Interview with a Robinson
September 25, 2009 | Contributed by Daniel Walters
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?
We had been very intentional about suspending discussion — Bonnie and I — had been very intentional about resisting making an intentional decision about this. We had just operated every day as though we would be here indefinitely. And then in the Spring that’s when we decided we have to start thinking about this. Because we need to put ourselves in the position so we can decide by the fall. Because what I didn’t want to do is get into October, November and then set down and say, “all right I really have to think this through, and reach a decision that this was my last year because puts the board of trustees in the tight spot.”
The rhythm of the academic year forced us in the spring to start really thinking about it carefully.
We thought about it over the summer. I met with the chair and board chair in July. I told them there was a possibility this would be the last year and that I would be thinking and I would be praying about it,but wouldn’t make a decision until a couple weeks into school and they were okay with that.
Inlander: You said that there were some reasons for you to stay and reasons for you to step down. What were those reasons?
The reasons for staying that were probably the most compelling were the affection I have for the people of Whitworth, students faculty staff, alumni, trustees, and the fulfillment I get from being in a place that so closely reflects my deepest values.
On the other side of the balance sheet were things such as the awareness it really would be in Whitworth’s best interest to have a president that could serve from 2010 to 2015. That’s our five year strategic plan. We know what we need to get done. It’s going to be rigorous. We need somebody who can be here in the presidency for the entire period.
And I didn’t think that would work for me. That would have brought me into almost my 30th year as college president. 2015 would have been my 29th year being a college president. It’s my 17th year here, but it is my 24th year as a college president. There are certain parts of the job that begins to wear you down. The travel starts to wear you down. The time away from your family starts to wear you down. A very circumscribed schedule where you don’t have much freedom of movement begins to wear you down. I didn’t think it would be healthy for me to go 29 years in that type of situation.
I really believe that it’s only in the most exceptional of cases that an institution benefits from a really long term presidents. Colleges and universities benefit from long-term presidencies up to a point, but when you hit that point, your contribution curve begins to flatten. I am who I am. I have the skills I have. I can do what I can do, But I’ve been doing that now, for 16 years, and those things have become a part of Whitworth. Just imagine what a boost it will be for the university when a person comes in with new ideas, new skills, and new energies, new relationships. As a presidency my responsibility is to do what is best for Whitworth. And I am not exempt from consideration in deciding what’s best for Whitworth. I really believe that this is what’s best for Whitworth.
In a fall 2007 trustee meeting, you speculated that possibly Whitworth had changed to where you weren’t the right president for Whitworth at that time? Is that accurate?
There was that tone. It was a little bit speculative. I think what I said: Whitworth had reached a point where the skills that I brought to the campus in 1993, and were needed in 1993, are not the same skills that are needed in the next period. So, I can adapt. I do everything that needs to be done, but I have put the accent mark in the different place than where the next president should put the accent mark.
Of course, that raises the question. Where do you feel you put the accent mark?
From my standpoint, almost every decision I made and virtually all the resources Whitworth has attracted…Most of the decisions I’ve made, and most of the resources that have attracted since my arrival have been a result of my commitment to do everything I can possibly do to make this a great place to attend college. You say, well of course. But basically what I’m saying is I’ve really focused hard on enrollment and retention. In my opinion the best way to have strong enrollment and retention and admissions is to try to create campus culture that your students are saying, “Wow, this is a great place. I love it. I’m learning a lot here.” I really worked hard on that. I did a lot of fundraising, we put up quite a a few buildings — it’s not like I didn’t do those things.
But now we’re a in a very strong position in terms of enrollment and retention. Some of the things I’ve done and the habits I’ve had that contributed to that are different than what we need to really focus on resource development. That’s where I think the next accent mark needs to be placed. If you look at 2010-2015 strategic plan, you’re going to say, all right, they’re going to be really focusing on strengthening the resources of the university.
What does that mean?
Funding for the science building, performing arts center, building the endowment, expanding the annual fund. A lot of that is related to fundraising. I’ve done a lot of that, I’ve enjoyed that. I don’t consider myself as much a fundraising president as much I do a student president or a campus culture president.
Some students I talked to were thinking as your presidency moved on you were spending less time on campus and more time fundraising? Is that accurate?
