Williams College appoints new assistant director of student dining

Gayle Donohue has been appointed as the new assistant director of student dining at Williams College, in Williamstown, Mass. Previously, Donohue served as the manager of the campus’s Mission Park dining hall and has been a college staff member since 2005, where she served as assistant manager of the Faculty House.

Among other reasons, Donohue was chosen for the position for her experience collaborating with Real Food Challenge as well as her work on allergy awareness. “I think it’s critical that whoever was chosen had a good understanding of what Real Food is all about. Certainly [Donohue] had that having worked with Real Food Challenge and the Zilkah Center,” Director of Dining Services Bob Volpi said. “Also, the other important parts of the job include allergy awareness, and [Donohue] recently took on one of our assignments to look at how we label our food and has done an incredible job working with our nutritionist to get our labeling so that it really has better meaningful notations of what the allergens are.”

“I wanted to become the assistant director of student dining to continue to realize our shared vision to be the best student dining in the nation through pride in sustainability, diversity, relationship building and thoughtful financial stewardship,” Donohue told the campus newspaper, The Williams Record. “We keep our eye on food cost but it is not the totality of what we do. Food is at the center of the decisions I make and the way I manage and structure my team. I want to build relationships with students and staff, to form meaningful bonds.”