My name is William Dodd. I was born in Dallas, Texas and raised in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. I graduated from Belmont University with a degree in English Literature, along with minors in Writing and Religion. Through my education, I’ve learned about different people, cultures, and stories from around the world and throughout history. During my time at Belmont, I have been privileged to serve local communities by volunteering at Family Literacy Day and the Nashville Literacy Center, as well as working local sports camps through Belmont’s baseball team. I’ve also been able to serve internationally in Uganda and the Dominican Republic. These service opportunities have etched moments and images in my memory that offer only a glimpse into worlds and lifestyles that have made one thing clear— we are all the same in our needs of one another. We all want to give and receive love, we all seek to share and laugh, and above all we all need each other. Where one may need another to serve food, the one who serves may need to see the faces of the hungry. Through experiencing a world in need, and remembering their faces, I am inspired to write, serve others, and give back to a world in need.
I came to Belmont on a baseball scholarship, and quickly found my place around a group of guys who all loved the same game as me. Although baseball was always a love of mine, it was not all that mattered to me in my time at Belmont. I also joined clubs, studied Spanish in Costa Rica for a summer, served on leadership boards and committees, volunteered for local camps, read for family literacy day, volunteered at the local literacy center, and worked in the art studio. Everything I experienced in my time at Belmont challenged me to search the far boundaries of who I am as a person, pushing comfort out of the way and stretching my limitations. Hence, I inevitably found a way to pursue all the things that matter most to me. Whether it was a mix of Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Faulkner in hardback stacked up next to my cleats and glove in the baseball locker room, or showing up to class sweaty from weights time and time again to discuss the effect that Hawthorne had on early American romanticism, or even telling Coach I’d have to duck out of baseball early to sign in for studio hours to work on my pottery. No matter what I did, I always pursued my passions. I’ll never be able to do it all, but I want to pursue everything I can that grows me, develops me, and challenges the very nature of who I am.
Through challenging myself as a person, and growing in the course of the pain and joy that challenges bring, I hope to fill my cup deeply so that I can, in turn, pour myself into others. In my life of many passions and interests, countless people have poured time, patience, and consideration into me. Any time a circumstance brought me down, there was always something or someone else in my corner to pick me up and dust me off. The people who pour into you and pick you up are the ones you’ll never forget.