Yeah, the job just sort of demands it. I don’t know I was spending a lot less time with the students, I do know I was spending more time fundraising. You get stretched pretty thin. I think that a student who said that would probably be comparing me with me, and not with another university president. If you were to compare me with a Gonzaga president, it would have felt like I was not doing as much fundraising, and I was on campus a lot more. He was great at that, and that’s what he did.
Why does the college president need to be in the role of fundraising? Why can’t you just hire somebody who does fundraising all the time?
We do have people that’s all they do. But when you’re looking at investing a couple million dollars for example, you want to have confidence the university is moving in a direction that will protect your investment. For example: right after I made the announcement I called Christina Hixson to talk to her about my decision, to explain to her how I’ve come to the position and assure her it Whitworth was in a strong position, it was on track , and her investment was in a great shape.
Whitworth especially with the new science building and obviously the endowment taking a hit with the recession, there’s a fair amount of debt right now. Do you see Whitworth ever coming out of debt? Or is that something like the country, that we just have to live with?
In relative terms Whitworth does not have a lot of debt for a private university of our size. If we issue bonds for covering part of the cost of the science building, then we’ll be in a position that’s in a position more consistent with other colleges and university. Which is a position of indebtedness. So I think that what’s happened at many schools, and Whitworth will be included in that institutions have recognized they sit on pretty large asset bases that can be leveraged in ways to serve the students more effectively that if they were to make all purchases and construct all buildings on a debt free policy. In some senses what you’re doing is leveraging your asset base and spreading the cost. So for example, when we went out and raised the money to do the HUB.
We went out we raised $12 million to do the HUB. During that period we took the money that came to the university, we raised money we did everything we possibly could and built the HUB. There were students that voted for doing that. And frankly they didn’t benefit, even though we were busy investing ourselves raising funds for the HUB. So in some senses what you do by the strategic use of debt is you spread the cost so that students for the life of the building or the life on the investment participate in funding it.
When have you been most proud of Whitworth?
Well, in some ways this related to the time of year it is, and to my values and those sorts of things but I’ve been most proud of Whitworth when I’ve been in contact and conversation with alumni who are making profound contributions to the world, and trace the development of their values to their time at Whitworth. That’s really what it’s about. Our whole reason of being is to put people like you in a position to make the world a better place. So when
I see Whitworth alumni, particularly the ones where I was involved in their educations. When I see them out there as teachers, as attorneys, as ministers, and all these different capacities, and you can see those Whitworth values it just makes me feel great. And in a more on campus sort of way you feel pretty good about a community day. How can you not. Students come back from giving 3 or 4000 hours of community work to our community and that makes you proud. When you feel your mission is being accomplished, those are moments when you feel food.
When have you been most disappointed?
I think the way I would answer that is I’ve disappointed when there have been times where — whether its been faculty and faculty, or faculty and administration or students with administration or students with students, I’ve probably been most disappointed when there has been contentiousness without conversation.
We try so hard to build a culture of access, a culture of transparency, a culture of conversation. So when we are really at loggerheads after conversation, after coming together, after thinking it good. That’s when it gets dialectal! That’s always going to be good. That’s Hegel’s dialectic. The thesis bangs into the antithesis and you get the synthesis. When there hasn’t been the conversation, there’s not going to be a synthesis, to be real Hegelian about it. Inlander readers understand Hagel.
Through the last two decades, numerous controversial issues have ignited the campus —pornography, censorship, homosexuality, racism, scandalous “Mock Rock” lipsyncing performances, What would you tell a future college president to do when handling those?
I think I would advise a new college president is to enter into it. The worst thing you can do is to try to eliminate the conversation or discourage the dissent. It’s not easy, but if we have a spirit of honesty and graciousness we can enter into those things and be problem-solvers rather than fighters. Those have been sometimes great moments for Whitworth. I don’t look back the times when there’ve been controversial issues that have been times of distraction or times of defeat for goodness sakes. That’s what we do. That’s what’s supposed to happen on a college campus.
Any specifics where there has been a controversy and something good has come out of it?
There’s probably been good and bad come out of all those things. Some of the racial problems we’ve had I think have sometimes resulted in progress. We’ve had tough problems on campus where eventually people come together and find out how hurtful we can be to each other. We’ve had situations where students were victims of racial profiling and we invited the police chief on campus to talk about it. I think those sorts of things can be positive.
