Oberlin College: A Legacy of Progressive Education in a Picturesque Setting

Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music located in Oberlin, Ohio, stands as a testament to progressive education and social reform. Founded in 1833 as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute, the institution quickly distinguished itself by becoming the first college in the United States to grant bachelor's degrees to women in a coeducational environment and by its early commitment to educating African Americans. Today, Oberlin continues to offer a distinctive undergraduate education, blending rigorous academics with hands-on experiences and a focus on social justice.

Location and Accessibility

Nestled in the heart of the Midwest, Oberlin offers a quintessential college town experience characterized by small-town charm and a safe environment. The college is located approximately 35 minutes from Cleveland, Ohio, providing students with access to urban amenities while maintaining a close-knit campus community. The picturesque location provides small-town charm and safety. It gives us lots of room to breathe and the freedom to explore and apply new ideas.

Directions to Campus

From the East: Take I-71 north to exit 196 (toward West Salem). Go north on Ohio Route 301 to Ohio Route 303. Go west on 303 to Ohio Route 58. Go north on Ohio Route 58 into Oberlin. At the intersection of Ohio Route 58 (Main Street) and College Street, turn right on College Street.
From the South: Take I-71 north to exit 186 (toward Ashland). Route 250 to Ohio Route 89. Go north on Ohio Route 89 to Ohio Route 58. Go north on Ohio Route 58 into Oberlin. At the intersection of Ohio Route 58 (Main Street) and College Street, turn right on College Street.
From the West: Take exit 140 (Amherst/Oberlin interchange) and go south for eight miles on Ohio Route 58 into Oberlin. At the intersection of Ohio Route 58 (Main Street) and College Street, turn right on College Street. Just past the hotel, take the first left on Willard Court, across from the Apollo Theater.

A Foundation Rooted in Reform

Oberlin's origins are deeply intertwined with the social and religious reform movements of the 19th century. "'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." Oberlin was very much a part of the Utopian perfectionist enthusiasm that swept the country in the 1830s.

The Influence of Religious Revivalism

Its immediate background was the wave of Christian revivals in western New York State, in which Charles Finney was very much involved. "Oberlin was the offspring of the revivals of 1830, '31, and '32." Oberlin founder John Jay Shipherd was an admirer of Finney, and visited him in Rochester, New York, 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. 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.

Founding Principles and the Oberlin Covenant

The Oberlin Collegiate Institute was founded in 1833 by Shipherd and another Presbyterian minister, Philo Stewart, "formerly a missionary among the Cherokees in Mississippi, and at that time residing in Mr. Shipherd's family," A community of Christian families with a Christian school which should be "a center of religious influence and power which should work mightily upon the surrounding country and the world-a sort of missionary institution for training laborers for the work abroad"-the school to be conducted on the manual labor system, and to be open to both young men and young women. It was not proposed to establish a college but simply an academy for instruction in English and useful languages; and, if providence should favor it, in "practical Theology". The Oberlin covenant is a fascinating document. It has strong communal overtones, though, in the end, private property is allowed. It is very keen on plain, straight living-no smoking, no chewing [tobacco], no coffee or tea; jewelry and tight dresses are explicitly renounced, as are fancy houses, furniture, and carriages. Each member of the colony shall consider himself a steward of the Lord, & hold only so much property as he can advantageously manage for the Lord.

The Lane Rebels and the Abolitionist Movement

The Lane Rebels 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, in Oneida County, New York, 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, of whom Oberlin President Charles Grandison Finney was a disciple.

When the Oberlin Collegiate Institute was formed in 1833 the founders did not anticipate including black Americans in the student body. Additionally, the slavery question did not play any part in the college's or colony's establishment. Such matters arose only when Oberlin's trustees agreed to admit the Lane Seminary Rebels from Cincinnati to Oberlin. The charismatic Theodore Dwight Weld, 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, 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. 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, prohibited off-topic discussions, even at meals. 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.

Pioneering Coeducation and Racial Integration

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. This measure caused the trustees "a great struggle to overcome their prejudices". Moving their meeting to Elyria 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. Asa Mahan, the Lane trustee who resigned with the students, would become president. "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."

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Oberlin as a Center of Abolitionist Activity

The Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society, calling for "immediate emancipation", was founded in June 1835. From this fountain streams of anti-slavery influence began at once to flow. Pamphlets, papers, letters, lecturers and preachers, and school teachers, some five hundred each winter, went forth everywhere preaching the anti-slavery word. It was the influence emanating from this school that saved our country in its great hour of peril. There were thousands of other co-operating influences, but had that which went out from Oberlin been subtracted, there can hardly remain a doubt that freedom would have foundered in the storm. Indeed it is doubtful whether there would have been any storm. The nation probably would have meekly yielded to the dominion of the slave power, and the Western Hemisphere would have become a den of tyrants and slaves.

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 and professor of theology. 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. The college's treatment of African Americans was inconsistent.

Oberlin is the oldest coeducational college in the United States, having admitted four women in 1837 to its two-year "women's program". 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 graduated with honors 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.

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.

