The challenges are large, much larger than an individual school or administrator can address independently. Thus, it is important that the decision makers interact with others and approach solutions as a collective body. The moral and ethical issues focus on adequately preparing students to be successful and creating unique value from the programs they enroll in. The business issues focus on delivering these programs to sufficient numbers of committed students with financial margins that allow each school to not only survive, but thrive.
These are the topics that I will address with deans and directors in a monthly “Gold Medal Classroom” column in 2014. This will be a forum for all those individuals who have the responsibility for building and delivering first-rate culinary education now and in the future. At the forefront will remain: “Is It Time to Reinvent Culinary Education?” I look forward to lively discussions on the following topics throughout the year:
- The cost of educating our students
- Salary scales for graduates: Are they in line with the cost of education?
- The need to train internship sites and build strong industry relationships
- Accommodating the online options
- Finding and training culinary educators
- The faculty credentialing issue
- Should culinary programs respond to industry trends or should we define what those trends will be?
- The accreditation hammer: using the process to improve
- Addressing recruitment challenges
Paul Sorgule, MS, AAC, president of Harvest America Ventures, a “mobile restaurant incubator” based in Saranac Lake, N.Y., is the former vice president of New England Culinary Institute and a former dean at Paul Smith’s College. Contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.harvestamericaventures.com.