The homosexuality issue is always going to be challenging because we’re dealing with different sets of assumptions, but the discussions we’ve had have helped people understand each other’s points of view and not each other. There’s alwaysa mixture. There’ve been some things haven’t been so good. But I think there’s been a lot of issues on campus.
The internet filter’s one of those where something good’s come out of something bad. We spent a year discussing it. We all learned a lot and reached a decision that the filters were sophisticated enough that we could still do the academic intellectual work we need to do but make it harder for students to access some of the life-depleting time-depleting material on the internet. That was an interesting one, the neat thing about that is it was student-driven. I had six students in here from BJ, saying we think you don’t know what’s going on. I probably do, but I’m probably in denial.
Over the years, have you seen the campus become more conservative, liberal or stayed the same?
I think the way I would respond to that, I feel the campus has become more tolerant — and I don’t think that means more liberal or less conservative — I’d like to think we’re more comfortable with a big standard deviation. Which is to say it’s okay for people to have points of view that are far left or far right.
Having said all that, I think during my time here, when you think about it — I was here for all of the Clinton presidency and all of the Bush presidency. Now, during that period I think the country tilted to the right. From 1993, you know, to 2008. And so what I think happened on college and university campuses were not terribly different from what happened to the country. That was there was a subtle and sometimes not so subtle shift to the right.
What’s been the toughest decision you’ve made?
I’ll give you two. One general and one specific. What has been most challenging has been the pressure from various directions for Whitworth to take positions on issues. It was always my belief Whitworth would be most effective in accomplishing its mission in resisting taking particular positions on issues, but rather working with our students to help them understand their position, helping them to understand their issues. That pressure has been with me since my arrival .The board of trustees were great for the way they would present me with their suggestions on that. Sometimes alumni were a little less subtle.
Specifically, the toughest decision for me was the move from college to university.
From what I understand you were opposed at first and then you changed your mind?
I changed my mind, more thoroughly than I changed my heart on that. Look outside! You went here. This is a college. It feels like a college. I love everything about that feel and that sound. I never wanted to be a president of a big university — had opportunities to do that, never interested. Just the romance of the word “college” I loved.
But it became clear to me, that the nomenclature in higher education had shifted in such a way that in the 80’s when some colleges were becoming universities, I would protest and say that’s pretentious, that’s misleading. In the mid 2000s when we had all the programs that a university has, and all the characteristics of a university we started being the ones that were misleading. Whitman is a college. They have the characteristics of a college. Whitworth is a university. It has the characteristics of a university.
That was pretty interesting. Over my twenty plus years as college president, that shift took place. So I became a college president in 1986 in Indiana that’s where I wanted to be, on a college campus. That was hard for me to say, okay, we’re a university.
That vote was close.
It was close. But one of the cool things about this board of trustees, we made the vote it was so close. The first thing out of one of the trustee’s mouth was “I move that we give this a decision unanimous support.” And there was unanimous assent. I was pretty proud of Whitworth at that moment.
What are some of the other things you’ve changed your mind about?
Well, I guess the biggest one I’ve changed my mind about is the way in which we leverage our assets.
I was financially very conservative. I believe that served us well. I think that because I was so conservative financially that we may have missed some opportunities, and so I feel I’m much more open-minded now and analytical.
What do you think your greatest success has been?
I’ve read a lot of e-mails lately… Clearly the biggest success, has just been what’s happened in the lives of our students. It’s just gratifying to hear from alumni whose lives were affected at Whitworth. Sometimes they will identify something I did that had an influence on their lives. To talk about buildings or status or athletic conquest, it just all pales in comparison to the students whose lives reflect your highest hopes to your institution.
What do you think your greatest failure has been?
This may sound kinda strange to you. I think that I’ve failed to be more aggressive, when I could have been more aggressive. I’ll just say that generally. I haven’t said this to anybody else in talking about why now.
About two years ago I told the cabinet that I found myself seeing my work in the institution and my role a little more cautiously when I was a 36-year-old college president.
I think my general failure would come under the category of ‘Missed opportunities because I wasn’t aggressive enough.’ It’s hard to be more specific that.
I was just a little slow, for example on leveraging assets. There may have been programs that we could have instituted that could have positioned us better for right now. I really believed, and I am still am comfortable with this: There are a lot of things in higher education where you don’t want to be in the cutting edge. There’s so much risk on the cutting edge. I never felt Whitworth had the kind of resource base where we can be a high risk institution.
