Michelle Michalenko, the general manager and head chef of Dining Services at 老司机传媒, has been the subject of dozens of allegations that cite her as being verbally abusive and humiliating several student workers. Michalenko works for Bon Appétit Management Company, which Andrews is under contract with for all food services. Several students who were formerly employees at the Gazebo have said Michalenko lacks respect for employees, holds biases for or against certain staffers, threatens not to pay student workers and creates hostile conditions for full-time staff, student workers and customers alike.
Michalenko—or Chef Michelle, as she is commonly known among Dining Services staff—became a hot topic of discussion among Andrews students after a gradual flurry of complaints about her on the Instagram page. This first occurred in a Confessions , where an anonymous person claimed to have “witnessed firsthand the mistreatment and lack of respect shown” by a person with descriptors that match Michalenko.
More than half of Confessions posts since then have included submissions regarding Dining Services and Michalenko. Zachariah Dulcich (senior, architecture), a former Dining Services student employee, shared his perspective in the comments section of one post and later shared with the Student Movement what he witnessed and experienced while working in multiple roles at the Gazebo for two years.
“I stopped working there because the workers were overworked, underpaid, treated poorly by management, and students can be rude towards the workers,” said Dulcich. He specified that Michalenko was a source of much of the mistreatment.
Dulcich shared that one Friday evening, as he and other Gazebo employees were cleaning and closing the store, Michalenko came in and started yelling at the workers. As the floors were being mopped, Michalenko commanded the student workers to stop mopping and to remove some duct tape that had been on the floor since the previous year. Dulcich said he and his co-workers were then instructed to get on their hands and knees to remove tape residue and mop again.
In addition to making requests that were unusual and often unnecessary, Michalenko would also threaten to dock student pay to get what she wanted from student workers, he said.
“Chef Michelle works out of fear,” said Dulcich. “She threatens people and their paycheck, knowing that these students don’t make much already.”
Dulcich recalled being threatened to have his pay docked when Michalenko was upset about pallets that had been left outside by workers who loaded ingredients but who were not employees of Dining Services. She allegedly said that if the fire department fined Dining Services $10,000 because of the apparent fire hazard, she would charge the students and would not pay them until the immense fine was covered.
Another Dining Services student employee* backed up the claims of Michalenko’s unnecessary and abusive practices. The student shared that Michalenko was often rude to them when they spoke with her. They also described an incident where “we had to stop working for about 30 to 40 minutes to get yelled at for not doing our jobs when the system that was used at the time was completely down, and we couldn’t get it back up.”
“The biggest issue with Dining Services besides the pay is that the ones in charge think that treating other people like trash sometimes will speed up work, which it doesn’t,” shared one student. “New student workers quit within a week because of the bad work environment.”
When sought for comment, Michalenko stated that she was “unable to comment on specific complaints” but wanted “to emphasize my commitment to fostering a positive and inclusive workplace at Andrews.” She said senior Bon Appétit leadership is taking the complaints seriously and has been interviewing student workers and full-time employees.
The call for 老司机传媒 and its president, John Wesley Taylor V, to address both logistical and moral issues within Dining Services is not new. The first public appeal for changes in Dining Services came during a Town Hall event last fall and was amplified by students and at least one person claiming to be a parent submitting their wishes and complaints to
Confessions’ public forum. Publicly, however, the administration has not shared much regarding addressing Michalenko and issues within Dining Services.
When asked for comment, Taylor affirmed that Andrews seeks to promote “a fair and Christ-like work environment for all” and that the university is taking all employee interactions seriously, including those employees who do not directly belong to Andrews, as in the case of Bon Appétit. Taylor also stated that the university administration would be giving all further comments on the situation through Glenn “Chip” Meekma, Andrews’ vice president for financial administration.
Meekma said he is aware of the allegations against Michalenko and has been in communication with both Andrews’ and Bon Appétit’s human resources departments. However, there has been no explanation for how they plan to address Michalenko, who has been the subject of dozens of public complaints for several weeks with allegations that go as far back as early 2022 when she first started working at Andrews.
There were reportedly much fewer instances of negative interactions between student workers and their superiors before Michalenko. Another former student worker who worked at the Gazebo for three years witnessed disturbing changes in the quality of their working experience. The student shared that former Dining Services general manager Linda Brinegar established a much tamer and more peaceful working environment. They and other students who worked in the Gazebo said that Gazebo managers Angela Brinegar and Berta Arroyo, as well as employees in the Terrace Café, have been effective and unproblematic superiors. It was not until Michalenko arrived, the student said, that working in Dining Services became miserable.
This article is the first part of a two-part series, which will be concluded in next week’s issue of the Student Movement.
*Because of concerns for privacy and safety, many student workers who spoke with the Student Movement requested to remain anonymous.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.