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Sheila Tobias

{{Use mdy dates|date=September 2022}}

{{Short description|American researcher (1935–2021)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Sheila Tobias

| image = SheilaTobias1972.png

| alt = A smiling white woman with short dark hair and raised eyebrows

| caption = From a 1972 newspaper

| other_names =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1935|4|26}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2021|7|6|1935|4|26}}

| death_place = Tucson, Arizona, U.S.

| occupation = Researcher, college administrator, lecturer

| years_active =

| known_for =

| notable_works =

| spouse(s) = {{ubl|{{marriage|Carlos Stern|1970|1978|end = divorced}}|{{marriage|Carl Tomizuka|1987|2017|end = died}}}}

| relatives =

}}

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.

Early life

Tobias was born in Brooklyn, New York,{{Cite web|date=July 28, 2021|title=In Memoriam: Sheila Tobias, 1935-2021|url=https://www.wiareport.com/2021/07/in-memoriam-sheila-tobias-1935-2021/|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Women In Academia Report}} the eldest daughter of Paul Tobias and Rose Steinberger Tobias.{{Cite web|title=Collection: Papers of Sheila Tobias, 1947-2018|url=https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/11693|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute}} 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.{{Cite journal|last=Feder|first=Toni|date=August 11, 2020|title=Q&A: Sheila Tobias on her nonscience path to becoming a science activist|url=https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20200811a/abs/|journal=Physics Today|volume=2020|issue=4|pages=0811a|language=EN|doi=10.1063/PT.6.4.20200811a|bibcode=2020PhT..2020d.811. |s2cid=241214785|url-access=subscription}}

Career

Tobias was a journalist in Germany and London after college, wrote for the New York Herald Tribune,{{Cite book|last=Kiernan|first=Frances|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hI183tGNv-QC&dq=Sheila+Tobias&pg=PA531|title=Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy|date=May 17, 2002|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|isbn=978-0-393-32307-8|pages=531|language=en}} 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.{{Cite journal|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|date=January 1, 1978|title=Women's studies: Its origins, its organization and its prospects|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148068578903962|journal=Women's Studies International Quarterly|language=en|volume=1|issue=1|pages=85–97|doi=10.1016/S0148-0685(78)90396-2|issn=0148-0685|url-access=subscription}} From 1970 to 1978, she was associate vice provost of Wesleyan University, helping the school through the process of becoming co-educational.{{Cite news|last=Greenberg|first=Barbara|date=November 23, 1972|title=Sheila Tobias: Encouraging Example of American Woman as Victim/Victor|pages=58|work=Hartford Courant|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90820851/sheila-tobias-encouraging-example-of/|access-date=December 19, 2021|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite web|last=Zach|date=May 19, 2013|title="Forces Greater Than Ourselves": An Interview with Sheila Tobias, Wesleyan's First Female Provost|url=http://wesleying.org/2013/05/19/forces-greater-than-ourselves-an-interview-with-sheila-tobias-wesleyans-first-female-provost/|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Wesleying|language=en-US}} At Wesleyan, she began studying math anxiety (a phrase she coined){{Citation needed|reason=Did she coin it? The term was in circulation certainly as early as 1972. Citation needed to her first usage of the term. |date=March 2022}} 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).{{Cite news|last=Lehmann-Haupt|first=Christopher|date=September 11, 1978|title=Attention 'math anxiety' victims: Sheila Tobias says you're not inept|pages=24|work=The Baltimore Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90821040/attention-math-anxiety-victims/|access-date=December 19, 2021|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Cite book|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27810100|title=Overcoming math anxiety|date=1993|publisher=W.W. Norton|isbn=0-393-03577-8|edition=Rev. and expanded|location=New York|oclc=27810100}}

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.{{Cite web|title=Sheila Tobias on Re-Thinking Teaching Math, Science|url=https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev026.shtml|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Education World}}{{Cite book|last1=Brint|first1=Michael E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2d35uDuvsMQC&dq=Sheila+Tobias&pg=PA103|title=Integrated Science: New Approaches to Education A Virtual Roundtable Discussion|last2=Marcey|first2=David|last3=Shaw|first3=Michael C.|date=November 2, 2008|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-0-387-84853-2|pages=103|language=en}}

