By Mary Kate Krueger
TAMPA, Fla. — At The University of Tampa, the dining hall service staff work relentless hours to serve students daily. Beyond their roles as staff, they have many goals and passions that are far beyond the walls of UTampa’s dining hall.
Three hardworking women work behind the counter of the Dairy Queen inside of Morsani Hall. Now that the University has expanded Dairy Queen’s hours to open at 11 a.m. (formerly opening at 4 p.m.), there has been a need for more staff to work behind the counters. Due to being short-staffed, each of the workers at Dairy Queen work by themselves behind the counter for their shift.
One such worker is Karen Husk, who works the opening shift from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. all by herself.
Husk has been working at UTampa since Aug. 2023. When she is not working on campus, she attends graduate-level classes at Everglades University. Husk received her bachelor’s degree in health and wellness and a second bachelor’s degree in alternative medicine from the University of Southern Indiana (USI).
When Husk receives her master’s degree in public health administration, she hopes to use her knowledge to cause policy change that will help facilitate coverage.
As the only Dairy Queen staff member who works the opening shift, Husk describes the experience to be challenging. With the new Grubhub services collaborating with UTampa, those orders pile up during the day, along with regular orders.
“We’re getting busier and busier every day with Grubhub,” said Husk. “There are some days when I will do 40 and 50 Grubhub orders, and other days where I do around 100.”
Husk also claims that the new Grubhub system is not as efficient for students who are on the go throughout the day.
“We’re just so short-staffed right now that, ideally, we would have an individual that concentrates on Grubhub,” said Husk. “We’re just trying to get more staff, but it’s been a rough [time] for management.”
Husk takes the time to credit her co-workers, Diedre and Helena, who work the busy night shifts at Dairy Queen alone.
Along with her work at UTampa and her full-time status as a graduate student at Everglades University, Husk also has a side job as an InstaCart delivery driver.
While Husk has spent most of her adult life working in the food service industry, including her current job at Dairy Queen, she hopes to expand her horizons in the wellness industry. Husk began pursuing higher education in her 50s, describing herself as a late bloomer. She worked in the food industry on her campus while also taking classes full-time at USI and now is pursuing her graduate degree and a career in holistic medicine.
“I’m hoping to one day have a position to help policies to help alternative therapies be covered by insurance,” said Husk. “But my big dream would be to have a wellness center with holistic healing practices. That’s the big dream.”
While having a passion for wellness and healing, Husk wants to steer away from typical medicine practice and dive into holistic medicine practices — including acupuncture, massages, chiropractic, Chinese medicine, and lifestyle modifications.
“I want to heal people, not just have them sick and put a Band-Aid on it every other week,” said Husk. “With methods like acupuncture, it works with the meridians in our body to heal.”
Husk disagrees with many Western medicine practices, describing it as “infuriating” when doctors want to keep us in a state of “not well, but not diseased.”
“I like to work with people who get prescribed all different types of medications,” said Husk. “I run their medications through the interactions tab at Drugs.com, where I find so many red flags in the interactions between the doctors and the patients.”
While Karen Husk will continue to work hard for her graduate degree alongside her job at Dairy Queen, she also plans to begin building an online presence by eventually creating a website. While the website is in the works, it will include health and nutrition coaching, which is part of her dream.
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Photo courtesy of @utampadining on Instagram.