private
Private or privates may refer to:
Music
* " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation''
* Private (band), a Denmark-based band
* "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
liberal arts college
A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capac ...
Oberlin, Ohio
Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students.
The town is the birthplace of the ...
. Founded in 1833, it is the oldest
coeducational
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. In 1835, Oberlin became one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African Americans, and in 1837, the first to admit women (other than Franklin College's brief experiment in the 1780s). It has been known since its founding for progressive student activism.
The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 50 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the
Five Colleges of Ohio
The Five Colleges of Ohio, Inc. is an American academic and administrative consortium of five private liberal arts colleges in the state of Ohio. It is a nonprofit educational consortium established in 1995 to promote the broad educational and ...
consortium. Since its founding, Oberlin alumni and faculty include 16
Rhodes Scholars
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, 20
Truman Scholars
The Harry S. Truman Scholarship is the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for public service leadership. It is a federally funded scholarship granted to U.S. undergraduate students for demonstrated leadership potential, academic ...
, 12
MacArthur fellows
The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 ind ...
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates. In 2021, Oberlin was the 4th highest Baccalaureate producer of Fulbright scholars.
History
Oberlin College was preceded by
Oberlin Institute
Oberlin Academy Preparatory School, originally Oberlin Institute and then Preparatory Department of Oberlin College, was a private preparatory school in Oberlin, Ohio which operated from 1833 until 1916. It opened as Oberlin Institute which beca ...
, founded in 1833. The college's founders wrote voluminously and were featured prominently in the press, especially the abolitionist newspaper ''
The Liberator
Liberator or The Liberators or ''variation'', may refer to:
Literature
* ''Liberators'' (novel), a 2009 novel by James Wesley Rawles
* ''The Liberators'' (Suvorov book), a 1981 book by Victor Suvorov
* ''The Liberators'' (comic book), a Britis ...
'', in which the name Oberlin occurred 352 times by 1865. Original documents and correspondence survive and are readily available. There is a "wealth of primary documents and scholarly works".
Robert Samuel Fletcher
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...
(class of 1920) published a history in 1943, that is a landmark and the point of departure of all subsequent studies of Oberlin's history. His disciple
Geoffrey Blodgett
Geoffrey Blodgett (October 13, 1931 – November 15, 2001) was Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College, located in Oberlin, Ohio. As a student at Oberlin from 1949-1953, he was a student of Oberlin history professor Robert Sam ...
(1953) continued Fletcher's work.
Founding
"'Oberlin' was an idea before it was a place." It began in revelation and dreams: Yankees' motivation to emigrate west, attempting perfection in God's eyes, "educating a missionary army of Christian soldiers to save the world and inaugurate God's government on earth, and the radical notion that slavery was America's most horrendous sin that should be instantly repented of and immediately brought to an end." Its immediate background was the wave of Christian revivals in western New York State, in which
Charles Finney
Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism." Finney rejected much of tradi ...
was very much involved. "Oberlin was the offspring of the revivals of 1830, '31, and '32." Oberlin founder
John Jay Shipherd John Jay Shipherd (March 28, 1802 – September 16, 1844) was an American clergyman who co-founded Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1833 with Philo Penfield Stewart. In 1844, Shipherd also founded Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan.
B ...
was an admirer of Finney, and visited him in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...
, when en route to Ohio for the first time. Finney invited Shipherd to stay with him as an assistant, but Shipherd "felt that he had his own important part to play in bringing on the millennium, God's triumphant reign on Earth. Finney's desires were one thing, but Shipherd believed that the Lord's work for him lay farther west." Shipherd attempted to convince Finney to accompany him west, which he did in 1835.
Oberlin was to be a pious, simple-living community in a sparsely populated area, of which the school, training ministers and missionaries, would be the centerpiece. The Oberlin Collegiate Institute was founded in 1833 by Shipherd and another
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
minister, Philo Stewart, "formerly a missionary among the Cherokees in Mississippi, and at that time residing in Mr. Shipherd's family," who was studying
Divinity
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine ...
with Shipherd. The institute was built on of land donated by Titus Street, founder of
Streetsboro, Ohio
Streetsboro is a city in Portage County, Ohio, United States. It is formed from the former township of Streetsboro, which was formed from the Connecticut Western Reserve. It is nearly co-extant with the former Streetsboro Township; the village of ...
, and Samuel Hughes, who lived in
Connecticut
Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...
. Shipherd and Stewert named their project after Alsatian minister
Jean-Frédéric Oberlin
J. F. Oberlin (31 August 1740 – 1 June 1826) was an Alsatian pastor and a philanthropist. He has been known as John Frederic(k) Oberlin in English, Jean-Frédéric Oberlin in French, and Johann Friedrich Oberlin in German.
Life
Oberlin was ...
, about whom a book had just been published, which Stewart was reading to Shipherd. Oberlin had brought social Christianity to an isolated region of France, just as they hoped to bring to the remote Western Reserve region of northeastern Ohio.
Their vision was:
Oberlin was very much a part of the
Utopian
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...
perfectionist enthusiasm that swept the country in the 1830s. "Shipherd came close to being a
Christian communist
Christian communism is a theological view that the teachings of Jesus Christ compel Christians to support religious communism. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact dates when communistic ideas and practices in Christianity beg ...
, and as he traveled about the country signing up recruits for the Oberlin colony, he carried with him a copy of the Oberlin covenant, which each colonist was required to sign."
The terms of the Oberlin covenant, as summarized by Shipherd, were:
Predecessor: The Oneida Institute
The
Lane Rebels
Lane Seminary, sometimes called Cincinnati Lane Seminary, and later renamed Lane Theological Seminary, was a Presbyterian theological college that operated from 1829 to 1932 in Walnut Hills, Ohio, today a neighborhood in Cincinnati. Its campus ...
are commonly mentioned in the early history of Oberlin. These original Oberlin students, who had little to do with Lane other than walking out on it, were carrying on a tradition that began at the
Oneida Institute of Science and Industry
The Oneida Institute was a short-lived (1827–1843) but highly influential school that was a national leader in the emerging abolitionist movement. It was the most radical school in the country, the first at which black men were just as welcome ...
