Western seeks a highly collaborative and creative professional to join our university team as the Assistant Director of Dining. This is an in-person and on-site position, with an anticipated start date of November 2024. This new position coordinates all aspects of Western’s dining and beverage/vending contract in a dynamic, fast-paced, and constantly evolving environment. The manager provides day-to-day support to ensure dining and beverage/vending operations are functioning smoothly across multiple sites and stakeholders have continuous communications. The scope of responsibilities includes contract management and administration, problem solving, strategic planning, customer support, and a liaison for our facilities team.
Duties/Responsibilities:
Contract Management/Administration
Coordinate Western’s Dining and Beverage/Vending Contracts and their daily operations.
Function as the primary advisor to the executive director and associate directors in University Residences regarding administration of dining and beverage/vending contracts and other obligatory agreements associated with these activities.
Serve as a main contact for all dining and beverage contract activities across campus. Stakeholders include but limited to the Child Development Center, Academic Affairs, Disability Access Center, Student Life, Financial Aid, Veteran Services, the Office of the President.
Interact with all levels at Western and contracted vendor management.
Participate in problem-solving, assessment, and service evaluation.
In partnership with associate director and department leadership, communicate and implement dining and auxiliary vision, mission, goals, and objectives and strategic plans with Western’s Community.
Understand metrics of university meal plans and beverage/vending programs and use them to suggest improvements.
Collaborate with associate director and leadership to strategically plan for fiscally sound operations, excellent customer service, and effective programmatic development.
Understand daily operations across venues regarding service and execution and recommend efficiencies.
Work with conferences, Office of Continuing Education, and incoming visiting groups, to facilitate and administer dining options all year around.
Regularly evaluate the quality of contracted dining and beverage services.
Function as main Western contact for all dining food service challenges with ability to bring campus stakeholders together, assess problems, identify workable solutions, and implement resolutions.
Develop new meal plan offering to students, faculty, staff, and works with Transact administrators to configure POS systems to support updates.
Coordinate with the associate and executive director on annual reporting efforts of assisting in documentary achievement of university values, goals, and mission.
Customer and Technology Support
Serve as an advisor to the Dining Services Advisory Committee on issues relating to food services.
Function as a main point of customer support contact by interacting with students, parents, faculty, and staff via email, phone calls or in person meetings.
Develop and attend student and community feedback opportunities and conversations involving dining and beverage and vending services.
Provide oversight for meal plan IT systems software including licensing, hardware inventory, and programming of meal plans.
Works closely with IT resources to resolve any issues related to student meal plan systems.
Leadership and Supervision
Supervisory responsibilities of 1-2 classified staff
Prepare annual dining report and support other reporting requests (mid-year report, BFA finance reports) as needed.
Constant review of dining contract and annual contracts and suggest updates as needed yearly.
Provide leadership and oversight for Transact and Meal Plans Plus software implementation and daily use, serve as primary data custodian for Transact, work with functional user stakeholders to ensure software is robust and provides excellent support/service.
Act on behalf of the associate director in their absence
Facilities and Procurement Liaison
As needed, supports the associate and assistant director for University Residences Facilities with any facilities-related dining issues, equipment issues, purchases, and operational issues.
Analyzes and evaluates dining vendor FF&E and other bids or proposals and determines compliance with Western’s contract requirements, including but not limited to technical specifications, life cycle costing, the Environmental Protection Agency’s recycled content guidelines, instate reciprocity, minority and women business enterprise participation and price.
Suggests corrective action if bids or proposals do not meet requirements including negotiations to correct performance, price adjustments, or contract terminations
Other Duties as Assigned
Required Qualifications
Bachelor’s Degree
Five (5) years of experience in a management position or higher overseeing a complex program with multiple stakeholders.
2-3 years’ experience managing, training, and working with a variety of software applications and databases.
2-3 years’ supervisory experience
Effective communication, negotiation, and critical thinking skills
Excellent planning and organization skills
Self-initiator
Customer service oriented
Effective collaborator
Demonstrated ability to work and lead effectively in a diverse environment.
Preferred Qualifications
Master’s degree.
Experience working in a university/college higher education setting.
Experience with Banner, Millennium, Star Rez, Transact, Meal Plans Plus
Proven ability to plan and manage operational processes and implement new structures for maximum efficiency and productivity.
Experience interpreting and executing and developing complex contracts and other contractual agreements.
Open until filled; preference given to applications received by October 25, 2024.