Food for Thought
Secondary ed major Aidan Cavanaugh named to Aramark advisory council
Aidan Cavanaugh doesn’t presume to be a food critic, though he does have strong opinions about food service, especially where it concerns college cafeterias.
That’s one reason Cavanaugh, a secondary education major at Holyoke Community College, was recently selected to serve on a national student advisory council for Aramark, the global food-service corporation.
For the 2026-2027 academic year, the 20-year-old Agawam resident will join 11 other students from Aramark-affiliated colleges and universities across the United States to help shape the future of campus dining.
While the other students on the council all hail from four-year institutions as big as the University of Virginia and Tulane, Cavanaugh is the only representative from a community college and the only one from a college in the Northeast.
“This is a fascinating opportunity,” said Cavanaugh. “I didn’t expect to get it because of my major, but I’m really glad that I can represent HCC on a national level. As a community college student, I think I’m able to provide a unique perspective.”
As part of his application, Cavanaugh had to submit a five-minute video sharing his vision.
“One of the things I really tried to emphasize was the fact that we have students from so many different communities here that really rely on our dining hall,” he said. “Obviously we don’t have any residential life, so our students are all commuters, and many are coming from 10, 20 miles away by car or bus, and when they get here they’re hungry; it’s a completely different consumer market.”
Throughout their time on the council, Cavanaugh and the other council members will participate in virtual meetings, engage with an online community through Aramark’s Student Lounge portal, and collaborate with their campus dining teams to share feedback and ideas.
In addition, council members will attend an in-person meeting at Aramark headquarters in Philadelphia in January 2027, where they will connect with company leaders, participate in professional development activities, and share their perspectives with decision makers.
“The best hospitality experience begins with listening,” said Barbara Flanagan, president and chief executive officer of Aramark Collegiate Hospitality. “Our council of student advisers brings together passionate student leaders whose voices help us create more meaningful experiences for campus communities.”
Cavanaugh’s own food service experience includes a job working in a movie theater kitchen in Marlboro, Mass., near his hometown of Shrewsbury. Now in his fourth semester at HCC, he has also spent a lot of time around the HCC campus cafeteria, which is run by Aramark.
“I spend at least two hours a day in the dining hall,” said Cavanaugh, who is also an HCC radio station DJ and a past member of the Education Club. “That’s where I do my studying and emailing.”
He said he’s been impressed with the dining hall staff and all they are able to do, given the size of the campus, and he’s a big fan of Aramark’s specialty themed lunches and their breakfast sandwiches, especially the sausage, egg, and cheese on an English muffin. “That’s my favorite,” he said.
One change he would recommend, though, is for Aramark to extend the cafeteria's hours of operation beyond 2 p.m. to accommodate students whose classes end later in the day.
“They don’t necessarily have to have dinner options, just extend lunch a little bit longer, and I think that will pretty much hit all the bases,” he said.
Cavanaugh is set to graduate from HCC next spring and transfer to a four-year college for a bachelor’s degree in secondary education. Despite his new immersion into the field of food service, he still plans a career as a middle school or high school history teacher, where he will maintain his daily connection to school cafeterias.
PHOTO: HCC secondary education major Aidan Cavanaugh in the HCC cafeteria
