Baking inspires Carole Brzozowski.

After three decades working at Syracuse University, Brzozowski left the ivory tower of academe last year and returned to her bakehouse roots here in the village. Now in her late-50s, Brzozowski’s enjoying her new job as manager of the Café at 407 at Ophelia’s Place, 407 Tulip St.

During her college days in the 1970s, Brzozowski worked in the bakery the old Cherry Valley Room restaurant at Edwards Department store on South Salina Street, down city.

“I got up super early,” she remembers, “baked for four or five hours and then took the bus first up to Onondaga Community College and later up to the music school at SU for class.” She was a voice major, a singer of sacred songs from the early Baroque and French Romantic periods.

After graduating in 1981, Brzozowski worked clerical jobs at the university and eventually rose to the position of dean of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, a job she held for eight years. Then, from 2009 to 2014, she became a university performing arts presenter for SU’s visionary Arts Engage program established by former SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor. When new SU Chancellor Kent Syverud eliminated the program in April 2014, Carole retired.

A few weeks later she was named one of 18 founding Cultural Agents of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture.

In the world of arts education, Carole Brzozowski is clearly a heavy hitter.

During her tenure at SU’s VPA, the college moved its programs in advertising design and communications design to The Warehouse downtown. Brzozowski personally oversaw the transition to new leadership at Syracuse Stage and the SU Department of Drama; and she and the college played a key role in creating SU’s Partnership for Better Education with the Syracuse City School District, promoting literacy in city schools by infusing arts into the curricula.

But she could never quite shake the love of baking.

“I’ve always thought that someday I might want to own a restaurant or bakery,” she wrote in a recent email. “Last year when I ‘retired’ from SU, I did some baking for Linda Mortimer and Lauren Bristol at Sparkytown on Burnet Avenue. That was a tremendously healing moment that reminded me of my love for the art of food and the joy that hospitality can bring to the community.”

One day Brzozowski reluctantly attended a women’s breakfast at the request of Heidi Holtz director of research and projects at the Rosamond Gifford Foundation. “I introduced myself as recently retired but thinking about buying a food truck and baking croissants in the morning down in Armory Square. I was sitting next to Mary Ellen Clausen [founder of Ophelia’s Place], and we started talking about these kinds of difficult transitions. A partnership of leadership was born.”

Brzozowski, who lives on the far east side of the city, volunteered with Café at 407 for six months before accepting a regular position in January which allowed her to bake in the kitchen while also overseeing the entire café as its general manager. She replaced a gifted young chef, Laura Hahn, who now works for Elderberry Pond Country Foods near Skaneateles.

Becoming café manager made sense to Brzozowski for two reasons.

“I thought it was a good way to learn the business without having to invest in a culinary arts/management course of study.  I was right.” And she could also utilize her leadership experience. “Someone with my administrative background, not-for-profit experience and baking skill can make a transition like this especially with someone like Mary Ellen by my side, someone who’s willing to take a risk on someone like me.”

Brzozowski admitted that managing the café is far different than her SU gigs had been, but the new job convinced her “that leadership skill is transferable across disciplines and business types.”

And, she said frankly, “the more I hear about the political maneuvering of the new regime [at SU] and the working environment up there, the happier I am that my biggest worry in the morning is if the kitchen is warm enough for the brioche dough to rise and if all of the staff will come in on time and if people will choose us today for coffee, lunch or baked goods.

“I’m not wielding a big budget and managing a popular and effective program but somehow it feels just as important to be in the ‘café with a cause’ every day.”

It’s really hard work, she admitted, but it’s gratifying.

“Like the arts, the answers are not clear and the environments are always changing especially with people’s tastes and trends,” she said. “This is a tough business but it’s also about as intellectually challenging as anything I’ve attempted.”

And with Brzozowski’s resume ranging from sacred music to academic administration to community arts engagement, that’s saying a lot. Sometimes a good carrot cake can be as satisfying as a sold-out symphony.

The columnist can be contacted at [email protected].