Personally, people who know me know I am pretty aggressive. In providing leadership for Whitworth, I felt we needed to err on the side of caution. It’s just sort of when I look back, geez I’m not disappointed when I reflect on my time here, I feel great. But I ask myself, could we have done more? Could I have done more? Could I have been more effective? Did I drag my feet where I should have been sprinting? I’m more likely to ask myself those questions than, oh, I can’t believe we did this, we never should have have done that.
The way I would say it, is I probably made more sins of omission that commission
What if anything have you and the board of trustees disagreed on?
Well, probably most memorable disagreement on the board was in borrowing — It was my recommendation we use debt financing for a building, it was our board chair’s recommendation that we not use debt financing. Everybody knew how much Chuck Boppell and I admired each other and supported each other. And Chuck and I stood at a board meeting, I told him why I thought debt financing was the right thing to do, and he told me how he felt it was not the right thing to do.
That was a pretty interesting conversation. The board was not of one mind. The board agreed to do the debt financing, they agreed to the debt financing, but they structured the bonds so they were more front loaded than a normal schedule would be. Because they were basically say, you want this, were going to do the lion’s share of paying it down while you’re here. That was funny, I had recommended a different payment schedule than Chuck, he was recommending we not do debt. Then when we made that decision, he was recommending a different payment schedule than me, and we did his.
You have a reputation for not only remembering student names, but remembering details about them. What was your secret?
It’s kinda interesting to me. As I’ve heard from alumni over the past three days, I was surprised how many details I did remember, and how many names I did remember. I’d love to believe that I don’t have any different apparatus than the next person. I do know that I think it’s very important for me to know the students. I care very much about the students. I think that students recognize that. I hope they do, because I really do. I think it’s easy to remember things when you really care about the people than if you don’t. Plus, I’m going to go out of the way, that if somebody does something well — which you did — I’m going to find a way to tell you. Once I’ve done that, then we’ve got a relationship. You’re not just another student walking around campus. You’re a student who came up with a very clever and effective program, if that makes sense to you.
Enrollment has grown sixty percent while you’ve been here. Has remembering student’s names become more difficult?
Yeah, yeah, plus I don’t have as many brain cells. The older you get the worse your memory gets.
One of the things you’ve talked about is the institution’s “cultural sustainability.” What does Whitworth have to do to maintain “Whitworth.”
I think that some of it can be done through the commitment culturally to engagement with the students. I’d like to think Whitworth does education through relationships. I like to think that when a student like you comes to Whitworth there’s a real good chance you’re going to leave having been influenced by the relationships you have rather than just the content you’ve learned. So I’d think you have to keep yourself committed to that culture of engagement and being intentional and relational. That’s probably more important than the number of students. Having said that, the bigger you get the more challenging that becomes.
Do you feel there’s a limit to how big Whitworth can get and maintain its feel?
I think Whitworth could add another 3 or 400 students and preserve the culture. Beyond that it starts to get challenging.
At the beginning of Mary Poppins, the kids listed qualities that the perfect nanny would have. What’s your list of quality for a perfect president.
I think that there different presidents for different season. The ideal president for the next season will be one who is deeply engaged with the campus in the way that protects the campus culture. But it will also be the person who has strong abilities and skills in resource development. The sine qua non is a commitment to the mission, so I assume that.
Whitworth’s mission is “An Education of the Mind and Heart.” What does “Education of the Heart mean?
When you look at the problems of our world, it really takes some clever thinking. Let’s look at national health care. If we’re going to reduce the number of citizens who are without health care, that’s going to take some very clever thinking. That’s going to take a brilliant solution. Those solutions are going to be the product of great thinking. We are not going to see the number of people without health care recede just by wanting it to recede. We’re not going to do our best problem solving if we don’t have the heart for people that don’t have health care. So I hope Whitworth graduates not only the ability to solve the problems, I hope they have the heart to solve that problem.
How do you teach “heart?”
Maybe the best way to save that is that heart is more caught than taught. If we show you heart, if our professors our transparent about their values, if I embody that, if the people of Whitworth, if the faculty staff in Whitworth give an example of heart, then hopefully our students will catch that. I think that most people feel that there’s a cause effect relationship between heart and action… I think under normal circumstances there is. I think under normal circumstances there is. If you care deeply about proclaiming Christ’s gospel, if you care deeply about a social issue, you’ll act. I also believe if we can involve our students in acting, they will begin to care more deeply about those issues. There’s a circularity in the relationship between the heart and our actions. One of the ways we influence the heart is to put our students in a position where they’re exercising their heart, where they’re doing service. I think that shoots for the heart.
