Christine Robinson’s Support for Future Educators

A career-long educator, Christine Robinson, ’70, understands the importance of excellent teaching, which is why she has established a scholarship for outstanding students in the School of Education using annual distributions from one of her retirement accounts.

Ms. Robinson, who has also included a bequest in her will to support the scholarship, wants to help students who are financially strapped and passionate about teaching.

“I’m at a time of my life when I can more appreciate the education I was given,” Ms. Robinson says. “That’s why I decided to create a scholarship to encourage others to go into teaching. The longer you teach, the more you realize how essential it is.”

Ms. Robinson chose to attend the University at Albany because it could help her reach her goal of becoming a teacher and was relatively close to where she was raised in Long Island, New York. She brought an insatiable intellectual curiosity to campus and was not disappointed. Not only did she study for her degree in English education, but she also learned about architecture, social studies, and much more.

“I had a love of learning, and UAlbany gave me a smorgasbord of possibilities,” she says.

In addition to her teacher education courses, she was also involved in campus politics at that time and attended a protest rally in her senior year. With her strong sense of justice, she participated in the demonstrations to highlight the realities of the Vietnam war, use of Agent Orange, and jailing civil rights leader Bobby Seale. She was also part of the first campus celebration of Earth Day and recalls traveling to Boston to study the city’s wide variety of architectural styles.

Ms. Robinson taught for 40 years, primarily English but also social studies, math, and science, ranging from grades 5 to 12 in both public and private schools. She went on to teach English 101 at several community colleges.

While Ms. Robinson’s scholarship is in her name, she says it is actually a tribute to her father, Elliott Robinson, a natural educator who always hoped to be a teacher, though his career would take another path.

“He worked for the telephone company in New York City for 40 years, but he went back to school at night at Hofstra University to become a teacher. He did student teaching late in life. My dad was a natural teacher,” she says.

Ms. Robinson loves meeting the recipients of her scholarship, whom she describes as energetic, thoughtful, and possessing a sincere interest in learning.

She encourages fellow alumni to create their own legacies at UAlbany with a combination of annual and planned gifts.

“I would encourage people who are thinking about leaving money in their will to UAlbany to also make an annual gift. You get the double benefit of meeting the students you are helping.”