Program Officer, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Eugene M. Tobin is the program officer for Higher Education and the Liberal Arts Colleges Program at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. His grant-making responsibilities encompass the areas of faculty and curricular development, presidential leadership, undergraduate teaching and learning, educational effectiveness, and institutional collaboration. Through the work of the College Sports Project, he coordinated the Foundation’s support of colleges and universities (within the NCAA’s Division III) who are committed to aligning intercollegiate athletic programs more closely with educational values.

Tobin spent 23 years at Hamilton College as a faculty member, department chair, dean of faculty, and as the 18th president (1993-2003). Prior to joining the Hamilton faculty in 1980, he taught at state colleges in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow at Vanderbilt University, and held visiting appointments at Miami University (Ohio) and Indiana University, Bloomington. His research focuses on late 19th-century and early 20th-century American social and political history and the history of American higher education.

Tobin earned his B.A. in history from Rutgers University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the history of American civilization from Brandeis University. He is the co-author with William G. Bowen and Martin A. Kurzweil of Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, winner of the 2006 American Educational Research Association’s Outstanding Book Award. His recent publications include an essay, “The Modern Evolution of America’s Flagship Universities,” in William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos, and Michael S. McPherson, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities (Princeton University Press, 2009).

http://www.mellon.org/about_foundation/staff/program-area-staff/eugene-m-tobin