Finalist
Cathalain Tobin
Florida Southern College
Junior in Mathematics/Computer Science
3.87 GPA

For many out-of-state college students, the first few weeks away from home can be a difficult adjustment period. But, for Florida Southern College’s Cathalain “Cat” Tobin, packing up her belongings and starting anew is almost second nature. Each time Tobin’s father transferred to a new Air Force base, she and her family had moved—10 times in all before she graduated from high school in Arizona. Along the stops of this journey, Tobin learned to call six different states and Japan “home.” “Back then, I never would have thought I’d have the opportunity to be somewhere for four years and make it my home like I’ve been able to make Florida Southern,” she says. “With moving so much, I found out that if I wanted to do stuff—especially if I was only going to live in a place for just one or two years—I had to make myself known so I could use my talents.”

Tobin, 20, wasted no time in making a name for herself in Lakeland, immediately focusing her energies toward getting involved on campus and in her local community. However, it was her leadership and sense of self, not just her determination, that really set this 2003 Student of the Year honorable mention winner apart from the crowd. “She’s very comfortable in her skin,” says Dr. Carole Obermeyer, vice president for student life. “Cat, since the day she stepped on our campus, has stayed true to her values.”

Tobin’s personal values prevented her from sitting idly by when she saw room for improvement in the Student Government Association. “As a freshman senator, Cat started to question how and why things were being done,” Obermeyer says. “I remember watching the upperclassmen senators just turn around and stare at her with looks like ‘Who is this freshman that’s asking questions? We don’t do that here.’ But she got the other freshmen senators to follow her and since then, that’s been the mode of SG—not just to rubber-stamp whatever the executive council wants done but to actually do their job.”

Elected as SGA executive vice president her sophomore year, Tobin kept making improvements, restructuring House meetings and creating new committees to address issues that needed attention, such as campus recycling. “Cat’s not willing to accept the answer just because it’s always been that way, which really sets her above the rest of her peers,” says Cari Murphy, director of student life. The student body agreed that Tobin was a capable leader, selecting her as SGA president for the 2003-2004 school year.

As SGA president, Tobin continued to impress faculty and peers. While attending the National Leadership Conference on Student Governments in St. Louis in October, she volunteered to co-present an informal presentation on freshmen in SGAs. “People really got something out of it,” says Amanda Gaspary, director of student activities and SGA advisor. “I was impressed—a lot of the students I’ve been to conferences with, they sort of just stay with their little group and don’t reach out or talk to anybody from other campuses and use that to their advantage. But Cat didn’t go there to just listen.”

Near the top of Tobin’s presidential agenda was showing everyone on campus that SGA is an organization of integrity. “Credibility was essential to proving to the administration and students that we were serious and to treat us as such,” Tobin says. Along with her executive board, she’s helped SGA to define a purpose, amend its constitution and bylaws, and create officer expectations and transition manuals. Putting her math-major skills and logic to the test, she also went to work on SGA’s “chaotic” finances, creating clear procedures and deadlines for requesting SGA funds and making the forms easily accessible by putting them on-line. “She did a great job with that, taking it step by step and finding the best way to make sure that we’re accountable to the student body,” Obermeyer says.

In addition to making SGA more accountable, Tobin has tried to gain students’ trust by keeping them involved in every SGA action. She’s written letters to The Southern, FSC’s student newspaper, to make sure that students stay abreast of campus issues. She co-created the new SGA web site, making SGA information more available to students. Tobin’s also given the campus media an open invitation to attend any SGA meeting. “SGs often joke about their relationship with the school paper, but we have a reporter for SGA,” she says. “My philosophy is, if we mess up, then they have the right to report it because then we’re going to have to fix it, and they’re going to have to report that we fixed it. We’ve never had a closed door meeting—it’s when you have those that the rumors start flying.”

Another of Tobin’s main objectives has been to stay close to the feelings and needs of the students who have elected her. Responding to their requests, she helped bring special initiatives like Safe Ride Home and the USA Readership Program to campus. She serves as the students’ voice on the FSC Board of Trustees and put in the student body’s two cents as the only student member of the Florida Southern Presidential Search Advisory Committee, which recently chose FSC’s new president. In addition, Tobin’s been invited to sit on some community visioning panels, making sure that the student voice isn’t ignored off campus either.

