MIT Campus Dining; Creating a Home Away from Home
MIT Division of Student Life ·
Staff Feature: Jean Sauveur, Baker House Cook “With my team, everything is possible because we work together,” says Jean Sauveur, a cook in the Baker House dining hall. “I stay here because Baker makes it feel like family,” he adds.… The post MIT Campus Dining; Creating a Home Away from Home appeared first on MIT Division of Student Life .
Staff Feature: Jean Sauveur, Baker House Cook
“With my team, everything is possible because we work together,” says Jean Sauveur, a cook in the Baker House dining hall.
“I stay here because Baker makes it feel like family,” he adds. Sauveur has served the MIT community for over 15 years. “We work together and help each other. When a new person starts, we always welcome them and make them feel at home.”
The comradery and connection behind the line at Baker is felt throughout the dining room, and it draws in students from across campus. “The students are our main focus. We feed them and make them happy. That’s our goal. We say, ‘This is your house. We’re here for you!’”
Baker serves over 3,000 meals a week. The work is challenging and complex.
Sauveur is a natural leader and coach, taking new staff under his wing to make sure every member of the team works to their highest potential. “You don’t have to know everything. Once you get here, we work together, we train each other.”
Baker’s team spirit and Sauveur’s quiet leadership have led to some dining home runs—including Taco Tuesday.
“I remember the first time I did the fried fish. I thought, ‘Let me do something different today,’” Sauveur recalls. “I took the fish, I marinated it for a day before, and next day I put it out for Taco Tuesday. Everybody ran to that fish! The next week, I didn’t do it—and everybody looked at me, like—‘What’s going on?’ Since then, I had to do it every week. It always makes me happy when we do something and they like it. It makes us more comfortable to create!”
That feeling of comfort and belonging was brought home for Jean and the Baker dining staff when the students surprised them with a heartfelt gift last fall. “It was in the winter time, just before break. We were closing for the evening when some of the students came to the line, calling us by our names,”
Sauveur says. “And we don’t wear name tags!” The students walked around and thanked every person on the staff, he says. “Then, at the end of the night, there’s a table in the dining room with a card for each of us, signed by the students. That night was amazing. It was the most beautiful gift for us.”
“These relationships between house dining staff and our students are a powerful part of the MIT experience,” says Andrew Mankus, Senior Director of Campus Dining. “These are intimate, caring connections. Jean and his colleagues help make the MIT dining rooms a home away from home, and the students notice that.”
“The students are our family too,” Sauveur says. “We’re not just here to get paid. When they come to Baker to eat, and they smile and they like what they see, that makes us more happy. It makes us all more excited to keep going, inventing more and creating more for them.”
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