Just a few ticks past 4 a.m., when most Bates students are sleeping, unless powering through an all-nighter, Dining Services staff member Jane Herrick arrives at Commons to begin her day.
We’re dating ourselves with the old Dunkin’ Donuts catch phrase, “Time to make the donuts.” But that’s Herrick’s life as head baker.
Herrick is the first of a Dining Services team that will number 70 on Tuesday, March 12, 2024. From morning till night, they will serve 4,789 meals and provide a top-shelf, caring, and community-oriented dining experience focused on students.
Christine Schwartz, Bates’ indefatigable associate vice president for dining, conferences, and campus events, was away on March 12, but the operation of the building, kitchens, and dining room she entrusts to her crackerjack staff ran like a top.
As students and alumni can attest, Bates dining operation is seamlessly integrated into the entire Bates student experience. “The work we do is integral to the educational mission of the institution and the success of our students,” says Schwartz. “That’s what drives us: helping students succeed.”
She and Cheryl Lacey, director of dining services, sweat the small stuff (such as sourcing sriracha sauce when it became scarce) and bigger stuff, like recognizing the wide variety of dining traditions, cultures, and needs presented by today’s Bates students, and supporting their own large team of workers.
Some Commons workers are multigenerational Lewiston citizens with long French Canadian heritage. Some are new citizens from African and other nations. For about 28 percent of the entire Dining, Conferences, and Campus Events staff, English is a second (or third) language.
They serve Bates students, and in turn the students serve them heaping helpings of appreciation and respect.
In the hours and initial days after the Lewiston shootings of Oct. 25, 2023, Bates had to ensure that students had food in the midst of a shelter-in-place order. “We still came in, because the kids had to be fed,” said Michael Staffenski, associate director of culinary and retail operations.
Afterward, students made their appreciation clear and visible. “The whole wall at the Napkin Board was full of thank-yous,” said Staffenski, referring to the cork board where Bates students offer feedback by writing comments on napkins that are pinned to the board.
Here, in the first of two parts, we present a day in the life of Commons.
4:04 a.m.
The first to arrive at Commons is baker Jane Herrick, right around 4 a.m., when she gets to work preparing frozen dough and the ingredients needed to make dozens of pastries, rolls, and desserts. Herrick lives in Lewiston near campus; other staff live in Auburn, while others travel from surrounding towns like Sabattus, Turner, Minot, Greene, and Lisbon Falls.
4:10 a.m.
Herrick has worked in Dining Services for 26 years — including for the last 18 as the baker. She takes immense pride in her work.
While putting cinnamon rolls in a proofing box, she stops for a moment to show off the vegan frosting used on breakfast rolls. It was her creation, and it’s been a hit. “They call it ‘Jane’s Vegan Frosting,’” she says with a smile.
4:20 a.m.
Herrick is no nonsense as she explains the specific protocols for mixing ingredients, freezing the dough, and cutting baking sheets of goodies made the previous day. She moves quickly, and doesn’t look up as she talks.
4:53 a.m.
Gerry Villeneuve and Violet Bernard carry coffee and drinks to their work stations. Even at this early hour, smiles and camaraderie are everwhere.
5:02 a.m.
Food vendors make deliveries through the course of each day. Some deliveries are small, like donuts from the Italian Bakery located downtown.
The biggest delivery is the day’s first, from NorthCenter food service. They deliver everything from cereal to tea, plus milk, chicken tenders, vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli florets, and products for the soft serve machine. That’s upwards of 600 cases in all.
5:12 a.m.
Ryan Blake, a member of the Dining Services sanitation team, puts down anti-fatigue kitchen mats behind all of the stations. And at the end of the day, a team member will remove and clean them for the next day.
5:15 a.m.
Gerry Villeneuve works the Tomcat Sport heavy duty floor scrubber outside the Chu Dining Room, which is no small job, particularly during a Maine winter or the state’s famous mud season.
5:22 a.m.
Ryan Blake stores his coat in one of the 52 lockers available for staff, many of them adorned with stickers celebrating equity and inclusion, vegan food, and Bates.
5:24 a.m.
Michael Staffenski, the associate director of culinary and retail operations, stops for a moment after a meeting with a cook to share with a visitor what he’s most proud of in Commons.
The first pride point is the students. Second is the consistent great reviews from various professional organizations. “We’re good at what we do. Yes, we’re busy. But we have systems in place to manage the flow,” Staffenski says.
5: 31 a.m.
Violet Bernard has worked in Commons for 12 years at the bakery, in the serving counters, in catering, “pretty much everywhere,” she says.
She’s proud that some of her own recipes have been used, such as her baked pasta dish and her grandmother’s Greek lentil soup, the Yai Yai’s Lentil Soup, a fan favorite because it is both vegan and gluten free.
But Bernard’s greatest joy at Bates is connecting with students, including student workers. She offers as proof a text from a former student from Ghana — Nerissa Brobbey ’15 — who had a flair for dressing in stylish, hip outfits. Bernard looks up and shows off Brobbey’s Facebook posts of her posing in fashionable dresses.
