Editorials – The Oberlin Review

Oberlin Climate Strike Engages International Emergency

September 13, 2019

In support of work undertaken by Sunrise Oberlin, Obies will once again engage with important national and international issues as we stand with the rest of the world and strike against climate change on Sept. 20. Coverage of the plan for the protest is on page 1 of this issue (“Sunrise Strikes for Brighter Future”). The Global Climate Strike is a week-long protest starting next Friday during which citizens from over 120 countries, several thousand cities, and over a million students will take part in a climate rally to raise awareness that not only is climate change real, but it isalso a quickly-approaching emergency. Oberlin’s contribution via Sunrise Oberlin is already significant. On May 10, the organization ...

In Face of Adversity, Obies Keep On Keepin’ On

Editorial Board

September 6, 2019

Over the course of the summer, many people around the country seemed to suddenly be worried about Oberlin students. An explosion of media attention following an initial verdict in the lawsuit filed by Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery against the College and Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo inspired people who have never set foot in Ohio to weigh in on whether we have our heads screwed on straight. The Review’s inboxes were flooded with messages written in varying degrees of hysteria. Some wanted to know if Oberlin students knew how stupid and short-sighted we are. Some accused us — both the Review staff specifically and the student body at large — of being sheep at the beck and call of...

Media Coverage of Gibson’s Verdict Misses the Mark

Editorial Board

June 18, 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] Earlier this month, a jury awarded Gibson’s Bakery $11 million following a month-long trial stemming from the bakery’s lawsuit against Oberlin College and Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo. Then, last Thursday, it added $33 million in punitive damages. This stunning decision �...

Solidarity Vital in Confronting Anti-Abortion Legislation

Editorial Board

May 24, 2019

In recent weeks, reproductive rights have come under attack in numerous states across the country — most notably Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio. Ohio’s “heartbeat bill,” one of the first to be passed in 2019, bans abortion after six weeks into a pregnancy and makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Furthermore, doctors who do not test for a heartbeat or proceed with abortion procedures if a heartbeat is detected could be charged with a fifth-degree felony, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. Although Ohio’s is far from the most restrictive abortion law in the county — Alabama’s makes even fewer allowances — it still drastically limits abortion access. Many of these bills ...

AAPR Must Address Living Wage

Editorial Board

May 10, 2019

At their core, the recommendations that the Academic and Administrative Program Review’s steering committee will submit to President Carmen Twillie Ambar in just a few weeks are a vision of Oberlin’s future that is informed by its past and present values. Sure, it’s a vision developed by a 31-person steering committee, but that committee is broadly representative of many different parts of the Oberlin community, and the draft of the final recommendations they shared publicly last week highlight many values shared by all Obies. It’s worth noting that nearly all of these value-driven proposals have received broad-based support from campus constituencies, including the offices and faculty governance comm...

International Programming Needs Greater Support

Editorial Board

May 3, 2019

The last decade has seen the population of international students attending Oberlin nearly double, stabilizing at an average of 11 percent per year. The profile of the class of 2022 includes 13 percent international students from 35 different countries. However, despite this population growth, resources for international students on this campus seem to remain relatively stagnant. While the current resources available to international students, primarily through the International Student Resource Center and student groups, deserve credit for the phenomenal support they provide, they are spread thin relative to the size of the community they serve. The ISRC has a single full-time staff member, and while Assista...

Reorganization Offers Opportunity to Build Residential Community

Editorial Board

April 26, 2019

There are few Oberlin departments that require as much love, attention, and resources as the Office of Residential Education. Oberlin’s residential facilities are perceived by students as generally subpar compared to our peer institutions. Many students don’t feel their residential spaces are meaningful sources of support or community, and the office seems to be perpetually understaffed — as evidenced by the pending search for a new director. Furthermore, the office itself is not widely held in high regard by students, who often talk publicly about negative experiences they’ve had with ResEd, both on social media and in the Review. Few students have personal relationships with ResEd staff, and even Resident...

Our Case For Oberlin

Editorial Board

April 19, 2019

Today marks the end of a three-week-long campaign of All Roads Lead to Oberlin events, meant to encourage admitted high school students to enroll in Oberlin’s class of 2023. So far this month, over 660 high school students have visited campus to see if Oberlin is the right fit for them, according to the Office of Admissions. Prospective students have stayed overnight with current students in dorms, visited classes, and asked their most pressing questions at the All Roads Academic Department Fair. Although this Editorial Board has often been critical of decisions made by the administration and other campus leaders, we want to step back in this final week of admissions frenzy and make the case for attending Obe...

CDS Swipe Drive Represents Effective Community Activism

Editorial Board

April 12, 2019

After many weeks of heated back-and-forth debate over the future of Campus Dining Services meal plans, student organizers have found an effective way to both make their voices heard and support existing community efforts. The “Spare Swipes: An Oberlin CDS Food Drive” initiative urged first-years and sophomores on the 300 meals-per-semester plan to use their spare swipes to purchase non-perishable items from Wilder DeCafé and donate them to Oberlin Community Services — a community organization dedicated to providing basic needs assistance to Lorain County residents. The drive, launched in response to the new meal plan options introduced April 1 by Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, ran th...

Students Need More Data

Editorial Board

April 5, 2019

Since the launch of the ongoing Academic and Administrative Program Review, transparency has been an oft-repeated concern of Oberlin community members — and for good reason. The AAPR is the first comprehensive analysis of Oberlin’s finances and was created to address the College’s structural budget deficit. As a recent report from the AAPR steering committee reminded us, their work “is an ambitious effort that touches almost every part of the institution.” This breadth of responsibility, understandably, comes with considerable apprehension. However, as the Review reported following the initial public rollout of the AAPR’s areas of recommendation on March 13, AAPR leadership has taken important steps toward...

Departmental Consolidation Offers Opportunities for Increased Efficiency

Editorial Board

March 15, 2019

In a series of campus-wide presentations earlier this week, the Academic and Administrative Program Review steering committee unveiled numerous areas of recommendation for program and financial changes that might secure Oberlin’s long-term financial sustainability. For the last year, senior administrators have made clear that Oberlin is facing a financial reality that simply does not permit stagnation. However, this week’s presentation put that urgency in starker terms than ever before for the larger Oberlin community. According to the AAPR data released this week, if no changes are made to Oberlin’s budget, over the next five years Oberlin would see our deficit balloon to an unprecedented $52 million — a...

Arabic Transition Offers Opportunity to Model Creative Collaboration

Editorial Board

March 8, 2019

The recent decision to transition intermediate and advanced Arabic courses to a digital classroom platform known as the Shared Languages Program (covered in-depth in this week’s Review, “Arabic Courses to Be Offered Digitally”) has highlighted two truths about Oberlin’s current campus climate. The first, which has been obvious for quite some time, is that the time to make difficult decisions is here. Oberlin’s finances are at a point where, if action is not taken now, the institution will struggle to keep its doors open down the road. The second is that College administrators and students are getting better at coming together and discussing in good faith what those decisions are, and how they should be add...