Register now for an immersive two-day workshop where you will gain a fresh perspective on leadership, management, and employee retention. Whether you are an aspiring manager, new to management, or an experienced leader, the Engaging People Workshop offers practical tactics and invaluable insights on motivation, conflict resolution, teamwork, recruitment, and more.

This interactive workshop encourages collaboration among participants as you look at big-picture strategy and build a comprehensive framework to manage your team effectively!

Don’t miss the opportunity to unlock your full potential as a leader. Upon completion of the workshop, you can expect to achieve the following outcomes: 

• Expand your professional network with individuals within collegiate foodservice who face similar challenges.
• Understand how your preferred work style and the various styles within your team can work as an advantage through an informal personality profile.
• Harness the power of knowledge sharing to empower your staff, manage your time efficiently, and effectively prioritize competing tasks. Learn valuable tips to grow your professional relationships with peers, direct reports, and leadership.
• Develop confidence in navigating difficult employee conversations and applying corrective action through using attentive listening and feedback skills.
• Grow your awareness of how your communication style can shape your team, retain talent, attract new talent, and boost employee engagement.
• Discover opportunities for self-reflection, new skill practice, and action-planning.

What are your peers saying about the workshop?

“This workshop is great for anyone that manages people, whether new in their leadership role or doing it for many years.”

“I thought that this workshop was wonderful and I would love for more of my colleagues to take this workshop.”

“I can apply what I learned and immediately put it into execution. Most importantly, it enabled me to become and see myself as a better leader.”

“My biggest take-away was how to show appreciation to others.”

“Jodi provided me specific direction around employee skill set development opportunities for my organization. I plan on presenting these ideas to my manager.”

“Attending the Engaging People Workshop was an eye-opening experience for me and changed my perspective on how I lead others. I plan to enroll all managers from my own team in the workshop!”

Effectively managing uncertainty is essential for ensuring smooth operations and upholding high standards. This micro-course will offer you valuable insights to help you understand and cope with stress, adapt to challenges, make informed decisions, and lead with confidence during unpredictable times. The practical strategies provided can benefit you not only at work but also in other areas of your life.

Designed for managers, but anyone in collegiate dining could benefit from the course. 

NACUFS Marketing for Foodservice

Strengthen your marketing expertise and elevate your campus dining brand with Marketing for Foodservice, an asynchronous online course designed for collegiate dining managers, marketing coordinators, and administrators with beginner to intermediate experience. The course aims to enhance marketing strategies that will increase your dining operation's visibility and create memorable experiences for your campus community. From building awareness to engaging your guests, this course focuses on providing you with the tools you need to succeed.

Throughout the course, you will analyze the importance of strategic marketing and effective methods to engage your campus community, raise awareness, and establish your department as the go-to dining expert on campus. Additionally, you'll practice essential marketing applications related to planning, data analysis, design, and crisis management, preparing you to face the challenges of modern dining service marketing with confidence.

What You’ll Gain:

• Build a comprehensive marketing plan tailored to your operation’s goals and audience.

• Establish a consistent brand identity and understand its role in long-term success.

• Leverage marketing strategies that resonate across multiple generations and communication formats.

• Apply data collection and analysis techniques, including emerging tools like AI, to evaluate and improve your campaigns.

• Develop essential design skills and create accessible, engaging visual content using photography, video, graphics, and motion media.

• Prepare for unexpected challenges by mastering crisis communication strategies that keep your team and brand resilient.

Modules:

1. Creating a Marketing Plan: We will explore the importance of a marketing plan, the steps involved in creating one, and strategies to avoid market oversaturation. 

2. Evaluation: This section will focus on data collection, analyzing feedback, and the role of artificial intelligence in evaluating marketing efforts.

3. Design Considerations: Begin or build on fundamental design skills and learn how to create a style guide to maintain a cohesive theme. Additionally, we will develop skills in graphics, photography, video production, motion graphics, and accessibility.

4. Engaging Through Integrated Marketing: This segment will cover effective strategies for promoting your department and participating in competitions.

5. Crisis Management: How to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters and crises.

Developed with input from NACUFS members representing eight colleges and universities, this course combines real-world insights with actionable content to meet the evolving demands of foodservice marketing.

When Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina, the immediate aftermath revealed the critical role that App State's dining played in the community and beyond. In a two-week response effort during the university’s closure, dining facilities opened their doors to provide free meals to students, faculty, staff, and affected residents. This session delved into our response to this crisis, emphasizing how campus dining not only fulfilled a fundamental need for nourishment but also acted as a unifying force amid chaos. 

