Field Trips

Field trips at the NACUFS 2026 Spring Conference in Philadelphia are designed to extend learning beyond conference sessions by adding real-world context. These guided experiences provide access to campus dining operations, collaborative models, and practical insights grounded in everyday practice.

Field trips will take place on Thursday, March 19. Registration for individual field trips will be available through the conference mobile app, accessible to registered conference attendees only.

Space for each field trip is limited; however, transportation will be provided, and all attendees will have the opportunity to participate in at least one experience. Field trip spots will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Review the options below and watch for additional experiences to be announced so you can be ready to register when sign-up opens.

Aramark Collegiate Hospitality in Action: A Culinary Experience Across Campus

Temple University

Discover how campus hospitality comes to life through innovative dining experiences and partnerships. This session includes a tour of J&H Dining Hall featuring engagement programs like Produce of the Month, a curated meal paired with tasty insights from our Culinary Panel. Explore all the possibilities at the Aramark Community Teaching Kitchen at Paley Hall, then explore the Student Center and Morgan Hall to see highlights like the Kosher Corner, our new Kosher certified delicatessen. Learn how these initiatives create community, flavor, and connection on campus.

Evolving Community and Cuisine through Campus Partnerships

University of Pennsylvania

Join us for a guided tour of dining cafés across our campus and learn how we collaborate with campus partners to create community programming and offerings within our operations. The tour will include multiple cafes and highlight our kosher, halal and Jain programs, along with discussions about programs such as our culinary sessions with academic partners, our Penn Cooks guest chef series, and our student-driven Recipes from Home. Guests will tour multiple cafés across campus, with menu samples along the way.

Mission Meets Margin: Redefining Retail Dining as a Platform for Learning, Leadership, and Institutional Impact

Drexel University

This immersive, in-person NACUFS “field trip” brings attendees inside a live campus partnership to explore how retail dining can function as both a revenue-generating auxiliary operation and a high-impact experiential learning platform. Hosted at Drexel University, the experience combines a guided campus walk (weather depending) and cafe tour with executive, student, and institutional leadership perspectives. Attendees will see how students lead real campus cafes with P&L responsibility, earn academic credit, and develop career-ready leadership skills—while institutions preserve margin, guest experience, and operational integrity. Rather than a single panel, this experience is designed as a progressive narrative: from operations on the ground, to student leadership in action, to executive and institutional strategy.

Behind the Scenes of Local Food Distribution

The Common Market

Go behind the scenes with The Common Market at its Philadelphia warehouse, located just 7 miles from the conference hotel. The Common Market is a nonprofit local food distributor representing more than 100 family farmers and producers and partnering with more than 120 colleges and universities in 2025 across four regions to support local sourcing, sustainability, and equity goals.

This guided warehouse tour will offer an inside look at the farm-to-institution model—from refrigerated trucks and cold storage to the partnerships that make regional sourcing work at scale. Participants will learn how working with local farm partners can elevate collegiate dining and enjoy a local bite along the way.

The experience concludes with an on-site panel, “Streamlining Values-Based Purchasing: Lessons from Campus Partnerships Advancing Food Systems Change,” featuring Rachel Terry (The Common Market), Jamie Moore (Parkhurst Dining), and Graham Browning (Johns Hopkins University), who will share practical insights on values-based procurement and aligning institutional dining with sustainability and community impact goals.