Feb. 17, 2023 – College students everywhere climb a lot of stairs and log thousands of steps as they traverse campus grounds daily to attend classes, grab some food, and participate in sports or other extracurricular activities. Their boundless energy, tempered by some sleep-deprived days, is laser focused on the light at the end of the tunnel when they climb just a few steps, walk across a stage and are handed their diplomas. It’s a proud moment for them, their families and school leadership. “One word that comes to mind for me is transformation. We have students that come to our College of Food Innovation & Technology with a passion for food and by the time they leave us they have earned the degree that will allow them to create a career for a lifetime. It is amazing to see that happen,” Mim L. Runey, LP.D., Chancellor of Johnson & Wales University (JWU) in Providence, Rhode Island, said to Chaîne during a Feb. 9 telephone interview.

Featured image above: Mim Runey, LP.D., Chancellor, Johnson & Wales University

With thousands of successful graduates, some JWU alums are known by millions through television and their outstanding work as food industry innovators and leaders.

Tyler Florence
Tyler Florence, a 1994 graduate of JWU’s former Charleston, South Carolina campus, is a 24-year veteran of the Food Network with multiple hit shows, including his eponymous Tyler’s Ultimate. He can currently be seen as the host on Food Network’s The Great Food Truck Race. He has also launched brands in a variety of industries and published two cookbooks.

Chip Wade
Chip Wade is CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG). He received an Associate in Science degree in Culinary Arts from Johnson & Wales in 1983, a Bachelor of Science degree from Widener University, and a M.B.A. from The University of Texas, Dallas. In 2006, JWU awarded him an honorary Business Administration doctoral degree in Foodservice Management. Currently, he serves as a member of the JWU Board of Trustees. As a founding board member of the Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance, Chip is a dedicated proponent of diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Chef Lorena Garcia
Chef Garcia is a 2000 JWU graduate and was awarded an Honorary doctorate degree in 2014. Based in Miami, Florida, she is an entrepreneur, cookbook author, media personality, cookware designer, and restaurateur. She also started “Big Chef, Little Chef,” a non-profit organization aimed at addressing childhood obesity by helping children and their families take control of their eating habits and their lives.

JWU History

Founded in 1914 in Providence, Rhode Island as a business school by Mary Wales and Gertrude Johnson, two women who could not even vote at the time, the school grew from just a handful of students to a student body in the thousands.

In 1988 its name officially changed to Johnson & Wales University and in 1993, JWU received regional accreditation from the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)

JWU, a NCAA Division III school, now has more than 8,000 students enrolled in more than 100 undergraduate, graduate, and online programs. Known worldwide for their culinary arts programs, JWU students at its 170-acre main campus in Providence can earn an associate, bachelor and master’s degrees in the College of Food Innovation & Technology. Bachelor and master’s degrees are offered within their College of Hospitality Management.

At its Charlotte Campus, associate and bachelor’s degrees are offered in the College of Food Innovation & Technology and a bachelor’s degree in the College of Hospitality Management.

From humble beginnings in the first part of the 20th century, JWU is earning stellar reviews in the first part of the 21st century.

In September 2022, U.S. News & World Report released its Best Colleges rankings. The JWU Providence Campus moved up 24 spots and is now ranked at 70 out of 175 schools in Regional Universities, North. In addition, the Charlotte Campus is now being included in the U.S. News rankings; it is listed at 19 out of 99 schools ranked in the Regional Colleges, South category.

For 2020-2021, Money Magazine ranked JWU among its Best Colleges by its value, quality of education, affordability and outcomes including graduates’ earnings, employment status, career trajectory and socioeconomic mobility.

Mim joined JWU in 1989 after graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Clemson University. At the time, JWU had a branch campus in Charleston, South Carolina. She was driven to pursue a position in higher education. “I moved to Charleston, South Carolina and literally got out the phone book and applied to institutions that were within driving distance. JWU was particularly attractive to me because of its food programs,” Mim said. She began work on July 5, her birthday, as a Public Relations Officer. In December 1990, she was named Director of Public Relations.

JWU’s focus on culinary arts and hospitality began in the 1970s when the college had a contract with the U.S. Navy to deliver food service education, which they conducted at a number of sites including on ships and at local high schools. The college had a similar contract with the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia. Due to interest from the public for their culinary arts programs, in 1984, JWU opened a branch campus in downtown Charleston as the anchor tenant in a 19th century historic building. Two years later they opened another branch campus in Norfolk. Both programs expanded over the years to an enrollment of 1,600 students and 800 students respectively.

