Richard Robbins is currently the SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at State University of New York, Plattsburgh. Robbins earned his BA in psychology at Rutgers University in 1961, an MA in anthropology at New York University, New York in 1964, and a PhD in anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1970. Professor Robbins’ contributions to anthropology are in the areas of globalization, applied anthropology, public policy, and teaching. His publications reflect his strong commitment to and success in teaching undergraduate anthropology. Robbins has earned many honors and awards for teaching including the Outstanding Academic Title of the year award in 1999 for his text Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. He was also the recipient of the 1994 Textbook and Academic Authors Association Excellence Award for the outstanding text in the social sciences and humanities, Cultural Anthropology: A Problem-Based Approach.
Robbins’s field research and publications include studies of suicide among the Naskapi Indians of Quebec, political change among the Cree Indians on Hudson’s Bay, and the social and economic history of an Acadian fishing village in New Brunswick. Robbins’s contributions to teaching, however, most distinguish his career. He has worked to improve undergraduate education and to enhance collaborative writing through computer software and Internet sites. He has also contributed to the Consortium for International Cooperation in Higher Education and the National Endowment for the Humanities as a consultant for the development of general education. Robbins regularly presents papers on teaching science and anthropology, collaborative learning, the foundations of an undergraduate education, and education and cultural change. His textbooks focus on developing citizen-activist students who can examine the policy and cultural changes needed to address contemporary global problems.
References:
- Robbins, R. H. (2001). Cultural anthropology: A problem-based approach (3rd ed.). Itaska, IL:
- E. Peacock. Robbins, R. H. (2005). Global problems and the culture of capitalism (3rd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
