Professor’s Italy Sojourn Part of Educational Excellence and Distinguished Service Award

Manchester, Conn. (December 2, 2015) – For Manchester Community College Professor Jayne Pearson, there can’t be too many cooks in the kitchen. The chair of the hospitality and culinary arts department has for 36 years overseen the training of talented students for careers in industrial and commercial kitchens.

Pearson is the recipient of the college’s 2015 Educational Excellence and Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes MCC employees whose performance exemplifies excellence in teaching, leadership and administration. She earned the award for more than 30 years of dedication to programs that offer students a choice of degree and certificate programs in the areas of culinary arts, food service and hotel-tourism.

Recently Pearson returned from Italy where, for one week, the teacher became the student, as she was exposed to sustainable food preparation and cooking practices in the small town of Cortona, Tuscany.

“I took classes run by a young, progressive chef who used nothing but local ingredients – farm raised, less processing, bought fresh from the local market,” Pearson said. “I made a comment about how she was using sustainable methods and she wasn’t even familiar with the term ‘sustainable’ – it’s just the natural approach that the chefs there all take for granted.”

She added that the recipes and flavors were different, with smoother cheeses and products that are very different from those in the U.S. “American cooking is based more on French styles than Italian,” Pearson said. “I saw foods I had never seen before – including capers that were still on the branch, and olives freshly crushed into olive oil using traditional stones.”

Pearson’s trip was supported by a $5,000 professional development grant she received as part of her award.

“Professor Pearson is focused on creating the best program for students that would launch successful careers,” according to Dr. Christopher Paulin, director of MCC’s social science, hospitality and culinary arts division, who nominated her for the award. “In that role, she has achieved remarkable success on many levels.”

MCC culinary arts and hospitality program graduates have gone on to own bakeries, serve as chefs and managers in both formal and informal restaurants, work in foodservice settings in health care, business and industry, work in hotels of all sizes and hold management positions in many areas of the hospitality field. For more info, go to manchestercc.edu/culinary.