Chris Cate: Welcome to the Fluent in Floridian podcast, featuring the Sunshine State’s brightest leaders, talking about the issues most important to the people of Florida and its millions of weekly visitors. In this episode created by SalterMitchell PR, our Executive Producer, Heidi Otway, the president of SalterMitchell PR, talked to Florida A&M University President Dr. Larry Robinson.

Heidi Otway: Dr. Larry Robinson is the 12th President of my alma mater, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University. Since joining the faculty as a visiting professor back in 1995, which was a few years after I graduated, he’s been a steady force at the only public historically black university in Florida. Dr. Robinson, thank you for being a guest on the Fluent in Floridian podcast.

Dr. Robinson: Thank you, Heidi, for giving me this opportunity to say a few things with you.

Heidi Otway: Dr. Robinson, you served as interim president of the university three times on three separate occasions. What’s different now that the position is permanent?

Dr. Robinson: Well, first of all, let me clarify. There isn’t anything permanent about it, but it is a difference in terms of the fact that I can’t say that I let that permanent person fix the difficult problems. I have to address all of them now. I once said that the difference was that as interim, I can just work on some piece of it. Well, waiting for the difficult task to be done later on. But as President, there are no parts of this wonderful place that I’m not accountable for, and I do have the pleasure of working on all of it. Until I’m told otherwise, every morning I wake up with the idea in my mind that I have this wonderful entity called Florida A&M University and all its respective pieces as my responsibility. It’s really an awesome feeling. That’s the difference, right, is knowing that I must channel all of my internal resources and those of all of our faculty staff, friends, and supporters to continue this great 131-year legacy as the President of Florida A&M University.

Heidi Otway: What’s the best part of being the President of a historically black university that is consistently ranked as one of the top in America for producing African-Africans with degrees and for producing black scientists and engineers?

Dr. Robinson: Well, those are among them. Seeing those types of things continue to occur and understanding there’s a lot more potential for that and seeing FAMU position to do even greater things with regard to producing talent, discovering and molding their talent from places that others might not look, right? It gives me this special feeling every day to know that there are so many opportunities available to what we do, for FAMU to make a difference in the lives of our students and the communities that they will go back and serve.

Heidi Otway: What do you think is a top issue facing FAMU and its future as a historically black college?

Dr. Robinson: Well, I think, obviously, if I had to rank all of the things and that are their challenges, financial well-being is among the things that we have to continue to solidify at the university. The good thing for us at the universities is that so we’ve been given a good bill of health from Moody’s bond rating. We just had our outlook change to positive. We just went through our 10-year reaffirmation process with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. They pay very close attention to the financial well-being of the institutions that are being reaffirmed or considered for reaffirmation. If you look around the HBCU space and see what are the primary issues that have led to accreditation problems or even in some cases, loss of accreditation, they tend to center around financial issues, financial capacity.

So at Florida A&M University, we pay close attention to that. We want to make sure that we secure the funds that are necessary to support all that we do here, and then too, all of the monies that are provided to us from various stakeholders, whether is the Florida legislature, some funding agency in Washington DC or some donor, that we utilize those funds in a responsible manner, so we want to be good stewards of the resources entrusted to us as well.

Heidi Otway: The university brings out in a number of significant grants. Can you talk a little bit about the investments that have been made for FAMU externally, from external sources?

Dr. Robinson: That’s is a really good question to follow up on the previous one because we have been fortunate to be elevated to a classification by the Carnegie Foundation as R2. There’s only one classification above that. That means that you’re doing great on two fronts, primarily. That is bringing in extramural resource dollars, but also producing graduates at the Ph.D. or doctorate levels, okay? For us, we add something to that, so we do research that’s relevant to the constituents we serve. For example, we just have been chosen to be a 5-year $6 million research partnership addressing cancer and health disparities in black and Latino communities, right?

So the research that we do is relevant, but at the same time, there’s another component that’s important for us as an academic institution, and that is, we involve students in our research, even at the undergraduate level. It gives us an opportunity to prepare them for whatever comes next. A student who has had a bonafide research experience as an undergraduate, whether they plan to go into the world of work or whether they plan to go into some post-baccalaureate educational experience, will be better off having those experiences under their belt. And so I really pay very close attention to those issues because those are the ones, among the ones that brought me to this great place to begin with.

Heidi Otway: FAMU is recognized as a place for Fortune 500 companies to come find talent. How does the university help diversify corporate America?

