Sheila Tobias (April 26, 1935 – July 6, 2021) was an American college administrator who studied the

gender gap A gender gap, a relative disparity between people of different genders, is reflected in a variety of sectors in many societies. There exist differences between men and women as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, scientific or e ...

in math and science at the college level.

Early life

Tobias was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, the eldest daughter of Paul Tobias and Rose Steinberger Tobias. She graduated from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1957, and earned two master's degrees (an MA in 1961 and an

MPhil The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil m ...

in 1974) from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Career

Tobias was a journalist in Germany and London after college, wrote for the ''New York Herald Tribune'', and taught history courses at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

. She worked at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

as assistant to the vice president for academic affairs from 1967 to 1970, and organized an early

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

course at Cornell. From 1970 to 1978, she was associate vice provost of

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

, helping the school through the process of becoming co-educational. At Wesleyan, she began studying

math anxiety Mathematical anxiety, also known as math phobia, is anxiety about one's ability to do mathematics. Math Anxiety Mark H. Ashcraft defines math anxiety as "a feeling of tension, apprehension, or fear that interferes with math performance" (2002, p ...

(a phrase she coined) and other phenomena around the gender gap in

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

fields. She opened a math clinic, staffed by tutors and counselors, and published her first book, ''Overcoming Math Anxiety'' (1978). Tobias moved to

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

in the 1980s. She taught women's studies courses at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

, and was outreach coordinator for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's

Professional Science Master's Degree The Professional Science Master's degree (abbreviated as PSM or P.S.M.) is an interdisciplinary master's degree program which integrates advanced technical training with business and professional leadership skills. In contrast to traditional resea ...

initiative. Tobias served on the board of the

Association for Women in Science The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) was founded in 1971 at the annual Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) meeting. The organization aims to combat job discrimination, lower pay, and professional isolation. The ...

, and was co-president of

Veteran Feminists of America Veteran Feminists of America (VFA) is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization for supporters and veterans of the second-wave feminist movement. Founded by Jacqueline Ceballos in 1992, Veteran Feminists of America regularly hosts reunions for secon ...

. She was active in the

National Organization for Women The National Organization for Women (NOW) is an American feminist organization. Founded in 1966, it is legally a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. The organization consists of 550 chapters in all 50 U.S. states and in Washington, D.C. It ...

(NOW), the

Pima County Pima County ( ) is a county in the south central region of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,043,433, making it Arizona's second-most populous county. The county seat is Tucson, where most of the population ...

/Tucson Women’s Commission, and the Women’s Studies Advisory Council at the University of Arizona. She served on the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

in the 1980s, and was a delegate to the International Conference on Women in Physics, held in Paris in 2002. In 2006, her name was added to the Women's Plaza of Honor at the University of Arizona.

Personal life

Tobias married Carlos Stern in 1970; they divorced in 1982. She married a physics professor, Carl Tomizuka in 1987; he died in 2017. She died at a nursing home in Tucson on July 6, 2021, aged 86. Her papers are held in the

Schlesinger Library The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. According to Nancy F. Cott, the Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation Director, ...

Books

* ''Overcoming Math Anxiety'' (1978, 1994) * ''What Kinds of Guns Are They Buying for Your Butter? A Beginner's Guide to Defense, Weaponry and Military Spending'' (1982, with Peter Goudinoff, Stefan Leader, and Shelah Leader) * ''Succeed with Math: Every Student's Guide to Conquering Math Anxiety'' (1987) * ''Rethinking Science as a Career: Perceptions and Realities in the Physical Sciences'' (1995, with Daryl Chubin and Kevin Aylesworth) * ''They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking the Second Tier'' (1990) * ''Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory'' (1990, edited with

Jean Bethke Elshtain Jean Paulette Bethke Elshtain (1941–2013) was an American ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual. She was the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the University of Chicago Divinity School with ...

) * ''Breaking the Science Barrier: How to Explore and Understand the Sciences'' (1992, with Carl Tomizuka) * ''Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't'' (1992) * ''The Hidden Curriculum: Faculty-Made Tests in College Science'' (1997, with Jacqueline Raphael) * ''Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women's Movement'' (1997, 2018) * ''Science Teaching as a Profession. Why It Isn't. How It Could Be'' (2010, with Anne Baffert) * ''Banishing Math Anxiety'' (2012)

Selected articles and essays

* "Women's studies: Its origins, its organization and its prospects" (1978) * "Math Mental Health: Going Beyond Math Anxiety" (1991) * "Physics: for women, the last frontier" (1996, with

Meg Urry Claudia Megan Urry is an American astrophysicist, who has served as the President of the American Astronomical Society, as chair of the Department of Physics at Yale University, and as part of the Hubble Space Telescope faculty.Eileen Pollack"Wh ...

and Aparna Venkatesan) * "The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century" (1998, with Frans A. J. Birrer) * "Who will study physics, and why?" (1999, with Frans A. J. Birrer) * "Some Recent Developments in Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science: A Review and Commentary" (1999) * "From Innovation to Change: Forging A Physics Education Reform Agenda for the 21st Century" (2000) * ''"Vox Populi'' to Music" (2004, with Shelah Leader) * "Empowering Science Teachers" (2012, with Anne Baffert)

References

External links

"WVU Presents: Sheila Tobias - What Makes Science and Math 'Hard'"
a lecture by Tobias, posted in 2020 on YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Tobias, Sheila 1935 births 2021 deaths Radcliffe College alumni Cornell University staff Wesleyan University people Writers from Brooklyn Columbia University alumni American feminist writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers