Monday Motivator

Perhaps you need some motivating after the Thanksgiving break.  I know I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with the work that is at hand to wind down the semester.  Perhaps the following resource may be of interest to you or someone you know.

The Monday Motivator, managed by Kerry Ann Racquemore, is described as:
The Monday Motivator is a weekly e-mail message that provides advanced graduate students, post-docs, and new faculty with an electronic dose of positive energy, good vibrations, and a weekly productivity tip. The purpose of the weekly message is to reinforce the core ideas presented in my workshops and provide support for individuals who are making the transition from graduate student to professor.

To sign on for the weekly e-mail motivators, and check out the other resources at the website, visit:
http://www.newfacultysuccess.com/TheMondayMotivator.en.html

A quick review of the site found it to be a good resource for new -- perhaps seasoned -- faculty.

Happy Thanksgiving

Tomorrow marks a special time of the year when we gather with family and friends and give thanks.  I know that I will be thankful that this holiday marks the fast approaching end-of-the semester, which is but a mere two weeks away.  Don't get me wrong, I love teaching as do the rest of you.  The problem is that the fall semester loves me to death as it is the launching pad for the academic year to address all of the initiatives to be taken up by the department, college, university, and industry initiatives through to the end of the spring semester.  The constant onslaught of e-mails, phone calls, and memos that come my way on a daily basis can at times be downright overwhelming especially when trying to give careful attention to each one -- which becomes impossible about the 5th week of the semester and prioritization kicks into high gear.  I am sure you feel the same.

So to all you out there who are teaching and administering culinary arts and hospitality education programs I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving.  I know I will be thankful for the students who want to be chefs or hospitality managers and find their way to Purdue because they will be the ones who put the food on the table my family and I will dine on and enjoy tomorrow.  The same students who are the focus of all that Jami Yanoski, Michael Carmel, and our growing membership are focusing on through the current and future services provided by the Foodservice Educators Learning Community to enhance teaching and learning at the culinary arts and hospitality education programs around the states.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scholarships for Students from Marriott

The Marriott Scholars Program is currently accepting applications from students in the hospitality management, hotel management, culinary, or food and beverage fields. Scholarships cover a student’s full tuition up to $9,000. Deadline to apply is February 16th, 2010.

For more information AND to apply, please go to http://scholarships.hispanicfund.org/Marriott

If you have any questions, please contact Auri Duarte at aduarte@hispanicfund.org
Application Deadline: February 16th, 2010
Individual Awards: Full Tuition up to $9,000

Eligibility Requirements – Each student must…
• Be of Hispanic/Latino heritage
• Be U.S. citizen or permanent resident residing in the United States or Puerto Rico
• Plan to enroll as a full-time undergraduate student during the 2010 – 2011 school year in an accredited four-year college or university in the U.S. with a hospitality management or culinary program.
• Plan to pursue a degree within the hospitality management, hotel management, culinary, or food and beverage field
• Have a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or better on a 4.0 scale

Selected Students Will Benefit from:
• A full renewable scholarship, up to $9,000 to cover tuition and fees
• Internship opportunities with Marriott International
• The opportunity to win a trip to Washington, D.C.
    - Network with influential leaders and executives
    - Learn career skills through workshops and mentoring
    - Attend the Annual Hispanic College Fund Scholarship Awards Gala

Serve Fast Food on Thanksgiving

I subscribe to Wired magazine and recommend it highly as a way to keep pace with the rapid changes of technology and its myriad of applications in the world.  The title for this blog post is the same as an article that appeared in Wired this month.  The Thanksgiving idea was from ErikTrinidad and his Fancy Food blog which can be viewed at: http://www.fancyfastfood.com/

In fact, a quick visit to the blog shows a wide range of high end dishes made with simple ingredients from various fast food places.  The Thanksgiving dinner was fashioned out of corn dogs to make turkey legs, mashed potatoes by pulsing french fries, cranberry sauce from donut filling, and arranged as usual on the plate.

This would be a great creative thinking activity for students to have them forage menu items from fast food restaurants and create gourmet looking and tasting dishes.  All you would need to do is have them review the fast food menu located near campus and select items that could be used to make gourmet dishes, send them to collect, prepare, and then present to the class.  It might be more fun if the class was not told the ingredients to make them guess which items came from which fast food joint to make the dish!

National Toilet Day

Today is National Toilet Day, as proclaimed by the World Toilet Organization.  World Toilet Organization (WTO) is a global non- profit organization committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide (http://worldtoiletday.com/).  This is really no joke or laughing matter here in the USA and elsewhere in the world.  In truth, 2.5 billion people worldwide are without access to proper sanitation, which risks their health, strips their dignity, and kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, a year.  Even the world's wealthiest people still have toilet problems - from unhygienic public toilets to sewage disposal that destroys our waterways. 

Another reason that we should bring this to the attention of our students is that the average person goes to the toilet between six and eight times a day. Of the 69 gallons of water Americans use per person per day indoors, 27% (18.5 gallons) goes to flushing -- more than on showering or laundry or any other single activity, says the American Water Works Assn.  And while we flush 69 gallons of water down the toilet there are tens of millions who do not even have access to clean drinking water let alone a decent toilet.  It is also time for students to realize how much water can be wasted in a hotel or foodservice operation if the toilets are not functioning properly, leaking, or in constant use like those at a conference hotel which can impact a business that runs on tight margins.