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Jules Pernell is almost grateful for his slip-up as a teenage waiter: after dropping a tray full of food at a Myrtle Beach eatery, he was sent to work in the kitchen.
Banishment turned out to be a very freeing experience. In the kitchen, he began to notice different cooking techniques and types of cuisine. Soon, he was on his way to becoming a chef and an educator. In May--more than 30 years after those dishes hit the floor--Pernell received the 2006 Harry E. Varney Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award.
"I've won cooking awards, but this is different," he said. "You know if you're a good cook, but the ability to teach well is harder to measure. With teaching, your success is really measured by the students and their successes in the world. And, if you're very lucky, with a teaching award. Another reason this award is special to me is that Dean Varney is the reason I'm at USC--he hired me."
The Varney award is the highest teaching award presented by the College of Hospitality, Sport, and Retail Management. The Varney award, which includes a cash prize, is given in honor of one of the school's first deans and recognizes outstanding teaching. Students and faculty nominate and select the recipient each spring after an extensive review process that includes classroom observations and a compilation of faculty and student evaluations.
Pernell teaches a six-hour lab in which students prepare lunch for patrons of the McCutchen House four days a week during the school year. The course has changed a lot since Pernell first started teaching it.
"When I think back, I'm amazed at the growth of the program," he said. "Since I've been teaching here, the program has gone from about 100 students to about 600 students now, and from preparing two lunches a day at Capstone to preparing 125 lunches a day for four days a week at McCutchen House.
"When you consider that some of these students have never been in a commercial kitchen, some have worked in the industry during the summers, and some work full-time in it now, it can be a challenge to bring that diversity of experience together," he said. "But the students work very hard to learn what they must do and we always manage to pull it off."
Pernell took a break from his own studies at USC to work in Europe for about eight months.
"I traveled from cafe to cafe and even made it all the way to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India," said Pernell, who is largely a self-taught cook. "I learned good techniques and formed good foundations in cuisine preparation, such as learning to prepare stocks and sauces.
"When I returned to USC, some students in business administration were running a restaurant at the Senate Plaza and I went to work for them. They left after a year, and I took over."
Pernell has worked at many restaurants throughout his career, and continues to cook via his own professional cooking service and during special golf tournaments for the Jack Nicklaus organization. In the late 1980s, Pernell ran his own 20-seat French cafe. When a member of the USC hotel, restaurant, and tourism program dined at J. Pernell's, he asked Pernell to teach a cooking lab at the University. That was the start of his impact on his students' lives.
"I'm very interested in what happens to the students while they are in the program and once they leave," said Pernell, who receives phone calls and e-mail messages from former students almost daily. "Being in the classroom gives me a chance to keep up with them."
6/06
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Jules Pernell teaches in the McCutchen House kitchen.
