ResEdChat Ep 6: DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan on Using Food and Cooking for Student Engagement

Paul Gordon Brown:
All right. Welcome back to Roompact’s Res Ed chat podcast. This is your digital variety hour for housing and residence life professionals, where we talk about issues that are important to you. And today we’re actually going to be starting… we’re going to try something new. We’re going to mix things up. Since we started this podcast, I’ve done it solo, but today I got a co-host, our ACUHO-I intern for this summer, Camille. Camille, welcome.

Camille Bonar:
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Paul Gordon Brown:
I know. I’m so excited we’re going to get a chance to co-host together. This is going to be a good experience for both of us.

Camille Bonar:
I believe so. I truly hope so. How are you doing, Paul?

Paul Gordon Brown:
Well, I tell you, so when I’m thinking about co-hosting, for people that are thinking about podcasts and how do we put this together, I wanted a co-host experience because I think different people bring different perspectives, and when you have a co-host kind of arrangement, it just brings more value and more perspective. And I’m going to think of some things, but you think of things differently and that’s one of the reasons why I want to do this. But it’s also interesting, especially if you haven’t… We’ve never co-hosted something together.

Camille Bonar:
We haven’t.

Paul Gordon Brown:
So getting that groove, getting that flow, wanting it to be smooth for our listeners there, for all of you, so you think we got this down. That’s what’s most making me a little bit nervous. I don’t know. What are you thinking about in terms of… because you’ve never even hosted a podcast, so this is wholly new to you?

Camille Bonar:
I have never hosted a podcast. I think I listened to a whole three podcasts, in general. So my podcast repertoire, there’s not a whole lot going on there, but I feel like I took Rhetoric 101 at the University of Iowa, and if that didn’t prepare me to co-host a podcast, I don’t know what will. So I’m excited to be here today. I really hope it goes well. We’ve prepped, we’ve researched, we’re ready to bring on our guest.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah, yeah. Throw us some love on some social media or in the comments just to give us some encouragement to keep doing this. All right, well, let’s get to our guest today. We have one of my personal favorite humans on the show today, DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan, who is the Associate Director of Residence Life at University of Pittsburgh. How are you, DaVaughn?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Well, now my heart’s all full knowing that I’m one of your favorite people. I am well. I am good. It is a perfect 73 degrees here today and sunny, and that has not been the case of late, and so I’ll take it where I can get it. I’m probably going to do a little walk in nature after this.

Paul Gordon Brown:
I know I had to look at my watch for the temperature outside because now that I work remotely, I feel like I don’t go outside.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
You have to make time for it. You have to-

Paul Gordon Brown:
I think you have to intentionally make time for it.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Right.

Paul Gordon Brown:
But it is also 73 degrees in Boston. Camille, what’s the temperature and where are you now? I don’t even know.

Camille Bonar:
I’m in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and it’s toasty here. I am in my parents’ backyard. You can see we have a cemetery in our backyard, so if you want to just peep that over here with the gate, it’s kind of fun and edgy, but it’s about 84 here. It’s pretty toasty, but I’m trying to get some vitamin D.

Paul Gordon Brown:
It’s that Midwest summer heat. I’ve lived in that Midwest summer heat. Especially with the humidity, it can be pretty gnarly.

Camille Bonar:
Yeah, that’s very true. Very true.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Well, anyways, we actually got on here because we wanted to bring DaVaughn on to talk about something that I think everyone loves, which is food. And those of you that follow DaVaughn on social media are treated to the cooking plate du jour for dinner, which can range from a number of things, but DaVaughn’s a pretty passionate cook and also incorporates it with students and his work in Residence Life, which I think is really kind of the cool part about it. But DaVaughn, where does this passion for cooking come from? You do it a lot. I mean, you are really into it. This isn’t just a side hobby for you. This is your life. Where did that come from?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
That’s a good question. I would say being raised by two fantastic grandparents, specific grandmas, who only do things from scratch. If my grandmothers could make the cheese before making the mac and cheese, they would do that. And seven amazing women who taught me really the foundation and facts of life, but also pieces of independence and growth and pride and community and sharing. There was no such thing as just coming together, getting your food, finding a plate, and going to a different room. There was always a communal table experience, and that was supremely planted deeply within me.
My grandmother on my mother’s side was also very specific. She was very fearful that one day I’d get married to someone who couldn’t cook and her baby would starve to death. That was her fear that, and it drove her. She was like, “No, mm-mm-hmm. You stand right here as I make this from scratch.” Because baby got to eat, baby got to eat, baby got to eat well. I appreciate that.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah. Food equals community.