, in
Oneida County, New York
Oneida County is a county in the state of New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 232,125. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, one of the Five Nations of the Iroquois League or ''Haudenos ...
, near Utica. Oneida was "a hotbed of anti-slavery activity," "abolitionist to the core, more so than any other American college." A fundraising trip to England sought funds for both colleges. Oberlin's anti-slavery activities supplanted those of Oneida, which fell on hard times and closed in 1843. Funding previously provided by the philanthropist brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan was transferred to Oberlin.
Oneida was founded by
George Washington Gale
George Washington Gale (1789 – September 13, 1861) was a Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Presbyterian minister who founded the Oneida Institute of Science and Industry.
Early life
Gale was born in Stanford, New York, St ...
, of whom Oberlin President Charles Grandison Finney was a disciple. The institute's second and final President,
Beriah Green
Beriah Green Jr. (March 24, 1795May 4, 1874) was an American reformer, abolitionist, temperance advocate, college professor, minister, and head of the Oneida Institute. He was "consumed totally by his abolitionist views". He has been described as ...
Theodore Dwight Weld
Theodore Dwight Weld (November 23, 1803 – February 3, 1895) was one of the architects of the American abolitionist movement during its formative years from 1830 to 1844, playing a role as writer, editor, speaker, and organizer. He is best known ...
, after three years (1827–1830) studying with Gale at Oneida, was hired by the new Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Institutions, a project of the Tappans. (By "literary institutions" what is meant is non-religious schools, as in "In every literary institution there are a number of hours daily, in which nothing is required of the student.") He was charged with finding a site for "a great national manual labor institution where training for the Western ministry could be provided for poor but earnest young men who had dedicated their lives to the home missionary cause in the vast valley of the Mississippi." By coincidence, the administrators of new and barely-functioning
Lane Seminary
Lane Seminary, sometimes called Cincinnati Lane Seminary, and later renamed Lane Theological Seminary, was a Presbyterian theological college that operated from 1829 to 1932 in Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, Walnut Hills, Ohio, today a neighborhood ...
, a manual labor school located just outside Cincinnati, were looking for students. Weld visited Cincinnati in 1832, determined that the school would do, got the approval of the Tappans, and by providing recommendations to them took over as ''de facto'' head of the Seminary, to the point of choosing the president ( Lyman Beecher, after Finney turned it down) and telling the trustees whom to hire. He organized and led a group exodus of Oneida students, and others from upstate New York, to come to Lane. "Lane was Oneida moved west."
This coincided with the emergence of "immediatism": the call for immediate and uncompensated freeing of all slaves, which at the time was a radical idea, and the rejection of "colonization", sending freed slaves to Africa by the American Colonization Society. "The anti-slavery and the colonization questions had become exciting ones throughout the whole country, and the students deemed it to be their duty thoroughly to examine them, in view of their bearing upon their future responsibilities as ministers of the gospel." Shortly after their arrival at Lane, the Oneida contingent held a lengthy, well-publicized series of debates, over 18 days during February 1834, on the topic of abolition versus colonization, concluding with the endorsement of the former and rejection of the latter. (Although announced as debate, no one spoke in favor of colonization on any of the evenings.) The trustees and administrators of Lane, fearful of violence like the
Cincinnati riots of 1829
The Cincinnati race riots of 1829 were triggered by competition for jobs between Irish immigrants and native blacks and former slaves, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States but also were related to white fears given the rapid increases of free and fu ...
, prohibited off-topic discussions, even at meals. The Lane Rebels, including almost all of Lane's theological students, among them the entire Oneida contingent, resigned ''en masse'' in December, and published a pamphlet explaining their decision. A trustee, Asa Mahan, resigned also, and the trustees fired John Morgan, a faculty member who supported the students.
A chance encounter with Shipherd, who was travelling around Ohio recruiting students for his new Collegiate Institute, led to the proposal that they come to Oberlin, along with Mahan and the fired Lane professor. They did so, but only after Oberlin agreed to their conditions:
* Oberlin, like Oneida, would admit African Americans on an equal basis. At the time, this was a radical and unpopular measure, even dangerous. Previous attempts at "racially" integrated schools, the Noyes Academy and the Canterbury Female Boarding School, had been met with violence that destroyed both schools. Refugees from both had enrolled at Oneida. No one was calling for racially integrated schools, except at Oneida.
:This measure caused the trustees "a great struggle to overcome their prejudices". Moving their meeting to
Elyria Elyria may refer to:
*Elyria, Ohio, city in Ohio, United States
*Elyria (Amtrak station), Amtrak station in Elyria, Ohio
*Elyria, Kansas, unincorporated community in Kansas, United States
*Elyria, Nebraska, village in Nebraska, United States
*Elyri ...
on January 1, 1835, at the Temperance House instead of Oberlin, so as to avoid a hostile and possibly disruptive audience, the trustees agreed to hire Mahan and Morgan, but took no action on the black question. They tabled it, until it was made clear that if they did not agree, they would lose the Tappans' money, the cadre of students, Mahan, Finney, and Shipherd himself, who threatened to quit and set forth at length the reasons Oberlin should educate blacks. The Trustees, meeting on February 9 in Shipherd's house, reexamined the question, and it passed after Trustee Chairman
John Keep
Rev. John Keep (April 20, 1781 – February 11, 1870) was a trustee of Oberlin College from 1834 to 1870. Keep and William Dawes toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin College in Ohio. They both attended the 1840 anti-slave ...
broke a 3–3 tie vote.
* There would be no restrictions on discussion of slavery or any other topic.
* Asa Mahan, the Lane trustee who resigned with the students, would become president. This initiative came from the Oneida students, and Weld in particular.
* Professor John Morgan, fired by Lane for supporting the students, would be hired also.
* Under what Fletcher labeled the "Finney compact", in sharp contrast with and in reaction to recent events at Lane, the internal affairs of the college were to be under faculty control, "much to the irritation of our latter-day trustees, and occasionally our presidents and deans". This commitment to
academic freedom
Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...
was a key innovation in American higher education.
"In the summer of 1835, they all arrived in Oberlin—President Mahan, Father Finney, Professor Morgan, the Lane rebels, the first black students, and the Tappans' money." The Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society, calling for "immediate emancipation", was founded in June, 1835. The names of Shipherd, Mahan, and Finney are first on its founding document, followed by names of the Oneida contingent.
