Interview with a Robinson
On Monday, Sept. 14 2009, Bill Robinson made his announcement to step down from the presidential position. I interviewed him on Friday, Sept. 18 for an article in the Pacific Northwest Inlander, which ran on Tuesday, Sept 24.
Inlander: You’ve made your decision to step down in your presidential role this year. How does that feel for you?
Wow, you know, that’s a really interesting question because going through the process of making the decision was a little bit emotional. You know, I think it felt sorta bittersweet when I was making the decision. When Bonnie and I were talking about and thinking about, it was a hard decision to make. There were reasons for both stepping away and for staying.
Monday night I communicated with the board of trustees and on Tuesday we announced it. Since then, I haven’t had time to feel anything. It’s just created a lot of unplanned communication. I’ve got a couple hundred e-mails. It’s great.
These are people you love, and these are people that made it look like, you know, I was doing probably a better job than I was because they’re great people. The students at whitworth — you were a student here, you know — there’s just some wonderful people, so many wonderful students. You cant’ just say that’s nice and then move on. I’ve been spending a lot of time responding in the last few days.
The question “how do I feel,” will be a more relevant question in May than it is now. Right now, I feel like: “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
In January, you told me “I don’t have any plans at this point to leave Whitworth. I’m pretty much just trying to do a good job every day and see what happens,” I’m wondering, what’s changed since then? Read more
So, intrepid Googler, you’ve found this web page.
There is a chance, good Internet user, student of the latter-day Whitworth, that some day you will stumble upon (or StumbleUpon) this blog. In some errant Google search, you will run across this mysterious artifact of another time, a day when “East Residence Hall” was just a fanciful dream, when Westminster didn’t have fancy-schamancy “paint on the walls.”
You’ll blow off the dust, you may look around a bit. You’ll see past controversies, past rants. Some of them may still resonate, others will likely seem quaint and humorous, like when we talked about these things called “Saga Trays.”
But the Forum doesn’t have to be over. It doesn’t have to be something of the past.
You have the power. You have the ability to revive the forum once again. You have the ability to begin to use this as an uncensored megaphone to the Whitworth student body. Or to just complain about Core 350. If you would like to be a writer on the Forum, if you would like to revive this husk of a website e-mail me at danieltwalters [ a t ] gmail.com.