Hear from Elizabeth Riede, App State’s executive director of campus dining, as she shares how her team mobilized to provide thousands of free meals and build partnerships across campus and beyond. Gain insights into emergency response logistics, team leadership during adversity, and strategies for using dining operations as a source of healing and connection in times of need.

We shared insights on mobilizing staff, coordinating meal service, and fostering an inclusive environment that welcomed individuals of all ages and backgrounds. The collaborative relationships formed with other campus divisions, local organizations, and volunteers showcase how community partnerships amplified outreach and support. Learn about the logistical planning involved in providing thousands of meals, as well as the emotional impact of our efforts on both the recipients and the staff involved. 

This session was designed to inspire other dining services to view their role through a lens of community engagement and resilience, reinforcing the notion that food is not just sustenance but a powerful tool for healing and connection in times of crisis. The team demonstrated remarkable resilience and compassion, stepping away from their own personal challenges to ensure that no one felt alone during this trying time. Elizabeth shares App State’s lived experience, and the live audience also had the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation.

In a world where AI can manage everything from menu planning to feedback analysis, the real challenge is preserving the human connection that students value most. In this session, AI-Driven, Human-Led: Crafting the Perfect Recipe for Humanity in the AI Revolution, we’ll explore how campus dining teams can embrace AI tools to boost efficiency and marketing efforts, without losing their authentic voice. Discover how to weave human-centered storytelling into AI-enhanced content across different platforms, from idea generation to administrative support to showcasing student experiences. We’ll also dive into how to engage with AI consciously and ethically, ensuring that innovation doesn’t come at the cost of integrity. You’ll leave with actionable strategies to ensure your dining program remains efficient, engaging, and deeply personal.

In this micro-course, Amanda Ewing, Director of Culture & Engagement for the University of Michigan Dining, will introduce how to support inclusive excellence by connecting hospitality and team culture. We will learn about microaggressions, practice bystander intervention, and set personal goals for welcoming guests to your community. We will consider how our identities travel everywhere with us and our guests, and by pausing to consider this, we will consider how a person’s identities might impact how they think about, experience, and make sense of the world. This self-paced course is packed with interactive opportunities and resources as an introduction or a refresher to identity-conscious supervision in hospitality leadership. 

Estimated time for completion: 1 hour

In this short video, Ashley Richardson, a registered dietitian at Ohio State University, discusses the dietary restrictions associated with various religions. She explains the guidelines for kosher and halal diets, as well as the dietary practices in Hinduism and Christianity. The video covers how to accommodate these dietary restrictions within collegiate foodservice, including support for seasonal changes such as the Christian Lent period and Hindu fasting days.

This recorded panel discussion was a collaborative effort presented by three higher educational organizations: the National Association of Campus Card Users (NACCU), the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS), and the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). It explored the crucial theme of community well-being and how it relates to various roles on campus. The discussion was grounded in the understanding that well-being is not a fragmented pursuit. Instead, it emphasizes a holistic approach that considers the whole person, the entire educational experience, the institution as a whole, and the community at large. This comprehensive perspective encourages us to examine the various dimensions of well-being and how they intersect, influencing one another across our diverse roles.

Industry 101: This short document teaches you how to leverage conferences and understand your segment. It also includes helpful tips, takeaways, and frequently asked questions. 

Spend a few minutes to learn more about the college and university market!

Discover how to benchmark customer satisfaction and compare your program with peer institutions using the NACUFS Customer Satisfaction Benchmarking Survey. This survey provides the essential data needed to address key questions regarding student satisfaction.

Designed to offer campus dining leaders real-time insights into student experiences across residential dining halls and retail units. This customizable survey, developed in partnership with Touchwork, evaluates 25 key performance indicators, including food quality, customer service, the dining environment, and more.

With personalized reports and dynamic benchmarking data, you will gain a clear comparative view of your program’s strengths and areas where improvements can enhance student satisfaction.

To make the most of this vital benchmarking tool, be sure to watch this recorded webinar from February 13, 2025, where you will learn how to:

• Plan and customize a survey tailored to your institution’s unique needs.
• Implement best practices for launching the survey and increasing student participation.
• Maximize insights from the survey with real-time benchmarking data to guide strategic decisions