Oberlin replaced Oneida as "the hot-bed of Abolitionism", "the most progressive college in the United States". Oberlin sent forth cadres of minister-abolitionists every year:
19th century – post founding
Asa Mahan (1799–1889) accepted the position of first president of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1835, simultaneously serving as the chair of intellectual and
moral philosophy
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
and professor of
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
. Mahan's strong advocacy of immediatism—the immediate and complete freeing of all slaves—greatly influenced the philosophy of the college. The same year, two years after its founding, the school began admitting African Americans. The college experienced financial distress, and Rev.
John Keep
Rev. John Keep (April 20, 1781 – February 11, 1870) was a trustee of Oberlin College from 1834 to 1870. Keep and William Dawes toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin College in Ohio. They both attended the 1840 anti-slave ...
and William Dawes were sent to England to raise funds in 1839–40. A nondenominational seminary, Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology (first called the undergraduate Theological Department), was established alongside the college in 1833. In 1965, the board of trustees voted to discontinue graduate instruction in theology at Oberlin, and in September 1966, six faculty members and 22 students merged with the Divinity School of
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
. Oberlin's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter was significant. In 1844, Oberlin Collegiate Institute graduated its first black student,
George Boyer Vashon
George Boyer Vashon (July 25, 1824 – October 5, 1878) was an African American scholar, poet, lawyer, and abolitionist.
Biography
George Boyer Vashon was born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the third child and only son of an abolitionist, John Be ...
, who later became one of the founding professors of Howard University and the first black lawyer admitted to the Bar in New York State.
The college's treatment of African Americans was inconsistent. Although intensely anti-slavery, and admitting black students from 1835, the school began segregating its black students by the 1880s with the fading of evangelical idealism. Nonetheless, Oberlin graduates accounted for a significant percentage of African-American college graduates by the end of the 19th century. One such black alumnus was
William Howard Day
William Howard Day (October 16, 1825December 3, 1900) was a Black people, black Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist, editor, educator and minister. After his father died when he was four, Day went to live with J. P. Williston and his w ...
, who would go on to found Cleveland's first black newspaper, ''
The Aliened American
''The Aliened American'' was a newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. It was the city's first black newspaper and is believed to have been the third newspaper for African Americans in the United States. Its first edition was published on April 9, 1853. Wil ...
''. The college was listed as a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
on December 21, 1965, for its significance in admitting African Americans and women.
Oberlin is the oldest
coeducation
Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
al college in the United States, having admitted four women in 1837. These four women, who were the first to enter as full students, were Mary Kellogg (Fairchild), Mary Caroline Rudd, Mary Hosford, and Elizabeth Prall. All but Kellogg graduated.
Mary Jane Patterson
Mary Jane Patterson (September 12, 1840 – September 24, 1894) was the first African-American woman to receive a B.A degree, in 1862.
Life
Mary Jane Patterson was the oldest of Henry Irving Patterson and Emeline Eliza (Taylor) Patterson's chi ...
graduated in 1862, the first black woman to earn a B.A. degree. Soon, women were fully integrated into the college, and comprised from a third to half of the student body. The religious founders, especially evangelical theologian Charles Grandison Finney, saw women as morally superior to men. Oberlin ceased operating for seven months in 1839 and 1840 due to lack of funds, making it the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational liberal arts college in the United States.
Mahan, who was often in conflict with faculty, resigned his position as president in 1850. Replacing him was famed abolitionist and preacher Charles Grandison Finney, a professor at the college since its founding, who served until 1866. At the same time, the institute was renamed Oberlin College, and in 1851 received a charter with that name. Under Finney's leadership, Oberlin's faculty and students increased their abolitionist activity. They participated with the townspeople in efforts to assist fugitive slaves on the
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. T ...
, where Oberlin was a stop, as well as to resist the
Fugitive Slave Act
A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also kno ...
. One historian called Oberlin "the town that started the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
" due to its reputation as a hotbed of
abolitionism
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The Britis ...
.Brandt, Nat (1990). ''The town that started the Civil War''. Syracuse University Press. . In 1858, both students and faculty were involved in the controversial Oberlin–Wellington Rescue of a fugitive slave, which received national press coverage. Two participants in this raid,
Lewis Sheridan Leary
Lewis Sheridan Leary (March 17, 1835 – October 20, 1859), an African-American harnessmaker from Oberlin, Ohio, joined John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, where he was killed.
Life
Leary's father was a free born African-American harnessmak ...
Shields Green
Shields Green (1836? – December 16, 1859), who also referred to himself as "'Emperor"', was, according to Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave from Charleston, South Carolina, and a leader in John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, in October 1859. ...
, also participated in
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Second E ...
. This heritage was commemorated on campus by the 1977 installation of sculptor Cameron Armstrong's "Underground Railroad Monument", a railroad track rising from the ground toward the sky, and monuments to the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and the Harper's Ferry Raid, which followed an 1841 incident in which a group of "fanatical abolition anarchists" from Oberlin, using saws and axes, freed two captured fugitive slaves from the
Lorain County
Lorain County is a County (United States), county in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 312,964. Its county seat is Elyria, Ohio, Elyria. The county was physicall ...
jail.
In 1866,
James Fairchild
James Harris Fairchild (1817–1902) was an American educator, author, and third president of Oberlin College.
Biography
Fairchild was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, on November 25, 1817.abolitionist, Fairchild, at that point chair of theology and moral philosophy, had played a role in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, hiding fugitive slave John Price in his home. During Fairchild's tenure, the faculty and physical plant of the college expanded dramatically. In 1889, he resigned as president but remained as chair of systematic theology. In 1896, Fairchild returned as acting president until 1898.
Oberlin College was prominent in sending Christian
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
abroad. In 1881, students at Oberlin formed the Oberlin Band to journey as a group to remote
Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
province in China. A total of 30 members of the Oberlin Band worked in Shanxi as missionaries over the next two decades. Ten died of disease, and in 1900, fifteen of the Oberlin missionaries, including wives and children, were killed by Boxers or Chinese government soldiers during the
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an anti-foreign, anti-colonial, and anti-Christian uprising in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty, by ...
