Help Wanted: Trained Cooks
This month, the Kitchen Academy officially launched its Seattle branch (in Tukwila). A culinary school that’s part of the Career Education Corporation (who also run Le Cordon Bleu), Kitchen Academy is a fantastic concept that’s close to my heart. The 30-week curriculum focuses its efforts on 100% hands-on, accelerated course work, treating cooking like a trade. That’s because cooking IS A TRADE! (Don’t get me started.)
Of course, Seattle Central Community College has a great, affordable culinary arts program, but nothing this fast (SCCC is 6 quarters, more for the associate’s degree), and the Kitchen Academy takes more of a DeVry approach to teaching, learning through doing, combining the structure of schooling with the concept of apprenticeship. (In the restaurant world, a degree gets you exactly as far as the prep table in most restaurants.) The school also offers a baking and pastry arts program.
I chatted with a few of the higher ups from Le Cordon Bleu at the International Association of Culinary Professionals conference this past April, and they’re really excited about the concept. The Kitchen Academy targets those who want to start a career, or start over. The focus is to provide students with the strongest skill set for the restaurant kitchen, at a very affordable price, with as flexible a schedule as possible. No word on when or if more schools will open around the country (there’s one other in Sacramento).
With all the new restaurants sucking Seattle’s BOH talent pool dry, we need all the training grounds we can get. So If you know someone who wants to jump off the corporate ledge, the Kitchen Academy is having an open house on August 26th, from 3pm to 8pm. (www.kitchenacademy.com, 866-548-2223)
2 comment(s)
Jefe says:
I graduated from the California Culinary Academy (CCA) before it was acquired by Career Education Corporation. This tendency already existed, but apparently intensified dramatically one Career Education Corporation took over;
http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-06-06/news/burnt-chefs/
CCA once had a distinguished reputation for turning out passionate and creative chefs. Many of San Francisco's restaurants are populated with its graduates, and beyond the Bay Area, people still know its name. But the academic atmosphere has changed since Career Education Corporation bought the school in 1999. In the first two years of the company's ownership, the number of culinary students increased from 442 to 1,868. By the time former student Alan Livingston enrolled in May 2005, "it had a factory feel to it...it seemed that it was more about money — it was more a body factory, and not as much about education"
Two former admissions representatives who worked at CCA confirm that students were misled. The former employees say admissions reps preyed on students' dreams of becoming celebrity chefs, and glossed over the painful economic realities of the industry.
Posted On: Friday, Aug. 1 2008 @ 12:43PM
Jefe says:
This morning I got an e-mail from someone who saw a glimmer of recognition in my previous comment. Apparently CEC is facing a class-action lawsuit for their business practices in Oregon.
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2008/03/2_portlanders_file_classaction.html
"According to the complaint, the school failed to warn students that their tuition would exceed their ability, upon graduation, to pay off their federal loans. It alleges the school also misrepresented its job-placement rate and failed to disclose that students would "not obtain material benefit from the course of study."
'A lot of these people have incurred tremendous debt,' said David Sugerman, the Portland attorney representing the students. 'When they get out, they often qualify for jobs that pay very little relative to the debt they incur.' "
Posted On: Monday, Aug. 4 2008 @ 9:52AM