Q: When the titles are set aside and the classroom lights are off, who is Professor Robbin?
Professor Robbin:
At my core, I am a teacher. That is something I pride myself on saying. I am also a youth mentor and a convener of impactful youth and societal events.
Professionally, I am a Professor of Languages and Literature, Dean of Faculty at the university, University Orator, and staff adviser to about six university associations. I have also served as Head of the Department of Languages and Literature, as well as Head of Performing Arts and Film Studies.
Beyond academia, I am a YouTuber. My YouTube channel focuses on communication and everyday living. I also convene several major events that I have developed over the years.
One of them is the Lead and Leap Workshop, where we bring veterans from the arts and humanities together for interactive sessions with young people. I also created Dinner Theatre, which was the first of its kind at the university, bringing performance and theatre into a dinner setting.
I am also the CEO and Lead Consultant of Leon Vine Consult, an educational consultancy where I teach communication skills and public speaking.
So yes, I am involved in quite a lot of things, but at the heart of everything I do is teaching, mentoring and creating opportunities for people.
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Q: You also founded the Omoge Asa Cultural Beauty Pageantry. What inspired that initiative?
Professor Robbin:
Omoge Asha came from my belief that our culture needed to have a stronger place in the lives of young people.
I realized that younger generations were gradually losing touch with cultural values while becoming increasingly focused on contemporary ideas of physical beauty. I wanted undergraduate students to have a platform where they could proudly showcase their culture.
I also wanted to challenge the idea that pageantry should be centred solely around facial or physical beauty.
The idea was to celebrate young people who were culturally grounded, intelligent, talented and entrepreneurial. To participate, contestants needed to have a talent or entrepreneurial skill connected to culture. We call them culturepreneurs.
It could be bead-making, chanting, traditional fashion, shoemaking or another culturally rooted skill.
The pageantry started within universities in South-West Nigeria, but after the first edition, we received interest from polytechnics and colleges of education as well. For the second edition, we expanded.
We received over 100 entries and eventually shortlisted contestants from about 16 institutions across the South-West.
The project has allowed us to empower young entrepreneurs, celebrate culture and give young people something positive to aspire to without having to rely on nudity or conventional standards of beauty.
For me, one of the greatest achievements of Omoge Asa is that it has helped produce entrepreneurs and young people who are much more confident in themselves.
They are given a platform and exposure that they might never have received if they had simply remained in the background because they did not fit society’s definition of contemporary beauty.
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Q: Looking back, was there a pivotal moment or influence that shaped the path you are on today?
Professor Robbin:
Growing up, I felt there was something missing.
There were many young people who were multi-talented, but there were very few people they could confidently approach to discuss how to channel all those different abilities.
Mentorship often focused only on academics, rather than the totality of the individual.
I realised that whether someone was an A student or an F student, they still needed guidance and a platform for expression.
That influenced the way I approached teaching.
Even when I was a graduate assistant and a very young lecturer, I was already creating drama groups, working on university magazines and finding different ways to keep young people positively engaged in the things they were naturally good at.
I always tell my students that an A student who is not careful may eventually be employed by a B, C or even E student.
Academic grades alone do not determine your future.
What matters is recognising your abilities, developing your skills and becoming exceptionally good at what you do.
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Q: What part of your personal journey has shaped the way you show up in your work today?
Professor Robbin:
A major influence was recognising that gap in mentorship when I was younger.
I wanted to become the kind of person young people could approach — someone who could help them channel both their strengths and weaknesses into something positive.
Another major influence was my father.
My father was a disciplinarian, but he strongly believed that everything was possible. He taught us to start somewhere, reach for the stars and get the very best out of life.
Most importantly, he never believed there should be limitations placed on women.
To him, whether you were a man or a woman, you could reach the very top and achieve whatever you set your mind to.
I am very grateful that I was raised with that mentality because it helped shape the woman I became.
I also realised that our society is not naturally a very open or communicative society, particularly when it comes to young people.
There are many things parents and adults are uncomfortable discussing.
That is one reason I use my platforms to speak about issues that people may sometimes prefer not to talk about.
Someone has to say these things so that young people can learn.
I don’t believe we should judge young people for making wrong decisions if we never gave them an opportunity to understand the better decisions they could have made.
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Q: What has the classroom taught you about purpose, people and even yourself?
Professor Robbin:
The classroom has taught me that it is a gold mine.
Every new class contains a diversity of people with the potential to change the world.
Whenever I receive a fresh class, I believe I have been given enough human potential to move the world from one point to another.
It has also taught me never to judge a book by its cover.
I have seen students whom people might easily overlook, only to discover extraordinary greatness, resilience, focus, dreams and ideas within them.
A relationship with students should therefore be a combination of being a teacher, a mentor and sometimes even a friend.
Every student who enters a classroom deserves respect and recognition.
As teachers, we live in the reality of never knowing what a student may eventually become.
I have been teaching for over 20 years, and I have seen students achieve things you could never have predicted when they first entered the classroom.
The classroom has also reinforced my belief that working with young people is part of my calling.
Through mentorship, I have been able to help many students discover things within themselves and build lifelong relationships with them.
