UPDATE: Two more senior leaders were also escorted off Pensacola State College’s campus: Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs Erin Spicer and Vice President for Business Affairs Anita Kovacs.
Pensacola State College has escorted former Mayor Grover Robinson off its campus, presumably terminating him as the college’s associate vice president of government and community relations, a job he has held since April 2023. PSC staff shared that he was carrying his belongings in a box, escorted by police.
- Robinson was hired by PSC President Dr. C. Edward Meadows, who announced earlier this year that he would retire effective Dec. 31, 2026. PSC District Board of Trustees voted unanimously Sept. 21 to appoint J. Alex Kelly as the College’s seventh president.
This is the first step in some sort of leadership purge at Pensacola State College. Robinson did nothing to earn this disrespect.
Deep Pensacola Roots
Robinson is a seventh-generation Pensacola native with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Birmingham-Southern College. His father, Grover C. Robinson III, served in the Florida House from 1982 to 1986 and founded the commercial real estate firm Grover Robinson & Associates in 1975. His parents died in a helicopter crash in New Zealand on March 28, 2000.
- He joined the family firm in 1997 and became a broker and president after his father’s death in 2000. Robinson served as the District 4 commissioner on the Escambia County Commission from 2006 to 2018. He then served as Pensacola’s 63rd mayor from Nov. 27, 2018, to Nov. 22, 2022. He announced in March 2021 that he would not seek re-election. D.C. Reeves succeeded him.
Deep PSC Ties
Robinson spent 20 years on the PSC Foundation Board of Governors, including two years as president. His parents established the college’s Robinson Honors Program in 2000.
- This past August, Pensacola State College named the Jill and Grover C. Robinson, IV Student Leadership & Activities Office officially named in their honor and in celebration of a recent gift to the Pensacola State College Foundation that will support a new student needs fund utilized by the Pirates CARE Student Resource Center.
I am shocked at this news. Grover has a long history of serving our community. That is not a dignified way to treat people. He deserves better!
Grover Robinson has dedicated decades of his life to serving this community, and he and the other officials reportedly escorted from campus deserve dignity and respect. Whatever the circumstances, why was this necessary? Surely there was a more dignified way to handle this. We deserve transparency, accountability, and an explanation for what appears to be an unnecessarily humiliating display.
Grover Robinson has been a tireless advocate for Pensacola, Escambia County, and Pensacola State College. The new PSC leadership should be ashamed.
This is very disturbing. Grover does not deserve this treatment for all
He did for our community
Do you know why he was terminated? Have they named a replacement?