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| ASU bricks, mortar fill life void for
Robbins |
Chris Bohle
Senior Staff Writer
Business Affairs Beat |
Jacque Lenz | The Appalachian
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Dr. Clyde D. Robbins,
director of Design and Construction at Appalachian State University,
thrives on pressure. It is a good thing, since he must deal with it
every day he walks in the office.
“Whenever I am away from my job, I miss the pressure,” said
Robbins. “I love my work—it is my life.”
Robbins was not exactly a top-notch student during
his childhood in upstate New York and had no career goals to speak
of throughout his years in high school. Due to the lack of laws governing
when a child could start school, however, Robbins managed to graduate
high school when he was only 15. |
“There were not really
any laws about when a kid could start school back then,” said
Robbins. “If you were big enough to get on the bus, you could
go to school.”
With less-than-average grades, and no idea of a possible profession,
Robbins entered the United States Marine Corps, where he served as
master sergeant for several years.
Robbins then returned to New York and attended Syracuse University,
a branch of the state university of New York, earning a dual degree
in forestry and landscape architecture.
Still, Robbins was unsure of where his career was headed. He decided
to return to military service, this time with the U.S. Navy, where
he served on a destroyer for two-and-a-half years as a junior officer.
Once out of the Navy, Robbins pursued his interest in forestry, moving
to Montana to work as a park ranger.
“I worked at Glacier National Park for awhile, but one day they
told me … there was no future for me as a ranger, which was discouraging,”
said Robbins.
Determined to find an industry with more promising opportunities for
him than forestry, Robbins decided further education was the key.
He enrolled at Ohio State University, where he received a master’s
degree in city planning, and later at Georgia State University, where
he earned two more degrees—a master’s in business administration
in finance and a Ph.D. in economics.
Robbins found his future—design and planning.
After earning his doctorate, Robbins was hired as the vice president
of the Georgia Institute of Technology, a post he would command for
26 years.
Robbins then had a two-year stay in Tucson, Ariz., as vice president
of a civil- engineering firm.
However, something was missing from his life and he quickly discovered
the cause of the void.
“When I was in Arizona, I missed the pressures of working [on
a campus],” said Robbins.
He was offered a position at Appalachian in 1992 and has been here
ever since.
Once Robbins became familiar with this campus, he and his staff set
to work on several long-term goals for the university.
“A lot of the campus was in bad shape, so we began making plans
for upgrading old buildings and renewing the infrastructure,”
said Robbins.
Robbins also wanted to achieve continuity throughout the architecture
on campus.
“Ten years ago, there were 29 different colors and sizes of brick,”
said Robbins. “There was no Appalachian style at all.”
Robbins developed a set of standards that he thought would greatly
enhance the aesthetics of the university.
The style Modified Georgian was chosen, which included such features
as slanted metal roofs—a necessity in Boone, said Robbins.
It was decided that not all of the buildings would be converted to
this style, since it would have been too time consuming and costly.
Rather, Robbins and his staff interspersed new buildings with the
old, making small changes to the older buildings that would effectively
blend the styles together.
As this process of renovation and revamping continues today, however,
two main problems are always present and staring Robbins in the face:
cost and complaints.
“If there’s one part of the job I dislike, it is stretching
dollars—trying to find funds when they are not there,” said
Robbins. “With the state in its current situation, we are not
allotted as much money as we sometimes need.”
The biggest challenge will most likely come in the 2003-04 school
year, as the estimated cost of campus construction will soar to $80
million, said Robbins.
The director and his support staff of five receive added pressure
in the form of complaints from students and faculty.
“This is a business where you can’t have thin skin,”
said Robbins. “You just have to take the criticism and move on.”
“I know people get upset about all the detours and everything,
but it’s the only way to get from one point to another,”
he said.
Robbins said he is given little choice when the university adds to
the student population and requires extra facilities to be built.
He hopes to see a cap on enrollment within the next five years.
As to when all of this construction will end, a stable period would
most likely not occur until 2008, when the only construction being
done will be routine operational maintenance, said Robbins.
Until then, students will have to remember all of the work being done
is for the good of the university. |
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