The Chef’s Role in Educating Hospitality Management Students

By ACF Chef Adam Roy, MS, CEC, CHE, Dr. Lewis J. and Ruth E. Minor professor of culinary business, School of Hospitality Business, Michigan State University

As I wait for my CCE approval, I recall my brief career as an educator. After a long career as a culinary executive, I transitioned to a culinary educator position in South Korea. I poured my heart and soul into sharing my knowledge of various world cuisines with my international students in a great facility. I piled all of my culinarian years into dynamic kitchen sessions using historical references, personal travel stories, and techniques I have learned along the way. It was challenging, humbling, and overall, personally rewarding.

When I returned stateside, I accepted a position in 2021 at the University of Wisconsin-Stout’s hospitality leadership program. In 2023, I joined the School of Hospitality Business at Michigan State University. These two roles have been very different compared to my culinary educator’s experience in Asia. I still taught — and continue to teach — culinary, beverages, management and leadership in both locations; however, my target audience changed.

I didn’t wait to realize this difference. It came naturally as I noticed a difference toward a passion for the culinary arts, food management and operations overall. Hospitality management students have a different culture than culinary students. Young culinarians come early, proudly wear a uniform, prep stations and look ahead of what we are doing so they can take pride with the products they create.

When I talk to hospitality management students, they presume the Foodservice Systems II class I teach is a “cooking class.” I strive from Day 1 to educate them that this is a culinary management class. I reinforce this with lessons in menu management, food safety systems and restaurant concept development. These students, 99.99% of them at least, will never cook professionally. They will, however, work with and possibly manage culinary teams along with experienced culinary leaders. These students need to know how to research between educators and chefs will become the fuel that feeds the fire of learning. food and beverage trends, motivate a culinary team and help manage costs, leading to a positive business result.

ACF Chef Paul Sorgule, AAC, a 50-year veteran of the foodservice industry, is a longtime culinary educator, former dean of Paul Smith’s College and former vice president of the New England Culinary Institute who has been running his own foodservice consulting and training company, Harvest America Ventures, LLC, since 2012.

By ACF Chef Adam Roy, MS, CEC, CHE,

In my professional opinion, my role is to educate this audience on how to work with a professional chef, respectfully hold a chef responsible and support chefs with resources to be successful. Long gone are the hospitality school cooking classes that are fun but do not impact hospitality management students’ careers the way they should. Chefs can pass on more than just cuisine and technical knowledge. It would be selfish of me to focus on basic culinary skills as educators know there is not enough time for this in a 3-credit course at a hospitality management program. I strive for project-based learning, hands-on lab participation and positive, hard-working attitudes. I find it difficult to judge students on skills and “culinary level” they have yet to properly learn.

Dr. Lewis J. Minor was an innovator. Some of you reading this knew him personally, but most of you have heard his name working in the culinary world (Minor’s bases). We even have an ACF award named after him: the Dr. L.J. Minor Chef Professionalism Award , which is s presented to the chef who exemplifies the highest standard of professionalism through certification, continuing education and training, culinary competitions and community involvement. I am honored to carry his family’s name on my official job title, as many years ago he noticed that a chef is an important part of a hospitality management student’s educational journey. He cemented this role at MSU in hospitality education by donating this endowment ensuring the program always has funding and never goes away. I see other hospitality programs doing away with this type of education. But doing so walls us off from being able to teach, train and recruit these future leaders and partners.

Click here for more stories from the Sept/Oct 2024 issue of National Culinary Review, published by the American Culinary Federation.