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Dinner is served at GCC
  
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Rotary Club’s college-level unit serves up lessons in table etiquette and proper manners.
By Angela Hokanson
Students were coached on the finer points of fine dining at Glendale Community College Wednesday night, during a professional development seminar on etiquette and manners organized by the school’s Rotaract club — the college-level version of Rotary International.
Members of the newly re-born Rotaract of Glendale Community College — the club re-formed this fall after ceasing to exist at the school years ago — organized an interactive dinner and etiquette lesson to prepare students for formal business dinners and job interviews that occur over a meal.
The event was the first of four professional development seminars the club is holding that are designed to equip students with practical knowledge about the working world, said Andreh Haftvani, a Glendale Sunrise Rotary member who helped relaunch the college’s Rotaract club this year.
The seminars will focus on topics that students may never learn in school, but should know nonetheless, he said.
“I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with each fork the first time I sat down at a setting like this,” Haftvani said, referring to the conference room that had been set up to look like a formal restaurant.
“Whether or not they admit it, they’re going to learn something here,” he said.
Denise Leong, a career counselor at the college who had developed a dining etiquette curriculum at a previous job, led the students from soup to nuts. She explained things like how to properly excuse oneself from the table and where to rest one’s arms and hands between courses.
She reminded the students to treat a job interview over lunch more like a business appointment than a night out with friends.
“It may look like lunch or dinner, but it’s still business,” she said.
Students listened from seats at circular dinner tables, and got to try some of the refined techniques, like passing the salt and pepper shakers together, and handing over a salad dressing pitcher with the handle pointing toward the person who’s receiving the vessel.
The club planned to serve a free dinner to the guests after the lecture, to allow them to practice their newly burnished manners.
The event was open to Rotaract and non-Rotaract members alike, and so was a way to promote the club on campus, and show students that Rotaract is about professional development as well as humanitarian service, said 22-year-old Peter Kasabian, the club’s president.
For its next three professional development workshops, the Rotaract club plans to focus on job interviewing skills, professional dress attire, and personal wealth and credit management, Haftvani said.
Members of the newly re-born Rotaract of Glendale Community College — the club re-formed this fall after ceasing to exist at the school years ago — organized an interactive dinner and etiquette lesson to prepare students for formal business dinners and job interviews that occur over a meal.
The event was the first of four professional development seminars the club is holding that are designed to equip students with practical knowledge about the working world, said Andreh Haftvani, a Glendale Sunrise Rotary member who helped relaunch the college’s Rotaract club this year.
The seminars will focus on topics that students may never learn in school, but should know nonetheless, he said.
“I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with each fork the first time I sat down at a setting like this,” Haftvani said, referring to the conference room that had been set up to look like a formal restaurant.
“Whether or not they admit it, they’re going to learn something here,” he said.
Denise Leong, a career counselor at the college who had developed a dining etiquette curriculum at a previous job, led the students from soup to nuts. She explained things like how to properly excuse oneself from the table and where to rest one’s arms and hands between courses.
She reminded the students to treat a job interview over lunch more like a business appointment than a night out with friends.
“It may look like lunch or dinner, but it’s still business,” she said.
Students listened from seats at circular dinner tables, and got to try some of the refined techniques, like passing the salt and pepper shakers together, and handing over a salad dressing pitcher with the handle pointing toward the person who’s receiving the vessel.
The club planned to serve a free dinner to the guests after the lecture, to allow them to practice their newly burnished manners.
The event was open to Rotaract and non-Rotaract members alike, and so was a way to promote the club on campus, and show students that Rotaract is about professional development as well as humanitarian service, said 22-year-old Peter Kasabian, the club’s president.
For its next three professional development workshops, the Rotaract club plans to focus on job interviewing skills, professional dress attire, and personal wealth and credit management, Haftvani said.
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