Sheila Tobias Women's Studies collection

Sheila Tobias was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 26, 1935. She received a B.A. in history and literature from Radcliffe College in 1957, and an M.A. and M. Phil. in history from Columbia University in 1961 and 1974, respectively. During the early 1960s, Tobias held positions in journalism and education. From 1967 to 1970, she was assistant to the vice president for Academic Affairs at Cornell University, with special emphasis on implementing the Kahn-Bowers report on undergraduate education. As part of what was first thought to be a "January Term" activity, she launched one of the first women's studies courses later to become one of the first women's studies programs in the country.

In 1970, she became associate provost at Wesleyan University. Her primary administrative focus was on helping Wesleyan make the transition to coeducation for a second time (the first period of coeducation was 1872-1909), which began in 1968. This included the hiring of women faculty and other key personnel. She also co-organized a New England-wide Higher Education Resource Service for women academic professionals, which later grew into the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration. She taught American Studies 210, "Gender and Politics," "Men and Women in Wartime." In 1978, she left Wesleyan to become director of the Math Anxiety (training trainers/dissemination) Project, Washington School of Psychiatry.

Since 1978, Tobias has worked as an educational consultant, engaging in a research and writing assignment for the Research Corporation, working for the Sloan Foundation in its development of the professional science master's degree, and conducting a long term association with the Universities of Leiden and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, among many other activities.