While working full time, Mim continued her own education, earning a Master of Arts in Management from Webster University in 1998 and a doctorate in Law and Policy from Northeastern University in 2009.

Charlotte Campus and Looking to the Future

In 2004, JWU named Mim President of the Charleston Campus. Two years prior, the city of Charlotte, North Carolina approached JWU to move and consolidate their branch campuses in Charlotte as the city sought to reinvigorate its food economy. With approximately $40 million in incentives, JWU wound down operations in Charleston and Norfolk, merged the two programs, and in 2004, opened their Charlotte branch campus. About 35 to 40 percent of the university’s employees moved to Charlotte. Mim moved to Providence and became JWU’s Senior Vice President for Institutional Planning.

“While one might think of culinary education as simply a process of learning a skill that has been around for ages, we deliver in that regard but we are also teaching students about food innovation, sustainability, nutrition and demands of the food industry in the future,” Mim said. “We always want to be on the cutting edge and at the forefront of what drives the future of food. We have to prepare our students for what’s to come.”

Opened in 2010 on their Providence Campus, JWU’s LEED Gold-certified Cuisinart Center for Culinary Excellence is the epicenter of learning for culinary arts students with 30 teaching labs and classrooms, a wine tasting room and four dining rooms. The building’s beautiful glass design offers students, faculty and visitors sweeping views of nearby Narragansett Bay and was the perfect setting for the Center’s inaugural event – a Chaîne dinner.

Through JWU’s Food Innovation Design Lab, FIDL, also located on the Providence campus, students, faculty and other partners take ideas from concept to product. In one semester course, students developed a candle made of maple syrup so instead of wax on birthday cake icing, only edible remnants remain after candles melt for an especially sweet innovation!

 

Named President of the Providence Campus in 2011 and JWU Chancellor in 2018, Mim keeps two issues uppermost in her thoughts and actions. First, she is committed to ensuring JWU’s curricula, across its seven colleges, are current. In the culinary arts, Mim said JWU is proud to have full time chef instructors with vast experience in the industry who stay connected with industry professionals to identify trends. “Being a chef is like being a member of a club or fraternity that provides camaraderie and support,” Mim said.

The past few years presented a unique challenge for the university and every educational institution from coast to coast. While JWU had to send students home at the beginning of the pandemic, Mim said by summer 2020, they adjusted, followed safety guidance, and brought students back to campus.

Mim’s philosophy for preparing their students for the future is grounded in reality.

“You predict the future by what the problems are today,” Mim said. And there are many current challenges in the food industry including cost increases, distribution channel disruption, and rapidly changing technology and government policies, she added.

Fostering academic expansion is also central to Mim’s leadership role.

In 2016, JWU opened the College of Health & Wellness with degree programs including physician assistant studies, dietetics, occupational therapy, exercise and sports science, and after accreditation is complete, physical therapy.

New for fall semester 2023 at the Providence campus, 32 students, who already have an undergraduate or graduate degree and wish to pursue nursing as a career, will begin a 16-month program to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. While some people thought the university was straying from their core focus by offering healthcare degrees, Mim says it is just the opposite. As just one example, culinary students can take advantage of advanced learning in dietetics and vice versa. “There is so much natural synergy between our healthcare programs and our food programs,” she said.

The second issue that can keep her up at night is college affordability. “Sometimes scholarships mean the difference in a student staying in school or not. I’ve seen students leave school over a couple of thousand dollars. Thank you to the Chaîne for your scholarship support,” she said. Several members of JWU faculty and staff are Chaîne members. Mim emphasized that scholarships help with more than just tuition; the financial support helps to transform lives. More than 90 percent of all JWU students receive institutional scholarships and/or grants from the university.

On Feb. 25 at a Rhode Island Bailliage dinner event, the Chaîne Foundation will present JWU with a check for $15,000 to further support student scholarships.

With a 15:1 student to faculty ratio and a highly successful job placement rate for graduates in their field of study, JWU is certainly not an ivory tower but rather, a deliciously relevant tower of higher education.

“We couldn’t be more excited about the value of a degree,” Mim said.

Links
Johnson & Wales University