Olive-Harvey College Dean Wins First-Year Advocate Award

citizen |

Gregory Robinson, Olive Harvey College's Dean of First Year Student Services, Receives First-Year Experience Award. Photo courtesy of Olive Harvey College.
Gregory Robinson, Olive Harvey College's Dean of First Year Student Services, Receives First-Year Experience Award. Photo courtesy of Olive Harvey College.

Gregory Robinson, Dean of Student Services at Olive-Harvey College, stands out amongst his peers these days after receiving a prestigious honor.

In recognition of his work on behalf of first-year students, Robinson, was recently recognized for his efforts as a first-year student advocate and was presented the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate Award at the First-Year Experience annual conference last month in Orlando, Florida.

"I am honored to receive this award because I remember what it was like to be a freshman at a large university and trying to fit in," Robinson says. "I was blessed to have an advocate who helped guide me through a myriad of challenges which often can be overwhelming for first-year students. In my role, I am happy that I can pay it forward and be an advocate for students at Olive-Harvey College."

The award was presented by Stamford, Connecticut-based Cengage Learning, a leading provider of innovative teaching, learning and research solutions for the academic, professional and library markets worldwide and the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition housed at the University of South Carolina.

Selected from a pool of 128 nominations, Robinson is one of 10 educators who won the award that is now in its 24th year of honoring college faculty, administrators, staff and students for their work on behalf of first-year students and for the impact their efforts have on the students and culture of their institutions.

Robinson, who received a Bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his Master's degree in Guidance and Counseling from Tennessee State University, has focused on a variety of initiatives at Olive-Harvey College to increase the semester-to-semester and year-to-year retention rate of students, especially new students and at-risk students.

For example, Robinson launched a First Year Experience (FYE) Program called Panther Tracks which was implemented with the objective to retain a larger percentage of new students by connecting them to activities, services and resources designed to help them to succeed.

Additionally, Robinson advocated for the construction of a new student welcome center to provide specialized attention for new students, and created many new programs including revamping the new student orientation process.

"We're proud that Dean Robinson has been honored for his efforts and we believe that establishing initiatives aimed at helping our first-year students will result in greater retention and more students going on to further college and careers," says Dr. Craig T. Follins, President of Olive-Harvey College.

City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) is the largest community college system in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation, with 5,800 faculty and staff serving 120,000 students annually at seven colleges and six satellite sites city-wide. The City Colleges of Chicago is in the midst of a Reinvention, a collaborative effort to review and revise CCC programs and practices to ensure students leave CCC college-ready, career-ready and prepared to pursue their life's goals.

City Colleges of Chicago includes seven colleges: Richard J. Daley College, Kennedy-King College, Malcolm X College, Olive-Harvey College, Harry S Truman College, Harold Washington College and Wilbur Wright College. The system also oversees the Washburne Culinary Institute, the French Pastry School, two restaurants, five Child Development Centers, the Center for Distance Learning, the Workforce Institute, the public broadcast station WYCC-TV Channel 20 and radio station WKKC-FM 89.3.

By Deborah Bayliss

Latest Stories

Latest Podcast

STARR Community Services International, Inc.