Graduation

Author: Alex Dodd | Majors: International Business and Supply Chain Management | Semester: Spring 2022

My name is Alex Dodd, and I am recent Walton Honor’s graduate who majored in international business and supply chain management. My mentor my thesis project over the oral history of the symphony of northwest Arkansas was Chelsea Hodge, and my research was conducted in the spring semester of 2022. After graduation, I am going to be working in Carrolton, Texas as an inventory planner for McClane Company starting at the end of June 2022.

The basis of our team’s research was centered on garnering a more focused and detailed history of the Symphony of northwest Arkansas (SoNA) through various interviews with individuals tied to the organization, both internally and externally. My research on the other hand, was based more on the operational and financial situation of SoNA in the past and how that has evolved and changed over the years. I was able to garner this information from two formal interviews I had conducted with two prominent members associated and connected with the symphony. Those two individuals were Riley Nicholson, director of SoNA, and Peter Lane, the CEO of the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Through these professional interviews, individual research, and weekly teams meetings with the other members of this project, I was able to put together a detailed research paper detailing these findings surrounding SoNA and its operational strategies and financial situations. As a Walton Honor’s student, it may seem odd for me to be conducting my research on a topic of this nature, but it felt like a project that could put me outside of my comfort zone and allow me to grow as both a student and a person.

I first heard of this project when I received an email from Chelsea Hodge in the fall semester of 2021 stating that she was looking for more individuals to take part in this project, and I ultimately followed up and expressed my interest in the program. During my team working on this oral history project I was able to learn so much more about the arts community as a whole, specially that within northwest Arkansas and that of the symphony of northwest Arkansas. Working in a team environment and holding weekly meetings where we strategized about the routes we wanted our research to go and which people each of us were going to conduct interviews with. The most challenging part of my research was mostly centered around scheduling interviews and staying in contact with potential interviewees. Many of the people that I had, and other group members had reached out to have incredibly busy schedules and have their own work they must attend to on a daily basis. Finding the right times to conduct thirty-toforty-five-minute interviews with at the Pryor Center was a much greater challenge than I had anticipated going into this project. My mentor Chelsea Hodge, along with Dr. Hancox and Alessandro Salemme played critical roles in aiding the development of my research along with providing pertinent advice on how to communicate and conduct interviews with the prominent figures associated with SoNA. Without their guidance and help throughout the research process, this would have been a much more difficult task to accomplish working solo and as a team with the other students. Most of the research and project work was conducted on an individual basis, but most of our group meetings were conducted at the Pryor Center located on the Fayetteville town square. The interviews I conducted with Peter Lane and Riley Nicholson were also done at the Pryor Center as they have state of the art interview technology and facilities that was perfect for our groups interviews.

Working on this project this past spring semester has truly been great and one that I had gained immense experience from. Whether it be getting practice with professional setting interviews with prominent members of the northwest Arkansas community, or gaining more exposure in a group related work, this project surely helped me home in on new skills and knowledge that I had not previously had. As for me, I plan to take these experiences and knowledge gained into my full time job that I will start here shortly in the Dallas, Texas area.