Robinson reflects on presidency

Junior Isaac Robinson gained experience dealing with conflicting viewpoints regarding controversial issues during the past year as president of the Student Association.     

The biggest challenges were compromising with other senators and listening to the student voices when his personal opinions conflicted, Robinson said.

"I've worked with other people all the time — we all have — but really having strong opinions on things and having to go with someone else who was the opposite opinion that's just as strong as yours, and having to come to some communal ground on that was probably the biggest thing I learned how to do," Robinson said.

An example of finding common ground that stands out most in his mind is Student Senate's decision in April to approve the athletic fee for another three years rather than put it on the ballot for approval in the student government elections, he said.

Robinson said he was opposed the fee because he did not think there had been enough student input into how the fee had been allocated, but he had to listen to members of the student body who supported the fee, he said.

"The hardest part about being president was when you are in a room and you have to make a decision and you know what student opinion is, and your opinion is different than that, and having to side with student opinion and make it your own at that point in time," Robinson said.

Director of Athletics Jerry Wollmering said he thinks creating  an Athletics Fee Accountability Committee to provide student input was a good solution to the athletics fee controversy.

"Obviously without Isaac's leadership, even though his personal views may not have been totally in agreement with that I think in his position as president of student senate he provided great leadership working through that process and getting to where we are today," Wollmering said.

Kristin Flannigan, staff adviser to Senate said she thinks Robinson was good at reaching compromises, particularly during the controversy about the athletic fee.

"I know he expressed multiple times his opinion on the athletic fee, what he would like to do with it, and if you got his candid take on it you would know that he is very much against it but he was willing to put that aside to work toward what was best for the University as a whole," she said. "I very much admire that about him."

Flannigan said occasionally there was tension in Senate among senators with different political views but that those disagreements could be productive.

"Honestly, I think he enjoyed it when someone disagreed with him because it gave him an opposing viewpoint," she said. "He was able to use that information in working with the current situation or the problem and bringing about compromises."

A senator who sometimes disagreed with Robinson was sophomore Brett Cline, the external affairs chair on Senate when Robinson was president.

Cline said he and Robinson disagreed about how much money Senate should spend on the annual Truman at the Capitol event in the future. As external affair chair, Cline was responsible for planning the event, and he said he wanted to allot  $2,500 for the trip each year for the next three year, but Robinson wanted to spend $2,000 for the event.

"Isaac is a lot more conservative than I am," Cline said. "Most of the disagreements we had involved money issues where I felt we could afford to spend a little more here, and he's like ‘No that's a bad precedent we shouldn't do that.'"

Cline said he argued at the time that it would be better to allocate more money to anticipate increases in gas and food prices, and because it would be easier than adding a budget amendment later. Allocated funds that are not spent at the event go back into the Senate budget, he said.

In the end, Truman at the Capitol was funded for the lesser amount Robinson argued for, Cline said.

"A lot of it came down to he gave his part, I gave my part and the senators voted on it," Cline said. "He won a majority of those, but it's a democracy and that's just how that works."

Another issue Cline and Robinson disagreed upon was the proposed University-wide smoking ban, which was approved by Senate but was not adopted by the Board of Governors last semester.

Cline said he was happy the Board decided not to adopt a smoking ban because he thought it infringed on people's rights and because it would be difficult to enforce.

In opposition, Robinson said he supported the smoking ban and that the Board decision to reject the smoking ban is an example of the administration not listening to the voice of students. He said the fact that 71 percent of students and the majority of the faculty supported the ban should have been a signal to the Board to approve the ban.

Robinson said the majority of the time he thought the administration and University President Troy Paino did take student input into account in their decision making.

He said he wishes he could have persuaded senators to visit more student organizations and could have instituted a University-wide insurance policy during his presidency.

"The University-wide insurance policy is my biggest regret," he said. "We didn't get started on it until late in our term and we were really hoping for another opportunity to work on that."

Robinson said he probably will not be apart of Senate next school year. He said he has been approached to work on several projects, but the only thing he had made a commitment to is organizing a speaker series on campus.