Even as a Dean, I still teach around five undergraduate courses.
People sometimes ask why I teach so much when I already have the administrative workload of being Dean.
My answer is simple: How can I mentor students if I am not in the classroom with them?
Being Dean is temporary.
Being a teacher, for me, is permanent.
Teaching is a discovery zone.
I remember a student coming to me after a creative writing defence. As she was about to leave, she turned around and asked if she could speak to me about an idea she had.
That single conversation eventually developed into something much bigger. A year later, she was hosting a Girl Child Day event where we were able to invite the former First Lady of Oyo State.
It all began with, “Can I talk to you about something?”
That is why I believe every teacher should try to harvest the greatness within every classroom.
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Q: Is there a central truth or question that your work keeps bringing you back to?
Professor Robbin:
Yes.
I keep coming back to the question of why our society does not give children, young people and young adults enough room to communicate.
They need a platform for expression, equity, understanding and self-discovery.
We are not raised in a naturally open environment where people are encouraged to express themselves freely.
In a typical African society, people hold a lot inside.
But if you don’t express yourself, how can someone know what you are going through?
I often tell my students, “I’m not a witch. How will I know if you don’t tell me?”
When someone speaks, you can begin to understand them.
You can identify where they are, where they need to go and how you can help them get there.
One question we ask contestants during the Omoge Asa camp is simply: Why are you doing this?
That question alone has helped me discover so much about young people.
Once they explain their reasons, we can brainstorm about their businesses, skills and aspirations. We can connect them to people who may help them, encourage collaboration and show them how to move forward.
Being young and having energy without focus can be dangerous.
Energy needs to be channelled.
And when young people channel their energy negatively, we cannot simply condemn them if nobody has shown them a positive path.
I believe history can be rewritten through mentorship.
But we must allow young people to lead us into understanding who they are.
We cannot simply impose on them what they should become.
We have to communicate with them, understand them and then guide them.
I often tell my students that this is actually a very difficult time to be young.
There is an overwhelming amount of information available.
You need to be extremely careful about the decisions you make, how you spend your time and what you invest your energy in.
Every day, you should put something — even something small — towards your future.
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Q: In a world overwhelmed by information, how do you guide students towards wisdom and not simply knowledge?
Professor Robbin:
I think the best way to guide a young person is not simply to say, “Don’t do this.”
You need to explain the pros and cons of the decision they want to make.
They need to understand why something may or may not be good for them.
Another thing I do is mentor with my own life.
I tell them about my mistakes.
I tell them about my errors, the decisions I regret, the experiences I have had and the lessons I have learned.
Recently, there was an issue involving some departmental executives who had broken into different factions.
During our meeting, instead of simply telling them what they had done wrong, I shared lessons from my own experience in leadership — my mistakes, the things I wish I had done differently, how I have evolved, and how I have learned to accept criticism.
By the end of that conversation, some of them were crying and hugging one another.
That is the power of allowing people to see your humanity.
Young people respond differently when they do not see you placing yourself on a pedestal or pretending you have never made mistakes.
I also recognise that I don’t have all the answers.
Sometimes a young person brings something to me that I cannot resolve myself, so I connect them with someone who can help them better.
I am not the custodian of all knowledge or wisdom.
A teacher should not necessarily be feared.
A teacher should be respected, but also seen as a companion on the journey of life, rather than simply the person who gives grades and awards scores.
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Q: If you could sit down with your younger self — or with a young student who silently looks up to you — what would you tell them?
Professor Robbin:
Start now.
The best time to start anything was yesterday.
The next best time is today.
By tomorrow, you have already delayed it.
Whether it is self-development, advancement or pursuing your goals, take the bull by the horns and start.
There are so many things I would have started earlier in my own life if I had not delayed.
The second thing I would tell my younger self is this: when you have greatness within you, people will sometimes make you feel like you are doing too much.
Ignore the “you are doing too much” syndrome.
Do too much.
In fact, keep telling yourself that you are not doing enough.
Don’t let anyone make you second-guess yourself or reduce your ambition.
There are things I am achieving now that I probably would have achieved much earlier if I had not slowed myself down because I was worried that people would think I was doing too much.
Maybe I would already have become a Commissioner for Culture and Tourism by now!
So I would tell my younger self two things:
Start earlier, and never allow anyone to make you feel that your ambition is too much.
Go out there and achieve your goals.
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Q: When you think about legacy, what do you hope your life and work will echo in the lives of others long after the lessons are over?
Professor Robbin:
Impact.
I want my life to echo impact.
Impact that leads to self-actualisation.
I want people to be able to say that because they met me somewhere along their journey, their lives moved in a different direction.
I want to leave an impact in academics, careers, culture and tourism, communication, soft skills and every other area where I have had the opportunity to work with people.
Whenever I come into contact with someone, I want there to be some level of positive impact, no matter how small.
I want my students, 20 or 30 years from now, to look back and be grateful that our paths crossed.
I would love someone to be able to say:
“I probably would not have achieved this if I had not crossed paths with that woman.”
If I can be remembered for impact, then I believe I have done something worthwhile with my life.
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