Introduction
Our first and primary Oral History interview was conducted with Mr. Brian Flynn, the General Manager of Sodexo Inc. at Rowan University. Sodexo is the primary and truly the sole food provider on Rowan's campus and is the main component in attempting to understand the food and the eating community at Rowan as a whole. The interview was conducted by group members Alex Kuhn and myself in Mr. Flynn's office in the Rowan University Student Center. In addition to our other two group members not being able to make it to the interview given their schedules, two of us conducting the interview was a conscious decision as we did not want to overwhelm Mr. Flynn by presenting him with four students asking questions which could have been interpreted as slightly more confrontational and less conversational.
Our primary goal for the interview was to discover more about the food at Rowan and its origins, but we remained open to other topics because at the time our general purpose was still debatable. As the conversation progressed and we moved past discovering about the food at Rowan, the three of us talked more about the general populous at Rowan and what they expect from their food. We touched primarily on the health factor of many options, their pricing, and then finally the vegetarian and health-conscious population on campus. This final subject became the one we would explore the most and became much more interesting as we delved into what Mr. Flynn thought about vegetarian's options at Rowan versus what students might expect or want to have. From this, a new primary topic seemingly emerged and transformed our primary research question from "Where does the food at Rowan come from?" to "What is it like to be a vegetarian at Rowan?" or, more generally, "What is it like to be a vegetarian, or just a health-conscious student, on a college campus today?"
For this reason, much of our prior research and sources were rendered void and necessitated a near total overhaul of our approach to the project as a whole.
Our primary goal for the interview was to discover more about the food at Rowan and its origins, but we remained open to other topics because at the time our general purpose was still debatable. As the conversation progressed and we moved past discovering about the food at Rowan, the three of us talked more about the general populous at Rowan and what they expect from their food. We touched primarily on the health factor of many options, their pricing, and then finally the vegetarian and health-conscious population on campus. This final subject became the one we would explore the most and became much more interesting as we delved into what Mr. Flynn thought about vegetarian's options at Rowan versus what students might expect or want to have. From this, a new primary topic seemingly emerged and transformed our primary research question from "Where does the food at Rowan come from?" to "What is it like to be a vegetarian at Rowan?" or, more generally, "What is it like to be a vegetarian, or just a health-conscious student, on a college campus today?"
For this reason, much of our prior research and sources were rendered void and necessitated a near total overhaul of our approach to the project as a whole.