UNCW Campus Dining has received a national award for a New Orleans themed event hosted in Wagoner Hall, UNCW's main campus dining facility, last fall. The event served as a tie-in event with Synergy, UNCW's Common Reading Program. Synergy is a common reading reading experience designed to help build community among university students, primarily freshman students, faculty and staff by encouraging them to read one book together at the start of each academic year. This year's reading selection was Zeitoun, a non-fiction account of one man's decision to remain in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. The book, centered around a prosperous Syrian-American man, highlights the issues of injustice and social responsibility.
While the University community was reading Zeitoun, Campus Dining was planning a special event to be included in the University's event series surrounding the book. The aptly named "NOLA Lunch" incorporated traditional aspects of New Orleans food and culture into an event that reinforced what the community learned by reading the book. The event was then nominated and subsequently received Gold in the annual Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards from the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS).
"Feeding
large numbers of students nutritious, high quality food on a daily basis is a
big job," said Brian Dailey, director of Auxiliary Services, "but at
UNCW we think Campus Dining can do even more than that. Dining is a large part
of campus life, and offers many opportunities to partner with the academic
community to reinforce what students are studying and learning. The NOLA Lunch
was an excellent example of how well this approach can work."
Information on Campus Dining Services can be found at http://uncw.edu/dining/. For more information on the event, please visit the full article below!
