Eugene Tobin is a senior advisor at Ithaka S+R, focusing on Educational Transformation projects. Before joining Ithaka, he spent 16 years with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, initially advising President William G. Bowen, then as a program officer in higher education. He was instrumental in Mellon’s efforts to enhance educational access for incarcerated individuals.
Gene co-authored two award-winning books on higher education: Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education and Locus of Authority: The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education. He served 23 years at Hamilton College as a history faculty member, dean, and president from 1993 to 2003.
Before Hamilton, he taught at several universities and was a National Endowment for the Humanities postdoctoral fellow. He authored Organize or Perish: America’s Independent Progressives, 1913–1933 and co-edited two other works.
In 2020, the Council of Independent Colleges honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for over three decades of service in higher education.