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The Cooking Association at SUNY Albany (CASA) serves as a multicultural and nontraditional group on the SUNY Albany campus in which art is expressed through cooking and ideas are shared through learning. The cooking sessions, conducted by CASA students, allow students to learn how to cook different ethnic dishes from one another. CASA, as the Spanish term indicates, is a place where students can feel like they are home. Our group also emphasizes the importance of eating and staying healthy. Additionally, we are a community service group dedicated to giving service to off campus community centers. Ultimately, we’d like this group to become a course available to students on the SUNY Albany campus.
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The Cooking Association at SUNY Albany (CASA) was founded in the Fall of 2007 by Linda Larochel, a junior at the time who had a vision of creating the University at Albany’s first cooking club. Coming from a Haitian background, she had always observed the women in her family express their culinary skills in the kitchen, as this is an essential part of their culture. As a student here at Albany, she was ambitious to maintain that tradition. Furthermore, her observations of the diversity of the students on campus would inspire her to create a multicultural cooking club, where students would learn how to cook different ethnic dishes from one another.
With the strong support of Michelle McConville, the Director of Dining Services for University Auxiliary Services, this idea was quickly accelerated to the point where CASA was able to collaborate with the University’s dining services, Chartwells. The Resident District Manager of Chartwells, Alisa Mathis Peterson, has provided cooking facilities for this organization, as well as supervision from one of Chartwells’ finest chefs, Ryan Poole.
CASA is now one of the fastest growing clubs on campus, gaining over 100 members in less than 1 year. Its unique mission to allow students to express the art of cooking, while learning about other cultures, has attracted many students on the University at Albany campus and will continue to do so in years to come.
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Please send questions or comments to: uas@albany.edu
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