‘20 Years is a long time anywhere’: Saying goodbye to James Tobin

As the frantic energy of finals week settles into the Oxford air, James Tobin, professor of journalism, prepares for a deadline of a different sort. After two decades of teaching at Miami University, Tobin approaches his final lesson.

As a first-year at the University of Michigan, where his parents met and his daughters later graduated, Tobin was unsure if he wanted to study history or journalism.

He ended up choosing the latter and spent 12 years at The Detroit News as a journalist, before getting recruited to teach at Miami by a good friend, Richard Campbell. Tobin would stay with Campbell two to three times a week when he commuted the five or so hours from his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

After spending the 2006 spring semester as a traveling professor, Tobin applied as a permanent faculty member.

One of the most important aspects of his teaching career has been his style of teaching. Not one to lecture much, he approaches education with a hands-on approach.

“I tried to specialize in the teaching of writing,” Tobin said. “Students learn when their own writing is at stake.”

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Sydney Pinchouck, a first-year journalism and media and communication student, was grateful for Tobin before she even stepped foot on campus.

After sorting through several applications, Tobin extended an offer to Pinchouck to join his Honors Journalism 101, despite her not being an honors student.

“From day one, I knew he was going to be a professor that had an impact on me,” Pinchouck said.

Tobin hopes his method of small, personal class sizes catches on throughout the other writing-based departments.

In his time in Miami’s ever-changing journalism program, Tobin has garnered both friendships and a sense of respect.

Joe Sampson, the director of the Journalism Program and one of Tobin’s closest friends, has known him for his entire Miami tenure and understands the retirement has been a long time coming.

“Twenty years in any job is a long time,” Sampson said. “It’s important to reflect to what it means to give 20 years to a university.”

Tobin has amassed many accomplishments during those 20 years, many of which he does not talk about.

“His humility is truly remarkable … He won’t talk about himself at all,” Sampson said.

While looking through his resume to nominate him for the Benjamin Harrison Medallion, one of the most prestigious awards at Miami, Sampson found several things he knew nothing about.

Tobin has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography/Autobiography in 1997 and written several other books, including some for children.

Tobin actually agreed to begin teaching under the belief it would open himself up for more time to write books. He had already written three by the time the job offer arose.

But Tobin soon realized both how much time teaching required and how much he loved the students. He spent years serving as The Miami Student’s adviser and provided mentorship to countless journalism students.

“I had considered myself a writer who also taught, but now I’m a teacher who also writes,” Tobin said.

Tobin will wait to take down his office until the end of the semester. He still has to pack up gifts from students and find places to put all of his books, as his wife is limiting how many he can bring home from Oxford. Tobin sees the idea of unpacking his office as an end to an era well spent.

“To take down that office is going to be closing a chapter, closing this 20 year chapter,” he said. “I’m ready to move on, but it’s going to be bittersweet.”

hannaer@miamioh.edu