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Dr. Robin Boylorn | Prominence

Dr. Robin Boylorn is a dreamer. Now, as part of the generous $10 million gift commitment from the Holle Family Foundation made in 2019, her dreams are becoming a reality.

Dr. Robin Boylorn

Robin, who was recently named the Holle Endowed Chair of Communication Arts in the College of Communication and Information Sciences, said the gift will bring more attention to storytelling as an artform, as well as fund the creation of a 2,400-square-foot space in the Digital Media Center for students, scholars and community partners to gather and to work. 

“This gift was designed with a paradigm of social justice, and it celebrates and amplifies the creative arts, which has always been a part of what I do as an autoethnographer, creative and researcher of culture and identity,” Robin said. 

During the application process in 2021, Robin said her main goal was to think about how she could expand her career to attract new, diverse audiences.

 “I tried to think big and imagine what work I could do in the world with the proper resources, context and support,” she said. “I ended up pitching a vision for the Holle Center grounded in storytelling and social justice, and mapped out how that might involve the arts, communication and narrative storytelling.”

Robin said the best part of her endowed chair position is that it will allow her to continue to do what she loves, teaching and research.

“Having support to expand my teaching and research through the Holle Center is a dream come true,” she said. “In the past, I’ve made do and pieced together resources to fund my work; now, I no longer have to beg, borrow and steal to make things happen.”

As founding director, Robin hopes the Holle Center for Communication Arts will serve as a hub for the field of autoethnography outside of traditional conference spaces. Autoethnography, which combines autobiography — stories about the self — and ethnography — studies of culture — is a method and approach that Robin is internationally known for. Autoethnographers utilize arts-based research techniques to explore personal lived experiences, using their stories to explain, understand and critique culture.

“Currently, the field doesn’t really have a dedicated place for meeting,” Robin said. “The Holle Center can be a space to showcase and collaborate on important groundbreaking, future-focused, social justice-oriented storytelling. Every unit in the College engages with stories, and the Center can help facilitate that work.”

The Holle Center is slated to include space for podcast and audio recordings and a 360 green screen space for virtual reality storytelling.

“The key is to make sure students are aware of how they can use technology they already have, but also for them to have immediate access to tools they can’t afford to buy, such as video equipment and professional software,” Robin said. “At some point down the line as part of the endowment, I imagine having a scholar-in-residence who would conduct programming, training workshops or lecture series for the Center. My intention is to create a space and an environment where students want to be.”

In addition to the Holle Endowed Chair in Communication Arts, the gift also provided permanent program support for the C&IS Hall of Fame and the Holle Awards for Excellence and Creativity in Communication, and enhanced the Everett Hugh Holle Endowed Scholarship.

“Gifts like this are transformative and life-changing,” Robin said. “For me, as a first-generation college student, Black woman, full professor and artist, to have this opportunity to be able to think outside of the box is remarkable. Whatever I can imagine, whatever I could dream, this gift not only makes it a reality, but challenges me to dream bigger.”

Robin said her appointment as the Holle Endowed Chair is the “literal honor” of her career. 

“This gift makes me think about legacy,” she said. “In addition to continuing the legacy of Everett Holle, we are developing a Center that will be a perpetual site at the University, that will be here long after I’m here. I don’t take for granted the significance of being named the inaugural endowed chair and the inaugural director for the Center, but, for me, the most prominent thing is that the donors are giving me an opportunity to create something that will exist for generations.”

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