. The
Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association, situated on the campus of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, is an independent non-profit organization whose goal is "to promote understanding and communication between Asians and Americans. This is accomplished ...
, an independent foundation, was established in their memory. The Association, with offices on campus, sponsors Oberlin graduates to teach in China, India, and Japan. It also hosts scholars and artists from Asia to spend time on the Oberlin campus.
20th century
Henry Churchill King
Henry Churchill King (1858–1934) was an American Congregationalist theologian, educator, and author.
At Oberlin College from 1884, he taught in mathematics, philosophy, and theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the ...
became Oberlin's sixth president in 1902. At Oberlin from 1884 onward, he taught in mathematics, philosophy, and theology. Robert K. Carr served as Oberlin College president from 1960 to 1970, during the tumultuous period of student activism. Under his presidency, the school's physical plant added 15 new buildings. Under his leadership, student involvement in college affairs increased, with students serving on nearly all college committees as voting members (including the board of trustees). Despite these accomplishments, Carr clashed repeatedly with the students over the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, and he left office in 1969 with history professor Ellsworth C. Clayton becoming acting president. Carr was forced to resign in 1970.
Oberlin (and
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine ...
) alumnus
Robert W. Fuller
Robert Works Fuller (born 1936) is an American physicist, author, social reformer, and former president of Oberlin College.
Biography
Robert Fuller attended Oberlin College, leaving without graduating in order to earn his Ph.D. in physics at ...
'sRobert K. and Olive Grabill Carr Papers, 1907–1981 , Oberlin College Archives. Retrieved December 17, 2013. commitment to educational reform—which he had already demonstrated as a
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
dean—led his alma mater to make him its tenth president in November 1970. At 33 years old, Fuller became one of the youngest college presidents in U.S. history. During his Oberlin presidency—a turbulent time at Oberlin and in higher education generally—Fuller reshaped the student body by tripling the enrollment of minorities at the college. He recruited and hired the first four African-American athletic coaches at a predominantly white American college or university, including
Tommie Smith
Tommie C. Smith (born June 6, 1944) is an American former track and field, track and field athlete and former wide receiver in the American Football League. At the 1968 Summer Olympics, Smith, aged 24, won the 200-meter sprint finals and gold me ...
, the gold medalist sprinter from the
1968 Summer Olympics
The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX Olimpiada) and commonly known as Mexico 1968 ( es, México 1968), were an international multi-sport eve ...
in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
.
In 1970, Oberlin made the cover of ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
'' as one of the first colleges in the country to have co-ed dormitories. Fuller was succeeded by the longtime Dean of the Conservatory,
Emil Danenberg
Emil Charles Danenberg was an American concert pianist and music educator in the field of classical music. He was Dean of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music 1970-1975, and president of Oberlin College from 1975 until his death in 1982. He was ...
, who served as president from 1975 to 1982, and died in office. In 1983, following a nationwide search, Oberlin hired
S. Frederick Starr
Stephen Frederick Starr (born March 24, 1940) is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former president of Oberlin College.
Founder and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, he is fluent in Russian a ...
, an expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs and skilled musician, as its 12th president. Starr's academic and musical accomplishments boded well for his stewardship of both the college and the
Oberlin College Conservatory of Music
The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory in Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in the United States. It is one of t ...
. Despite increasing minority hiring, Starr's tenure was marked by clashes with students over divestment from South Africa and the dismissal of a campus minister,"2/12 – S. Frederick Starr (1940– )," Oberlin College website. Retrieved November 5, 2015. as well as Starr's reframing Oberlin as the "Harvard of the Midwest."Foss, Sara and Miller, Hanna ''Oberlin Review'' (May 22, 1998). A particularly vitriolic clash with students on the front lawn of his home in April 1990 led Starr to take a leave of absence from July 1991 to February 1992. He resigned in March 1993, effective in June of that year.
21st century
Nancy Dye
Nancy Schrom Dye (March 11, 1947 – October 28, 2015) was an American historian and philosopher and college academic who served as the first female president of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. As a professional historian, she was the author o ...
became the 13th president of Oberlin College in July 1994,"Presidents of Oberlin College" . Oberlin College Archives. Retrieved December 17, 2013. succeeding the embattled Starr. Oberlin's first female president, she oversaw the construction of new buildings, increased admissions selectivity, and helped increase the
endowment
Endowment most often refers to:
*A term for human penis size
It may also refer to: Finance
*Financial endowment, pertaining to funds or property donated to institutions or individuals (e.g., college endowment)
*Endowment mortgage, a mortgage to b ...
with the largest capital campaign to that point. Dye was known for her accessibility and inclusiveness. Especially in her early years, she was a regular attendee at football games, concerts, and dorm parties. Dye served as president for nearly 13 years, resigning on June 30, 2007. Marvin Krislov served as president of the college from 2007 to 2017, moving on to assume the presidency of Pace University. On May 30, 2017,
Carmen Twillie Ambar
Carmen Twillie Ambar (born July 3, 1968) is an American attorney, academic, and the current president of Oberlin College in Ohio. She was appointed to the post in May 2017.
In 2002, she became the ninth woman to lead Douglass College and the y ...
was announced as the 15th president of Oberlin College, becoming the first African-American person and second woman to hold the position.
Oberlin's first and only hired trade union expert, Chris Howell, argued that the college engaged in "illegal" tactics to attempt to decertify its service workers' July 1999 vote to become members of United Automobile Workers union. Howell wrote that college workers sought the union's representation in response to the administration's effort to "speed up work" to meet a "mounting budget crisis".
In February 2013, the college received significant press concerning its so-called "No Trespass List", a secret list maintained by the college of individuals barred from campus without due process. Student activists and members of the surrounding town joined to form the One Town Campaign, which challenged this policy. On February 13, 2013, a forum at the Oberlin Public Library that attracted over 200 people, including members of the college administration, the Oberlin city council and national press, saw speakers compare the atmosphere of the college to "a gated community".
In September 2014, on
Rosh Hashanah
Rosh HaShanah ( he, רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה, , literally "head of the year") is the Jewish New Year. The biblical name for this holiday is Yom Teruah (, , lit. "day of shouting/blasting") It is the first of the Jewish High Holy Days (, , " ...