Camille Bonar:
Could you talk a little bit about how you are focusing your passions at the center of some student engagement activities? I creeped your profile ahead of time, and it seems like you’ve done some cooking activities with some of your residents in previous roles. Would you mind telling us a little bit about that?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah. In literally all of my roles. When I was an RD, I worked very carefully and very closely with our dining provider at SNHU. And we do behind the scenes tours of our dining halls, both so they can see the staff who is preparing the food, cultivate that level of respect for the hands that are providing. It is not just a conveyor belt of delicious food from nowhere. I created an LLC around food and food sustainability and how those two things shook hands. As an area coordinator at Clark University, I would go from hall to hall making dinner with students. And then, I realized that pots and pans are really heavy and as much as I really enjoy our students, I will do literally anything for them. Packing a Dutch oven in a suitcase and then wheeling it across the green, I could only do so many times.
So I worked with our student TV station and we created The Food Spot, which brought students from all across the campus to me where I could keep the things and had moments where we can have conversations, get to know each other, deepen that connection, but also share a meal. At Pitt, our dining hall staff knows me well. I do a couple signature programs. One of them that’s my favorite is late night breakfast. It’s when I show up and take command of the dining hall. And for that night everyone works with me, were all here make an experience happen, and it’s always themed.
One of our most recent ones was themed around the rainbow. Each of our halls have a different color. And so, rainbows made sense. But met with the chefs and said, “Well, if we’re going to do a rainbow theme, it has to be all airy, it has to be all clouds.” And so, we’re going to figure out how to make this cloud bread. They’re like, “DaVaughn, cloud bread is a novel thing for like on a Saturday.” And I’m like, “No, no, we got to make cloud bread for 3,000 people. We got to figure it out. We’re going to make it happen.”

Paul Gordon Brown:
What is cloud bread? I don’t even think I know.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Cloud bread is really the egg whites, whipped to a stiff peak, with some stabilizers in it, and then baked.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Got it.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
So it falls a bit, but it still looks puffy and airy, and at the right temperature it still stays a little white. So it’s this really airy almost like a macaroon texture. You put that next to some fresh made jam and jellies, and yes. Flew off the table, flew off the shelves. Scones had no chance that night. And so, those are the things I’ve done in all those spaces, and those programs span, again, working with 1,000 students for an evening or just a floor with an RA or folks kind of tuning in by the YouTubes to learn, grow, and see their head of hall or RD a different way. Yeah.

