MCC, EVIT team up to start culinary arts program
It’s 17 years in the making and the first of its kind for MCC. After a long developmental struggle, the OK has been given for the creation of a comprehensive Culinary Arts program – a program that promises to offer students an inexpensive and rapid route to one of the most talked-about careers in the job market.
“It’s just been a battling of the system until somebody said, ‘yeah, let’s go ahead and do it,’” said Carlton Brooks, a 25-year veteran of the East Valley Institute of Technology and certified culinary educator.
Brooks has been instrumental in creating curriculum for a joint MCC/EVIT culinary arts program that launches this Spring.
At the forefront of development is Jennifer Watson, who, in Spring 2005, began teaching several culinary arts courses at MCC’s Red Mountain campus.
But Watson sought to build on MCC’s limited options for students wanting to pursue a career in an industry that is thriving in the Valley.
“Our program will prepare students to work in the culinary world, whether that’s in food service, in restaurants, hospitals, schools or resorts,” Watson said. “It’ll give them a good solid background in both the culinary arts – actual hands-on cooking – as well as the management skills that go with it.”
Although Watson has received daily emails from people interested in this curriculum, it is the enrollment numbers that will determine how the program takes shape.
“We’ll have to see what actually pans out,” Watson said. “Being interested in something and actually committing to take classes and do a degree is another thing. But, initially, everybody seems very excited about it. This is an industry everybody can relate to because everybody eats.”
Students who enroll in the two-year program are encouraged to begin with the professional cooking course.
From there, the courses become very specific, from American and International cooking to food service purchasing and menu planning.
“You’ll learn how to use a mixer that’s as big as you, as opposed to the one you use at home,” Watson said of the commercial baking course. “You’re not learning how to make two dozen cookies you’re learning how to make 20 dozen cookies.”
That mixer, and many other state-of-the art facilities, are the bonus that EVIT offers MCC.“We’ve got the training facility, which does not then have to be duplicated by the college,” Brooks said.
EVIT boasts a 30,000 square-foot kitchen, bake shop, and a 20,000 square-foot dining facility that seats 400 people.
MCC and EVIT are obvious associates as both schools specialize in occupational programs. “There is a logical partnership -- and they’re looking at possibly other programs in the future,” Watson said.
“As a whole, the American palette is getting more sophisticated,” Watson said, who credits the growing popularity of the Food Network and celebrity chefs like Rachel Ray for the public’s continuing awareness of the culinary arts. “A big part of that is because people are more educated and because people are eating out more.”
“There is a very competitive job market, though not high-salaried as opposed to other areas,” Brooks said. “But because we are the second largest resort facility in the country there are plenty of jobs out there.”
Watson said that being ignorant of how to cook can actually benefit a student.“Chefs would actually prefer you walk in knowing nothing than to come in thinking you know it all, because then they don’t have to break you of bad habits,” she said. “The chefs can then train you the way they want you to be trained.”
Students interested in the program can email Watson with questions, at chef@mail.mc.maricopa.edu.
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Illustration by Scott Seligman/Mesa Legend