Christi Lockwood ’04 Will Address Building a Life of Chances Taken
Christi Lockwood ’04, Ph.D., associate professor of management at University of Virginia, will be the keynote speaker for the 232nd Cheshire Academy Commencement Exercises on Saturday, June 6. The 9 a.m. ceremony will take place on Kevin Slaughter Memorial Field, with 111 seniors and postgraduates expected to receive their diplomas.
“Cheshire’s willingness to give me a chance as a student and a person has profoundly shaped my life path, so when the invitation arrived, there was really no other answer,” said Dr. Lockwood. “I’ll be speaking about three lessons Cheshire taught me that I’ve carried with me ever since: that we each have the ability and agency to make change, that there is something to learn from every person we meet, and that the biggest risk we can take is failing to take a chance on ourselves.”
Marking her ninth year with the university, Dr. Lockwood teaches in the McIntire School of Commerce, conducting research on organizational and societal cultures, cultural entrepreneurship, and institutional change. She is particularly interested in understanding how organizations use culture to adapt to shifting environmental demands and elicit positive social evaluations from audiences.
Her research has appeared in publications including Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Annals, and Journal of Management. She has taught courses in organizational behavior and special sessions on topics including leadership and historical research methods. Before her academic career, Lockwood worked in the hotel industry and in management consulting.
Lockwood holds a BS from Cornell University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Boston College. In a recent interview, she said she loves her work in large part because of the lively give and take with her students. “I come into the classroom ready to learn from the students almost as much as they’re learning from me,” Dr. Lockwood said.
It’s just that attitude that makes her a perfect choice as Commencement speaker, said Head of School Tom Woelper P’26.
“Christi embodies exactly what we hope our students carry with them when they leave Cheshire Academy – intellectual curiosity, the courage to ask hard questions, and a genuine commitment to learning from everyone around her,” he said. “As an alumna who has built a distinguished career studying how organizations and cultures adapt and thrive, she is a living example of our mission to develop purposeful global citizens.”
In addition to teaching about management, Dr. Lockwood has experience working in the field. She was a senior analyst for communications and change management at Towers Watson, where she worked with client teams to articulate strategies, conducted employee research, and planned and implemented mergers, acquisitions and other major changes.
In her remarks, Dr. Lockwood, who left CA a little more than two decades ago, hopes to show the Class of 2026 the value of the long view.
“More than anything,” she said, “I hope to leave the graduating class with a sense of what it means to build a life not in a single bold leap, but in a long, quiet accumulation of chances that others take on us, that we take on ourselves, and, one day, that we also take on others.”
