What's
Inside?

Cover Story
A tale of two Oberlins.

In View
Pie-in-the-sky possibilities or difficult life-and-death decisions? The Human Genome Project may ultimately mean both.

Obies
The Oberlin Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies placed its first intern last summer. Read this firsthand account of his experiences in Moscow.

Center Piece
A new organ takes shape in Finney Chapel. Profile 6 Economist Gregory Hess and his student research assistant ponder the relationship between war, economics, and the election cycle.

Arts
Filmmaking at Oberlin? Most definitely. A three-hour marathon of student film shorts last May was just the tip of the growing celluloid iceberg.

Yeosports
Player-turned-coach Ann Marie Gilbert inspires teamwork on and off the basketball court.

The Big Picture
The Oberlin Orchestra performed at the Getty Center, L.A. under the direction of guest conductor John Williams.


Side Lines
Little facts you might be interested in.


 


A Tale of Two Oberlins

Starting with Schools, They'll Work Together for a Better Future

by Anne C. Paine


The two Oberlins -- town and College --have deeply intertwined histories. Through the Oberlin Partnership, town and College have acknowledged that their prospects for the future are also inextricably tied.

A bucolic town at first glance, Oberlin is not immune to the stresses of modern life. The town has recently suffered job losses, it struggles with a persistent poverty rate of 25 percent, and its public-school system does not meet state performance standards.

Officially launched last spring with a $350,000 allocation from the Oberlin College Board of Trustees, the Oberlin Partnership is a four-pronged effort headed by College and town leaders to jointly address the pressing issues of education, housing, economic development, and recreation.

The emphasis is definitely on "joint," said Daniel Gardner '89, appointed by President Nancy S. Dye to direct the College side of the partnership. In his second-floor office overlooking Oberlin's main intersection -- the location of which, he noted, "is more than a symbolic gesture" -- he discussed the partnership's education component.

"We chose to focus on education first because there's an obvious partner," he said. "In housing, recreation, and economic development, there's no one entity that has sole responsibility. Also, we already have a lot of interaction between the College and the schools. But it's not systematic. It's more a series of individual good ideas that seem not to equal the sum of their parts. The partnership will let us align our programs with the schools' needs. And the teacher-education program we're developing stands as a model for what we want to do with all the other education programs."

"There is absolutely no reason why every child growing up in Oberlin should not have an education enriched by Oberlin College."

Nancy S. Dye
The teacher-education program, currently a proposal spearheaded by Associate Dean of the College Robert Geitz, envisions the College establishing a teacher-training program by 2002. During a fifth year of study, education students would participate in work-shops and seminars led by College faculty and public-school teachers. A semester would be spent student teaching under the supervision of school teachers, who would also participate in the program's pro-fessional development activities. Oberlin students would graduate with provisional teaching licenses, the initial Ohio teacher certification.

"This is worth mentioning not because inexperienced College students are going to take over Oberlin classrooms. What's notable is that the program has been jointly conceived by College faculty and staff and school faculty and staff," Gardner said.

"If the model we are developing is adopted, our program will be more rigorous, more field-based, than other programs," he continued. "Students will be able to see how school change is implemented and will be able to have some influence on its course."

The proposal still needs to gain the approval of the College faculty, the Oberlin school district, and the State of Ohio, Gardner said, but "the feedback we've received so far has been very positive."

Other education fronts on which the partnership is working include a science outreach program, headed by Associate Vice President of Sponsored Programs David Love and Elaine Carlin, the assistant superintendent of Oberlin schools.

"Upon completion of Oberlin's new science facility, it's a distinct possibility that science instruction in the 6th through 12th grades will be happening there," Gardner said. "The timing on this is excellent, because teachers in Oberlin are currently redesigning the science curriculum."

The already successful America Reads program will also be expanded, and by next fall well-trained reading tutors will be placed in every classroom from kindergarten through the third grade, as well as in Oberlin's Head Start program and the Oberlin Early Childhood Center, a local daycare center.

Overseeing all these efforts is a College-School Partnership Steering Council, composed on the school side of representatives of the school board, the administration, the teachers' union, building administrators, and parents, and on the College side by the president and the academic deans, along with Gardner and Diana Roose. Roose, assistant to the president, is now eliciting concrete ideas from town residents on how the College and schools can work together effectively.

"Oberlin College commands considerable educational resources," President Nancy Dye told the Oberlin Alumni Magazine last fall. "There is absolutely no reason why every child growing up in Oberlin should not have an education enriched by Oberlin College."

The Oberlin Partnership plans to bring that vision into being.

Read the Oberlin Alumni Magazine story on the Oberlin Partnership.