Workshops help school lunch managers in Pennsylvania

Food and Nutrition, April, 1986 by Joe Dunphy

The purpose of the workshops, according to Carolyn Lambert, assistant professor in Penn State's Food Systems Administration, was to acquaint school food service personnel and business officials with the computer and its application in their workplace.

She says most managers in business administration are in need of computer knowledge. School food service is a good example of a profession that must use, reuse, and store large quantities of information.

"The computer would appear to be such a logical purchase that every school food service department would have one," the professor says. But many school districts do not use electronic technology in school food service.

"In some cases, there is a reluctance to try new systems," she explains. "And there are many times when people are willing but the training is either too technical or inappropriate."

The premise of the Penn State workshops was that participants had little or no knowledge of computers or their application to the school lunch program.

Sessions held in

three locations

Sessions were held in three locations--eastern, western, and central sections of the state. They were limited to 50 people per session so that everyone could have enough personal attention from instructors as well as time working with the computer.

"We had less lecture time and more participation with the terminal," Koser says. "People quickly became more at ease and less apprehensive."

Another key ingredient to the success of the workshops was the instructional software that consisted of programs specific to food service operations--inventory, daily cost sheets, and a recipe file. These programs were given to participants in diskettes ready to use.

Koser says he hopes the workshops and the programs will serve as a base that will eventually lead to such things as inventories, cost analyses, financial data, recipes and nutrient evaluations being generated instantly by computers.

"The workshops got the awareness to 150 people," he says. "It's a start."