Robinson to Attend Summer Mentoring Program at Yale

The Northeast Georgian
By Kimberly Brown, kbrown@thenortheastgeorgian.com
Tuesday, April 22, 2008

At 16, Katie Robinson has had experiences that many students her age never have.

Robinson, daughter of Carol Robinson and Jeffery Robinson, both of Cornelia, is a sophomore at Walnut Hill, a boarding prep school for the arts, located in Natick, Mass., 17 miles from Boston. Robinson is concentrating in theater at Walnut Hill.

In June, Robinson plans to attend the advanced mentoring program (AMP) at Yale University in Connecticut. AMP is a program for Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Young Scholars. Robinson became a Cooke Young Scholar in 2005.

During the weeklong session at Yale, Robinson will be mentored in theater by actor Christopher Liam Moore. Moore is a star of the TBS show "10 Items or Less" and has acted in other television shows such as "Judging Amy" and "Star Trek," as well as many different Shakespeare festivals and Off Broadway shows. He is a graduate of Harvard and is a founding member of the Cornerstone Theatre Company in Los Angeles.

During her week with Moore, Robinson says she will plan a major project to complete over the coming year.

"I'd like to do something with children's theater," she says. "I love working with kids, combining the playfulness of childhood with theater. It makes me really happy that I could do that."

Robinson is not a stranger to summer school programs. In June and July 2007, she attended the Summer Institute for the Gifted at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. There, she took classes in musical theater, improvisational singing, creative writing, philosophy and chemistry.

Also in July 2007, she attended Civic Week at Northwestern University in Chicago, Ill., a program for Cooke Foundation Young Scholars.

During that week, Robinson worked in a homeless shelter, spent a day with children who stayed in a day shelter, sold newspapers for StreetWise, a newspaper company that benefits the homeless, and spent a day at the Chicago food bank.

"That was a lot of fun," she says. "I got the opportunity to do so many community service projects that I wouldn't be able to do by myself. It was a very humbling experience."

Robinson is enjoying her time at Walnut Hill. Living at a boarding school is different, she says.

"Living in a dorm, being more responsible for myself, not having my mom telling me to do my homework, do my laundry."

She has advanced academic classes most of the day, with theater, dance and technical theater classes in the afternoon.

One of the biggest differences for her was during the winter.

"Boston is cold," she says. "I'm not used to this kind of cold. It gets cold in Habersham, but not this cold. I just bundled up every day and wore lots of layers and stuck it out. I've never seen that much snow."

Robinson has big plans for her future after high school at Walnut Hill. These plans definitely include college, she says, and though she'd love to major in theater, she wants to make sure she has a "stable backup plan."

"Lately I've been thinking I'd love to do musical theater and also early childhood education because I love working with kids," she says. "I thought I was too impatient to be a teacher, but I've had opportunities to work with younger kids, and seeing how innocent and blunt and oblivious to being censored a little kid can be, it makes me happy."