WWC’s New General Manager of Food Service Hopes to Improve Dining Experiences on Campus
Iris Seaton | September 22, 2022
Willow Solomon
Barry Phillips
WWC’s New General Manager of Food Service Hopes to Improve Dining Experiences on Campus
For 29 years, Dining Services manager Brian O'Loughlin set the standard at Gladfelter Dining Hall. In June of 2022, Warren Wilson College (WWC) hired a new Dining Services manager following O’Loughlin’s resignation from the position. Barry Phillips, the new general manager, plans to address some student concerns regarding Gladfelter.
Phillips began in June, taking over for O’Loughlin completely when he officially departed in August. Since he started at WWC, Phillips has come to understand some of the more negative opinions that many students hold regarding Gladfelter in particular.
He touched on several specific grievances students have expressed in the past including monotony in menus, lack of student input, issues with sustainability and lack of a crew ‘culture’ among students who work for Gladfelter.
“I know this is like a team effort here,” Phillips said. “This is a family, we're all on the same mission, you know, sustainability, pulling ideas together, you know, trying to change the world for the better. And so that's my goal was to work with students to make Glatfelter a place they want to come — to make it fun.”
On a similar note, Phillips shared some ideas he hopes to put in place to make the dining experience at Gladfelter more pleasant for all students and faculty.
“My plans are to just create excitement,” said Phillips. “We're working on maybe celebrating birthdays every month, picking one day making birthday cakes, cupcakes, whatever we need to do and celebrate everybody's birthday for the month.”
Other ideas Phillips has to make student dining more enjoyable come from his years of experience as a manager and advisor in the dining industry. Specials such as baked potato bars and french fry bars, add music to Gladfelter and create an atmosphere that is more like a restaurant and less like a college cafeteria. Phillips stressed his desire to include students in the process of improvement.
“My philosophy is open door policy, because I'm here for them,” said Phillips. “This job is to serve the students and staff and faculty here to help them.”
Phillips expanded on this with a more specific plan to invite students to speak about further changes they would like to see at Gladfelter.
“We would like to hold something where we get a sampling of all the students you know — maybe for dinner one night or something — in a room and talk about dining issues,” Phillips said. “We can talk about things they want to see, what things we can solve together, that type of thing because I want to also use that as the education. So I can also educate them on the reason we do certain things certain ways.”
On complaints about sustainability, Phillips divulged several ideas being discussed on how to make Gladfelter more sustainable. First, he spoke about other new staff hirings at Gladfelter who have been put in positions that will assist in a focus on sustainability. A recent hire, Summer Vishnu, will serve as Sodexo’s marketing and sustainability coordinator.
“We didn't get a local foods crew this year because I didn’t have anyone in charge down there, so now that she's in hopefully in the spring we’re going to start a couple of students on our local foods crew to give her a hand with some sustainability going forward,” Phillips said regarding Vishnu.
Finally, Phillips touched on complaints by students about the culture of the crew or lack thereof. Kat Laufenberg, another new hire, serves as the catering and student liaison. Among her other duties, Laufenberg will be the main facilitator of dining services crew meetings.
“In the past, they didn't hold regular meetings,” said Phillips. “It was just kind of like, ‘if I don't have anything to say, we're not gonna have a meeting,’ and we're not going to do that. We've already had — like the first week we gave out Kind bars. Last week we did ice cream sandwiches, you know, just to have something fun to do during the meetings.”
Phillips provided insight into Laufenberg’s ideas for further plans to improve the experience of being a member of the dining crew. He acknowledged the new dining staff’s desire to facilitate the creation of a crew culture by providing more hands-on crew meetings in addition to fun perks.
“She's got a couple of ideas about bringing a couple of speakers in for 30 minutes or something to educate, you know, in case the students are interested in any other aspect besides food service,” Phillips said. “Yes, we're trying to create a culture, you know, bring that into our dining services, because I want them to have a good time”
In closing, Phillips reiterated his desire for dining services at WWC to be a positive experience for students.
“That's the big thing I want to say,” Phillips said. “We're not the old regime. We're trying to change things, and we want to do it for the students.”