University of Arkansas Student Named Student Employee of the Year

Jack Lim, director of the Arkansas Union Food Court & Catering, left, congratulates Debby Chou on her national student employee of the year award.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The National Association of College and University Food Services has selected Debby Chou as the national winner for Student Employee of the Year. Chou, an associate of Chartwells Campus Dining Services, was nominated by Jack Lim, director of the Arkansas Union Food Court & Catering.

“Just weeks after hiring Debby, we felt as if we had actually added five people to our staff,” Lim said. “She began her work with translating daily sales figures into franchise reports, menu engineering, and assessing purchase reports against invoices. She streamlined every report she touched. Because of her extreme focus and analytical mind, she has saved an incredible number of work hours, allowing managers more time to interact with customers and fine-tune kitchen processes.”

Once her new reports were in place, Chou began looking beyond the office door for more ways she could help. She started with inventories and moved on to organizing supplies and even cleaning preparation areas. She continues to go above and beyond every day.

Chou is a student of biological engineering who artfully balances work, study and home responsibilities while maintaining an admirable grade point average.

The National Association of College and University Food Services , a food service organization for strategic leadership and development of the higher education market place, awards this prize to an outstanding student employee of a member institution. From among six regional winners, the national winner is selected by a panel headed by the national past president. Regional winners receive a $500 scholarship; the national winner receives a $3,000 scholarship, presented at the July national conference. Evaluation criteria are reliability, quality of work, initiative, disposition and contribution.

Chartwells, a division of Compass Group, based in Charlotte, N.C., provides dining services for more than 210 colleges and universities around the country. Chartwells has been a partner at the University of Arkansas since 1998.

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Scott Flanagin, director communications and outreach
Student Affairs
479-575-6785, sflanagi@uark.edu