To further ensure that the students’ concerns don’t fall on deaf ears, Tobin has worked diligently to forge open-door relationships with administrators and repair damaged ties between the administration and student body. “She’s found a way to balance being outspoken and vocal and very firm in her beliefs with maintaining respect and not being seen as obnoxious on both levels—with students, but also with trustees and administrators,” Murphy says.

One of her duties as president is to oversee the Association of Campus Entertainment (ACE), where Tobin has planned events like Midnight Madness, a celebration introducing FSC’s basketball teams to students. Working in collaboration with Greek Life, Athletics, Alumni Relations, SGA, and other departments, more than 1,000 attendees took part in the festivities. “In the past, the departments on our campus have been sort of disconnected, so it was really one of the first major attempts at collaborating and bringing everyone together,” Gaspary says.

When she became a resident assistant in a sorority house last spring, Tobin started seeing the campus from a staff member’s point of view as well. “Cat had to step in and create a community of her own, which she did very successfully,” Gaspary says. Taking the needs of her community into account, Tobin planned programs according to their interests. Her efforts earned her MOC 5 status, the highest community development recognition awarded by the Office of Residential Life.

Tobin also recognized that a lot of her charges were unhappy with their long-standing visitation policy. She worked with SGA and the Residence Hall Association to survey more than 630 students, most of whom were in favor of extending visitation and creating a place where students could go after hours. When Tobin became SGA president, she presented her visitation amendment to the Board of Trustees, who granted the proposed changes. In addition, Tobin worked with administrators to identify underused spaces that could be developed into 24-hour rooms where students could gather to talk or study. “This was a tremendous step on our campus, because it showed students that change can and will occur when you’re committed to a cause and are persistent,” she says.

Tobin’s services haven’t just benefited SG. A student volunteer herself, she’s collaborated with the United Way of Central Florida, getting FSC students to volunteer for a special “Week of Service.” “Cat helped the organization realize that college students usually don’t have cash to give towards a fundraising campaign but didn’t leave United Way with ‘No, Florida Southern students can’t help you,’” Obermeyer says. “Instead, she worked with their staff to cultivate student clubs who have pledged to do a specific community service project through United Way.” Tobin also volunteers with Sigma Rho Epsilon Christian Community Service Organization, serves as a tutor and mentor for inner-city children at Parker Street ministries, and helps to manage volunteers and plan county-sponsored events for the Polk County Parks and Recreation Department, which earned her recognition as a Who’s Who Among Polk County Volunteers in 2003.

Tobin has balanced her role as president with many other activities. “I think they help keep things in perspective,” she says. “You can really get into the ‘Florida Southern bubble’ with this whole SG thing—you get so engulfed with SGA that you forget there’s a life outside of it, unless you make an effort to.” Some of Tobin’s other involvements include being a member of the Mathematical Association of America; volunteering in the summer for Young Life camps; and  playing the guitar and leading small group Bible studies for FSC’s Reformed University Fellowship. She also works on campus as an assistant with the leadership development program and as a mathematics and computer science lab assistant and tutor.

Although she’s involved in so many diverse pursuits, Tobin hasn’t lost sight of the importance of academics—she’s still managed to earn a 3.87 GPA, recognition on the Dean’s list and National Dean’s list, and is a member of Omicron Delta Kappa Honor Society and Kappu Mu Epsilon Mathematics Honor Society.

After graduation, Tobin hopes to work in a profession where she gets to interact with people daily, perhaps in a field such as student affairs, advisement, or teaching. While her own teachers and advisors expect that she will be successful in whatever she decides to pursue, it may be difficult to top all of the success that she’s had at FSC. “She’s very involved with some of our administrators on campus; you see her at athletic events and student activities events; you just look around, and there she is—there’s Cat, being the cheerleader for Florida Southern,” Murphy says.

Tobin covers more than half of her college expenses and all of her personal expenses through scholarships, awards, work study, odd jobs, and her RA and SGA stipends. Her parents pay the remainder. –AMC

Contact Tobin at ctobin@flsouthern.edu.