About the Office

The overall mission of the Office of the Dean of Students is to support the success of Oberlin students in their pursuit of knowledge and learning and to educate and support the whole student. Therefore, we are committed to creating a purposeful learning environment that integrates curricular and co-curricular experiences. We seek to provide a living and learning environment that:
• Encourages the extension of academic learning beyond the confines of the classroom, laboratory, studio, and practice room;
• Provides other arenas where the ideas and values that are encountered in the classroom are tested, tried on, confirmed, modified or rejected;
• Supports students in their personal and intellectual development as they try out ideas and identities, hear points of view that are unfamiliar, and develop critical thinking skills;
• Fosters an atmosphere of learning and personal growth that can happen only where students live together in close quarters; and
• Teaches students to compromise, to negotiate, and to find a reasonable balance between individual freedom and collective responsibility and between independence and interdependence.

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