Camille Bonar:
How did some of those ideas originate? So they center around food, but did you see a need with the student body? You’re like, “Hey, these kids get food from a residence hall, like a dining center.” Were you trying to make it more of a learning activity? Was this more about incorporating your passions? Could you talk a little bit about that?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah, I would just throw away the or and just and, ampersand. It was about doing all of that. One, I try to connect my passions to everything that I do. Working student affairs, working residence life, it is a demanding capacity. And so, if there’s nothing to fill that bucket or that belly, then where does that fuel come from? And so, if you can connect those things, it becomes more of a self-sufficient engine. So passion had to be in there. And then, students, they see TV. I’ve worked mostly with first year students, and so they have visions of the RA who’s trying to document them, and the RD, who’s just a conduct officer. And so, how do I help them see the humanity, the person, the care behind the title? And so, we all got to eat. So there’s a door.
I think about how we have conversations in ways that are disarming. So over some of these dishes, we’ve talked about some really heavy topics, identity, discrimination, race. Recently here at Pitt we, over dinner, talked about how Covid intersects with medical access, cross paths with racial injustice. Didn’t solve it in that conversation, but boy was that robust. Boy did that take our group to the next level to do that while sharing a meal normalized and disarmed the tension in that space.
And then, I do believe that we are here to be educators and to provide skills and tools and do it in a way that doesn’t always need to sit in the classroom. We can do that co-curricular. And how do we crystallize that knowledge? You get folks using it, touching it, understanding it. So when we make dough, I’m rarely like, “One part flour and two parts…” It’s a feel thing. You’re going for our little spring. And so, let’s get in there and get those ratios going of water and flour and salt until it gets to that texture that feels right to the touch.
So that’s the motivation is to try to connect all those dots so that, yes, the students are having a fantastic experience, but frankly, so am I, because I’m here, too. And then, memories come from that. We associate powerful moments with a dish we had or the table it was served at or the people who are around that space. And so, that knowledge, I think, goes further, further than the cognitive right to the heart when there’s a warm element to that. And that could be some apple pie.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah, yeah. You know I’ve been around the residence life block myself here or there. And I think back to the time that I was supervising [inaudible 00:13:05], and there were some times that cooking and/or food related programs were clearly a phone it in kind of activity. “Oh, we’re going to make this and talk about culture,” and I’m like, “Are you really going to talk about… in a deep community building kind of way? Or is this, we want you to pay for the food that we already know we want to make, and we’ll add the discussion on as a means of making sure our budget gets approved for it.”
I think, from what you described with me, there’s a lot of intentionality in the way that you do these food things. What is that intentionality? What are those goals and outcomes that you bake in? And that I think you just do probably as part of just your own personal being. You might not even think about it. But how can others maybe even think about what are the intentionality we can build into these kinds of cooking based, food-based community eating types of experiences for students?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah. So I think one is seeing it as a true investment of time and energy and care. I think back to when we did late night breakfast island style, and I pitched this idea, or the theme. How we do it at Pitt is we give five or six themes, so the community and the community chooses the top two. One happens in the fall, one happens in the spring. And so, island theme came up and I brought it to our student staff like, “Okay, here’s a theme that folks are interested in. Where do you see this going?” You could probably guess there was some performative concerning like, “Oh, coconut thing and maybe some tiki torches.”
Okay. Right? Could we enact that? Absolutely. Where’s the learning in that? Not sure I can find it. And so, we talked about, “Okay, well, when talking about islands, what’s coming to mind for folks? Let’s just pull up a chart. Let’s pull up a map and really zone in on where in the world are we thinking about when we’re thinking about this theme.” As we found a section of the world, we zoned in on the Polynesian Islands. Well, if we’re going to do that, do the things that we’re talking about match anything that we see, I’ll say, with a basic search of this culture, of this place, of these people? The answer was easily no. And so, how do we bring respect and reverence into that conversation? How do we bring authenticity into that exchange? And so, folks were like, “Well, I don’t know. I’m not Polynesian.” That’s fair.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Fair, yeah.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Are there members of our community that are? We have a senior associate director of athletics who is of Polynesian descent. We have members of our teams and clubs and organizations. So how do we bring those folks at a table so that, in our areas of deficit, where we may not have the most knowledge, how do we bring folks who have that experience, that lived experience or that academic experience to inform our process? And so, we looked at the food and sourcing of food. It was one of the very first times I had food flown into the university because I wanted-

Paul Gordon Brown:
You had food flown in for one them?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
I sure did, I sure did, I sure did. [inaudible 00:16:30]-

Paul Gordon Brown:
This is why you’re one of my favorite humans.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Not only did I have the food flown in-

