By Cole Ray
The Noel center helps students by helping them on the social matters as well as mental matters. They are ones who talk to the students and make sure everything is going all right. Robin Weaver is the Assistant Dean for the Noel Center for Disability Resources. Robin hasn’t allows worked in the mental health field, but has now served Gardner-Webb for nearly two years helping students reach goals and find success in and out of the classroom.
Learn more about Weaver’s experiences and how she ended up calling Gardner-Webb home.
Ray: Where did you grow up?
Weaver: I was born in Los Angles California, but we moved to a small town in Florida, Fernidina beach when I was three years old. And I grew up in Fernidina beach. A lot of people know it as Amelia island, Florida.
Ray: What was your family like?
W: My Father died when I was three. That was part of why we moved and so my mother, she went back to night school to get her high school diploma and then she became a bookkeeper. So she was a single mom for seventeen years until I went off to college. Always worked really hard. My father actually was an alcoholic that was part of what caused him to have issues and caused him to die fairly young.
Ray: Where did you go to college?
Weaver: I went to Georgia State Southern in Statesboro, Georgia. It was Georgia Southern College when I went, but now their Southern University. Gardner-Webb gave a pretty strong showing to them earlier this year playing Football.
Ray: What did you study in College?
Weaver: Computer Science. I have a bachelor in computer science
Ray: How did you career path evolve from computer science to What has been your career path?
Weaver: So I worked eight years for a hard ware software development company, mainly in training delivery to our clients, installation of the computer systems, and quality assurance testing. And then I went to Bank of America. I worked 21 years with Bank of America. About a third of that time in training in curriculum development for the banking centers and other units at the bank and a third of the time at change management as project lead for a lot of different projects. And then the last ten years I transitioned into regulatory compliance. And so when I left I was global head of corporate compliance.
Ray: Why did you pick a career that helps people?
Weaver: So in 2015, I decided it was time to retire for me and I was feeling a call to a second career in mental health counseling. And so I have always had a strong spirit to serve and train in policy and procedural developments. I had a real passion for both people and process and so after a few years break as my son was evaluating colleges, I decided to go back to graduate school and getting ready to graduate this December with my master in arts and clinical and mental health counseling.
Ray: How did you come to Gardner-Webb and the Noel center?
Weaver: So at the end of my first year a graduate school, I was evaluating going back to work part time and I had the opportunity to become a graduate assistant here at the Noel center and so that was my first step and I started in the summer. In January of the following year I had the opportunity to go into a full time staff position as an accessibility advisor. And then the following August, I was asked to assume the assistant dean role. And so it gave me an opportunity, to work with students, in the counseling and coaching while also being able to take advantage of some of my administrative skills. So working full-time while working at my degree here at Gardner-Webb made perfect sense.
R: How long have you worked at the Noel center?
Weaver: From the June of 2019 to now, that’s about two years.
Ray: Where do you see yourself in five years?
Weaver: I would sit from my clinical mental health counseling licensing exam next month and then after graduation will begin counseling more and in five years I would hope to have an proper practice then doing mental health counseling for individuals and families, doing psychoeducation, training and also writing.