Photo by: Paul Martens
Robert V. Robinson
Indiana University Bloomington ·
Class of 1964 Chancellor’s Professor of Sociology
Chairperson, Department of Sociology
College of Arts and Sciences
University Graduate School
| “My goal in working with students
is to empower them to realize their own potential and strengths
and help them to develop these to the fullest.” |
| — Robert V. Robinson |
|
When a faculty member becomes chair of a department, he or she might be expected
to relinquish what are sometimes considered “undesirable”
teaching obligations—namely, large, introductory lecture classes
of several hundred undergraduate students. Rather than relinquish,
however, Robert Robinson relishes the experience of teaching “S100:
Introduction to Sociology,” a class that regularly packs hundreds
of students into some of IU Bloomington’s largest lecture halls.
He even counts the course as his favorite.
This is no surprise to the many colleagues and students who wrote
letters recommending Robinson for a distinguished teaching award.
His amicable spirit comes in handy considering Robinson has taught
more students (approximately 4,000) in the past decade than any
other professor in the IU Bloomington Department of Sociology. Whether
leading a large course of several hundred undergraduate students
or spurring discussion among fewer than a dozen students in a graduate
seminar, Robinson is admired for his infectious enthusiasm for sociological
study, his unabashed love of teaching and his consistent “cheerleading”
of students.
“I know of very few IU departments where professors and students
have spent an afternoon together throwing Frisbees and playing football,
but thanks to Professor Robinson’s efforts, we have achieved
an excellent level of student-professor camaraderie,” writes
doctoral candidate Jocelyn Viterna. It’s not all fun and games
with Robinson, however. “In his graduate ‘Social Organization’
class, we first began to think of ourselves as competent academics
with something to contribute to the field,” continues Viterna.
“He had such confidence in us and respect for our intelligence
that he demanded we interact with him as equals, not as mere sponges
sucking up the knowledge of our professors.”
Indeed, Robinson aims to bring out students’ abilities, talents
and qualities that they may not know they have. “Michelangelo
said of his sculpting that he wasn’t chipping away stone to
create the figure but he was ‘releasing’ what was already
inside the stone,” Robinson writes. “My goal in working
with students is to empower them to realize their own potential
and strengths and help them to develop these to the fullest.”
This empowerment includes preparing graduate students for the teaching
component of their academic lives. The department’s Preparing
Future Faculty (PFF) program owes much of its success to Robinson’s
participation and advocacy, said fellow professor Brian Powell.
“As a result of Robinson’s efforts, our graduate students
now have opportunities to ‘shadow’ professors at several
liberal arts colleges, a traditional black institution and regional
campuses of Indiana University,” he writes. “In a period
when the academic community is criticized, perhaps rightly so, for
not paying enough attention to teaching, Rob has demonstrated that
commitment to teaching need not be at the expense of research excellence.”
After a review of the documentation and nominating letter submitted
by Robinson, the department received the prestigious 2001 American
Sociological Association Distinguished Contributions to Teaching
Award—an honor normally reserved for individuals.
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