The Underground Railroad and the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue

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, where Oberlin was a stop, as well as to resist the Fugitive Slave Act. One historian called Oberlin "the town that started the Civil War" due to its reputation as a hotbed of abolitionism. 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 and John Anthony Copeland, along with another Oberlin resident, Shields Green, also participated in John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry.

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Post-Civil War Era and Continued Growth

In 1866, James Fairchild became Oberlin's third president, and first alumnus to lead it. A committed 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. Oberlin College was prominent in sending Christian missionaries abroad. In 1881, students at Oberlin formed the Oberlin Band to journey as a group to remote Shanxi 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 Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association, an independent foundation, was established in their memory. The Association, with offices on campus, sponsors Oberlin graduates to teach in China, India, and Japan. Henry Churchill King became Oberlin's sixth president in 1902. At Oberlin from 1884 onward, he taught in mathematics, philosophy, and theology.

Oberlin in the 20th and 21st Centuries

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. In 1970, Oberlin made the cover of Life as one of the first colleges in the country to have co-ed dormitories. Despite these accomplishments, Carr clashed repeatedly with the students over the Vietnam War, and he left office in 1969. History professor Ellsworth C. Robert W. Fuller had left Oberlin without graduating to pursue graduate work in physics, but had shown commitment to educational reform as a Trinity College dean. He was unanimous choice of the selection committee in November 1970. history. His Oberlin presidency was a turbulent time at Oberlin and in higher education generally.

Fuller called for reforming the curriculum, reducing the role of faculty, and addressed the status of women, expanded programs in the arts, and enlarged the role of students in governance. He tripled the enrollment of minorities. In what was called the Oberlin Experiment, he hired Jack Scott as Athletic Director, who recruited and hired the first four African-American athletic coaches at a predominantly white American college or university, including Tommie Smith, the gold medalist sprinter from the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Fuller was succeeded by the longtime Dean of the Conservatory, Emil Danenberg, who served as president from 1975 to 1982, and died in office. In 1983, following a nationwide search, Oberlin hired S. Frederick Starr, an expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs and skilled musician, as its 12th president.

Nancy Dye became the 13th president of Oberlin College in July 1994, succeeding the embattled Starr. Oberlin's first female president, she oversaw the construction of new buildings, increased admissions selectivity, and helped increase the endowment with the largest capital campaign to that point. Dye was known for her accessibility and inclusiveness. 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.

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. In September 2014, on Rosh Hashanah, 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. In January 2016, hundreds of Oberlin alumni signed a letter to the Oberlin administration stating that this …

Academics and Opportunities

Oberlin College is a four-year, highly selective liberal arts college and conservatory of music. The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 60 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin offers one of the world’s great undergraduate educations to our 2,900 students, and we have a long tradition of educating top scholars and musicians in our flexible curriculum. We focus on undergraduate teaching, hands-on research projects, culturally immersive study away experiences, and world-class music opportunities. For over 100 years, Oberlin alumni have gone on to earn more PhDs than graduates of any other liberal arts school. And in nearly every career field, our graduates are making an impact and improving our world. An Oberlin education is extraordinary, and each person experiences it differently.

Hands-on experience is a critical part of an Oberlin education. The Bonner Center for Service and Learning has an online platform (serve.oberlin.edu) connecting students with community partners. The site helps students identify service, community-based learning, and paid opportunities and needs by interest area and agency. 50 Community-Based Learning classes are offered each semester. Introduction to Bonner Life - First Year Bonner Scholars enroll in a one-credit course that meets weekly during the fall semester. The course serves as an orientation to Oberlin College, the Lorain County community, and the Bonner Scholars Program. It is designed to give students an opportunity to explore issues relevant to new students in a college environment while learning more about the Bonner common commitments. After completing the course, students have a better understanding of the Bonner Scholars program, Oberlin College, and issues important to the Lorain County community. They also become more familiar with a variety of service opportunities and clarify their service and learning objectives.

Every Oberlin experience is a collaborative enterprise between students and faculty. Your faculty mentors-world-renowned scholars, artists, teachers, and citizens-will guide and push you, invested fully in your promise and in your future.

Campus Life and Community

Oberlin College is a small, 4-year, private liberal arts college. This coed college is located in a suburban community in a rural setting and is primarily a residential campus. It offers certificate, bachelor's, and master's degrees. This college has an acceptance rate of 35% and a graduation rate of 79%.

With its longstanding commitments to access, diversity, and inclusion, Oberlin is the perfect laboratory in which to study and design the world you want. You'll always feel that you belong here-we'll celebrate you just as you are, without compromise. Find your people.

A Legacy of Impact

Oberlin prepares its graduates to change the world for good. It's not just our motto, it's our practice. When our students graduate, they land in the most interesting places. We do amazing, life-changing, creative work. Our alumni use their Oberlin educations to give the world more joy, hope, meaning, and justice-serving collectively as a global force for good. “Not only are my teachers brilliant at what they do, they’re some of the most compassionate and supportive people I know.

Planning a Visit

Now is a great time to plan a visit to see the Oberlin campus.

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