Each issue of the Messenger, we provide a profile for one NNU faculty member, one staff member, one undergraduate student and one graduate student. Meet Dr. Robin Gilbert, our faculty profile for Summer 2023.
NAME: Robin R. Gilbert
PROFESSION: Educator
HOMETOWN: Denver, Colorado originally, but have lived in Caldwell, Idaho since 1979
FUN FACT ABOUT YOU: I currently have a 1,725-day walking streak. I joined a challenge to keep women motivated through the winter of 2018. My friend and I have not missed a day of designated miles for almost five years, expanding our distance and challenges regularly. This includes days of injury, surgery, travel, weather, late nights and early mornings. Our families gave up trying to get us to give up. Now they make sure we have the time required.
FAVORITE NNU MEMORY SO FAR: This is a tough question after so many years connected with NNC/NNU. I could say it was meeting my future husband—but to expand that idea, my favorite memory was becoming ‘one of the boys’ in a group of freshman friends. I didn’t have to date them, I got to laugh, play, advise, study and enjoy time with a group of people that are still connected over miles and years. I cherish these people in my life even if most of them are Seahawks fans.
SOMETHING VALUABLE YOU LEARNED AT NNU: As a child, my self-perception came mostly from my two older siblings. I was the first generation and first in my family to attend college. When I left for NNU, 900 miles from my home, I had the opportunity to discover who I was as an individual and how to measure that against God’s standards. I am not a cookie-cutter creation. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Who I am is in His design. My time at NNU has taught me that I am fully known and loved by God, my creator.
HOW DOES NNU HELP CREATE HABITS OF HEART, SOUL, MIND AND STRENGTH? As a first-year full faculty member, I had the opportunity to participate in a semester study of this exact topic. We explored what it means to be a mission-driven University, our mission in alignment with the Church of the Nazarene, and various ways to create habits of heart, soul, mind and strength through our courses, interactions and lives. NNU helps create these habits not just by what it does, but more by what NNU is—a community of people centered in Christ committed to the spiritual, social, physical and cognitive growth of all its members. Who we are and how we teach is more important than what we teach in order to challenge learners to create these habits.
