Most campus dining programs run seven days a week, from early morning to late at night. Maintaining consistent quality and service across all of those hours is one of the most persistent operational challenges in higher education, and one of the least visible to the people responsible for solving it.

Steven Deutsch, Executive Director of Campus Auxiliary Services at SUNY New Paltz, joins Rob White to discuss exactly that challenge: the gap between how a dining program performs when leadership is present and how it performs when they’re not. From weekend staffing to real-time student feedback, Steve shares where his program is making progress, and where the magic wand moment still feels out of reach.

Steve’s takeaway: Consistent operations across all hours requires two things working together: real-time data to surface problems when they happen, and staff who are trained, motivated, and empowered to act on that information without waiting for management to step in.