“It’s hard to see them graduate. I think of these kids as my kids,” Bernard says. “They need comfort food. But I want them to eat healthy. It’s a place for them to hang out together and keep their bellies full.”
5:29 a.m.
Josh Lajoie, a first cook in Dining Services, brings more than muscle power and culinary artistry to Commons each day.
“Josh has positive energy, is a team player, and has an incredible skill set. He’s just so good at spreading love around,” said Christine Schwartz.
Lajoie said working in Commons is more than a job. What he loves best about the experience is “the feeling of belongingness and being a part of something you know well with others.”
5:37 a.m.
From one tray or counter to the next, Herrick works patiently, carefully, and on any given day could be baking 80 to 300 muffins, around 14 loaves of banana bread, nearly 500 ginger-brandy cookies, and about 700 dinner rolls. There’s also sheets of key lime cheesecake to cut up and wrap, danishes and cinnamon rolls to prepare — all of it made from scratch.
Enter: Gerry Villeneuve, a veteran of 20 years, who works in sanitation. Villeneuve likes to joke around with the 5-foot-2 Herrick about how the short counters and kitchen carts were custom made for her (which is not true, but hearing Villeneuve say it in a booming laugh, it’s easy to believe).
“We are always moving here, but it’s nice to stop and visit,” Villeneuve says with another dose of laughter.
6:25 a.m.
Part of Dining Service’s rigorous health-safety protocols is making certain that well before the first bite is taken in Commons, the staff has gathered samples of each food item in the event that testing is later required.
6:40 a.m.
Mohamud Osman used to work on a hospital maintenance staff cleaning windows, so he aims for perfection when he cleans the windows on the front and back doors of Commons.
Osman helps the Bates crew in many ways: cleaning the floors, cleaning pots, cleaning the dishwasher, breaking it down and reassembling it, to name just a few. Osman waves to everyone in greeting and pitches in where he’s needed.
“I like working in Commons, I like the people, I like my managers. They’re good people. They always ask me what I need, and they ask so nicely. Whoever needs help here, I help them,” he said.
6:53 a.m.
Osman vacuums the Fireside Lounge immediately before the students arrive for breakfast on omelet day, which always promises a happy rush of guests.
7:00 a.m.
Dining Services staffer Linda Ritchie admits the first student diners to Commons breakfast.
7:02 a.m.
A student hands a cup with her selected omelet ingredients to cook Brad McArthur, “the Omelet Man.” Rather than pointing out ingredients for McArthur to place on their omelet, students now dish out their toppings themselves.
7:08 a.m.
Tuesday is omelet day, which means that McArthur, a 28-year veteran, is a welcome sight to students.
McArthur makes each omelet to order with whatever students want: cheese, bacon, spinach, peppers, onions — and extra hamburg for those who want it.
7:15 a.m.
Bates sports teams often gather together during breakfast at Commons, such as the field hockey team above. At a window nearby, the rowing teams sat together and on this day had good news to report: Later in the day, at their boathouse on the Androscoggin River they would participate in the age-old rowing ritual of putting in the docks.
“It marks the start of our season,” said Quinn Gleason ‘26 of Wayland Mass.
Gleason had finished an egg bowl. “Spinach as a base, red onions, cheese, sometimes beans, then two eggs, and then any kind of protein I can find. Delicious!” She has her eggs over-easy. “Always. The yolks kind of freak me out.”
7:32 a.m.
Bobcats, the student kind and the frosted-glass kind, face a new morning in Commons.
Having exited his room at Page Hall, Liam Friedlander ’27 of Pittsburgh is walking along Lake Andrews toward Commons for breakfast before his 8 a.m. class.
His routine of listening to music, a Spotify mix that has served up Taylor Swift at this moment, having been interrupted for the moment, Friedlander explains that he’s coming off his first year as a varsity swimmer.
Ordinarily, he’d be up this early for a swim workout, then class. With the season over, he has a lot more time on his hands, which is taking some getting used to. “It feels weird,” he says.
After breakfast (eating “whatever”), he’ll head to his hydrogeology class with Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences Beverly Johnson. “She’s great,” he says.
7:35 a.m.
Cameron Frary ‘24 making a waffle in classic-Bates style with all the trimmings: strawberries and syrup.
7:47 a.m.
Josh Lajoie, working with Brad McArthur at the omelet station, tosses cheese onto yet another omelet.
Lorenzo Songsare-Shevy ’27 of Uttenreuth, Germany, says his favorite omelet has “various meats, spinach, and tomato,” he says. “I’m Italian — I have to like tomato.”
He has never been an early-morning person. “But I’m trying to change that now.” He sees the benefits, at least when it comes to breakfast. “The lines are shorter now, and my friends are here. I’m relaxed.”
Noa Hart ’27 of Hastings on Hudson, N.Y., describes her wake-up times as “airport times.” She’s a rower, and they get up very early for workouts. “I woke up at 4:20,” she says.
“Tuesdays are my favorite day because of omelet day. I live for omelet day. My favorite part about the 5 a.m [workout] is that we get to be first for omelet day.”
