Oberlin College: A Legacy of Notable Alumni
Oberlin College, founded in 1833, stands as a beacon of liberal arts and musical education. Its commitment to social justice and academic excellence has fostered a diverse and accomplished alumni network. From Nobel laureates to groundbreaking artists, Oberlin graduates have left an indelible mark on the world. This article explores the lives and achievements of some of the college's most notable alumni.
Pioneers in Education and Social Justice
Oberlin College holds a unique place in the history of education. It was founded by Presbyterian minister John J. Shipherd and missionary Philo P. Stewart in 1833 as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute to educate ministers and schoolteachers to work among the settlers of the American West. The college has admitted both men and women since its founding. Oberlin admitted Black students on an equal footing with whites beginning in 1835. George B. Vashon, the school’s first Black graduate, received a bachelor’s degree in 1844.
Mary Jane Patterson received a degree in 1862, becoming the first Black woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in the United States. Patterson became an educator and equal rights advocate.
Lucy Stone, suffragist, is also an alumna of Oberlin College.
Mary Church Terrell was one of the first African American women to receive a college degree and she went on to become nationally known for her work as an activist for civil rights and women’s suffrage. The campus’s main library is named after Terrell.
Read also: Progressive Education at Oberlin
The college, along with the town, was a station on the Underground Railroad by which enslaved people escaped to freedom in Canada. Today this history is celebrated and commemorated at the Oberlin Underground Railroad Center and through an Underground Railroad sculpture on the Oberlin campus.
Nobel Laureates
Oberlin's commitment to academic rigor has produced several Nobel laureates.
Joshua Angrist (B.A. Economics 1982) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Robert A. Millikan was an American physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1923 for his measurement of the elementary charge and for his work on the photoelectric effect.
MacArthur Fellows
Oberlin has produced more MacArthur Fellows than any other liberal arts college in the nation. Widely known as the “Genius Grant,” the MacArthur recognizes the creative contributions and potential of individuals of varying backgrounds spanning an array of disciplines. Each fellow receives a stipend of $800,000, with no strings attached.
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Fellows include:
- Jad Abumrad
- Alison Bechdel
- Courtney Bryan
- Claire Chase
- Kiese Laymon
- Thylias Moss
Literary Giants
Oberlin College has fostered the talents of numerous acclaimed writers and journalists.
Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." Lewis wrote six popular novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).
William Goldman was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He first came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist before turning to screenwriting. Goldman wrote the novel The Princess Bride and the script for the film adaptation directed by Rob Reiner. He also wrote both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976).
Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally known for the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, she came to critical and commercial success in 2006 with her graphic memoir Fun Home. Fun Home was subsequently adapted as a musical that won a Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015. In 2012, she released her second graphic memoir Are You My Mother? She was a 2014 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award. She is also known for originating what would later be called the Bechdel test.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to the John F. Oberlin Scholarship
Lena Dunham is an American writer, director, actress, and producer. She is the creator, writer, and star of the HBO television series Girls (2012-2017), for which she received several Emmy Award nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. Dunham also directed several episodes of Girls and became the first woman to win the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Comedy Series. She started her career writing, directing, and starring in her semi-autobiographical independent film Tiny Furniture (2010), for which she won an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.
Performing Arts
Oberlin's Conservatory of Music is one of the oldest professional music schools in the United States. Oberlin alumni hold countless awards in the music, film, television, and theater industries.
Bill Irwin is an American actor, choreographer, clown, and comedian. He began as a vaudeville-style stage performer and has been noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He has made a number of appearances on film and television, and he won a Tony Award for his role in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He also worked as a choreographer on Broadway and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Choreography in 1989 for Largely New York.
Liz Phair is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career in San Francisco, but returned to her home in Chicago, where she began self-releasing audio cassettes under the name Girly-Sound. The tapes led to a recording contract with the independent record label Matador Records.
Karen O is a South Korean-born American singer, musician, and songwriter. She is the lead vocalist of the indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Marc Cohn is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1992. Cohn is best known for the song "Walking in Memphis", from his 1991 album Marc Cohn, which was a Top 40 hit.
David Miller is an American tenor. Since 2004, he has been a member of the successful classical crossover group Il Divo, who have sold over 30 million copies worldwide. As well, Miller shared a Tony Award with the other members of the ensemble cast of Baz Luhrmann's 2002 revival of La bohème in 2003.
Judy Kuhn studied vocal performance in our Conservatory and is most well known for being the singing voice of Pocahontas. Her rendition of Colors of the Wind won Best Original Song at both the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes in 1995. Kuhn is also a four time Tony nominee and has been nominated for Olivier and Grammy awards.
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera, and film. Her stage adaptation of The Lion King debuted in 1997 and received eleven Tony Award nominations, with Taymor receiving Tony Awards for her direction and costume design.
Political Figures and Activists
Oberlin College has a strong tradition of producing leaders in politics and activism.
Hsiao Bi-khim is a Taiwanese politician and diplomat who has been the 13th and current vice president of the Republic of China since 2024, serving under President Lai Ching-te. She is Taiwan's first biracial vice president.
Jerry Rubin was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Rennie Davis was an American anti-war activist who gained prominence in the 1960s. He was one of the Chicago Seven defendants charged for anti-war demonstrations and large-scale protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Scientists and Scholars
Oberlin has long been a national leader in educating scientists. Thirty alumni are members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a society of distinguished scholars who are considered advisors to the nation on issues related to science and technology. Oberlin alumni represent 1 percent of the NAS membership.
George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago. He was one of the key figures in the development of pragmatism. He is regarded as one of the founders of symbolic interactionism, and was an important influence on what has come to be referred to as the Chicago School of Sociology.
Willard Van Orman Quine was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century". He served as the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University from 1956 to 1978.
Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an American astronomer. Her discovery of how to effectively measure vast distances to remote galaxies led to a shift in the scale and understanding of the scale and the nature of the universe.
Business and Entrepreneurship
Oberlin graduates also excel in the world of business and entrepreneurship.
Jerry Greenfield is an American businessman, philanthropist, and activist.
H. H. Kung was a Chinese banker and politician. He married Soong Ai-ling, the eldest of the three Soong sisters; the other two married President Sun Yat-sen and President Chiang Kai-shek. Together with his brother-in-law, Soong Tse-ven, he was highly influential in determining the economic policies of the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government of the Republic of China in the 1930s and 1940s.
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