Leadership: The Reverend Dr. Robert B. Tobin
The Reverend Dr. Robert B. Tobin
Episcopal Chaplain at Harvard
Coming to serve as the Episcopal Chaplain is something of a homecoming for Robert, as he grew up in Boston/Cambridge and was himself an undergraduate at Harvard. After college, he spent a year teaching and traveling in Southern Africa, worked for two years at the Memorial Church in Harvard Yard, and then began a twelve-year stint living in Ireland and the UK. He was awarded a Fulbright Grant in 1997 to study the religious and cultural identity of the Church of Ireland, which culminated in an M.Phil. from Trinity College Dublin. This in turn led to further graduate study at Merton College Oxford, where he was awarded a D.Phil. in Modern History in 2004.
During his time at Oxford, Robert was accepted for ordination training in the Church of England and spent three very happy years at Westcott House in Cambridge. As a Church of England theological college in the liberal catholic tradition, Westcott has always placed a premium on the sacramental life, as well as on training intellectually engaged priests. The academic component of Robert's preparation included a second BA in theology at Emmanuel College Cambridge. Before coming back to Harvard, Robert served as a curate for a group of churches in the market town of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.