Tobias served on the board of the Association for Women in Science,{{Cite news|last=Horton|first=Renee Schafer|date=November 27, 2007|title=Gender gap in math, science? Not for her|pages=1|work=Tucson Citizen|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90824226/gender-gap-in-math-science-not-for/|access-date=December 19, 2021|via=Newspapers.com}} and was co-president of Veteran Feminists of America.{{Cite web|date=August 2010|title=Sheila Tobias Author, Consultant, Speaker on Mathematics, Co-President of Veteran Feminists of America|url=https://www.veteranfeministsofamerica.org/legacy/SheilaTobias.htm|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Veteran Feminists of America}} She was active in the National Organization for Women (NOW),{{Cite news|last=Silvey|first=Martha Jane|date=May 2, 1972|title=Long Haul is Ahead for Women's Rights|pages=8|work=The Knoxville News-Sentinel|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90821197/long-haul-is-ahead-for-womens/|access-date=December 19, 2021|via=Newspapers.com}} 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. In 2006, her name was added to the Women's Plaza of Honor at the University of Arizona.{{Cite web|title=Sheila Tobias|url=https://plaza.sbs.arizona.edu/25|access-date=December 19, 2021|website=Women's Plaza of Honor, 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.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/09/us/sheila-tobias-dead.html|title = Sheila Tobias, Who Defined 'Math Anxiety,' Dies at 86|last = Sandomir|first = Richard|newspaper = The New York Times|date = September 9, 2022|accessdate = September 9, 2022|url-access = limited}}{{Cite web|last=Palmer|first=Kathryn|date=July 21, 2021|title=Sheila Tobias, Tucson feminist who investigated math anxiety, dies at 86|url=https://tucson.com/news/local/sheila-tobias-tucson-feminist-who-investigated-math-anxiety-dies-at-86/article_693338b8-ea4a-11eb-ac5d-a739fc9f0f8f.html|access-date=December 18, 2021|website=Arizona Daily Star|language=en}} Her papers are held in the Schlesinger Library.

