When Andrew Camuso came to Villanova this year, he had big ideas and plans for dining services. Using his five pillars for the department: culinary excellence; operations excellence; sustainability; diversity; equity and inclusion; and technology, Camuso has already begun to implement change for the community.
Camuso’s background is deeply involved with higher education with his experience at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Saint Joe’s.
“My first day, I noticed how everything used to be wrapped in Saran-wrap,” Camuso said, explaining the changes he’s already established. “We got rid of that that day.”
This was not the only immensely quick change either. As an avid advocate for student feedback, Camuso stated that he heard complaints on the rice in Cova being described as “off,” and instantly had the recipe reworked to suit these demands.
While these short-term changes have already been established on campus, many other long term ones are already planned to follow suit. As stated by Camuso, that includes an acai bowl station in Cafe Nova, a possible sushi-station in the works and even latte art at the Drosdick Hall Holy Grounds. Despite the hectic nature of all that is going on, Camuso has no intentions of slowing down.
“Tweaking recipes, for example, or breakfast at dinner?” he said. ‘Let’s do it. Also at Cafe Nova, Cova Greens has already taken a great start.”
Beyond the food, Camuso sees incredible opportunity in technology. While currently students lack most, if not all, connection to various food spots that have collaborated with GrubHub, this inconvenience will soon be remedied with a variety of programs that will connect students to the chefs to make changes or seek allergen information.
In regards to sustainability, Camuso passionately shared a plethora of concepts including green to go boxes, food waste meetings to limit overproduction and promote innovation, as well as scales in dining halls to make student food waste impact noticeable.
All of these changes are at the University’s fingertips due to flexibility.
“The rest of higher education is running away from franchises, and Villanova is running towards them.” Camuso said. “For me, I want to work at Villanova Dining where we have free reign.”
This “free reign” opens up limitless possibilities, and much is contingent upon student feedback. Therefore, because most students are concerned about variety, Camuso is seeking to provide them with just that.
Camuso is already establishing end of semester survey forms on dining, along with appearances and meetings with student government. Because of this, whether it be concepts for Cabrini’s newly acquired campus or methods to bring Villanova into the national spotlight, Camuso is open to anything and everything.
“I want to make dining fun,” Camuso said. “It’s not just food. It is also about experience and education.”
