Lorrie Robbins
Nominee for Region III Chair-Elect
Senior Manager, Grants and Contracts
Leadership Statement
Being a leader is not a position, but a role with specific behaviors. Those behaviors include, but not limited to, coaching, guiding, shaping, and inspiring others. Being an effective leader is invoking those behaviors to create an environment where everyone can grow their way to excellence.
Personal Mission:
- Inspire and Empower: to lead by example and promote each individual to strive for their personal excellence.
- Compassion: seek to understand and meet people where they are.
- Integrity: to lead with morals, ethics and honor in order to build trusting partnerships.
- Resilience: to guide, mentor and coach people to understand their power and fortitude in finding self-determination to succeed in changing landscapes.
- Resources: providing tools for individuals to deposit in their toolkits. Success is up to the individual but as a leader, giving the resources paves the way to their success.
NCURA Chair-Elect Mission:
Vision/Direction: create the mission and goals that align with the direction. Develop the plan. Purpose/Passion: ignite the spark and develop the engagement plan.
Support/Membership: drawing upon the current mission of NCURA R3 of sharing knowledge, education and creating community. Seek to create strong teams across the NCURA membership. We are stronger together!
Personal Interest in the position:
For approximately 15 years (maybe longer) I have been involved in NCURA. I started by attending and presenting at the regional and annual conferences. I cannot express how valuable these conferences have been to my career and as a leader in research administration. The tools NCURA has provided to me, not only in RA skills, other areas such as leadership, mentoring, and building partnerships. NCURA has provided such a network of people with a wealth of knowledge in RA to tap into. NCURA has given me so much through the years, it is time for me to give back. The best way I know how to do that is use my leadership abilities that I have learned throughout the years to carry out the mission of Region III and help lead Region III forward
Diversity & Inclusion Statement
What does diversity, equity and inclusion mean to you personally?
I believe diversity, equity and inclusion is so often lumped together and thought of as one, hence DEI. As a whole, DEI should help meet the needs of all. However, diversity, equity and inclusion are three separate areas and need to be thought of and treated as such.
Diversity: I like to think of this as the “who”, meaning it is our differences, such as race, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, etc. When you recognize and understand all of the “who”, it paves the way to inclusion.
Equity: it is the fair treatment of all and all should have access to the same resources. A person’s unique circumstances should be factored in and the end result should be equality for all.
Inclusion: Everyone matters, should be respected, should feel safe and be given the opportunity to be heard.
What is your personal position on and experience with diversity, equity, and inclusion?
I believe we should strive to educate ourselves and others, and never stop educating, so we understand each other. Misunderstandings and biases happen because of a lack of knowledge in DEI.
When I was in elementary school in Philadelphia, way before DEI was given a name, the city started to diversify the schools to be more racially inclusive. I had my first experience with the racial divide. I was beat up after school because of my race. My parents taught me there is good and bad in all walks of like and to love everyone. As a ?-year-old I did not fully understand this divide. It was a hard lesson to learn.
In my quest to understand diversity, in my role at one of my positions I offered to be a “safe place” if someone felt unsafe or threatened on campus because of their diversity. They could come to my office to get support. I had to go through DEI training to be “safe place” certified. It was a very eye-opening experience. I vowed at that time that education is key to understanding.
What are some diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives that you would like to see within NCURA?
Education: possibly a DEI certification track with sessions built around having crucial conversations, recognizing intentional and unconscious bias and stereotypes.
Awareness: creating more diversified teams across NCURA R3. Measurement: create ways to measure effectiveness of DEI within NCURA R3.