Paul Gordon Brown:
That seals if for me. Just that little bit of extra is why you’re one of my favorite humans.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Well, you’re going to love this last part. Not only did we have the food flown in, we flew in Polynesian dancers from Florida. They have a home base there. And they took over our first floor, they decorated, they taught our students how to husk a coconut properly using traditional tools. They taught them how to do some of the dances of culture. They walked through history, through dance. They brought the students in and taught them some of those moves, some better than others, but they picked it up.
They were our taste testers. So we brought our culinary team and said, “Here’s the menu. Here are the ingredients that we have. Here’s what we need to fly in.” And then, for this evening, our judging panel of the different dishes we’re creating, I’m going to have folks from the islands. We’re going to stay spot on here. “This means a little more of this. We would make this way.” And that night was not only one of the best themes that we’ve had over the past few years, I saw so many parts of our community come together, learning, growing, having conversations, digging deeper, asking questions, trying new things, because some dishes they don’t know.
“This is based on cassava. I don’t know what a cassava is.” And so, putting that information in space so they can read along or feel comfortable asking those questions. So when I say intention, I mean, yeah, anyone can pick up their credit card and dial it in and order a pizza, and that’s fine. Sometimes we need that. If you’re going to bring food in, it takes some investment of your time and your education and your effort, maybe also some money.

Paul Gordon Brown:
It doesn’t hurt.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Because you want to provide reverence and respect. We’re talking about the intersection of culture and food.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah. So when I did programming more as my day job, I always had a preference for, I’d rather invest more money in something big and more impactful than try to spread it out into a lot of little things that aren’t as impactful. That’s why I think I appreciate your approach there, because that’s, I think, how I always viewed programming, educational efforts, and things like that, that if we invest the time and do it well, that bigger impact actually is much more felt, and students are more engaged. Then you’re not using food as a bribe. You’re using food as a main central part of the educational component, which is I think a much smarter way to do it, and a much probably more fiscally responsible way to do it.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah. We can’t do late night breakfast island style on every floor, but boy did I see a lot of our RAs and their floors that night.

Camille Bonar:
I’m just completely in awe at how strategic the event making is, because not only are you throwing really fun events and getting students engaged, but you’re also teaching them really critical transferable skills, as well, like what is the true meaning behind this event and this activity? So it really goes with that residence education model, teaching students skills, which I think is so exciting. I watched a few episodes of the Food Spot, and in your first episode you mentioned that curry is in your blood being Jamaican. Has food always been an important part of your cultural heritage? And then, could you also talk about maybe getting students to engage in that part of their own cultural identity?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah, yeah. Like I shared earlier, I learned at the hip of my grandma in the kitchen. And so, it is in my bones. I remember, I can tell you in graphic detail what our kitchen looked like. I could barely remember what my bedroom’s color was. We spent way more time around that stove than playing games in my room. And why it’s important is because it’s this powerful medium that extends past through time. We don’t write things down. I should probably share that.
My grandmother has never measured a thing in her whole life, and she has never taught me any dish by telling me how many grams, how many cups. It is all by touch, feel… It is all of these sensory input pieces that makes that work. And so, when you’re not writing something down per se, you’re being told a story or being given the context or being asked to taste and then respond, it lands differently. It resonates differently. And then, you have to transmit that to the next generation.
My brother is 13 years old. Wow, what a gap. But when I’m home with him, I do the same thing, I bring him in. He is not a millennial. He’s definitely a Gen Z. And so, the interest in the food, not so much, but he does appreciate that I make him a part of that process. He also likes to show off with his friends, because like, “Look what I can make now, because my brother taught me.”
But it’s this piece of transmission of history, of our family, of our stories, the various ways that we put our spice blend together, which is different than the way my father’s side might than the family we share next door. And you feel like you’re holding something precious and something important, and it’s your responsibility to replicate that with reverence, but also to pass that on. And so, in some ways, in many ways, in all the ways, I do look at that being in my blood as any of the other pieces genetically or historically, that my family has passed on. Does that make sense?