Do you expect Whitworth look internally for a president? Or is that all the domain for the board of trustees?
Here’s what I except. I expect the board of trustees to ask me the question you asked me. And that’s it trustees generally feel the biggest job is hiring a good president and working with that president to help him or her be effective. This is what trustees do.
Do you know how open the search process will be?
That’s a very tricky kind of situation, because I hope that people have felt my commitment to transparency, but with search process, transparency cuts both ways. It’s great for the community, but there’s lot of candidates out there who cannot be involved in search that was open. I was one of those candidates. I explained to the search firm that contacted me, I explained, I can’t be involved in a search where an institution brings two or three candidates to the campus and then decides which one. The only kind of search I can be involved in is one where, I’m the candidate. Until the point where it becomes public.
If they say well, our community wants to know who the finalists are, my response would be I totally understand, but I can’t be a candidate. It compromises my leadership where I am. I was president of another college. They don’t want me out there looking for new presidencies all the time.
If you visit Whitworth 10 years from now, what do you expect to see?
This is going to be interesting. We’ve got Pirate Night tonight. I haven’t stood in front of anybody since Tuesday.
I might tell this tonight, you can tell me your opinion on this. I was on the men’s basketball team on the University of Iowa in the early 1970s. It wasn’t a very good team. I was a benchwarmer. In 1991 somehow they made it to the NCAA tournament. They were there last year, they’ve gone back since then. I love now being able to say I was on that team. I played on that team. It wasn’t the same team, I could have played on that team now in a million years.
So here’s what I’m hoping for in 10 years. I’m going to see Whitworth so far beyond where I could have taken it. I’m going say, “I was president of that school!”
I think Whitworth is going to soar. I think that the community underestimates how great it’s going to be to have a new president, and new vision, new leadership. And it’s got so much going for it, that I think in 10 years, it’s going to be fabulous.
What do you see as the institution’s strengths?
A wonderful mission. I’ll probably have to make a distinction between mission and identity or distinctive. Our mission doesn’t look all that different from other Christian colleges and universities. But our distinctive is: We’re a community of scholars that attempts to be faithful to Christ in what we do and how we think in all of these ways. But at the same time we’re a community of Christian scholars that is open, is curious and is not afraid to deal with challenging ideas. I think that’s such a strength. And then I would say, we’ve got a great location, we’ve got a beautiful campus, we’ve got just a great faculty. The students that choose Whitworth just amaze me. I think it’s a strong institution.
What aspects of weakness do you see?
Well, we’ve gone to a different league academically, and we need the resources to be able to play in that league.
I would say the biggest weakness we have right now would be in that our, in a couple areas, science and the performing arts being the two primary ones, we need to catch up. And we will. Our scientists and our performing arts majors don’t have the facilities they need. And we’re going to fix that. One of the neat things is, I’ll stay involved after I step out of the presidency, in working on attracting funds for those. If you’re in one place for 17 years, you make a lot of good relationships and friends. And I think they’ll be useful.
Anything else you want to add before I let you go?
This has just been for me, I can’t imagine being a place that has been more fulfilling, where I feel more sort of this is where I belong.
I guess to sum it up. No matter what else I do, Whitworth will always be my life work.
Comments
One Response to “Interview with a Robinson”
The Forum strives to maintain academic integrity and as such we expect proper grammar and punctuation at all times. Please avoid colloquial internet memes and emoticons. Additionally, we strongly value accountability for written words and wish to avoid an anonymous environment.
Please use your real first and last name, or your comment will be deleted.
Due to the nature of the comment formatting, please be sure there is a space between paragraphs, or your comment may not display properly.
Good interview, Daniel. I feel more and more like I’ve taken Bill for granted in my time at Whitworth. Still, it’s like he said: many of the great things he’s brought to the school will continue to be there, and we have a huge staff (not to mention student body) of profoundly inspiring and dedicated leaders. It’s easy to forget that. I’m glad I got a chance to read this. The Forum is a great resource for keeping up with Whitworth while abroad (or, I suppose, graduated).