, Oberlin Students for Free Palestine placed 2,133 black flags in the main square of the campus as a "call to action" in honor of the 2,133 Palestinians who died in the
2014 Israel–Gaza conflict
The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ),
was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territories, Pale ...
. In January 2016, hundreds of Oberlin alumni signed a letter to the Oberlin administration stating that this protest was an example of anti-Semitism on the campus. Oberlin SFP responded with their own letter, detailing why protest of Israel does not constitute anti-semitism. They wrote, "Feeling discomfort because one must confront the realities of Operation Protective Edge carried out in the name of the safety of the Jewish people does not amount to anti-Semitism."
In early 2016, an Oberlin professor, Joy Karega, suggested Israel was behind
9/11
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kingd ...
, prompting a rebuke from faculty and administration. After five-and-a-half months of discussion, the school suspended and then fired her. The following week, the home of a Jewish professor at Oberlin was vandalized and a note that read "Gas Jews Die" was left on his front door.
''Gibson's Bakery v. Oberlin College''
In 2016, a black Oberlin student was caught shoplifting two bottles of wine from Gibson's Bakery and Market, a downtown Oberlin business. A scuffle ensued between Oberlin students and Gibson's staff, and the students involved pled guilty to misdemeanor charges. Oberlin faculty and students subsequently staged large demonstrations urging a boycott of Gibson's on the grounds that the store was racist, and Gibson's sued alleging libel and other charges. In June 2019, the college was found liable for
libel
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
and
tortious interference
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing e ...
in a lawsuit initiated by the store; the bakery was awarded damages of $44 million by the jury, but a legal cap on damages reduced the award to $31.5 million. In October 2019, the college appealed the case to the Ninth District Court of Appeals in Akron, Ohio. On March 31, 2022, the Court of Appeals unanimously dismissed both appeals, Oberlin and Gibson, upholding the jury verdict and Judge Miraldi's decisions. The Ohio Supreme Court chose to not accept the appeal and cross-appeal on August 29, 2022. In December 2022, Oberlin College paid Gibson's Bakery $36.59 million, the entire amount due. "We hope that the end of the litigation will begin the healing of our entire community", said the college.
Academics
Oberlin was ranked tied for the 51st-best national liberal arts college in the 2023-2024 edition of '' U.S. News & World Report''s "Best Colleges" ranking.
Of Oberlin's nearly 3,000 students, nearly 2,400 are enrolled in the College of Arts & Sciences, a little over 400 in the Conservatory of Music, and the remaining 180 or so in both College and Conservatory under the five-year Double-Degree program.
The College of Arts & Sciences offers over 50 majors, minors, and concentrations. Its most popular undergraduate majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:
::Music Performance (63)
::Biology/Biological Sciences (38)
::Psychology (36)
::Political Science & Government (32)
::Neuroscience (26)
::History (26)
::Econometrics & Quantitative Economics (24)
::Environmental Studies (21)
The Conservatory of Music is located on the college campus. Conservatory admission is selective, with over 1400 applicants worldwide auditioning for 120 seats. There are 500 performances yearly, most free of charge, with concerts and recitals almost daily. The Conservatory was one of the recipients of the 2009
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
. The
Allen Memorial Art Museum
The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art.
Overview
The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...
, with over 13,000 holdings, was the first college art museum west of the Alleghenies.
College Libraries
The Oberlin College Libraries has branches for art, music, and science, a central storage facility, and the Mary Church Terrell Main Library. The libraries have collections of print and media materials and provide access to various online databases and journals. Beyond the 2.4 million-plus items available on campus, Oberlin students have access to more than 46 million volumes from over 85 Ohio institutions through the
OhioLINK
The Ohio Library and Information Network (OhioLINK) is a consortium of Ohio's college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio. Serving more than 800,000 students, faculty, and staff at 88 institutions with 117 libraries, OhioLINK ...
consortium. In the summer of 2007, the main level of the main library was converted into an Academic Commons that provides integrated learning support and is a hub of both academic and social activity.
Experimental College
The college's "Experimental College" or ExCo program, a student-run department, allows any student or interested person to teach their own class for a limited amount of college credit. ExCo classes by definition focus on material not covered by existing departments or faculty.
Winter term
Oberlin's Winter term, occurring each January, is described as "a time for students to pursue interests outside of regular course offerings through immersive learning experiences." Students may work alone or in groups, either on or off campus, and may design their own project or pick from a list of projects and internships set up by the college each year. Students must complete a winter term project three years out of their four in the College of Arts and Sciences. Projects range from serious academic research with co-authorship in scientific journals, humanitarian projects, making films about historic Chicago neighborhoods, and learning how to bartend. A full-credit project is suggested to involve five to six hours per weekday.
Creativity and Leadership
Created in 2005 as a part of the Northeast Ohio Collegiate Entrepreneurship Program (NEOCEP), a Kauffman Campuses Initiative, and sponsored by the Burton D. Morgan and Ewing Marion Kauffman, the department is focused on supporting and highlighting entrepreneurship within the student body. This is done through a series of classes, symposia, Winter Term programs, grants, and fellowships available at no cost to current students and in some cases, recent alumni. One such opportunity is the Creativity and Leadership Fellowship, a one-year fellowship for graduating seniors that includes a stipend of up to $30,000 dollars to advance an entrepreneurial venture.
In 2012, the Creativity and Leadership department announced LaunchU, a business accelerator open to Oberlin College students and alumni who are pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. The selective, three-week intensive program connects the participants with other entrepreneurs and business leaders chosen from the surrounding northeast Ohio region as well as the extensive Oberlin College alumni network. LaunchU culminates in a public pitch competition before a guest panel of investors, where the participants have the opportunity to be awarded up to $15,000 in funding. The winner of the 2014 LaunchU pitch competition was Chai Energy, a Los Angeles-based green energy startup focused on modernizing and personalizing home energy monitoring. In 2014, LaunchU announced the creation of an online network in order to build stronger connections between entrepreneurs within the Oberlin College students and alumni network with a focus on attracting younger alumni.
