Are we the Berkeley of the east?
When I was in the process of making the decision to join UMass 11 years ago, one pitch my boss put forth was that UMass is known as the “Berkeley of the East” because of the great faculty, enthusiastic students, dedicated and competent staff, and the political activism of the campus; with the benefit that the cost of living here is a lot cheaper than the west coast. As time has progressed, I think this statement is somewhat true since we have many things in common.
Chancellor Holub worked for 27 years at Berkeley and this past March, scientists at UMass and UC Berkeley developed new nanotechnology together. Both schools have a very similar size of their undergraduate population and UMass has many exchange students from UC Berkeley on campus.
In terms of dining services, we also have many things in common. Both schools have a strong dining program and each have recently renovated a dining facility. In addition, both UMass and UC Berkeley participated in the Visiting College Chef series, hosted by us. I visited Berkeley 3 years ago with our chef Willie, and Berkeley chefs have been on our campus many times for the annual Tastes of the World Conference. Some of our guest chefs such as Mai Pham, Suvir Siran, and Mollie Katzen are consultants for both places. My counterpart at Berkeley and I have attended several conferences together over the years and it seems that both of us are always in the spotlight at college and university dining events.
Last week, several of us from across the country were in Minneapolis for a panel discussion and an opportunity to toss about ideas. We talked about the trends, sustainability, healthy options and world cuisine. It was obvious that UMass and Berkeley have many things in common, advocating for healthier choices and going green more than other schools on the panel. Both of us offer many authentic ethnic cuisines and promote healthy items on campus, again, more so than many schools in the country. Chef Ida of Berkeley spoke eloquently about the importance of offering more natural and less genetically-modified foods and I talked about our stealth health program, and of reducing sodium content and providing smaller-sized portions to our customers. Most of all, we all agreed that we have an obligation to provide healthier options to our students at each meal.
Although UMass is a much larger dining program with more students on the meal plan than Berkeley, it is nice to know that we share a common goal, with a passion for providing our students a healthier dining program at each meal. Just perhaps, they are “UMass of the West”.
This is Ken Toong and thank you for keeping UMass Dining at the top.
Ken Toong
Director
Contact Ken at ktoong@mail.aux.umass.edu
You can follow Ken Toong on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/KenToong