William S. Robinson, MA

William S. Robinson is a native of Manhasset, New York.  He relocated to South Carolina in July 1988, and has lived in Columbia, Camden, Ladson, and returned to Columbia in June 2005.  In July 2007, Mr. Robinson moved to Durham, North Carolina, where he intends to make his permanent home.  Mr. Robinson earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a concentration in International Relations from the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz.  He earned a Master of Arts degree in African and African American Studies with a minor in Political Science from SUNY at Albany, where he graduated magna cum laude.  In 1984, Mr. Robinson was inducted into Pi Sigma Alpha, the Political Science National Honor Society.  Mr. Robinson has 30 years of administrative experience in a variety of community-based, higher education and health-related environments in New York and South Carolina.

He has served on the South Carolina Governor’s Task Forces for Substance Abuse and Teenage Pregnancy Prevention under former Governor Carrol Campbell.  He has also served on the Executive Committee, Finance Committee and Board of Directors of the Diabetes Initiative of South Carolina.  He chaired the Initiative’s Task Force to Increase Minority CDEs (certified diabetes educators) for two years.  Mr. Robinson served on the initial board of the SC Coalition to Promote Physical Activity and was the first person to serve as its President-Elect, Board President and Past President from April 2001 to April 2004.  He also served as an Advisory Committee member that produced the first Report on the Impact of Obesity in South Carolina.

Mr. Robinson served as the Project Manager for SC Project ASSIST (American Stop Smoking Intervention Study), Co-Chair of the Multi-cultural Subcommittee of National ASSIST and is a founding member of the SC African American HIV/AIDS Council, Diabetes Today Advisory Council and the SC African American Tobacco Control Network.  Mr. Robinson is co-author of a National Cancer Institute training module, From Sensitivity to Commitment, which features strategies, activities and plans on how to effectively engage diverse communities in tobacco control.  Mr. Robinson has trained persons from more than 40 states on the module.  Mr. Robinson has co- facilitated the Diverse Cultures course for the Centers for Disease Control/University of North Carolina Summer Tobacco Institute in New Mexico and Georgia.  In 2000, he joined a number of African American tobacco advocates from around the country to create the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network which is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and where he served as Chair of the Executive Council until November 2004 and continues as a founding “Elder”.

Mr. Robinson operates his own consultant company, William S. Robinson & Associates, which focuses on capacity building, infrastructure development and addressing health issues in African-American and other ethnic communities.   In September 1998, Mr. Robinson was hired by the Medical University of South Carolina to head Partners in Wellness, a diabetes and hypertension collaboration with the six Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs) in South Carolina.  In the summer of 2003, Mr. Robinson was appointed Adjunct Instructor in the Department of Health Administration and Policy at MUSC.  Mr. Robinson was also an Adjunct Instructor at Claflin University in 2004.  From September 1999 - August 2002, Mr. Robinson served as the South Carolina state coordinator for NBLIC (National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer) and developed the B.A.P. CapsTM (Brothers Against Prostate Cancer Awareness Program), which is a unique prostate education programs run through barber shops.  He supervised a clinical research unit at SC State University under Project EXPORT, and in March 2005 chartered the Black Men’s Health Initiative, a non-profit organization, that is focusing on improving the health of Black men in 10 states in the Southeast region of the U.S.

Mr. Robinson has two daughters, Evita (25) who graduated from IONA College with honors in 2005, and Sarafina (21) who is entering her senior year at Furman University.  In his spare time, Mr. Robinson has written and copyrighted his first novel and is completing final editing prior to publication of the manuscript.