Campus culture
Political activism
The Oberlin student body has a long history of activism and a reputation for being notably liberal. The college was ranked among
The Princeton Review
The Princeton Review is an education services company providing tutoring, test preparation and admission resources for students. It was founded in 1981. and since that time has worked with over 400 million students. Services are delivered by 4,0 ...
's list of "Colleges with a Conscience" in 2005.
In the 1960s, Memorial Arch became a rallying point for the college's civil rights activists and its anti-war movement. Oberlin supplied a disproportionate number of participants in Mississippi Freedom Summer, rebuilt the Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in the Carpenters for Christmas project, supported NAACP sponsored sit-ins in Cleveland to integrate the building-trades, and with the SCLC participated in demonstrations at Hammermill Paper. In 1995, Emeritus Professor of Sociology (1966–2007), James Leo Walsh told ''
The Oberlin Review
''The Oberlin Review'' is a student-run weekly newspaper at Oberlin College that serves as the official newspaper of record for both the College and the city of Oberlin, Ohio. It was first published in 1874, making it one of the oldest college n ...
'' that students "carried out dozens of protests against the Vietnam war ranging from peaceful picketing to surrounding a local naval recruiter's car". In November 2002, 100 college workers, students, and faculty held a "mock funeral 'for the spirit of Oberlin'" in response to the administration's laying off 11 workers and reducing the work hours of five other workers without negotiation with college unions. Oberlin Students have protested instances of fracking in Ohio such as "the first
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
and fracturing industry conference in the state," in 2011.
In 2004, student activism led to a campus-wide ban on sales of
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...
products due to the company's human and labor rights violations. However, the ban was revoked in spring 2014, and students may now buy Coca-Cola products from the student union.
In 2013, after the discovery of hateful messages and the alleged sighting of a person wearing KKK robes, president Marvin Krislov cancelled classes and called for a day of reflection and change. In a public statement, he stated that an investigation had identified two students believed to be largely responsible, who had been removed from campus. One of the students responsible said to police that he was "doing it as a joke to see the college overreact to it".
During the fall 2014 semester, Oberlin's Student Labor Action Coalition organized a petition to permit dining hall temporary workers working four-hour shifts to eat one meal from food the college throws out each day. The petition garnered over 1,000 signatures and resulted in workers obtaining the opportunity to put food into a management-given styrofoam container to eat after their shifts.Bok, Oliver "Temporary CDS Workers to Receive Free Meals", ''Oberlin Review'', December 12, 2014. Retrieved May 25, 2016.
In May 2015, students temporarily took over their school's administration building to protest a $2,300 increase in tuition cost between the 2015 and 2016 academic school years. Students initially proposed, "... moving from providing merit aid to need-based scholarships, loosening on-campus dining and housing requirements, reducing food waste and temporary workers in Campus Dining Services ... " to the school's Vice President of Finance Mike Frandsen on Monday, April 27, 2015, in which their demands were declined for issue. $10,931,088 were allocated to management salaries for the 2013–2014 school year, much of which came from student tuition.
In December 2015, Oberlin's Black Student Union issued a series of 50 specific demands of the college and conservatory including promoting certain black faculty to tenured positions, hiring more black faculty, firing other faculty members, and obtaining a $15 an hour minimum wage for all campus workers and guaranteed health care in their contracts. The board of trustees responded by appointing some of the individual faculty and by, "reviewing the allocation of faculty positions with consideration of how they will contribute to interactional diversity in the curriculum" in the college's 2016–2021 strategic plan. The college opposed firing any employees in response and neglected to issue formal responses to many of the other demands, though it has sought to cut wages and health care funds for administrators, office workers and library support staff during contract negotiations with the
Office and Professional Employees International Union
The Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) is a trade union in the United States and Canada representing approximately 88,000 white-collar working people in the public and private sectors. It has members in all 50 US stat ...
. Many campus workers still earn the minimum wage. Over 75 students protested the college's attempt to alter administrator, office worker and library support staff contracts during spring 2016 contract negotiations.
Alums for Campus Fairness has called on Oberlin to address the anti-Semitic hate-speech directed to Jewish students.
Student Cooperative Association
The
Oberlin Student Cooperative Association
The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) is a non-profit corporation that feeds and houses Oberlin College students. It is located in the town of Oberlin, Ohio, and is independent from but closely tied to Oberlin College, which has ...
, or OSCA, is a non-profit corporation that houses 174 students in four housing co-ops and feeds 594 students in eight dining co-ops. Its budget is more than $2 million, making it the third-largest of its kind in North America behind the Berkeley Student Cooperative and the Inter-Cooperative Council of Ann Arbor.
OSCA is entirely student-run, with all participating students working as cooks, buyers, administrators, and coordinators. Every member is required to do at least one hour per week of cleaning if they are able, encouraging accountability for the community and the space. Most decisions within OSCA are made by modified consensus. Oberlin bans all fraternities and sororities, making the co-ops the largest student-organized social system at the college. In addition to OSCA's four housing/dining and three dining-only cooperatives, Brown Bag Co-op is an OSCA-backed grocery that sells personal servings of food at bulk prices. OSCA also funds the Nicaragua Sister Partnership (NICSIS), a "sister cooperative" with Nicaragua's National Union of Farmers and Ranchers (UNAG). Outside of OSCA, other Oberlin co-ops include the Bike Co-op, Pottery Co-op, and SWAP: The Oberlin Book Co-op.
In the spring of 2013, the Board of Directors of OSCA made a decision in a closed-door meeting to remove the Kosher-Halal Co-op from the Association after disputes over budgets and kitchen inspections. Although KHC served both Kosher and Halal food, the membership was predominantly Jewish, and some alumni wrote that they believed the expulsion to be anti-Semitic in nature.
Music
In addition to Oberlin Conservatory, Oberlin has musical opportunities available for amateur musicians and students in the college. Oberlin Steel, a steel pan ensemble founded around 1980, plays calypso/soca music from Trinidad and Tobago and has been performing at Oberlin's Commencement Illumination event for over 30 years. Oberlin College Taiko, founded in 2008, explores and shares Japanese taiko drumming as both a traditional and contemporary art form. The entirely student-run Oberlin College Marching Band (OCMB), founded in 1998, performs at various sporting events including football games, women's rugby, and pep rallies throughout the year. There are a number of
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
groups, including: Pitch Please (all gender, all genre), the Obertones (men and nonbinary), Nothing But Treble (women and nonbinary), the Acapelicans (women and nonbinary), 'Round Midnight (all gender, jazz/folk). Other notable music organizations include the Black Musicians Guild and the Arts and Sciences Orchestra. Students in the college can form chamber groups and receive coaching through the Conservatory. Student composers also provide a demand for musicians to perform their work.
Film
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...
's moving picture show was shown in Oberlin in February 1900.Blodgett, Geoffery. "The Early Apollo". ''Oberlin Online: News and Features''. (web link ) Just seven years later, Oberlin's Apollo Theater (Oberlin, Ohio), Apollo Theater opened, installing sound equipment for the 1928 release of '' The Jazz Singer'', the first " talkie". The theater has since been a mainstay in the Oberlin community at its comfortable locale on south campus, and in 2012 (after a year of renovations) became the centerpiece for The Danny DeVito and
Rhea Perlman
Rhea Jo Perlman (born March 31, 1948) is an American actress. She played head-waitress Carla Tortelli in the sitcom ''Cheers'' (1982–1993). Over the course of 11 seasons, Perlman was nominated for ten Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Act ...
Cinema Studies Center for Media Education and Production. The area above the theatre includes editing labs, an animation area, a recording studio and small projection screening room.
Sustainability
In 2006, Oberlin became one of the charter institutions to sign the ACUPCC and set a target climate neutrality date for 2025. Oberlin's innovative
Adam Joseph Lewis Center For Environmental Studies
The Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies, located on the campus of Oberlin College, is an environmentally friendly building in Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United Sta ...
, a building the Department of Energy labeled as one of the "milestone" buildings of the 20th century, incorporates a photovoltaic array, the biggest of its kind in Ohio at the time. The AJLC also features a
Living Machine
Living Machine is a form of ecological sewage treatment. Similar to Solar Aquatics Systems, the latest generation of the technology is based on fixed-film ecology.
The Living Machine system was commercialized and is marketed by Living Machine Sy ...
, garden, orchard, and parking-lot solar array.
The school utilizes
biodiesel
Biodiesel is a form of diesel fuel derived from plants or animals and consisting of long-chain fatty acid esters. It is typically made by chemically reacting lipids such as animal fat (tallow), soybean oil, or some other vegetable oil with ...
,
hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...
, and
electric vehicle
An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes cha ...
s for various purposes, offers financial support to a local transit company providing public transportation to the school, and has been home to the Oberlin Bike Co-op, a cooperatively run bicycle center, since 1986. Each residence hall monitors and displays real time and historic electricity and water use. Some dorms also have special lamps which display a color depending on how real time energy use compares to the average historic energy use. The school's Campus Committee on Shareholder Responsibility provides students, faculty, and staff with the opportunity to make suggestions and decisions on
proxy vote
Proxy voting is a form of voting whereby a member of a decision-making body may delegate their voting power to a representative, to enable a vote in absence. The representative may be another member of the same body, or external. A person so d ...
s. A student board, the Oberlin College Green EDGE Fund, manages a set of accounts to support local sustainability, resource efficiency, and carbon offsetting projects. The Green EDGE Fund, created in 2007, allocates grants for environmental sustainability projects and verifiable carbon offsetting projects within the Oberlin community, as well as loans from a
revolving fund
A revolving fund is a fund or account that remains available to finance an organization's continuing operations without any fiscal year limitation, because the organization replenishes the fund by repaying money used from the account. Revolving fu ...
for projects at Oberlin College that reduce resource consumption and have calculable financial savings for the college.
In 2007, Oberlin received a grade of "B+" from the
Sustainable Endowments Institute
The Sustainable Endowments Institute (SEI) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that is engaged in research and education to advance sustainability in operations and endowment practices. Founded in 2005, SEI is a special projec ...
's annual College Sustainability Report Card, and was featured among schools as a "Campus Sustainability Leader". In 2008, Oberlin received an "A−" on the annual College Sustainability Report Card. It was also listed as the school with the greenest conscience by Plenty in their green campuses ratings. In 2011, the college received an A on the Sustainability Report card. Oberlin College participated in AASHE's Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS) in early 2012. Oberlin College was one of only 43 institutions to receive a grade of Gold in STARS.
According to a 2010 article in ''The Oberlin Review'', renovated dorms may use more electricity.Rebecca Cable, "Renovated Dorms May Use More Energy", ''The Oberlin Review'', April 2010, p. 1. This is the case for several dorms renovated during the summer of 2008. The college architect, Steve Varelmann, has called the numbers "erratic and possibly unreliable". According to Varelmann, a possible explanation for this phenomenon is that previously non-functioning equipment started functioning again after the renovation.Rebecca Cable, "Renovated Dorms May Use More Energy", ''The Oberlin Review'', April 2010, p. 4. Students may also be at fault for their behavior: "What electronic devices are they using? Are they voluntarily reducing light usage? Are spaces experiencing increased use due to the improvements achieved from the renovation?" John Scofield, professor of physics at Oberlin concluded that "We are building more and more efficient buildings, yet we're using more energy."
Campus publications and media
Oberlin students publish a wide variety of periodicals. The college's largest publications are ''The Oberlin Review'' and ''The Grape''. ''The Oberlin Review'' is a traditional weekly newspaper, focusing on current events, with a circulation of around 1,700. There is also a newspaper pertaining to the interests of students of color, called ''BIPOC Lenses''.
Magazines on campus include ''Wilder Voice'', a magazine for creative nonfiction and long-form journalism, ''The Plum Creek Review'', a literary review containing student-written fiction, poetry, translations, and visual art, ''Headwaters Magazine'', an environmental magazine, and ''The Synapse'', a science magazine. ''Spiral'' is a magazine focused on
genre fiction
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
A num ...
. The college also produces a quarterly alumni magazine, while the Conservatory publishes its own magazine once a year.
