In a December 2006 op-ed piece for The Washington Post, John Kerry wrote, “There’s something much worse than being accused of ‘flip-flopping’: refusing to flip when it’s obvious that your course of action is a flop.”

Kerry may have been defending his own decision-making practices in relation to the War in Iraq, but this statement nevertheless bears relevance to Oberlin College’s course of action by way of its Strategic Plan.

The intention behind this document, approved in March of 2005, is an important one: By setting specific goals and priorities, the College can forge ahead with concrete efforts to remedy financial crises, improve minority student recruitment and strengthen the quality and diversity of the Oberlin curriculum. Indeed, as tudents and faculty regularly voice grievances over many facets of campus life, it is comforting to know that Oberlin is working to tackle some of the problems at hand.

Some particular goals listed in the Strategic Plan, however, seem misguided, miscalculated and entirely out of sync with the needs of the greater Oberlin community. Many of the document’s intentions, in fact, seem directly and inextricably in conflict with the very values on which this institution was built.

Given that the College prides itself on fostering a positive partnership with community, it is ironic that some of its Strategic goals entail demonstrably negative effects upon that relationship. For example, some local landlords are suffering from the lack of business they would ordinarily receive from student renters; this is a direct result of Oberlin’s push to heighten residency requirements.

But the irony does not stop there. Forcing students to remain on campus for all four years also seems incongruous with Oberlin’s goal of personal independence and exploration. Oberlin gives students great freedom to design their own majors and dabble in different disciplines to find their passions, yet hypocritically prevents most students from exploring outside of College-controlled housing to find what best suits their needs.

In an effort to alleviate Oberlin’s financial constraints, the Strategic Plan aims to cut twelve faculty positions by 2010. Despite the appearance of good intentions, it seems hardly productive to eliminate distinctive professorships in both the College and the Conservatory that are integral to students’ educational growth.

The Strategic Plan directs Admissions to prioritize its recruitment of full-paying students and dictates that the institution must also decrease the amount of financial aid given to students. Yet this runs contrary to Oberlin’s greater goal of promoting socioeconomic diversity on campus.

President Nancy Dye has insisted that Oberlin need not be entirely wed to the Strategic Plan as it currently stands. She admitted that there were elements of the plan that might have been approached differently in retrospect, as well as specific objectives that have prompted reconsiderations along the way. Given the Plan’s non-binding nature, we urge the senior administration, the Board of Trustees and the next president to continue evaluating the document’s strengths and weaknesses in the process of realizing Oberlin’s highest potential.

To reevaluate and even remove specific objectives from the Strategic Plan that appear incongruent to the values of Oberlin College would not be perceived as a deficiency in consistency, or even as a mark of failure on the part of administrators and trustees. We need not “stay the course.”         As Kerry so sensibly articulated, it is not stubborn steadfastness that marks integrity and responsibility to a cause, but rather the flexibility to consider other possibilities and admit oversights to achieve a greater end.