Paul Gordon Brown:
It totally does, it totally does. And I’m envious of that, because that’s not the food relationship I had with my family. My mom did not like to cook. She was not really taught to cook when she was growing up. It was true of my father, too. And they would tell me this story that they didn’t really try some other foods or thought foods weren’t good based off of the way that they had them when they were growing up. So my mom never thought she liked Brussels sprouts, because they used canned Brussels sprouts, so she thought all Brussels sprouts, like canned Brussels sprouts or pineapple, canned pineapple. So she thought pineapple tastes like this. And then, she went to Hawaii, I think it was in the ’60s, and had a real one and was like, “Oh, this is what it’s supposed to taste like. I get it now.”
So food for that sense that you were describing, was not my experience with food and community and family growing up. It was still a coming together, but it was just a very different experience than the one you described. So always, when I hear people have those experiences, I’m always a little bit jealous because it sounds like there’s just so much meaning that can be taken from that. And obviously, it’s part of who you are so deeply in a way that it wasn’t for me.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
There’s this privilege in that. And as I thought about the second half of Camille’s question around how do I go about making those connections, for me, it’s also going back a generation when we have the opportunity to do that. My mother also cooks well and makes delicious food. I have not said her name yet, because, for her, it was a transactional process like, “We need dinner. I shall make it, then we shall move forward.” My grandmother sat with things. And so, I had to think about, okay, I can see the mechanics for my mother, but if I want the roots, I want the genealogy, I want the core, that’s grandma land, and if I could go further back.
And so, where the opportunity is in multi-generational households or where family might be spread out, I think it’s when we capitalize the opportunity when we can to learn from folks and continue that bridge building that isn’t wholly forward-thinking, but also looks back sometimes. Also, Brussels sprouts, that is the go-to food where folks just lose their way. We’re talking, we need high temp, we need hard sear. Maybe some balsamic to hit it off, maybe some feta. I’ve had that same conversation with my mother about Brussels sprouts.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Oh, yeah. And then, when the little leaves kind of crisp up, almost like little chips. That’s the best part. Yeah. That’s the best part. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen, I’ll research this after this and put it in the show notes, but there’s an Instagram account, I think it’s called Nonnas Making Pasta, which is basically little old Italian grandmothers, and it’s just photos and videos of them and how they make pasta and how they’ve done it. They were taught through their whole family. It’s one of the cutest Instagram accounts. I hesitate to call them cute, but I mean, it’s just like, “Oh, it’s just a woman who’s making pasta like hey have for hundreds of years. And there’s clearly so much love in it.” It’s one of my favorite Instagram accounts to follow. What’s your favorite dish to make? What’s one of your favorite dishes to make?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Oh, man.

Paul Gordon Brown:
We can accept for a couple. They don’t have to be-

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Well, my go-to, my you’re my friend and you’re coming over for dinner, so we’re probably going to have short ribs. I do a cola braised short rib. Maybe it’s a roasted garlic and chive creamy mashed potato. We’re going to reduce that stock, make a nice au jus, there’ll be some gravy there. And I may want to set that off with some cranberries. And just to say that there’s a vegetable present, we might candy some carrots or, like I just said, heavily roast some Brussels sprouts on the side. That is a dish that, for me, just screams comfort and warmth and bone sticking good.
And it also is like a set it and forget it. Braising? Keep the liquid, keep the high heat up and let the meat relax. You know my phrase around keeping things smart and simple and shareable. And so, I’m not here to use cooking as a laborious experience. It needs to feel right and still facilitate gathering. So if you’re just focused on the perfect temperature, not to get to a sugar crack stage, that’s not for me. So that’s definitely one of the meals I make at least a couple of times a year, and particularly in cooler months, and when friends are visiting,

Paul Gordon Brown:
Does that mean risotto’s out? Because risotto is a very finicky… You got to get that timing exactly right.

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Yeah. Risotto’s not out, but your boy doesn’t…. Gordon Ramsay many years ago planted a seed of fear, that I respect. I’ll make it a couple times a year, but it’s not my go-to, because I hear his voice in my head and I’m just like, “Oh, no, chef.”

Paul Gordon Brown:
Sorry, chef.

