Kim Davis, ARAMARK?s resident district manager, told administrators he was leaving the company, making him the 25th ARAMARK manager to leave Duke since the company came in 2001.
Duke Dining Services suffered a setback last week with the sudden departure of ARAMARK Corp.’s top on-site administrator.
Kim Davis, ARAMARK’s resident district manager, told administrators he was leaving ARAMARK, which manages five on-campus vendors: the Marketplace, the Great Hall, Subway, Chick-fil-A and Trinity Cafe. Jim Wulforst, director of dining services, characterized Davis’ departure as a “huge loss” to the dining program. Wulforst had repeatedly voiced his faith in Davis as the man to get ARAMARK’s dining operations to the level of excellence students demand.
“I’ve always felt that with the right leadership, we can make [ARAMARK at Duke] work,” Wulforst said. He added that Davis made strides toward improving the dining program.
The announcement came as a surprise as Davis’ tenure at Duke was a short-lived five months. Davis said only that his decision to leave was a “personal choice” and declined to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding his departure.
“I think the relationship between ARAMARK and Duke is going to continue to move forward and I wish everyone here the best of luck,” Davis said.
Wulforst added that he “was shocked” when Davis informed him of his decision and that it was not an institutional move. Chuck Moyer, ARAMARK’s senior district manager, refused to comment.
Wulforst pointed to the high turnover rate in ARAMARK managers as a “revolving door” of managers that poses an ongoing challenge to the management and impedes progress toward consistency in quality.
Davis’ predecessor had a three-year tenure as resident district manager, but there have been 25 different lower-level managers since the company came to Duke in 2001. Davis’ replacement has not yet been announced.
Wulforst acknowledged a level of student dissatisfaction with ARAMARK that has led to two no-confidence votes from Duke Student Government, one last February and one in November.
“The biggest issue is having consistency—we’re not nearly as consistent as we’d like to be,” Wulforst said.
ARAMARK’s promise to bring an extensive training program to Duke was one of the primary reasons for bringing the company here, Wulforst said.
“Those resources should have been available at the touch of a keystroke,” he explained, adding that the program did not meet expectations. “The real issue is that everyone here expected more from ARAMARK that was not delivered... but [Davis] was going to make it happen.”
Davis oversaw the ARAMARK management team at its dining operations and reported to Wulforst. Wulforst attributed many of the problems with the Marketplace in particular to its venue-specific management. He said ARAMARK simply did not hire the proper managers, such as managers trained to deal with unions, which led to unhappiness with the corporation among students and staff.
Wulforst said that a majority of student complaints concern the Marketplace and issues such as menu fatigue and general quality. ARAMARK and Dining Services are concentrating their efforts on the freshman dining hall, including offering later hours and testing a late-night food option. When freshmen return to campus after spring break, they will also have the opportunity to try a new initiative allowing them to use up to 80 percent of their dining plan points allotted to breakfast toward lunch meals.
Reviewers with the Performance Assessment for Culinary Excellence program and mystery shoppers frequently evaluate on-campus vendors as part of an overall quality assessment.
Wulforst also said Dining Services is striving to bring employee training to the level ARAMARK promised, despite unfounded concerns by employees that ARAMARK was blocking them from promotion. A half-dozen Dining Services employees have gone through Duke’s Professional Development Institute to further their careers, including two who chose to join the Duke University Police Department.
“I think when we entered into this relationship, it was the right thing for us,” Wulforst said. “It’s just a matter of the right leadership, and consistency will come. I think [ARAMARK] is capable of excellence, and it will be the result of good leadership.... We are poking them big time to make sure they do everything possible.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.