Sheila Tobias

Sheila Tobias (April 26, 1935 – July 6, 2021) was an American college administrator who studied the gender gap in math and science at the college level.

Sheila Tobias
A smiling white woman with short dark hair and raised eyebrows
From a 1972 newspaper
Born(1935-04-26)April 26, 1935
New York City, U.S.
DiedJuly 6, 2021(2021-07-06) (aged 86)
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.
Occupation(s)Researcher, college administrator, lecturer
Spouses
  • Carlos Stern
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1970; div. 1978)​
  • Carl Tomizuka
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1987; died 2017)​

Early life

Tobias was born in Brooklyn, New York,[1] the eldest daughter of Paul Tobias and Rose Steinberger Tobias.[2] She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1957, and earned two master's degrees (an MA in 1961 and an MPhil in 1974) from Columbia University.[3]

Career

Tobias was a journalist in Germany and London after college, wrote for the New York Herald Tribune,[4] and taught history courses at the City College of New York. She worked at Cornell University as assistant to the vice president for academic affairs from 1967 to 1970, and organized an early women's studies course at Cornell.[5] From 1970 to 1978, she was associate vice provost of Wesleyan University, helping the school through the process of becoming co-educational.[6][7] At Wesleyan, she began studying math anxiety (a phrase she coined) and other phenomena around the gender gap in STEM fields. She opened a math clinic, staffed by tutors and counselors, and published her first book, Overcoming Math Anxiety (1978).[8][9]

Tobias moved to Tucson in the 1980s. She taught women's studies courses at the University of Arizona, and was outreach coordinator for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Professional Science Master's Degree initiative.[10][11]

Tobias served on the board of the Association for Women in Science,[12] and was co-president of Veteran Feminists of America.[13] She was active in the National Organization for Women (NOW),[14] the Pima County/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 in the 1980s, and was a delegate to the International Conference on Women in Physics, held in Paris in 2002.[3] In 2006, her name was added to the Women's Plaza of Honor at the University of Arizona.[15]

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.[16][17] Her papers are held in the Schlesinger Library.[2]

Books
  • Overcoming Math Anxiety (1978, 1994)[9]
  • 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)[18]
  • Succeed with Math: Every Student's Guide to Conquering Math Anxiety (1987)[19]
  • 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)[20]
  • Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory (1990, edited with Jean Bethke Elshtain)[21]
  • 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)[22]
  • The Hidden Curriculum: Faculty-Made Tests in College Science (1997, with Jacqueline Raphael)[23]
  • Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women's Movement (1997, 2018)[24]
  • Science Teaching as a Profession. Why It Isn't. How It Could Be (2010, with Anne Baffert)[25]
  • Banishing Math Anxiety (2012)

Selected articles and essays
  • "Women's studies: Its origins, its organization and its prospects" (1978)[5]
  • "Math Mental Health: Going Beyond Math Anxiety" (1991)[26]
  • "Physics: for women, the last frontier" (1996, with Meg Urry and Aparna Venkatesan)[27]
  • "The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century" (1998, with Frans A. J. Birrer)[28]
  • "Who will study physics, and why?" (1999, with Frans A. J. Birrer)[29]
  • "Some Recent Developments in Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science: A Review and Commentary" (1999)[30]
  • "From Innovation to Change: Forging A Physics Education Reform Agenda for the 21st Century" (2000)[31]
  • "Vox Populi to Music" (2004, with Shelah Leader)[32]
  • "Empowering Science Teachers" (2012, with Anne Baffert)[33]