Camille Bonar:
So speaking about favorite recipes, we’re moving onto other favorites here. So in the Food Spot, you use a lot of correct cooking terminology. Is there a favorite cooking term that you have that you could enlighten Paul and I with here today?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
There is. It’s mise en place. If I were a person to get a tattoo, because my mother’s going to see this, it would be that. It’s just so applicable. Everything in its place. That’s loose translation. And it is something I’ve talked and shared with everyone who has ever shared kitchen space with me, my thirteen-year-old brother, my nineteen-year-old residents, my twenty-two-year-old, our hall directors, my forty-some-odd-year-old peers. We got to get this together. This needs not be rushed. This shouldn’t be chaotic. That transits into the food, you can taste that.
But if we take the time and put things together and put them in an order that makes sense, we can move effortlessly and smoothly and mindfully through that dish. And that applies to just life. How do we put things together to set ourselves up for success? How do we think ahead and plan proactively? That pivots into our programming model, when I talk about the events planning process. I may or may not drop that word in there as a sort of anchor point for our RAs. So that’s definitely a go-to word. I have a lot of respect for that. I think it helps us think about a thoughtful approach. I think it harkens to respect for the ingredients and the people and the place. So mise en place, my word forever tattooed across my arm.

Camille Bonar:
That is beautiful. Thank you so much.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah, yeah. I love that word. Well, final question for you as we kind of wrap up here. Folks that want to use food-centered educational activities in the halls, do things, some of the examples that you gave, any recommendations or things they should keep in mind that from your experience, this is what leads to a more successful event or experience or interaction for students?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Mm-hmm. I can give a few. One is your own comfort and sensibility with food to not, overcomplicate it, to maybe even start small. Yes, we can have dynamic competition about regionality. If we’re bringing in a cuisine from the southern region of India that may not be your wheelhouse. And that may be extending to a space where the ability to have that be an organic conversation might be challenged. You can have that with a sandwich. I’ve had so many conversations about mortadella and hanging meats and curing things and salt and how that plays a role in flavor development. And so, I’ve done things where I just brought in different types of cold cuts. We think about tuna and bologna and ham and turkey, but there’s so much more.
And that’s with the help of the staff at the store, getting the name, a little bit of the history, do a little bit of Googling, being able to effectively name and label those pieces, where they come from, what’s in them. Have folks try them even at different temperatures and mindful eating. What are you tasting? What are you feeding? What are you smelling. So it’s about not necessarily going for the gold. It is work within the parameters of the space and the resources you have, but think about how do you make that an opportunity for exchange, for discovery, for development.
And that’s where I would start. And then, allow your resources to fill in the blanks in terms of how that happens. Because I’ll tell you what, the cold cuts weren’t expensive, but the experience of that and having students apply that to mindful eating, apply that to regionality, apply that to where in place does this food come from and why is it produced the way that it is, historically speaking. That was priceless.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks so much, DaVaughn. I really appreciate you coming on the podcast today to share these experiences. Obviously, always a fun time to talk with you and chat with you and kiki and have a good laugh. So thank you for joining us today. And any final thoughts to leave people with, any well wishes?

DaVaughn Vincent-Bryan:
Final thoughts and well wishes? Well, to all my peers and colleagues out there in Res Life land, I know this summer hasn’t necessarily been wholly restful. We have a fall to plan for. You can do it. We are hopefully at the tail end of this time and space in this pandemic. And our students are going to be looking to us to connect, to reengage, to reimagine, do that in space, do that with your students, be a part of the conversation, do it around food, and have fun with it. That is going to be the core of our fall charge and really the year ahead as we rebuild what it means to live in our residential spaces. I wish you love.

Paul Gordon Brown:
Couldn’t have said it better myself. And I wish the same for you this fall, my friend. I know it’s been a weird year, but I know you’ve also kind of navigated it with some grace. So kudos to you and thanks everyone for tuning in. I’m Paul, and this is-

Camille Bonar:
Camille.

Paul Gordon Brown:
… and we’re happy to co-host this episode today. So we’ll see you on the next one.

Camille Bonar:
Bye-bye.