About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Oberlin College

Encyclopedia : O : OB : OBE : Oberlin College

Oberlin College is a small, selective liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, in the United States. It was founded in 1833, and is home to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, a distinguished music school. A recent study found that more Oberlin College alumni receive doctorates than do alumni from any other liberal arts college in the country.US interagency 2003 report of earned doctorates (web link: http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/issues/sed-2003.pdf, page 81)

Oberlin was the first college in the United States to regularly admit African-American students (1835), and is also the oldest continuously-operating coeducational institution. The first four women to enter as full students were Mary Kellogg (Fairchild), Mary Caroline Rudd, Mary Hosford, and Elizabeth Prall; all but Kellogg graduated. Oberlin has long been associated with progressive causes. It was a hotbed of Abolitionism and a key stop along the Underground Railroad, station number 99. Both students and faculty were involved in the controversial Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of a fugitive slave in 1858. One historian called Oberlin "the town that started the Civil War." A century later, many Oberlinians were deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and various peace and justice campaigns, and a railroad track rising from the ground towards the sky has been erected as a monument to the Underground Railroad.

The school's varsity sports teams are the Yeomen. They participate in the NCAA's Division III and the North Coast Athletic Conference. Oberlin's football team was the first team coached by legendary coach John Heisman, who led the team to a 7–0 record in 1892. 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.

Oberlin College is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and The Five Colleges of Ohio consortium, including Ohio Wesleyan University, Denison University, Kenyon College, and The College of Wooster.

Oberlin College's motto is "Learning and Labor" (see the college seal above). Its school colors are officially crimson and gold, though more often than not maroon and white are used.

The Oberlin Student Cooperative Association, or OSCA, is a non-profit corporation that houses 175 students and feeds 630 students. Its budget is nearly $2 million, making it the third-largest of its kind in North America, and by far the largest relative to the size of the institution whose students it serves.

Contents

Academics

Of Oberlin's 2,800 or so students, roughly 2,200 are enrolled in the College of Arts & Sciences, a little over 400 in the Conservatory of Music, and the remaining 150 or so in both College and Conservatory under the five-year Double Degree program.Office of Admissions (web link: http://www.oberlin.edu/coladm/about/stats/enrollment2005.html)

The College of Arts & Sciences offers over 45 majors, minors and concentrations. Some of the school's most popular majors are English, Biology, and History. Sciences are considered relatively strong for a small liberal arts college, especially Chemistry and Neuroscience. The [Oberlin College Library] is one of the finest undergraduate libraries in the country, with over 2 million volumes, 3,500 print subscriptions, 5 separate facilities ([Main Library], [Art Library], [Conservatory of Music Library], [Science Library] and [Carnegie Storage]), a very rich [Special Collections] department and 62 library staff members (full and part-time individuals). The library received the Association of College and Research Libraries [Award for Excellence] in 2002 and Director of Libraries Ray English was named the ACRL 2006 [Academic/Research Librarian of the Year].

Oberlin students and faculty benefit tremendously by Oberlin's membership in the [OhioLINK] consortium, through which access is gained to 12,000+ commercially licensed online journals, 130 databases, 18,000+ ebooks and rapidly growing [digital media collections]. The [OhioLINK Central Catalog] represents the library holdings of 87 libraries in the state, including the [State Library of Ohio], plus the [Center for Research Libraries]. The collection is nearing 10 million unique records representing 27.5 million holdings in the system, and undergraduates account for the larger percentage of OhioLINK online borrowing - the process by which any enrolled student can readily request the loan of books and other items from any other library in the system.

The college's unique "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. Many courses supplement conventional disciplines, from languages and areas of cinema or literature, to musical ensembles, martial arts and forms of dancing. Other ExCos cover non-traditional topics too numerous to mention, in the past ranging from Aquariums[link] to Wilderness Skills[link]. Due to the nature of ExCo, while some staple courses are continued for years, the overall number and selection of classes offered varies dramatically from semester to semester.Exco Committee (web link: http://www.oberlin.edu/exco/about/history.htm)

Another aspect of Oberlin's academics is the Winter Term during the month of January. This term was created to allow students to do something outside the regular course offerings of the college. During this time, students work on individual or group projects in one of three categories: academic study, field experience, or personal growth. 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. Projects range from serious academic research with coauthorship in scientific journals, to humanitarian projects, to learning how to bartend. Almost anything will be considered, although two of the three winter term credits required for graduation must come from the categories of academic research and field experience. A full credit project is suggested to involve five to six hours per weekday.Office of Winter Term (web link: http://oberlin.edu/winterterm/)

History

The Oberlin campus in 1909
Enlarge
The Oberlin campus in 1909

Both the college and the town of Oberlin were founded in 1833 by a pair of Presbyterian ministers, John Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart. The ministers named their project after Jean Frédéric Oberlin, an Alsatian minister whom they both admired. Oberlin attained prominence because of the influence of its second president, the evangelist Charles Finney, after whom one of the College's chapels, also a prominent performance space, is named.

