by FELC panel and advisory board members). The goal of providing two review options is to provide an opportunity for anyone to make a presentation that will enhance the teaching quality of our learning community. For a full overview of the Summit please visit www.fooded.org

We are also pleased to announce a very innovative teaching competition that will be unlike any you have ever seen before at a culinary arts or hospitality education conference.

Both will be mailed out this week for you to read and respond by sending in a proposal to present a paper, poster, workshop, panel or compete in the teaching competition. The mailings will be by traditional post and e-mail blast so look for both in your basic or virtual mail box soon!

Slight of Hand

The video below is one found by Michael Carmel to share with our community. It has to do with perception and worth watching. After watching the video it made me start to wonder if there are things I am doing to distract students from what it is I perceive myself to be teaching them on any given day in any given class. The video also underscores the importance of having someone videotape you when teaching and sit back and watch it to see if the perception you have of the quality of your teaching actually matches the images captured by the camera. It can be most enlightening! I know it was for me so give it a go.

FoodService Director

I wanted to make educators aware of the publication, FoodService Director, if not already familiar with it. For years I have seen it sitting on our departmental "publications coffee table" and walked past without previewing. I am now glad that I picked it up recently and started reading it because I find it to be an excellent resource on what foodservice businesses (private and public, secondary and post secondary schools, etc.) and others are doing in foodservice these days to provide more heathly items on menus, become more sustainable, control costs, integrate new technologies into the operation, and more. Better still, it is the kind of publication you can pick up and get lots of cool ideas in 15-20 minutes.

So if you have not checked it out ever or lately please give it a go because the words "Inform. Innovate. Inspire." that appear in the banner of the cover truly reflect the contents. It is published monthly and has a reasonable subscription fee of US $79. You can also learn more by visiting http://www.fsdmag.com/

Practing Being an Edupunk

I really loved what is being incinuated by the term Edupunk posted yesterday. The concept really does harken back to a time and place where the teacher as "sage on the stage" or "even guide on the side" had a one-on-one dialogue with students over course materials, scripted or Socratic, to acccommodate the learning going on at any one moment, at any one point in time, in any given class.

Seriously, what has technology done to improve teaching and learning? For example, someone can always show me the latest bells and whistles of Powerpoint to make presentations to students in class or lab settings. But, I often wonder how Powerpoint really replaced the overhead projector and the use of transparencies which I could write on, unlike my Powerpoint slides, to underscore important points of information. I then wonder how that really replaced the chalkbox and chalkboard that used to be used to deliver content to students, which actually permitted arrows and circles to show how things being discussed were related or not, which is hard to do flipping to and fro between slides or transparencies. Then, of course, the Powerpoint salesperson shows me that you indeed can write on your slides now which makes me wonder even more how that technology has replaced the chalkboard.

I guess the point of my post today is that there are so many variables that contribute to the quality of student learning. I think there are far too many things we are doing for the sake of doing them like others before us without asking why, such as is the case with technology. So walk into your next class today or tomorrow and look at that piece of lonely piece of chalk or dry erase marker and ask yourself whether it is or is not a better tool to used at that point to preach the gospel of culinary arts and hospitality to the students assembled before you.

Are You an Edupunk?

A new term has emerged on the blogosphere to define a certain brand of educator, known as the Edupunk. To find out if you are an Edupunk answer "yes" or "no" to the following questions. 1. Do you use PowerPoint to give lectures/presentations? 2. Do you have your course materials available through Blackboard? 3. Do you accept homework posted to some form of website? 4. Do you use Classroom response systems, or "clickers" in any of your classes? 5. Do you have a Wiki?

If you answered, "No" to all five questions you are probably an Edupunk, which was listed as one of the words under "jargon watch" in the latest issue of Wired Magazine (which is a must read for any educator or administrator). As defined in Wired, an Edupunk is someone "who avoids mainstream teaching tools like PowerPoint and Blackboard...and has a rebellious attitude and DIY ethos of the 70's bands like the Clash to the classroom." So three cheers for all you "old school" teachers who have opted to turn to technology only in the event that it truly replaces good old fashioned one-on-one no-tech interaction between student and teacher!

The Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education

Dear educators, I ran across a great teaching resource this past week when visiting a colleague on an unrelated matter and so a pleasant surprise. It is the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education. According to its website, the DSJIE is a "peer-reviewed journal published by the Decision Sciences Institute. Its mission is to publish significant research relevant to teaching and learning issues in the decision sciences. The decision sciences is the union of the quantitative and behavioral approaches to managerial decision making, encompassing all of the functional areas of business, including (but not limited to) accounting, business strategy and entrepreneurship, economics, finance, international business and globalization, marketing, MIS/DSS and computer systems, organizational behavior/organizational design, operations and logistics management, quantitative methods and statistics." And although you do not see the words "culinary arts and hospitality education" in the description the copy I am reviewing makes it clear that much of what is contained in the articles can be applied to our respective programs.

The issue I ran across is the latest one published in July 2008 (Volume 6, number 2). There are articles classified under "Homework and Assignments," "Use of Games," and "Use of Simulation." Some of the articles under homework and assignments in the issue are, "Teaching Brief: Engaging Students in Statistics," "Teaching Brief: Creating a Learning Environment." This appears to be a great resource that I plan to read as each issue comes out to improve the quality of my teaching and hope it proves to be a great resource for those of you who choose to read or perhaps submit a paper for review, too. To learn more you can visit: http://kelley.iupui.edu/dsjie/about.htm

Time to Add Canning 101

I remember late summers working on my cousin's farm. One of the chores I helped my cousin and aunt to complete was canning, which is defined in the Webster's Dictionary as, "the act, process, or work of putting foods in cans or jars for preservation." I was reminded of this most basic of home economics when listening to NPR this morning during and interview with legendary blues musician, Elvin Bishop. During the interview he was asked if it was true that he grew his own food. He indicated that not only did he grow his own food but he canned it, too. In fact, he mentioned that he "had canned some applesauce just yesterday!" He even packs his canned fruits (jam) and vegetables when he flies out to do a gig because he wants to eat his own food.

There were more stories from Elvin on this matter but it begged the question, "Should we be teaching this craft to culinary arts and hospitality students, especially when there is a strong trend toward growing one's own food or purchasing it locally?" I say that the answer is, "absolutely." Imagine the student that is able to go to the local farm or farmer's market and purchase bushel baskets full of fruits and vegetables and able to bring them back to the restaurant and work with the staff to can them, or as my coursin used to say, "put them up." Also think of the savings that would accrue to the foodservice operation that canned its own fruits and vegetables and depended less on regional and national purveyors to provide them to deliver on the menu, as long as local health laws would permit it. Imagine the cost in energy savings that would also accrue as less and less food had to be processed and shipped all over the country. So please find a way to teach that skill to students as it will prove to be more valuable to them as the cost of fruits and vegetables continue to go skywards putting pressure on already razor thin profit margins.

Great Debate?!

Yikes. There is a video circulating the internet that is posted to YouTube. It involves a student debate tournament in Kansas that films a heated debate between the opposing faculty members; one from University of Pittsburgh and the other from Fort Hays, which is in Kansas where debate was held. It is truly outrageous and involves quite strong language and inappropriate social behavior especially on the part of the Fort Hays professor (who actually moons the other teacher) and worth watching. It is also a great reminder of how foolish one looks when losing their temper in front of students, or anyone else for that matter, and taking a deep breath instead and keeping a cool head.

The heated debate can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXwy2VuA2V4&feature=related

The Fort Hays professor reflection on debating can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rESjqZsIi5Q&feature=related

On the Lighter Side

In the spirit of laughter being the best medicine, now might be a good time to share a laugh:

At _________ State University, there were four sophomores taking chemistry and all of them had an 'A' so far in the class. These four friends were so confident in their final grade that they decided to visit some friends and have party the weekend before finals. They had a great time but after all the hearty partying they slept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to campus until early Monday morning.