Dr. Robinson: Well, by giving them these corporate entities access to the wonderful array of diversity we have within our student’s population. You know as well as anyone that we have students and graduates from Silicon Valley to Wall Street, and most of our programs have developed a unique relationship with the corporate sector. We just launched last year with Google, a program that now has five FAMU computer science students spending a year out there with an internship, but at the same time, being co-taught courses by HBCU faculty, our faculty, as well as Google staff right? You’re talking about getting folks ready for the real world, is very, no one that does it better than that.
We have those kinds of partnerships with a host of companies, and then we have this, it’s a very unique thing that we do here at FAMU that we call the industry cluster. We revitalized the cluster last year during my inauguration activities, whereby it will be … So we have a fairly broad network of companies that we work with, but there’d between some with which we have special partnerships that allow these types of relationships on research, internships and employment, so that they go to the next level, as they say.
It will, in some instances, allow a student coming in to say, “I want to be a computer science major and take advantage of a scholarship that might be offered by one of the corporate partners in that arena,” and then that student be put on a path of internships that allow them to get ready for that working environment prior to their graduation. I’m really excited about, so the rebirth of the industry cluster at the university. It’s being chaired by Michelle Harris from Allstate. You know-

Heidi Otway: And she’s a graduate of Florida A&M. And she gives back.

Dr. Robinson: She’s a graduate of FAMU. We’re very proud. She gives back in more ways than one. In more ways than one.

Heidi Otway: If businesses are listening to this all over the country, how could they get involved with the cluster?

Dr. Robinson: The best way is by contacting our Vice President for Development, Dr. Shawnta Friday-Stroud, the FAMU Foundation Director as well. That’s the best thing to fix. Otherwise, they can contact me, and I’ll make sure.

Heidi Otway: Good.

Dr. Robinson: Some of them might have an interest in a particular college or school, and that’s fine, but we want to plug them in at the top and make sure that we institutionalize the relationship. In the end, there may be specific colleges and schools that they work with, but we want to make sure that in the event that they don’t know, that there are 13 very well-functioning colleges and schools beyond what they might be thinking about as they think about partnering with the university.

Heidi Otway: Well, I’m a proud graduate of the journalism school, and I have to say that my internships certainly prepared me for my career. I mean I worked at newspapers, worked with some of the top broadcast journalists of my time, and it just opened my eyes and exposed me to so much, so I’m so thrilled to hear that that’s continuing.

Dr. Robinson: That’s continuing. I came here from the private sector. I know what an advantage it gives a graduate/undergraduate student to have had some interaction with that corporate or real-world environment that gives them sort of a leg on the competition. We provide a lot of that here at FAMU.

Heidi Otway: Well, you talked a little bit about your experience in the private sector. As I shared earlier in my introduction, you came to FAMU a visiting professor as I was leaving as a graduate from the journalism school. Let’s talk a little bit about your work as a renowned researcher and scientist and how your work has helped improved Florida’s natural resources and our environment. Tell us a little bit about your background in that as a scientist and researcher.

Dr. Robinson: I’m a nuclear chemist by training. I spent the first part of my career at Martin-Marietta, then Lockheed Martin that ran the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Heidi Otway: That’s in Tennessee, is that right?

Dr. Robinson: That’s in East Tennessee just northwest of Knoxville, one of the old weapons facilities, but their mission at the time I was there was much more diverse. They had a huge environmental and technology development, components, even a huge, an energy division, I mean some of the things that we were sort of ahead of the curve of, right?
So what FAMU afforded me though is that we were looking then to establish relationships with historically black colleges and universities to help diversify our workforce. We had an opportunity at FAMU to help them really get off the ground, what is now the school environment. It was formally, the environmental sciences institute. I was a visiting professor here in 1995. I was just amazed at the phenomenal students that we had at the university then and now. I just fell in love with the place, right?
But my career isn’t as important as what I saw over the horizon for FAMU, and that is, where I’ve worked and in my discipline in general, there wasn’t a whole lot of diversity, okay? I saw the program that we were working on with FAMU as an opportunity to address that.
It came to a point in my career where I had to decide do you want to be on the inside pulling or do you want to be on the outside pushing? Actually, the circumstances in which I came to FAMU, I saw an opportunity to do both. I saw where I had established connections within that world that I was in at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and beyond. But I also saw that being on the inside, I could train and put my hands on a much broader pool of talent that I could specifically work on to get ready for that real world.
I didn’t completely sever my relationships with the National Laboratory and Lockheed. I was actually on the Advisory Board there for several years, sending faculty and student back, and so that’s how I was considering myself in my own mind in a way both, pushing and pulling, but I thought the pushing part was most important because I said, “I don’t ever want to hear somebody tell me that they can’t find,” and you plug in the blank, you fill in the black, right? Let me go here to this great place that I know has a national, if not international reputation for producing outstanding graduates and see if I can do something about increasing the numbers that are matriculating in these STEM disciplines related to what we were doing at Lockheed Martin and the National Laboratory at that time. That’s how I got here, right?