References
  1. "In Memoriam: Sheila Tobias, 1935-2021". Women In Academia Report. July 28, 2021. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  2. "Collection: Papers of Sheila Tobias, 1947-2018". Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  3. Feder, Toni (August 11, 2020). "Q&A: Sheila Tobias on her nonscience path to becoming a science activist". Physics Today. 2020 (4): 0811a. Bibcode:2020PhT..2020d.811.. doi:10.1063/PT.6.4.20200811a. S2CID 241214785.
  4. Kiernan, Frances (May 17, 2002). Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 531. ISBN 978-0-393-32307-8.
  5. Tobias, Sheila (January 1, 1978). "Women's studies: Its origins, its organization and its prospects". Women's Studies International Quarterly. 1 (1): 85–97. doi:10.1016/S0148-0685(78)90396-2. ISSN 0148-0685.
  6. Greenberg, Barbara (November 23, 1972). "Sheila Tobias: Encouraging Example of American Woman as Victim/Victor". Hartford Courant. p. 58. Retrieved December 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. Zach (May 19, 2013). ""Forces Greater Than Ourselves": An Interview with Sheila Tobias, Wesleyan's First Female Provost". Wesleying. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  8. Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (September 11, 1978). "Attention 'math anxiety' victims: Sheila Tobias says you're not inept". The Baltimore Sun. p. 24. Retrieved December 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. Tobias, Sheila (1993). Overcoming math anxiety (Rev. and expanded ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03577-8. OCLC 27810100.
  10. "Sheila Tobias on Re-Thinking Teaching Math, Science". Education World. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  11. Brint, Michael E.; Marcey, David; Shaw, Michael C. (November 2, 2008). Integrated Science: New Approaches to Education A Virtual Roundtable Discussion. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-387-84853-2.
  12. Horton, Renee Schafer (November 27, 2007). "Gender gap in math, science? Not for her". Tucson Citizen. p. 1. Retrieved December 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. "Sheila Tobias Author, Consultant, Speaker on Mathematics, Co-President of Veteran Feminists of America". Veteran Feminists of America. August 2010. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  14. Silvey, Martha Jane (May 2, 1972). "Long Haul is Ahead for Women's Rights". The Knoxville News-Sentinel. p. 8. Retrieved December 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. "Sheila Tobias". Women's Plaza of Honor, University of Arizona. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  16. Sandomir, Richard (September 9, 2022). "Sheila Tobias, Who Defined 'Math Anxiety,' Dies at 86". The New York Times. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
  17. Palmer, Kathryn (July 21, 2021). "Sheila Tobias, Tucson feminist who investigated math anxiety, dies at 86". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved December 18, 2021.
  18. Hanscom, Leslie (February 13, 1983). "For Readers Who Can't Tell a MRV from a GLCM". Newsday. p. 174. Retrieved December 19, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Tobias, Sheila (1987). Succeed with Math: Every Student's Guide to Conquering Math Anxiety. College Entrance Examination Board. ISBN 978-0-87447-259-2.
  20. Tobias, Sheila (1990). They're Not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier (PDF). Research Corporation.
  21. Elshtain, Jean Bethke; Tobias, Sheila (1990). Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8476-7470-1.
  22. Tobias, Sheila (1992). Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't. Research Corporation. ISBN 978-0-9633504-1-1.
  23. Tobias, Sheila; Raphael, Jacqueline (June 29, 2013). The Hidden Curriculum—Faculty-Made Tests in Science: Part 2: Upper-Division Courses. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4899-0482-9.
  24. Tobias, Sheila (February 26, 2018). Faces Of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections On The Women's Movement. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-98022-0.
  25. Baffert, Anne; Tobias, Sheila (June 10, 2010). Science Teaching as a Profession: Why It Isn't. How It Could Be. NSTA Press. ISBN 978-1-936137-76-3.
  26. Tobias, Sheila (1991). "Math Mental Health: Going Beyond Math Anxiety". College Teaching. 39 (3): 91–93. doi:10.1080/87567555.1991.10532434. ISSN 8756-7555. JSTOR 27558470.
  27. Tobias, Sheila; Urry, Meg; Venkatesan, Aparna (May 17, 2002). "Physics: for women, the last frontier". Science. 296 (5571): 1201–1202. doi:10.1126/science.296.5571.1201. PMID 12016274. S2CID 34981120.
  28. Tobias, Sheila; Birrer, Frans (August 1, 1998). "The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century". Industry and Higher Education. 12 (4): 213–216. doi:10.1177/095042229801200405. ISSN 0950-4222. S2CID 79814278.
  29. Tobias, Sheila; Birrer, Frans A. J. (November 1999). "Who will study physics, and why?". European Journal of Physics. 20 (6): 365–372. Bibcode:1999EJPh...20..365T. doi:10.1088/0143-0807/20/6/302. ISSN 0143-0807. S2CID 250899313.
  30. Tobias, Sheila (March 1, 1999). "Some Recent Developments in Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science: A Review and Commentary". Journal of Science Education and Technology. 8 (1): 21–31. Bibcode:1999JSEdT...8...21T. doi:10.1023/A:1009473319902. ISSN 1573-1839. S2CID 60949615.
  31. Tobias, Sheila (March 1, 2000). "From Innovation to Change: Forging A Physics Education Reform Agenda for the 21st Century". Journal of Science Education and Technology. 9 (1): 1–5. doi:10.1023/A:1009433505945. ISSN 1573-1839. S2CID 195226637.
  32. Tobias, Sheila; Leader, Shelah (1999). "Vox Populi to Music". Journal of American Culture. 22 (4): 91–101. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734X.1999.2204_91.x. ISSN 1542-734X.
  33. Tobias, Sheila; Baffert, Anne (May 4, 2012). "Empowering Science Teachers". Science. 336 (6081): 519. Bibcode:2012Sci...336..519T. doi:10.1126/science.1223116. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 22556217. S2CID 10451931.
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