Campus News – The Oberlin Review

Jury Rules For Gibson’s, Assigns $44 Million in Damages

June 14, 2019

Editor's note: Due to the scope of national media attention, the Review took the extraordinary step of covering the Gibson's verdict outside of normal publication dates. Because of limited staff capacity, the Review does not moderate comments during the summer, and letters to the editors in response to any article will be reviewed for publication in the fall. Please direct any questions to [email protected] The Lorain County jury overseeing the trial between Gibson’s Bakery and Ob...

Hourly Workers Maintain AAPR Concerns

May 10, 2019

Tensions remain high between Oberlin’s unionized hourly workers and the Academic and Administrative Program Review steering committee. After weeks of collecting community feedback, the committee is wrapping up its work and preparing to submit its final recommendations to President Carmen Twillie Ambar at the end of this semester. Many constituent groups have endorsed the AAPR’s recommendations. Last week, the Educational Plans and Policies Committee, the Educational Policy Committee, the College F...

HIV Peer Testing Center in Time of Transition

May 10, 2019

Oberlin’s HIV Peer Testing has been unable to offer private, free HIV tests for the past semester due to state-level changes in health funding and newly-updated standard practices around HIV testing. They anticipate that they will not be able to continue these services until spring 2021. The state level changes affect the group’s ability to utilize the Ohio Department of Health’s resources to confirm positive test results. Oberlin HIVPT has historically only been able to perform oral HIV t...

Students for Sensible Drug Policy Provide Campus Resources

Keifer Ludwig, Staff Writer

May 10, 2019

Students opened a chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy in March to help reduce drug-related harm and foster sensible conversations about healthy and unhealthy drug use. In addition to educating the Oberlin community, the organization supplies free and anonymous drug testing. College junior Rachel Clark, who founded Oberlin’s chapter of SSDP, described how the group serves multiple purposes on this campus. “[We] offer unbiased, nonjudgmental peer-to-peer education about drugs, free and anonymous drug checking services, workshops on drug safety, and … a variety of outreach tactics designed to integrate Oberlin’s drug education with the surrounding community.” Clark emphasized that many people are often unaware of t...

AAPR Unveils Draft of Final Recommendations

May 3, 2019

On Monday, the steering committee of the Academic and Administrative Program Review released a public draft of its final recommendations that will be submitted to President Carmen Twillie Ambar at the end of this semester. The draft, a 59-page document expanding on the initial areas of recommendation made public in March, was the subject of a well-attended public forum yesterday. According to Acting Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and AAPR Chair David Kamitsuka, the draft was informed by feedb...

OST Considers Implementing New Timecard Procedure

Jenna Gyimesi, News Editor

May 3, 2019

Oberlin’s Office of the Student Treasurer is considering adopting a new approach to timecard collection for certain stipended student organizations, including the Sexual Information Center, The Grape, and the Review. Recent confusion about the submission of timecards — whether individual student workers should submit their hours via a Google form as opposed to organizations submitting timecards — resulted in many students paid through OST not receiving payment for two pay periods, or about one month’s time. OST leadership said that the goal of transitioning into an online collection method is to combat the fact that some student organizations were receiving payment that did not correspond to their assigned stipend...

Gibson’s Lawsuit Will Go To Trial

April 26, 2019

After 18 months of negotiation and discovery research, the lawsuit that Gibson’s Bakery and Food Mart brought against Oberlin College and Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo could go to trial early next month, unless a settlement is reached in the next week. Gibson’s filed the suit in November 2017, accusing the College and Raimondo of libel, slander, interference with business relationships, intentional interference with contracts, deceptive trade practices, intentional infliction of...

Residential Education To Reorganize Dorm Arrangements

April 26, 2019

The Office of Residential Education is planning to introduce a series of changes to the nature of living spaces over the next five years in hopes of increasing programming, faculty integration, and feelings of community. As of next year, Zechiel House will become a First-Year Residential Experience dorm, Barnard House will hold the Sci-Fi themed halls currently located in North Hall, and Noah Hall will be a designated substance-free and quiet space which was previously located in Barnard. During this time of ...

Private Grades, Transcripts Accessible to ExCo Instructors

April 26, 2019

Some students were upset to hear that — through a technological error — anyone who teaches or has previously taught an ExCo was able to access the private transcript of every current Oberlin student. These transcripts include all of the grades students have received during their time at Oberlin, every class taken, and in some cases even past AP test scores. This exclusive access has left some with questions about privacy. “I feel like it’s fair to call it a breach in security,” Colleg...

Winter Term to Be Restructured With AAPR

Ella Moxley, Senior Staff Writer

April 26, 2019

Oberlin administrators have been working to create a more structured, equitable Winter Term model in response to the preliminary AAPR recommendations first detailed in March. Future changes include increasing the number of students and professors on campus and increasing the breadth and variety of courses offered. AAPR steering committee members hope that as many as one-third of the student body may remain on campus during future Winter Terms. “[An increased number of students on campus is] a way to maximize use of the institution’s resources and to build a stronger sense of community through shared experiences and organized social events,” according to the AAPR’s Summary of Work to Date document, made public to ...

AAPR Recommends Structural Changes to Con

April 19, 2019

One of the primary areas of recommendation to come out of the Academic and Administrative Program Review concerns structural changes to the Conservatory. Specifically, the steering committee has supported the creation of a revamped Musical Studies major and minor, and recommended that Oberlin increase College enrollment by 100 students while simultaneously decreasing the Conservatory enrollment by 100 students over the course of four years. This recommendation was made partially in response to d...

Moody’s Affirms Oberlin’s Strong Credit Rating, Negative Outlook

Nathan Carpenter, Editor-in-Chief

April 19, 2019

Moody’s Investors Service, a credit rating agency which ranks the creditworthiness of borrowers, released a report earlier this week that affirmed Oberlin College’s Aa3 credit rating with a negative outlook. The rating system is used by potential investors to estimate the probability that a loan will be paid back. Oberlin was downgraded from an Aa2 rating in November 2015 and has maintained the Aa3 rating since. Aa3 is considered “high quality and very low credit risk,” and is the fourth highest rating that Moody’s assigns. “Oberlin College’s Aa3 rating reflects its strong financial profile and nationally recognized brand,” the report reads. “Favorable student demand will continue to be supported by i...