7:52 a.m.
Marc Begin ’27 of Jacksonville, Fla., talks with his teammates on the men’s basketball team after breakfast. It’s common in Commons to find members of Bobcat teams sitting together enjoying not only meals, but Bobcat camaraderie.
7:59 a.m.
An hour into breakfast, it’s nearly as quiet as it was when the dining room opened at 7. The rush to eat before 8 a.m. classes has come and gone. Only a handful of people are left.
Two are Pat Schoknecht (left), the college librarian and vice president for information and library services, and Leigh Weisenburger, dean of admission and vice president for enrollment and financial aid.
They’ve both been up for hours: Schoknecht because it’s how she rolls. “Already been to the gym,” she says. And Weisenburger because she’s up early with her two young children, one of whom, a 6-year-old boy, hits the ground running each morning. “Very early,” she says.
Nearby Schoknecht and Weisenburger is Jackson Quinn ’24 of Falmouth, Maine, who was using the last few minutes of his breakfast to finish a reading for his 8 a.m. class in behavioral economics, taught by Sandra Goff, associate professor of economics, a short walk away in Bonney Science Center.
On the table before him is the course textbook, A Course in Behavioral Economics, and he was reading a chapter on intertemporal choice, which is how we make decisions that involve trade-offs between costs and benefits that occur at different points in time.
We asked him how many pages he had. “Maybe five more,” he said, thumbing the pages. And with just seven minutes left before 8 a.m., that was a clue to wrap up our interview. (Postscript: Quinn finished his reading on time.)
8:02 a.m.
In this view from the upstairs Gorayeb Mezzanine about an hour after sunrise, the early morning sun illuminates parts of three Bates buildings, from left: Chase Hall, Carnegie Science Hall, and Ladd Library.
In the foreground are the brick pillars of the Class of 1910 Gate, once where fans paid to enter Garcelon Field for football games and now the ceremonial entrance to the plaza that fronts Commons.
8:54 a.m.
Sometimes, the secret sauce is not in the ingredients.
“The omelets that come at the end (of the shift) are the best, after you get the grill seasoned with other flavors from the vegetable juices, from the meat juices. It enhances the flavor,” McArthur convides. “It’s the same principle as a cast-iron cooking pan.”
9:06 a.m.
Upstairs during the monthly gathering of the Presidents Council, a group of staff members who direct college programs gather. Leana Amáez, vice president for equity and inclusion, directs the discussion about bias in hiring practices. She has just asked who among attendees has had formal training in bias-free and inclusive hiring practices.
9:26 a.m.
Meanwhile, downstairs the flow in and out of Commons continues.
“The line is tragic,” says a good-natured Josh Ezerioha ’27 of Bowie, Md., as he waits for the first of two omelets. He arrived in Commons after class at 10. “I have just enough time to get here before my next class.”
The first-year football player never misses the omelet bar. Never. He waited 25 minutes for his first of two on March 12. But as a 200-pound linebacker at Bates, Ezerioha needs more than one.
Xinchen Zhong ’24 of Shanghai also never misses the omelet bar. She also likes the pho and food at the vegan bar, all of these choices, she says, are aimed at a healthy diet.
“I like the omelets because they’re mostly protein. It limits the carbohydrates,” Zhong says.
9:49 a.m.
After attending the President’s Council meeting upstairs, President Jenkins heads downstairs to the dining hall.
“There’s Garry. He’s the chillest president ever,” Ezerioha says. “I had three presidents at the (prep) school I went to, and he is the most chill.”
As Jenkins moves around the beverage bar before heading to a morning meeting, he take his time and looks out at the dining room, where students talk with friends, cram for classes, or eat breakfast. In Commons, Jenkins rarely intrudes on these moments, but, instead in his body language and demeanor, he lets the students know: “They can chat with me, if they wish.”
Then he ticks off his favorites in Common: the tofu pad thai and the waffles. “But those are a treat,” Jenkins adds.
“To be honest when I first heard about the reputation of the food in Commons was, I thought, ‘How great can it be? It’s institutional.’ But it really is a reputation well-earned. It’s something to be proud of and make an enormous difference for the college,” Jenkins says.
That, of course, is because much of the food in Commons is prepared by hand, even made from scratch and favorite family recipes shared by both the staff and students.
10:10 a.m.
Brown Cow yogurt, made by Stonyfield, has a high cream content and is made with maple syrup, which is a student favorite.
Students are famous for creative concoctions, and one recent trend is mixing Brown Cow maple yogurt with cocoa powder, peanut butter, and honey!
10:13 a.m.
If you want to get Bates students to light up, just have James Reese (standing right), longtime associate dean for international student programs, stop by a table in Commons at mealtime.
The beloved dean is with Allison Brown (left), the associate director of Bates Counseling and Pyschological Services (left), and they’ve stopped to chat and share a laugh with Tamaki Hashiramoto ’24 (seated left) of Tokyo and Britton Gorfain ’25 of New York City.
Writing and reporting by Deirdre Stires, Jay Burns, and Hannah Kothari ‘26.
Categories Student Life The College
