An intern works with the dining services staff at Kansas State University.

Promoting Management in Internship Programs

With management often marginalized in the academic program, internships generally offer the best opportunity for the industry to make its case. However, the rigors of the established protocol and certification process often limit what can be done.

Internships are usually run by academic programs, and to be an accredited dietetic internship a foodservice facility has offer certain competencies delineated by certifying bodies like the ADA or the Commission on Dietetic Registration.

“We have to work within those competencies,” explains Mary Angela Miller, MS, RD, LD, FADA, administrative director of nutrition services at Ohio State University Medical Center, which participates in an extensive dietetic internship program. “We can't just substitute what we think students should learn for what is required for us to remain accredited. We have to make sure that what we offer for a particular rotation meets the competency. Now, if they are being sent for their foodservice piece, we can be a little creative in how we meet the competency, but we can't change it.”

Miller says her department tries to communicate a realistic sense of what foodservice management entails and why it might be a desirable career track for certain individuals. “We want to show them how exciting the jobs are, what an influence you can have,” she says, “so that when they leave here, they really have a sense of what a foodservice leader is and what he or she does. It's something I don't think many come to us with at all.”

She adds that it is also important that students learning management understand the “people” part of the job as well as the technical part. “When our interns do their special project assignments, we're not talking about just costing out recipes, we're talking about implementing a whole project, which takes people as well as IQ skills.”

How do you convey all this? By avoiding dull, rote tasks, for one thing, says Mike Folino, a former OSUMC intern who is now assistant director for patient foodservices and who generally takes a leading role with interns coming in for their foodservice management rotations.

Interns on foodservice management rotations at OSUMC go through a rigorous six-week regimen that packs a lot of information and hands-on experience into a very short time frame. The highlight is a group special assignment that involves planning a special café event.

“For these events, our students have to do the menu planning, figure out the costing of the food, generate the recipes, purchase the food and work with our marketing team to market the event,” says Folino. They also do all the setup and preparation and then work the event.

“We don't use our interns as free labor,” Folino stresses. “We never want a student to come over here and say, ‘Oh great, I have to chop tomatoes again today,’ or ‘I have to work the trayline.’”

What You Can Do to Help

Onsite foodservice directors interested in helping promote management careers in the industry have several avenues to pursue. Here are some:

• Participate in internships. Offer your facility, get students in, reach out to local colleges with these programs and offer to get students in to get experience in your operation.

• Offer to serve as adjunct faculty in academic programs, where there are many opportunities to teach the things you are already expert in, such as purchasing or facility layout and design; once there, also use the platform to promote careers in the industry by communicating how interesting, exciting and challenging it can be.

• Support industry associations' efforts to reach out to students.

• Hire students as part time as workers to expose them to your operations.

• Hire students to help with projects.

• Take students under your wing, mentor them and help them network within the industry.