Rather than taking the final on Monday morning as scheduled, they decided to skip it and later explain to their professor why they missed it. They said that they visited friends but on the way back to campus they had a flat tire and that is why they missed the final. The professor agreed they could make up the final the next day.

The guys were excited and relieved. They studied that night for the exam. The next day the Professor placed them in separate rooms and gave them a test booklet. They quickly answered the first problem worth 5 points. Cool, they thought! Each one in separate rooms, thinking this was going to be easy.... then they turned the page. On the second page was written.... For 95 points: Which tire? _________

Have a great day!

How is Your Semester/Term Going?!

All of you, myself included, are no doubt off and running and trying to meet the heavy demands placed on us to deliver on teaching, service, and for some, research. How is that going? If feeling overwhelmed already please find a way to introduce the word "no" into your vocabulary. The requests on your time, talents, and energy will continue to pour in and saying "yes" all the time is not good for anyone because overcommitment, even based on the best of intentions, leads to stress which leads to anger, frustration, stress, and the like.

So today's teaching tip is to start using the word "no" strategically. I do this by figuring out exactly those nouns (people, places, things) that will be my number one priority for the semester and focusing on them 100% before giving any thought to anything else. The result? I actually have a life now and can spend time pursuing things in life that are important to me, such as my family, and am better off for it. So, give it a try. Establish your priorities and say "no" to those nouns that will take you off track for the sake of doing an effective job and keeping a positive attitude all the while "teaching those pesky students" and "jumping through administrative hoops." Better still, you will find yourself to be more productive than ever before once you establish and focus on your priorities.

Hospitality Education Mourns loss of Kerry Sommerville

I teach online courses at Sullivan University. The person who recruited me and was always there to give me support as I learned how to teach online courses was the chair of the Hospitality Management program at Sullivan University, Kerry Sommerville M.A., CRDE, CHE. We at FELC are sad to report that Kerry passed away at home this past Monday, September 8th, at the young age of 51. Kerry had well over 20 years’ of hospitality management and consulting experience with some of the world’s largest hotel chains. He had been at Sullivan University since 1990. Among his many accomplishments was the 2003 American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Lamp of Knowledge award for outstanding educator; writing online training modules for the ACF-approved continuing education organization, chefcertification.com; and author of the textbook, Hospitality. Kerry was well liked by those who knew him and had a great passion for culinary arts and hospitality education. We will greatly miss him and hope that we can carry on his life's work through those who are in our learning community.

Teacher's Pet

I try to create assignments that get students out interacting with the industry. My recent extra credit assignment is the "Teacher's Pet," which is a calzone I developed for a local restaurant that specializes in calzones. The calzone is called the Teacher's Pet because the restaurant is edgy and it has my favorite Greek inspired ingredients: feta cheese, sausage, tangy tomato sauce, fresh tomatoes, black olives, green peppers, and bit of basil.

Students can earn extra credit points for shopping the restaurant and writing about their experience. What is even more fun is that I am giving extra credit based on this experience to three different classes; an introductory hospitality course, sales course, and HR course. In the intro class all the freshman students are required to do is go enjoy a pie and write a short essay that describes a) their views on the quality of the facility (inside and out), b) the quality of the personal service provided, and c) quality of the pie. The sales students do the same but write a) what it was about the building and its location that sold them on what was inside, b) commentary on the sales techniques used by counter staff, and c) whether the calzone they ate sold them on the rest of the menu. The HR students go have a pie and asked to sit in the restaurant and observe the employees and act as secret consultants to guess at the HR practices that might be in place to explain the observed behavior, or recommend some HR technique to correct behavior that could improve the quality of the interaction between employees guests.

The assignment is running for the month of September. They then turn their essays in to me, with the receipt of their purchase stapled to it, at any point during the month and we routinely discuss the experiences in class. One class has even decided to compile and share results with owner. All are discussed in class nonetheless.