Heidi Otway: That’s how you got here.

Dr. Robinson: That’s how I got here.

Heidi Otway: And then once you got to Florida A&M, you have worked your way around the university in a number of leadership roles, and amongst my peers and other alumni, we consider you that steady force who’s been within the university for almost two decades. Talk about your time moving within leadership at the university.

Dr. Robinson: I just celebrated 22 years this past January. I started January 13th, 1997. I think I’ve been every job at FAMU except for the football coach.

Heidi Otway: Except for the football coach.

Dr. Robinson: But he could feel secure. I’m not a threat there at all. But every job that I’ve had at the university, I thoroughly enjoyed, but the most important contribution I think that I made to this university and to the State of Florida and all of the challenges and opportunities that we faced over the years is – and that original rationale or reason for coming – that is seeing and having a role in that next generation students and professionals who are going out into the world and making a difference.
So originally, I focused almost exclusively on the STEM side of the house, but as I became Provost, I said, “Well, we also might need some journalists too out there.”

Heidi Otway: Yeah, you need us.

Dr. Robinson: We need somebody to help tell our stories. We’d like to have somebody to tell the right story period.

Heidi Otway: That’s right.

Dr. Robinson: FAMU graduates, I believe, you do that extremely well. I often talk about the two elements of our motto that’s important. Heidi, you were able to experience the world-class education here. That’s the excellence part of our motto. But while you were here, I’m sure on many occasions along the way, it got embedded in you the need to give back and to do service, right? I know you do that. Outside of your job, you have some fairly significant responsibilities that benefit not just you but this entire community. That’s the caring part of our goal here. We produce students who are not only good at what they do, but they understand and appreciate the need to give back and the need to keep the doors open for others to come behind them. That’s what’s special about FAMU, but it didn’t start on January 13th, 1997. That’s part of FAMU’s history.
We haven’t sat on the sidelines of history, as I said, but many times, FAMU students, faculty and staff have made history. They’ve changed history and helped to make this land a more perfect union. I’m really impressed with those who, throughout the Civil Rights Movement and the Stand-Your-Ground era and to today, with regard to some issues confronting us now, how our students have been actively engaged in those kinds of things. While at the same time, they find a way to do chemistry and journalism and criminal justice and engineering as well.

Heidi Otway: And the arts.

Dr. Robinson: And the arts.

Heidi Otway: I mean we have a number of actresses and actors and producers who are all FAMU grads.

Dr. Robinson: It’s pretty amazing when you think about those folks, right? I’ve had two recent trips to Southern California. One was for a major recruitment fair. I was hosted for dinner by the, I guess it’s the Southern California Alumni Chapter, right? In that chapter, it’s an amazing mixture of people. You got doctors. You got engineers. You got performing artists. You have actresses and actors. It’s really amazing. But that speaks to FAMU’s impact. It’s kind of hard to find a place, right, where we haven’t had graduates, not just graduate from those disciplines but really make a difference, right? People like Will Packer, for example. It’s just amazing. Every time and every place I go, I run into Rattlers deliberately who are out there making a difference.

Heidi Otway: I mean Anika Noni Rose was the first black Disney princess.

Dr. Robinson: People like that. I’ve had the pleasure … Most people don’t even know that Common, for example, is an alumnus.

Heidi Otway: Right. He was here when I was at FAMU.

Dr. Robinson: It’s just going down that list, it’s so extensive. It’s just amazing, and then of course in your discipline, it’s not … Well, it is the arts in a sense. We just got the good news where Kimberly Godwin, one of your contemporaries was appointed the Executive Vice President of CBS News, the first African-American female in that position, right, or African-American, period. Anyway, rattlers on the move is what Ms. Times and her group calls it. It’s always somebody out there for me to brag about.

Heidi Otway: Thinking through the future of FAMU, I recently heard you build the case for historically black universities. Tell our listeners about that. It was so impassioned, it kind of stuck with me because as America diversifies, there are people who question: is there still a need for a historically black university, and your answer was yes, so tell us why.

