Seizing the Opportunity
Clad in sweatpants, Robin Gary Durbin planned to quietly turn in a project and avoid much interaction.
Dean Emily Quinn Pou had other plans – an idea that would impact not just Durbin’s life, but dozens of other students and legislators for the next three decades and counting.
Unbeknownst to Durbin, Georgia representative Bob Argo, a guest speaker in Dawson Hall that December day in 1983, had just mentioned to Pou the need for office staff in the Capitol to help with correspondence and other tasks.
“I was looking my worst, and Dean Pou said ‘Robin, come here,’ ” Durbin recalled, laughing. “She said ‘I want you to be a legislative aide for Mr. Bob Argo starting in January. Come meet him!’ ”
Pou’s idea to have students from what was then the College of Home Economics fill this need was the genesis of what is now called the FACS Legislative Aide program.
Durbin, Esther DeVall and Suzie Strickland Tippins were the first three students to serve as Legislative Aides for the Athens delegation that year.
The following year, the program was expanded to include congressional aides, who interned with legislators from the 10th U.S. Congressional District in Washington D.C.
The program has become popular with students, serving as a springboard to long careers in public policy, education and law, among others.
“The reality is Dean Pou was an incredible lady,” Durbin said of the college’s fourth dean, who served from 1971-91. “She was quite innovative in every respect. She could charm you and she was very poised – her nickname on campus was the “Steel Magnolia.’ But she also had very much become a business woman. She saw an opportunity to create something to generate more exposure for the college and provide a great experience for the students.”
For Durbin, the experience proved “eye opening.”
“It really does seem like chaos, but in reality it’s organized chaos and there are some really fine people in our state government,” she said of her time observing the legislative session. “That was one of the things that had an effect on me. There are a lot of hard-working, down to earth people who make our government run and it’s not necessarily just those who were elected.”
Durbin, who received her undergraduate degree in child development, completed her master’s degree in consumer economics in 1985 before taking a faculty position at Auburn.
A mother of four, Durbin home schooled her children before eventually being named Head of School for Auburn Classical Academy (ACA), a classical Christian school for students in grades K-8 that started as a homeschool cooperative but transitioned to a private school under her leadership.
She credits Pou and others within the college for inspiring her to pursue such an ambitious task.
“It’s interesting to me how being willing to do something that was as new and different as the Legislative Aide program has definitely contributed to my sense of courage and bravery,” Durbin said. “It helped give me the courage to do something that was not popular and was maybe misunderstood, but we’re seeing long-term fruit in our ACA students and it’s been very satisfying.”