This is a great extra credit activity that connects what learning in the classroom with what is going on at a designated restaurant. It provides for a great discussion in class in a fun an eduational manner.

Hospitality and Travel Job Videos

There is an internet resource that is free to educators to share with those interested in working in the hospitality and travel industry. All to often students think they want to work in one job or the other which is based on a limited understanding of key duties and responsibilities. The videos available at the URL shown at the end of this post, do a decent job of covering key duties and responsibilities of dozents of jobs in hospitality and travel to provide high schoool students and college freshmana a better understanding of the jobs they think they would like to perform after graduation, or as part of an internship. You can access the videos by visiting: http://www.careervoyages.gov/hospitality-videos.cfm. The videos do not have greatest resolution and take a few moments to load but they are a good resource for teachers.

Deter Sexual Harassment Now!

I was doing a debrief of students who had completed an internship over the summer. One female student indicated in her report that she had been sexually harassed during her internship. Even worse, she was being sexually harassed by a male supervisor who had two sexual harassment charges pending with the EEOC. It gets worse. Apparently, the general manager refused to believe that the supervisor was engaging in sexual harassment and attempting to settle out of court. In other words, the business is condoning sexual harassment instead of addressing the matter by taking disciplinary action aimed at protecting the female employees from a known predator.

My appeal today is that sexual harassment -- in all its forms -- needs to be taught to students so that they understand that is not a permissable behavior under any circumstances in restaurants or hotels, both chain and independent. This is especially critical for students to understand given our industry is one that has the most sexual harassment charges filed against it on a regular basis. Sadly, the charges are quite often due to a male harassing a teenage female. So for the sake of our male and female students and an industry that is rampant with sexual harassment please do all you can to educate our graduates to be better people.

FELC Welcomes Mercer Tool as New Sponsor

We are proud to announce that Mercer Tool Corporation ("Mercer") has agreed to sponsor the FELC. As indicated on the company website, "Mercer was founded in 1968 on Mercer Street in New York City. Mercer was the brainchild of Mel Wallick, who believed that there were many opportunities to improve the products available to the industrial markets in North America. At that time, industrial markets were supplied by a few, very expensive European and North American manufacturers. Imports were either sized incorrectly or had quality issues. Mr. Wallick believed a manufacturer could gain market share by offering quality, performance and price. These three words remain the motto of this second generation family business, a business that has now expanded to include a full line of abrasives, files and safety equipment, as well chef cutlery, apparel and accessories."

Mercer has been a long time supporter of culinary arts and hospitality educators and that fine tradition carries on through it sponsorship of our learning community. Please take the time to visit the company website if you have not done so in awhile to learn about the fine products Mercer has to offer you and your students by visiting http://www.mercertool.com/

Do Something Unpredictable!

I got my bachelor's degree at the University of North Texas (which was North Texas State when I was attending). During that time, I had a psychology professor who would suddenly stop at various points in his lecture and do something random and unrelated to the topic at hand like tell a story about when he was a kid, make some off the wall comment, take a few dance steps, and so forth. We never knew what he was going to do, or when he was going to do it; he may not even have known himself. I do know one thing; it made me pay attention to what he was doing because I never wanted to miss the random act(s).

Hence, the message of this post -- do something unpredictable when in the midst of teaching students. I adopted that tactic in my teaching years ago and find it to be a great way to give students' brains a chance to pause and then refocus on the task at hand. As you know I am at Purdue. Just the other day I started a chant in my large lecture class of 200 students with, "Give me a P!" Give me a "U!" I am certain that the kids thought I was going to have them spell "Purdue!" Not so, I had them give me another P, then another P, then a Y. I asked them, "What's that spell?" They yelled, "Puppy!?" To which I replied in a very sweet loving way, "Aw, aren't puppies cute?" "Who doesn't love puppies?" I then went back to my lecture on customer service. The look on the faces of the students was priceless, a sort of "What the heck just happened?" They will also pay attention for the next random act as I did long ago in that psychology teacher's class.