The college was built on 500 acres (2 km²) of land specifically donated by the previous owner, who lived in Connecticut. Shipherd and Stewart's vision was for both a religious community and school. For a more detailed history of the founding of the town and the college, see Oberlin, Ohio.

Prior to 1950, most of Oberlin's students lived in large houses around town, some owned by the College, and others owned by individual landlords. Starting with the G.I. Bill and continuing with the Baby Boom, Oberlin's student body swelled in the years after World War II, and the College's president, William Stevenson, decided to house this influx in large dormitories on campus. In Oberlin's own version of urban renewal, many wooden houses were torn down to make way for Dascomb Hall and its fraternal twin, Barrows Hall, both completed in 1956. Dascomb replaced the former residence of Dr. James Dascomb and Marianne Parker Dascomb, the first principal of the Oberlin Female Department, and was named for the latter.Oberlin college archives. Web link: [this article]

In 1970, Oberlin made the cover of Life as one of the first colleges in the country to have co-ed dormitories. The historian Geoffrey Blodgett pointed out that campus architecture was how the student anger of the 1960s came to Oberlin. Students reacted vocally against the new dorms of the 1950s (Dascomb, East, North and South), calling them expedient "slabs" of "sleeping and feeding space," Blodgett, Geoffrey (May 11, 1995). "The Grand March of Oberlin campus plans". Oberlin Observer. Vol. 16 No. 17 Sec. Observations. (web archive: http://www.oberlin.edu/observer/observer16.17/observations.html) and this protest soon took on other controversies, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Dascomb went from being the impetus for protest to the vehicle of social change in 1967 when it was transformed into a coed dorm during winter term of 1967. Hebrew House, as it was known, was set up as winter term project to operate similar to an Israeli kibbutz. In January 1969, with the approval of Dean of Students George Langeler, Dascomb became the first co-ed college dormitory in the United States. The experiment was a success, and now almost all of Oberlin College's dormitories are coed.

\"Obie\" Culture

Students passing through the Memorial Arch in front of Peters Hall. The arch is dedicated to the memory of missionaries from Oberlin who were killed in the Boxer Rebellion.
Enlarge
Students passing through the Memorial Arch in front of Peters Hall. The arch is dedicated to the memory of missionaries from Oberlin who were killed in the Boxer Rebellion.

Oberlin has always cultivated a lively community of talented musicians and artists. The college radio station WOBC, and the party circuit (including the popular on-campus venue, The 'Sco) contribute to the success and popularity of their homegrown talent. Some notable alums go on to have lucrative careers on the indie music scene. Due in part to both this and the school's proximity to Cleveland, the college attracts touring artists with a frequency nearly unparalleled among institutions of its size.

Oberlin is also notable for its unique art rental program. At the beginning of every semester students camp out in front of the north gate of the college's Allen Memorial Art Museum to get first pick of original etchings, lithographs and paintings by famous artists like Renoir, Warhol, Dalí, and Picasso. For five U.S. dollars per semester, students can hang these works on their dorm room walls. The program was started in the 1940s by Ellen Johnson, a professor of art at Oberlin, in order to "develop the aesthetic sensibilities of students and encourage ordered thinking and discrimination in other areas of their lives." Angell, Sue (September 26, 2005). "Art Rental Still Going Strong After 60 Years". OBERLIN Online: News and Features. (web link: http://oberlin.edu/news-info/05sep/art.html)

Oberlin is also famous for Safer Sex Night and the Drag Ball, two annual school-sponsored parties that garner national attention and/or concern. Pearce, Jean (November 5, 2003). "Radical Activist U: Oberlin College". FrontPage Magazine. (web link: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=10633)In addition, an annual bike derby takes place on Harkness Bowl. Oberlin is also known for its relaxed attitude towards nudity, with some students frolicking topless or nude during the first evening of heavy snowfall and the first heavy rainstorm of the school year. Certain sports teams will streak through campus thorughout the year. On the last day of reading period a group of students will streak through the main library.

The students have a reputation for being radically liberal and/or progressive. Oberlin has a thriving LGBT community and most students are well informed as to the intricacies of gender politics. The college was ranked as the eleventh most politically active, by the Princeton Review, in 2005. The college also received an A+ among so-called "hipster schools" in Robert Lanham's homage to the eponymous subjects of his 2003 Hipster Handbook, the sole institution to earn such a "distinction".

A sampling of the school's past commencement speakers reflects its reputation for embracing diversity, ranging from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse L. Jackson to figures as varied as Pete Seeger and Robert Frost; even Adlai Stevenson appeared, a month prior to his own death.

Recent activism among the student body has resulted in a campus-wide ban on Coca-Cola productsTaylor, Samantha (November 19, 2004). "College set to ban Coca-Cola". Oberlin Review (web link: http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2004/11/19/news/article1.html) and a vote of no confidence in the college's president, Nancy S. Dye, in May 2005.Keating, Josh (May 13, 2005). "Students vote 'no-confidence' in Nancy Dye". Oberlin Review (web link: http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/5/13/news/article1.html)

Notable alumni

Notes

External links

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: