Groundhog job shadow day

This year, Groundhog Day is coming early. At UB, however, that day will not determine how long it will take for spring to arrive. Instead, it will forecast a bright future for fifth and sixth graders from a Lancaster elementary school who will be popping up in various Campus Dining and Shops (CDS) locations on Feb. 1.

CDS will take part in the Junior Achievement of Western New York, Inc.'s 11th annual Groundhog Job Shadow Day program as they host a group of 16 students from William Street School who will shadow the men and women who keep UB's dining services running.

Junior Achievement's (JA) Job Shadow Program is non-profit and gives youths from Kindergarten through 12th grade experiences where volunteer teachers and mentors can teach them what the business world is like on a day-to-day basis.

According to Shannon Bloomquist, program assistant for JA, this program encourages students to think outside the box and helps them prepare for their future endeavors in the working world.

"(The program) gets the students out of the classroom and into the business world," Bloomquist said.

CDS got involved in the program to promote community outreach.

"We wanted to support the UB community; we wanted to open up our doors to the community to help young students get an idea of our workplaces and what opportunities are out there," said Raymond Kohl, marketing manager for CDS.

While most job shadowing programs allow students to choose one profession to explore for a day, students participating in UB's program will be able to experience every aspect of CDS from the bakery to accounting and retail operations. According to Kohl, this approach will give students a better overall outlook of the food operations business.

"The students will get to see a little bit of everything and give them a broad sense of what is out in the community and how all the different departments all play an important, yet individualistic, role in the actual satisfaction of the customers," Kohl said.

Each department of CDS will explain what education and work skills the students would need to achieve each job. According to Kohl, this type of program can assist in giving the students a good goal to reach, and the information on how to achieve that goal.

"(We're) trying to emphasize the need for education," Kohl said.

JA has a goal similar to that of CDS for the Groundhog Shadow Day program.

"We are trying to instill the importance of staying in school and the three pillars of learning with this event. The three pillars are entrepreneurship, financial literacy and work readiness," Bloomquist said.

According to Kohl, this also provides a good opportunity for employees to take pride in sharing and showcasing their professional lives with the students.