Dorothy Robinson '72

Dorothy Robinson ‘72 has four decades of experience in higher education law and administrative leadership. She served at Yale University for 37 years, including as vice president and general counsel, and as counselor to the president. After retiring from Yale, she has been of counsel in the New York office of K&L Gates LLP, in the tax-exempt organizations and higher education practices and senior counsel in 2019.

Robinson is also a trustee of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association Inc.; a director of TIAA Bank, FSB, and a director of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia.  She is a board member of Newark Public Radio (WBGO), Alliance to Cure Cavernous Malformation, and Yale Peabody Museum Leadership Council, in an advisory capacity. She is also a columnist for Trusteeship Magazine and was a columnist for the Association of Governing Boards from 2003-2007. 

Robinson earned a B.A. with honors in economics at Swarthmore and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She served on Swarthmore’s Alumni Council from 1999 to 2002, and she introduced President Valerie Smith and former President Rebecca Chopp at Swarthmore events in New Haven, Conn., in 2015 and 2013, respectively.