Clifford Robinson is the Public Humanities Specialist at the Princeton Public Library. Working closely with the library’s programming team and a humanities council consisting of leading experts in the academic and public humanities, his effort on behalf of the Humanities@PPL initiative promotes critical thinking, civic engagement, and empathetic understanding through community collaboration and dynamic programs and resources. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University's Department of Classical Studies in 2014, where he was awarded the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2014. Previously he was granted a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Irish Research Council, to join Maynooth University's Department of Ancient Classics as a Research Fellow in 2015-16. He then served as the Assistant Professor of Classics in the Department of Humanities at the University of the Sciences, where he was awarded promotion and tenure in 2022, and in 2022-23 he was a Visiting Scholar at Saint Joseph's University. His distinction in university-level teaching has been recognized with two of his field's highest honors for teaching: the Society for Classical Studies's Award for Excellence in Teaching of the Classics at the College and University Level (2022) and the Classical Association of the Middle West and South's CAMWS Award for Excellence in College Teaching (2024). He currently serves on the Membership Committee of the Society for Classical Studies as its Chair and on the Subcommittee on the Ladislaus J. Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award for the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. His research and current book project focus on ancient Greek and Latin philosophical consolatory literature and he has also published on Platonic philosophy and political theory, ancient music theory, and the reception of Stoicism in the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben.

As a graduate student at Duke University I was fortunate to find abundant support for professional development from the Graduate School, through which Doug James and Hugh Crumley were providing excellent mentorship, instruction, and resources. I participated in the Bass Instructor of Record Fellowship program, which allowed me to design and teach a cross-listed course on philosophy and literature pertaining to the death penalty; I joined the Preparing Future Faculty program to find mentorship and to experience the campus cultures of other regional colleges and universities; and I completed the Certificate in College Teaching which involved courses, trainings, and professional development opportunities outside of my department and my field. All of these opportunities served me well as I joined the professoriate, and saw what it can often be like outside of R1 institutions, and they continue to inform my work beyond the academy. So, I would advise graduate students to affirm the possibilities which institutions of higher learning can open up beyond their degree-granting departments and programs and to learn to say "yes" to many different opportunities and potential outcomes.

As a former academic and now a library professional and public humanist, I can appreciate what GradFUTURES is working to achieve within academia and beyond it. The team at GradFUTURES has a deep appreciation for the rapid pace of change in higher education, the forces affecting faculty and student experiences alike, and the challenges ahead. More importantly, though, they also see the promising opportunities which the new landscape presents.