Dr. Robinson: The real question is: where will we be without these institutions, right? Not just historically, but looking ahead to the future. Historically, we have contributed to the evolution of the African-American middle class. Looking towards the future, we produce, in every discipline, it’s amazing how if you track where those people came, who are judges, who are engineers, who are lawyers, who are doctors, you will find significant percentages of them having their origins at an HBCU or getting their terminal degrees in law or medicine at an HBCU. We only constitute 3% of all of the post-secondary institutions of higher education in this nation, so it’s a lot more than 104, 105 HBCUs out there, but the impact that we’re having is just phenomenal.
The return-on-investment, right, if your 401K was doing as well as we are in terms of the impact, right, you’ve probably retired already ready, okay? My point is that you pick a discipline, right? African-American judges, Africa-Americans in state governments, African-Americans in the federal government, you’ll find a large percentage of them are coming from HBCU campuses.
And then, the more important thing to me is that they’re not just there in those capacities, disconnected from the realities around why they’re there, how they got there. If you look for the people who are championing the issues, right? People who are worried about health and healthcare disparities, right, and see where those people came from, where they came from these institutions and they carry their charge with them into their professional settings as well, they carry those charges with them into what they do professionally and what they do in the civic worlds. We bragged last year about having several mayors around this country who are graduates of FAMU?

Heidi Otway: Yeah, that’s right. Five. Wasn’t it five mayors?

Dr. Robinson: Yes, that’s right. Nobody can brag about something like that but FAMU, but then when you think about, and I had the privilege of attending Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ inauguration for the city of Atlanta. Deana Ingraham the East Point mayor. It’s amazing the messages of unity, but ensuring that we pay particular attention to those who are underserved, those whose full potential, economically, educationally and otherwise hasn’t been fully realized. They still have that, they still care about the people because that’s part of their HBCU experience.

Heidi Otway: I don’t think there’s anything like an HBCU experience.

Dr. Robinson: No, there isn’t. I tell parents too. The thing that’s really special about it is, no matter how you got to us, right, whether you’re the top student in your class or you just barely made our admissions criteria, once you cross the threshold and onto the highest of seven hills, well you’re a part of the Rattler family forever. Everything that we can do to see to that you’re successful, we’re going to do.
We tell parents all the time and students who are out there trying to figure out where to go to next, and we have students who can go anywhere, right? We tell them that when you come to FAMU, you don’t have to worry about proving yourself to us. You don’t have to worry about proving that you have any of the ability to anything. If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, nuclear chemist, whatever the case may be, we believe that, right? And so you don’t have to waste any energy trying to get over that. That’s a waste of time and energy.
The only thing you have to prove to us is that you’re willing to work as hard on your behalf as we are, okay? But getting up over that hurdle of “can I?” is a non-issue for us, because we pretty much demand that you do it, right? Is not a matter of expecting that you can. We need you to, right? In order for you to be successful, we put around you those special nurturing that will lead to you getting to you where you want to go.
I’m really proud to be in this community of HBCUs, large, small, private, public. Each and every one of us is making a significant contribution to this nation and to the world. I just don’t know if we can be as great as we want to be without all these institutions continuing to function the way that they have over the years. I’m proud to be a member of the HBCU community.

Heidi Otway: Well, Dr. Robinson, thank you so much. We’re going to wrap up our interview. We always ask our guests four questions and just to learn a little bit more about you. The first question is who is a Florida leader that you admire? This could be someone who is from history or someone active in your workplace.

Dr. Robinson: This person isn’t from history at all. He’s still alive and kicking. That’s former president Frederick Humphries, right? An iconic individual who is largely responsible for me being here. In fact, I followed his career. He’s also a chemist like myself, but I had no idea that I would ascend to the presidency of Florida A&M, but he’s one of those people who has inspired me in doing my career here at the university and has been a mentor, right, as I still call upon him for advice to this day. I’d have to put him, in terms of Florida, I’d have to put him on the top of their list, okay?

Heidi Otway: He was president when I was here and just a very iconic individual. Okay, so the second question is what person, place, or thing in Florida needs more attention than it’s currently getting?

Dr. Robinson: Do you mean like Florida A&M University?

Heidi Otway: That’s a good answer.

Dr. Robinson: I will tell you that we spend a lot of time trying to tell our story and getting people to come here and understand how we are utilizing the resources that we have to contribute to the well-being of this state. But there’s a lot to be told, there’s a lot to be seen, but I don’t think people quite get it, and so I’m proud to be on this show, to help people get a better appreciation for the importance of Florida A&M University.

Heidi Otway: You got a lot of construction going on now, and you’re attracting students from all of the world and faculty from all of the world. It’s just so much. People need to come visit.

Dr. Robinson: Yeah, they need to come. We have seen some fairly remarkable statistics when it comes to the admissions data. We’re not trying to be an elitist institution, but at the same time, we’re able to be more selective because of the quality of the students who are applying and the numbers that are applying. I don’t want to go through a whole lot of numbers with you, Heidi, but I’ll just tell you this. This is what I tell students and parents. You need to make FMU your first choice, not the last choices as the quick set of numbers. Only admissions data as of this time of the year. We have 5,200 students who have applied in 2017 at this time. In 2018, that increased to 6,500. This year, it’s at 7,000, almost 8,000.

