A professor reflects: Three decades of food, service, and Franciscan values
Dietetics professor Carol Klitzke has tasted a lot of food in her 33 years at Viterbo, but she has seen a lot too—inside and outside of the college landscape. Klitzke has watched several major eras of nutrition history come and go, from the four basic food groups of the 1970s to the ChooseMyPlate guidelines of the 2010s. At the same time, she has watched the Viterbo campus grow and change, with everything from new residence halls to renovated department buildings cropping up during her tenure. As she prepares to retire in spring 2020, she has shared her story with the Lumen.
When asked about how she decided on the field of dietetics, she explains, “I got into dietetics because I wanted to learn more about food...my very first course on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at eight o’clock was anatomy and physiology. I loved it, so I said, ‘What can I do that combines food and courses like anatomy and physiology?’ The answer was dietetics.”
Under her watchful eye, class after class has graduated from the university’s dietetics program equipped for not only food service, but also creative service. The fruits of her own creativity, first exercised in cooking and baking at the age of twelve, led to the pursuit of a master’s degree in food service at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, which she says provided a great background for teaching the Food Services Management course that has become one of her favorites.
To Klitzke, one of the best parts of being a professor is seeing what her students are capable of. Taking students from learning how to use a knife to catering their own meals is truly a joy—a process that she facilitates using deeply student-oriented methods. This philosophy of education is, “You gotta get out of the way.”
The professor encourages students to be creative, experimenting without a prescribed end goal. A poignant example of this comes in the fall, in a project where students explore the many colors, textures, and flavors that various kinds of locally-sourced apples bring to baking, cooking, and the making of applesauce. She says about the learning process, “It’s really fun to have them explore new foods, try new things, and pick up new skills. I like to ask my students, often, at the end of class...’What did you learn in class today?'" Klitzke always asks students to name one unique thing they can take away from the lesson, never failing to inspire complex questions and discussions by putting the students in charge. “I let [the students] lead as much they can,” she explains, “I just tell them, ‘I won’t let you fail.’ And they just amaze me. I just love to see what they are capable of doing if you just give them a little bit of authority.”
When asked what values she has seen the university pass on to students over the years, she lists integrity as first and foremost. “Viterbo students have exceptional integrity...which means that you can do creative, unusual things because you can trust them that they did [something] the way they said they did it...and you can trust them to go out where you’re not watching and do the right thing.” She adds, “Viterbo students are just nice. They’re good, good-hearted people, which has made it such a joy to teach them.”
In the end, Klitzke credits the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration with making Viterbo what it is today, noting that “I was blessed to know a lot of the FSPA...they really set this university in the right direction. I am just pleased that I got to know them...and thankful for the character that they have given Viterbo. It is our challenge to keep this Franciscan spirit going.”
That spirit certainly seems alive and well in the Viterbo diatetics program. There is no doubt that the countless lives and meals that Carol Klitzke has inspired will leave the unforgettable taste of integrity and passion for many years to come.