Biography

Professor Robert Tobin was a German Language and Literature professor at Whitman from 1989 to 2008 and was a major presence and leader in Whitman’s LGBTQ community. After finishing graduate school at Princeton, he came to Whitman to teach. Soon after his arrival on campus, Professor Tobin became involved with the fledging LGBTQ student group, the Gay Lesbian Association, and he helped found the LGBTQ-issue focused activist group, Coalition Against Homophobia in 1992. First offered in 1993, his class “Sexuality and Textuality” was one of the first sexuality-centric classes at Whitman. Professor Tobin served as an advisor and contact person for both GLA and Coalition throughout his time at Whitman and was known as a voice of LGBTQ activism on campus. He left Whitman in 2008 and now works for Clark University. Recently, he helped Professor Yuhl from the College of the Holy Cross and Professor Joseph Cullon from Worcester Polytechnic Institute create “LGBTQ+ Worcester: For the Record”, an exhibit focusing on LGBTQ history in Worcester, MA, which can be seen at the Worcester Historical Museum.

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