Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> Katie Suggs
Robyn, thank you for joining us here today.
>> Robyn Massey
My pleasure, good to be here.
>> Katie Suggs
And you are a very active alumna of this University, but how did you first decide to come to UNC
Charlotte?
>> Robyn Massey
I came down here, I fell in love with the environment.
I loved the fact that at that time, believe it or not, there was about 10,000 students,
and I just felt like I would be more embraced in terms of my academic career.
So, I came down here, like I said fell in love, and ended up staying all four years.
>> Katie Suggs
And what did you major in while you were here?
>> Robyn Massey
I majored in math and that was a weird choice for me as well.
I did not like math, but I wanted a career that was challenging, something that I wouldn’t
get bored with, and so I parlayed a math degree into work in computer science and that’s
pretty much what I’ve done for the last almost thirty years.
>> Katie Suggs
So UNC Charlotte prepared you well.
>> Robyn Massey
Very much so, very much so.
I feel like you know out of all the schools that I could have chosen to go to, that I
made the right choice.
>> Katie Suggs
And then you have continued to be engaged with our University and one of your more recent
roles was on the Alumni Board, and how did you get on the Alumni Board?
What inspired you to continue your relationship with our University?
>> Robyn Massey
Well one of the things that was real interesting is when I left UNC Charlotte, I went to grad
school at Wake Forest and while I was at Wake Forest, I also fell in love with that school
as well.
And when I graduated, I got very engaged in alumni and then I thought about it, it didn’t
really make sense for me to have graduated from UNC Charlotte and had the great experience
that I did and not be engaged with the University.
So I found out, it was probably the mid 1990s, that they were looking for folks for the Alumni
Board so I reached out to some people.
I think Donnie Koonce may have been the president at the time.
So I reached out and I just said, hey I want to be more engaged with the University and
so I just put my name out there that way as well as they were forming the UNC Charlotte
Black Alumni Chapter at that time so I got engaged there as well.
So it’s just you know me following my passion for the University into fruition by doing
all the various volunteer activities around the Alumni Board.
>> Katie Suggs
Well, you also held the role as president of the Alumni Board and what initiatives did
you accomplish during your term that you’re especially proud of as president?
>> Robyn Massey
My favorite initiative is working with the deans.
One of the things that I don’t think a lot of people realize is the talent that we have
within the various colleges.
So what we did, is we set up meetings with all of the deans and we just talked to them
about what we were, meaning the Alumni Association, and how could we partner with them in developing
programming to help put UNC Charlotte back on the map.
We have a lot of alumni who are not engaged and it’s great for them to know what the
various colleges are doing and we just thought it was a great partnership to have the Alumni
Affairs Office and the various colleges work together on programming so that’s my favorite
initiative during my tenure.
>> Katie Suggs
Now, you have turned your success as president of the Alumni Association Board and have now
moved on to the Foundation Board.
What are you working on with the Foundation Board?
>> Robyn Massey
Right now we’re working on a number of different projects.
The one that we’re most interested in is trying to get folks more aware of what the
University is about.
So we’re working with various folks in the marketing communications area to get collateral
out about UNC Charlotte, what the makeup is of the University and how people, not just
alumni, but how people in the community as a whole can contribute to the University,
so that’s one of the initiatives that I’m most fond of.
>> Katie Suggs
Well you’re also using that, you’ve recently started a mentoring program and can you just
tell me a little bit more about that?
>> Robyn Massey
Okay, the mentoring program was just a brainstorm one day.
I started thinking about how students are developmentally lacking in terms of how to
go out and be more professional when they get into corporate America.
So, I brought the idea to Dr. Greg Davis and LaShanda Murphy who are both associated with
the Black Alumni and we were talking about it at one of our Black Alumni Retreats.
And there was a young man by the name of Fabian Elliot who was also part of our Black Alumni
Board who was a student and Fabian had created an organization called United Black Professionals
and so during the course of the conversation he said why don’t pilot the mentoring program
with United Black Professionals?
So Fabian and I ended up sitting together probably once a month and talking about what
kind of programming to do and we came up with the idea to do three programs.
The first one was a career workshop where we thought about what careers are out there
that students may not know about.
So we had a group of panelists and they came from industries such as healthcare, energy,
information technology and export/import.
So we had panelists come in and speak to all those topics and the students were extremely
engaging and it was a well put on workshop and everyone enjoyed it.
We also did a workshop on entrepreneurship to help students understand if they wanted
to be entrepreneurs, where to get information.
We had people from the SBA score and we also had somebody come in and talk about social
entrepreneurship as well.
And the last thing that we did is we did a workshop on business etiquette or networking
and the main crux of that conversation was how to work a room.
We had a speaker and it really turned out well.
And so this year I’m real excited to be partnering with them again and I’ll be working
with Terell Kirby and we’ll be putting on some more programming for the students.
>> Katie Suggs
Well Robyn, thank you for joining us here today.
>> Robyn Massey
My pleasure, thanks for having me.