Heidi Otway: That’s fantastic.

Dr. Robinson: It’s gone from 5,000 to 8,000 students in a three-year period.

Heidi Otway: That’s great.

Dr. Robinson: That shows you the phenomenal interest in the university. I think it’s all due to the fact that we have, it starts with a fantastic array of highly relevant academic programs, highly qualified individuals, and our faculty deliver those programs and then the other services that are provided by our staff to ensure that our students are successful.
We’re really proud of that, but I wanted everybody out there to understand is that you need to make FAMU your first choice. Don’t assume that … and we place a lot of money on the table for scholarships and need-based aid, but you’d better get your applications in early because they may not be there if you decide to wait and see what happens in schools A or B and come back to us later. Make FAMU your first choice.

Heidi Otway: What is your favorite Florida location to visit?

Dr. Robinson: My wife and I, we love going to beaches, right? Some of those up here in the Panhandle, in particular. St. George Island, right? We really love going to the beach there. Oh, my goodness. It’s one of those places because it has an estuary, it has quite a large number of seashells and all those kinds of things, I love walking and jogging along the beach collecting them and bringing them back home, but that’s one of the special first places. Ironically, we’ve done a lot of research in and around Apalachicola. The national estuary and research reserve there. But that’s one of those places when we get a chance, we’ll go and spend a Saturday there, just taking it easy on the beach, right? It’s a beautiful place.

Heidi Otway: I know. I think that’s why we all live in Florida, just so we can have access to the beaches. Our last question is do you have a favorite Florida sports team?

Dr. Robinson: Yeah. I’m a tell you, so there isn’t a sport that, it’s kind of hard to find one that I don’t like, but in Florida, I don’t know if it’s a team, a sport, per se, but there are a lot. In fact, I believe, it’s getting to get kicked off now. There’s a lot of major tennis stars who make Florida their home, like Serena Williams, for example, right? Venus and Serena. It’s really amazing when I think about them and what they’ve done in the world of tennis. I often tell people that long before Venus and Serena, there was Althea Gibson, right?

Heidi Otway: That’s right. Right here in Tallahassee.

Dr. Robinson: Right here at FAMU-

Heidi Otway: At FAMU.

Dr. Robinson: … who won the first, the first African-American female to win at Wimbledon and the French Open. It’s pretty amazing. I love tennis. One of the special treats that I had one year was going to the US Open in New York to see both of them, Venus and Serena as well as a host of other players.
But when it comes to a team sport, I have to say this. As President of Florida A&M University, I try to get to as many of my sporting events and cultural events and plays as I can, but I rarely miss a football game, okay? I rarely miss a football game. The unfortunate part about it is I’m dealing with so many things as president and greeting people and saying hello to people, doing the Rattler charge, I don’t get a chance to wash the game as much. I might get a few sneak peeks in. But I really love the opportunity to see football beyond just the competition. It’s really a huge social-

Heidi Otway: It is.

Dr. Robinson: … gathering from the tailgating, to sometime the politicking and the fundraising and the friend-raising. It’s a spectacle right?
I didn’t know about this in an undergraduate experience, right? I mean not football. Basketball is a big thing, but football is different. It’s special here. But all of our sports are. We have some very competitive teams across the board, but I will say is a social element to all of them, all of the sports that we have, but football, as you know in the South, it’s what it all special things. Rattler football, I’ve been telling people now for the last two years, we’re having six games in Bragg Stadium. Get your tickets. Get them early.

Heidi Otway: I’ll get mine. Well, Dr. Robinson, thank you so much for being a guest again. I think our listeners have learned so much and the value that Florida A&M University brings to our state and our country and our world.

Dr. Robinson: I just want everybody to know that they’re welcome to come to campus and see something on their own, some of these things on their own behalf. They’re welcome to come. Our door is always open.

Heidi Otway: Great. Thank you.

Dr. Robinson: All right. Thank you.
‍
Chris Cate: Thanks for listening to the Fluent in Floridian podcast. This show is executive produced by April Salter with additional support provided by Heidi Otway and the team at SalterMitchell PR. If you need help telling your Florida story, SalterMitchell PR has you covered by offering issues management, crisis communications, social media, advocacy, and media relations assistance. You can learn more about SalterMitchell PR at SalterMitchellPR.com. You can also learn more about the Fluent in Floridian podcast and listen to every episode of the show at FluentinFloridian.com or by searching for the show, using your favorite podcast app. Have a great day.