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){{Cite news|last=Hanscom|first=Leslie|date=February 13, 1983|title=For Readers Who Can't Tell a MRV from a GLCM|pages=174|work=Newsday|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90823947/for-readers-who-cant-tell-a-mrv-from-a/|access-date=December 19, 2021|via=Newspapers.com}}
  • Succeed with Math: Every Student's Guide to Conquering Math Anxiety (1987){{Cite book|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2H7wQ249fx4C&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=Succeed with Math: Every Student's Guide to Conquering Math Anxiety|date=1987|publisher=College Entrance Examination Board|isbn=978-0-87447-259-2|language=en}}
  • 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){{Cite book|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|url=https://rescorp.org/gdresources/publications/Tobias-Sheila_Theyre-Not-Dumb.pdf|title=They're Not Dumb, They're Different: Stalking the Second Tier|publisher=Research Corporation|year=1990}}
  • Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory (1990, edited with Jean Bethke Elshtain){{Cite book|last1=Elshtain|first1=Jean Bethke|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mye2lQkbmUUC&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=Women, Militarism, and War: Essays in History, Politics, and Social Theory|last2=Tobias|first2=Sheila|date=1990|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8476-7470-1|language=en}}
  • 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){{Cite book|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S_7cJD3IIjgC&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't|date=1992|publisher=Research Corporation|isbn=978-0-9633504-1-1|language=en}}
  • The Hidden Curriculum: Faculty-Made Tests in College Science (1997, with Jacqueline Raphael){{Cite book|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v8UkBAAAQBAJ&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=The Hidden Curriculum—Faculty-Made Tests in Science: Part 2: Upper-Division Courses|last2=Raphael|first2=Jacqueline|date=June 29, 2013|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-1-4899-0482-9|language=en}}
  • Faces of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections on the Women's Movement (1997, 2018){{Cite book|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IPlNDwAAQBAJ&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=Faces Of Feminism: An Activist's Reflections On The Women's Movement|date=February 26, 2018|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-429-98022-0|language=en}}
  • Science Teaching as a Profession. Why It Isn't. How It Could Be (2010, with Anne Baffert){{Cite book|last1=Baffert|first1=Anne|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1tyL7LQf_dUC&q=Sheila+Tobias|title=Science Teaching as a Profession: Why It Isn't. How It Could Be.|last2=Tobias|first2=Sheila|date=June 10, 2010|publisher=NSTA Press|isbn=978-1-936137-76-3|language=en}}
  • 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){{Cite journal|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|date=1991|title=Math Mental Health: Going Beyond Math Anxiety|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27558470|journal=College Teaching|volume=39|issue=3|pages=91–93|doi=10.1080/87567555.1991.10532434|jstor=27558470|issn=8756-7555|url-access=subscription}}
  • "Physics: for women, the last frontier" (1996, with Meg Urry and Aparna Venkatesan){{Cite journal|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|last2=Urry|first2=Meg|last3=Venkatesan|first3=Aparna|date=May 17, 2002|title=Physics: for women, the last frontier|url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=00368075&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA87024258&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs|journal=Science|language=English|volume=296|issue=5571|pages=1201–1202|doi=10.1126/science.296.5571.1201|pmid=12016274|s2cid=34981120|doi-access=free|url-access=subscription}}
  • "The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century" (1998, with Frans A. J. Birrer){{Cite journal|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|last2=Birrer|first2=Frans|date=August 1, 1998|title=The Science-Trained Professional: A New Breed for the New Century|url=https://doi.org/10.1177/095042229801200405|journal=Industry and Higher Education|language=en|volume=12|issue=4|pages=213–216|doi=10.1177/095042229801200405|s2cid=79814278|issn=0950-4222|url-access=subscription}}
  • "Who will study physics, and why?" (1999, with Frans A. J. Birrer){{Cite journal|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|last2=Birrer|first2=Frans A. J.|date=November 1999|title=Who will study physics, and why?|url=https://doi.org/10.1088/0143-0807/20/6/302|journal=European Journal of Physics|language=en|volume=20|issue=6|pages=365–372|doi=10.1088/0143-0807/20/6/302|bibcode=1999EJPh...20..365T |s2cid=250899313 |issn=0143-0807|url-access=subscription}}
  • "Some Recent Developments in Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science: A Review and Commentary" (1999){{Cite journal|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|date=March 1, 1999|title=Some Recent Developments in Teacher Education in Mathematics and Science: A Review and Commentary|url=https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009473319902|journal=Journal of Science Education and Technology|language=en|volume=8|issue=1|pages=21–31|doi=10.1023/A:1009473319902|bibcode=1999JSEdT...8...21T |s2cid=60949615|issn=1573-1839|url-access=subscription}}
  • "From Innovation to Change: Forging A Physics Education Reform Agenda for the 21st Century" (2000){{Cite journal|last=Tobias|first=Sheila|date=March 1, 2000|title=From Innovation to Change: Forging A Physics Education Reform Agenda for the 21st Century|url=https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009433505945|journal=Journal of Science Education and Technology|language=en|volume=9|issue=1|pages=1–5|doi=10.1023/A:1009433505945|bibcode=2000JSEdT...9....1T |s2cid=195226637|issn=1573-1839|url-access=subscription}}
  • "Vox Populi to Music" (2004, with Shelah Leader){{Cite journal|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|last2=Leader|first2=Shelah|date=1999|title=Vox Populi to Music|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1542-734X.1999.2204_91.x|journal=Journal of American Culture|language=en|volume=22|issue=4|pages=91–101|doi=10.1111/j.1542-734X.1999.2204_91.x|issn=1542-734X|url-access=subscription}}
  • "Empowering Science Teachers" (2012, with Anne Baffert){{Cite journal|last1=Tobias|first1=Sheila|last2=Baffert|first2=Anne|date=May 4, 2012|title=Empowering Science Teachers|url=https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1223116|journal=Science|language=en|volume=336|issue=6081|pages=519|doi=10.1126/science.1223116|pmid=22556217|bibcode=2012Sci...336..519T |s2cid=10451931|issn=0036-8075|url-access=subscription}}

References

{{reflist}}

External links

  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGQuQuKOio "WVU Presents: Sheila Tobias - What Makes Science and Math 'Hard'"] a lecture by Tobias, posted in 2020 on YouTube

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tobias, Sheila}}

Category:1935 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:Radcliffe College alumni

Category:Cornell University staff

Category:Wesleyan University people

Category:Writers from Brooklyn

Category:Columbia University alumni

Category:American feminist writers

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers

Category:American women academic administrators