Try this technique, it works. The students in my classes look, as I once did long ago, for me to do something unpredictable and so are tricked into focusing more on the rest of what I say as a result. Besides, it is a great way to punctuate a presentation in a fun and unique manner and provide a bit of a mental rest so that the students can then go back to learning about the topic at hand.

Have a great weekend!

Novel Case Study: Saving the St. George

For those looking for new and different ways to teach hospitality management, the Education Institute has recently promoted a novel, entitled Saving the St. George, by hospitality veteran Greg Plank. The novel tells the story of retired Marine Edwin Christian who inherits the elegant but aging Hotel St. George from his grandfather. As it turns out, the hotel has fallen on hard times and Edwin must make decisions to restore it to its former luster. The novel is designed to be an interesting read for students who will read about Edwin’s attempt to turn around the hotel by handling such challenges as a dead body in a guest room, colorful and sometimes shady hotel guests, and more.

As an educational tool, the book is designed to a case study to help teachers have conversations with students around such topics as security, guest service, and purchasing. Another key feature of the novel is its price. Because it is not a “textbook” the cost to students to purchase the book is $10.00 (net-to-bookstore/academic price). To order, “Saving the St. George,” you may call EI at 800-344-4381 or 517-372-8800, or visit http://www.eiacademic.org/

Also, if you have used this book in your teaching and want to offer up a book review e-mail Mick La Lopa at Mlalopa@fooded.org. You can also share what you know about the book by responding directly to this post.

One-Sentence Summary

Many use the lecture method to convey course materials to students because it is very efficient. However, when giving large amounts of information to students in a 50-minute, or 10-minute lecture, how much are they actually processing and retaining? The answer is, "not much," unless trained to do so.

The one-sentence summary is a good technique to help students proces information and has been shown to help students improve memory skills, listening skills, reading skills, and study skills. The technique requires students to answer the questions "Who, does what to whom, when, where, how, and why?" about a given topic and then asked to synthesize that information into one long comprehensive sumary sentence.

Pretend students have just been given a lecture on the importance of handwashing during a basic lecture on foodservice sanitation and safety. Once the students are been given the information, perhaps in the form of a lecture, they then work independently to construct a sentence that answers the questions above, such as: All cooks and chefs must (who?) wash (does what?) their hands thoroughly (to what or whom?) after handling raw meat, fish, and poultry (when?) at the handwashing stations (where?) using the method demonstrated and practiced in class (how?) to prevent outbreaks of foodborne illnesses at foodservice establishments (why?). Once trained to take information and process it in the form of a single-sentence student performance could very well improve in classroom and lab assessments so give it a try.

For more teaching tips like these consult Angelo and Cross (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

Perhaps you have heard of "some faculty member" giving "some last lecture" on something or other that has become quite a phenomenon on the internet and education circles. That person happened to be a very popular professor, Randy Pausch, who was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon. He was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer and he has sadly since passed away. As you may know, the concept of asking faculty to reflect hypothetically on what they would say if had the chance to give one last lecture has been a faculty development exercise that has been used for awhile. The last lecture became a fact of life for Randy Pausch and he gave it at Carnegie Mellon, and the reprised it on Oprah.

The original lecture has been downloaded millions of times and runs about an hour and 16 minutes and is worth the time to watch in your spare time. As Randy gives his last lecture on life and realizing childhood dreams there are many things he said that I found to be quite thought provoking and inspirational and gave me the chance to compare and contrast his viewpoint to my own. Of course, I found out that I can always do more to breathe life into my teaching so students accomplish even more than I could have ever imagined. I hope you will benefit from watching it, too. Oh, and have a kleenex at the ready as you may shed a tear or two during the lecture.

The full original lecture can be found on YouTube at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
The reprised lecture he gave on Oprah can be viewed at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8577255250907450469