The WOBC News Corps, a news division of
WOBC-FM
WOBC-FM (91.5 FM) is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to serve Oberlin, Ohio, carrying a mixed freeform and community format. Owned by Oberlin College, the station services Lorain County and western parts of Greater Cleve ...
created in February 2010, produces local news segments that air bi-hourly. WOBC, a large student organization with significant non-student membership, also maintains an online blog that focuses on music and local events.
Athletics
The school's varsity sports teams are the
Yeomen
Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in mid-14th-century England. The 14th century also witn ...
and Yeowomen. The name Yeomen arose in the early 1900s as a result of blending the former team moniker with the school's official motto. Early on in the program, football players and other athletes were known simply as Oberlin Men or "O" Men. Eventually, as the athletic department became more cohesive, the Yeomen mascot was adopted, drawing on the phonetic sound of "O" Men and the schools official motto of "Learning and Labor". As women's sports became more prevalent, "Yeowomen" was adopted to describe the mascot representing women's athletics. In 2014, the school announced that the albino
squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
will be its official mascot, although teams will continue to be referred to as "yeomen" and "yeowomen".
Oberlin participates in the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
's Division III and the
North Coast Athletic Conference
The North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) is an NCAA Division III athletic conference composed of colleges located in Ohio and Indiana. When founded in 1984, the league was a pioneer in gender equality, offering competition in a then-unprecede ...
(NCAC), a conference which includes
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...
,
Denison University
Denison University is a private liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio. One of the earliest colleges established in the former Northwest Territory, Denison University was founded in 1831. The college was first called the Granville Literary and ...
,
Wooster College
The College of Wooster is a private liberal arts college in Wooster, Ohio. Founded in 1866 by the Presbyterian Church as the University of Wooster, it has been officially non-sectarian since 1969 when ownership ties with the Presbyterian Churc ...
, Wabash College and others. Basketball guard Joshua Friedkin, who played for Oberlin for four seasons, plays in the Israeli Premier Basketball League. Kenyon has traditionally been Oberlin's biggest rival. In 2022, leaders of the Athletic Department and various club sports spoke out in favor of increased institutional support for the teams, requesting that the college provide access to professional sports trainers and team transportation. The college also hosts several private sports teams, including the Oberlin
Ultimate
Ultimate or Ultimates may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums
* ''Ultimate'' (Jolin Tsai album)
* ''Ultimate'' (Pet Shop Boys album)
*''Ultimate!'', an album by The Yardbirds
*''The Ultimate (Bryan Adams Album)'', a compilatio ...
team.
Baseball
On May 8, 2015, the Oberlin baseball team won the championship of the NCAC. The championship was the first for Oberlin as a baseball team since it joined the NCAC in 1984.
Football
Oberlin's
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
team was the first team coached by
John Heisman
John William Heisman (October 23, 1869 – October 3, 1936) was a player and coach of American football, baseball, and basketball, as well as a sportswriter and actor. He served as the head football coach at Oberlin College, Buchtel College ...
, who led the team to a 7–0 record in 1892. Oberlin is the last college in Ohio to beat
Ohio State
The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...
(winning 7–6 in 1921). Though in modern times, the football team was more famous for losing streaks of 40 games (1992–1996) and 44 games (1997–2001), the Yeomen have enjoyed limited success in recent years.
Cheerleading
In 2011, Oberlin began its most recent attempt to feature a cheerleading squad. In 2006, a cheerleader fell from atop a pyramid at a football game, initiating the demise of Oberlin's Cheerleading Club. That injury prompted the school to restrict the club's activities, prohibiting stunting and tumbling, after which participation fizzled out. The club's charter, however, remained intact and was used to bring the squad back in 2011. Tryouts were held in the spring of 2011, and the cheerleading team went active at Oberlin's first home football game that Fall, a 42–0 win over
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...
. The squad also cheers for the
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
team and participates in spirit building and service events across campus and in the community.
Ultimate
Oberlin has both men's and a women's
Ultimate
Ultimate or Ultimates may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums
* ''Ultimate'' (Jolin Tsai album)
* ''Ultimate'' (Pet Shop Boys album)
*''Ultimate!'', an album by The Yardbirds
*''The Ultimate (Bryan Adams Album)'', a compilatio ...
club teams, known as the Flying Horsecows and the Preying Manti, respectively. The Horsecows have made trips to College Nationals in 1992, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2010, 2018, and 2022. The Manti qualified for Nationals for the first time in 1997 and have been recently in 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2018. The Manti won the Division III national championship on May 19, 2019, defeating the top-ranked
Bates
Bates may refer to:
Places
* Bates, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Bates, Illinois. an unincorporated community in Sangamon County
* Bates, Michigan, a community in Grand Traverse County
* Bates, New York, a hamlet in the town of Elli ...
Cold Front by a score of 13–7. The Horsecows placed 5th nationally in 2022, the highest finish in program history.
Mount Oberlin
Mount Oberlin () is located in the Lewis Range, Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. Mount Oberlin is just northwest of Logan Pass. Below the summit to the northwest, water and melting snow off Mount Oberlin lead to the Bird Woman ...
New-York Central College, McGrawville
New York Central College, commonly called New York Central College, McGrawville, and simply Central College, was the first college in the United States founded on the principle that all qualified students were welcome. It was thus an Abolitionism ...
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Oberlin College Press
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of high ...
References
Further reading
* Barnard, John. ''From evangelicalism to progressivism at Oberlin College, 1866–1917'' (The Ohio State University Press, 1969) full text online free * Fletcher, Robert Samuel ''A history of Oberlin College: From its foundation through the Civil War'' (Oberlin, 1943).
* Hogeland, Ronald W. "Coeducation of the Sexes at Oberlin College: A Study of Social Ideas in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," ''Journal of Social History,'' (1972–73) 6#2 pp. 160–17 in JSTOR * Morris, J. Brent. ''Oberlin, Hotbed of Abolitionism: College, Community, and the Fight for Freedom and Equality in Antebellum America.'' Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014.
* Waite, Cally L. "The Segregation of Black Students at Oberlin College after Reconstruction," ''History of Education Quarterly'' (2001) 41#3, pp. 344–64 in JSTOR *
Primary sources
* Oberlin College. ''General Catalogue of Oberlin College, 1833–1908: Including an Account of the Principal Events in the History of the College, with Illustrations of the College Buildings'' (1909 Online