Alumni Feature

Robin Hanna Remick ’74

Robin in Rwanda on a service trip she led while at Cornell.

Even before she had a passport, Robin Hanna Remick ’74, decided to come to Franklin from a small town in upstate New York. Although it was not her original intention to attend the College, she was ready for a new path, and Franklin was the beginning. After a run to the U.S. Embassy for a rush order on a passport the day before her flight to Lugano, she was ready for Franklin’s unique community and learning environment.

“I sensed it was a special place when we were all invited to President Pascal Tone’s house for dinner the first week,” says Robin. During the early years after Franklin’s founding, there was no student housing or a meal plan, so she rented an apartment in town, which helped to facilitate interaction with members of the local community as neighbors.

“Franklin was unlike anything I’d experienced before,” says Robin. “There was such an emphasis on experiential learning. I really felt like the world was my classroom. Coursework was complemented by travel to the places we read about; languages we were learning could be practiced on the street; life-changing opportunities were integrated into everyday living and learning.”

The small community was also endearing. In addition to living in the community amongst native Ticinese, “all the students were friends, we found things on our own, we travelled and cooked together, it was like a family,” says Robin. “Classes were small and professors were exceptionally accessible.”

After graduating, Robin joined the Peace Corps. Stationed in Niger, she worked in the Sahara Desert on an agricultural and water irrigation project with local growers. She arrived shortly after a devastating drought when developing sustainable food and water supply was a national priority. Learning to speak Hausa, the local language, she made a strong connection with the people in her village.

Shortly after returning home from Niger, she decided to return to college at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. To offset tuition, she worked at the college and was offered a job dealing with  the school’s launch of a new international initiative. She continued to work on the project, creating international programs and nurturing global alliances even after graduating. She then spent her career at Cornell working on such initiatives. Robin wanted to share the opportunity for international experiences with anyone she could.

“One of the most rewarding and fun parts of the job was helping students committed to including international field study or global internships in their undergraduate education,” Robin explains. In the summer of 2009, she led seven Cornell students on a service learning trip to Rwanda. “It was a privilege for us to be in Rwanda, 15 years after its horrific genocide,” says Robin. “Students said it was a life-changing experience for them; transformative is not too strong a word. It was for me as well.”

Although she retired from Cornell, after her experience in the Peace Corps more than 30 years ago Robin had always dreamed of returning to the Peace Corps and has recently, with her husband, applied and will be placed in an assignment in the Eastern Caribbean region soon.

“Living and working in Niger was a truly life-changing experience, one that I know shaped me as a person,” says Robin. “I always thought about returning after I retired, this time as a couple with my husband. When I left for Niger we were dating, he was finishing college, so the idea of someday joining together has always been there.”

July 2010