Advanced Kirkwood facility will better prepare students for hospitality careers
[Cedar Rapids, Iowa]– Kirkwood Community College Hospitality Arts graduates find work in everything from casual and fine dining restaurants to casinos and large food corporations. About 90 percent of them find work within 100 miles of Kirkwood. The new Hotel at Kirkwood Center will make sure they’re even better prepared to enter that workforce.“Hospitality Arts students that go through this new two-year program at The Hotel will come out of this program with even more real-world experience than in the past,” said Hotel General Manager Lee Belfield. “They will be able to apply all of their knowledge daily while they work in The Hotel. They should be twice as effective when they go into a local or national job because of this new learning laboratory.”
Recent Kirkwood graduate Ben Smart is the lead cook working at the upscale Herbfarm Restaurant (www.theherbfarm.com) in metropolitan Seattle. “I have been able to work my way up in a little over a year to the lead cook role here at Herbfarm,” Smart said. “My responsibilities include creating the entrée for our nine-course tasting menu.”
Smart’s Pacific Northwest experiences have also reinforced an added benefit of his Kirkwood degree. “Things are going great out here. I work with lots of people who went to private cooking schools that were mighty expensive. I constantly give them a hard time over how much they spent on school!” he joked.
Currently, Kirkwood students learn about managing a restaurant while operating The Class Act Restaurant on main campus. They work together to serve four lunches per week. With the opening of The Hotel, students will gain experience preparing and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at the full-service restaurant.
The Hotel will prepare students beyond the dining experience. Hotel Management students will have a lab that better suits their needs. Belfield says there is no substitute for reality-based learning.
“Managing a hotel is one of the tougher jobs in the hospitality industry,” Belfield observed. “What students learn in the Class Act is limited. Hotels have so many more moving parts. This hotel will help students get that practice. You really can’t find that experience at any other community college in the country. The experience they get will cut training time in half once they find their first job after graduation.”
Students will work each mealtime and cater events, so they’re better prepared for the demands of the hospitality industry.
In the past most graduates went straight to work in area restaurants. Now their degrees are taking them into other areas. “The majority of our graduates end up working for a hotel or restaurant in the Corridor,” said Hospitality Arts Department Chair Mary Jane German. “They’re not limited to hotels and restaurants though. Others work at country clubs, long-term care facilities, casinos and even downtown Cedar Rapids at Mercy Hospital.”
Belfield also noted that The Hotel will create its own economic contributions to the eastern Iowa business landscape. He expects about 75 professional staff members to be in place when the facility opens in the summer of 2010.
“The Hotel will need everything from guest room attendants and bell staff to managers and supervisors. Some of these positions will be entry level while others will need to bring a lot of work experience to the table,” he said.
The teaching hotel will provide what Belfield called “constant, daily learning situations” as the college students work alongside the staff in serving guests and restaurant patrons.
The four-story facility is under construction on the south side of the main Kirkwood campus. When complete it will offer 71 guest rooms, including six suites and a variety of other lodging choices, designed as much for the student experience as college and public guest options. It is being built as a learning-laboratory for students to be better prepared when they enter the industry.
The new teaching laboratory/hotel facility will offer upscale lodging, dining and meeting services to local guests and travelers while providing a real-time, comprehensive learning experience to hundreds of students each year in Kirkwood’s Hospitality Arts programs. The Hotel’s rooms, suites and meeting/conference facilities will complement the breakfast/lunch/dinner restaurant, plus banquet and meeting services.
More information and updates on construction are available via the college Web site: