Interview Day!

*Collaboratively Written*

Our group has had a dialogic approach to collaboration for the interview and the project. Each class, we discussed possible questions, topics, and research approaches. In regards to the interview itself, we all came up with ten questions on our own via blogging, and compiled the questions together for the interview. We discussed which order to put the questions, which ones we wanted to keep, the ones that we didn’t feel we needed, and chose how to combine several questions into one.

We conducted our interview with the general manager of Sodexo, Scott Smith. Sodexo is a worldwide food servicing company that works with thousands of hospitals, schools, nursing homes, military bases, etc. Mr. Smith has worked with this company for three years and is currently in charge of the servicing at Manor Care in Washington Township, which is a rehabilitation center. Sodexo is also contracted with Rowan University to provide food for everyone on campus.

Our research question asks, “Is it possible for Rowan University residents to eat organically?” We considered interviewing someone in charge of Sodexo here at Rowan, but we didn’t want them to be biased or sugarcoat any truths. Kelly’s sister and mom work at ManorCare, and her sister is employed by Sodexo there, so we thought it would be useful to interview her boss. Since Rowan and ManorCare are only a few miles from each other, we knew that there would be tons of similarities without the biased attitude of a Sodexo representative from Rowan.

The interview with Scott Smith went even better than we expected. He answered our questions fully and provided a lot of useful insight that will help us with our research project. We were surprised to find that he goes out of his way when possible to find and purchase organic products. Unfortunately, Rowan has thousands of people to feed which makes buying organic much more difficult. Furthermore, Mr. Smith explained how he was frustrated with the rising food prices, but stagnant and tight budget. Money prominently controls food choices with Sodexo, which makes it unrealistic to purchase organically. After the interview, we feel more prepared to continue conducting further research for our project.