Oberlin on the Radio | Radio Redux | World Famous Entomologist Speaks at Oberlin | ABC's Good Morning America Tries Oberlin on for Size | William Goldman Receives Honorary Degree | Good Morning Blackbird | Going Hollywood | Masterworks for Learning | Oberlin's Firebrand

Oberlin on the Radio

Oberlin's president, Nancy S. Dye, explored the need for scientific literacy in the coming decades in a recent edition of The Best of Our Knowledge, a nationally syndicated radio program on education issues relayed weekly to 83 stations via NPR and the ABC Radio Network. President Dye cited student concern about environmental and health issues and the use of technology in everyday life as causes of increased interest in science. Because students want to experience underlying science principles themselves, the curriculum, as well as the way it is taught, is changing: the old-fashioned lecture has been blended with much more discovery - hands-on learning.

On December 3, CBS Radio's Millennium Minute featured Oberlin College as the first college to grant bachelor of arts degrees to women. The program continued, "Oberlin's commitment to education also extended beyond gender to include African-Americans" and mentioned 19th-century Oberlin grad Mary Jane Patterson, "the first African-American woman to earn a degree." The Millennium Minutes are minute-long vignettes honoring people and events that have shaped the past 1,000 years.

Edward O. Wilson, considered one of the most important scientists of all time, delivered two lectures at Oberlin in free-to-the-public events in November. Harvard's Pelligrino University research professor, Wilson has made major contributions in the fields of entomology and the understanding of evolution and natural selection on human science. He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction - for On Human Nature in 1979, and, in 1991, for The Ants. His latest book, Consilience, is a national bestseller. In it he argues for the search for proof that everything in our world is organized by a small number of fundamental natural laws.

John Palacio, a correspondent for ABC television's Good Morning America, was assigned to Oberlin to explore life in a college residence hall and found himself sleeping for two nights in Dascomb Hall. Palacio, who had never before slept in a college dorm, was somewhat surprised by men and women nonchalantly sharing the same bathrooms and by their casual room decor. He interviewed several students whose good-natured observations on college life today were aired to an audience of millions in October.

Inclement weather foiled Oberlin's first attempt to award William Goldman '52 an honorary doctor of literature degree last May, when his flight from New York was grounded. Instead, the College trustees bestowed the belated degree upon the author and Oscar-winning screenwriter at a private campus ceremony December 4. Goldman met with students interested in screenwriting; lunched with the trustees; received the doctorate; then hosted an open house with professor of theater Roger Copeland to answer questions put to him by faculty, students, and staff, all in the span of a few hours. Author of more than 15 novels, children's books, and short stories, Goldman won Academy Awards for his screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and All the President's Men. He has also won a British Academy Award, two Edgar awards for mystery film scripts, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Great Britain.

CBS television's Sunday Morning featured a profile of eighth blackbird, a contemporary music group that, says The New Yorker, was "assembled in 1996 from the ranks of forward-thinking students at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music." CBS correspondent Eugenia Zuckerman recalled first hearing the sextet when its members - Matt Albert, Molly Barth, Matthew Duvall, Lisa Kaplan, Michael Maccaferri, and Nicholas Photinos - were Oberlin Conservatory undergraduates: "I was completely knocked out by this group of young virtuosic players who were playing these complex new scores with such total ease and complete involvement." The segment aired November 8. Check the group out on the web: http://www.eighthblackbird.com/start.html.

Going Hollywood

Oberlin and Oberlin grads seem to be taking Hollywood by storm. We were mentioned in a recent episode of the ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg and in the film Beloved. And two alumni actors have new movies out: Avery Brooks '70, a.k.a. Captain Sisko of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, plays school principal Bob Sweeney in the controversial film, American History X; Daniel London '95, who recently made his New York stage debut in The Impossible Marriage, starring Holly Hunter, is featured in Robin Williams' new film, Patch Adams.

Visiting the Allen Memorial Art Museum these days is as easy as turning on the computer. The museum's enhanced electronic catalog, Masterworks for Learning, was released last fall on CD-ROM and features a brief history of the museum, its collection, and its academic programs. The multimedia presentation illustrates 170 major works in all media, sits in on classes taught in the museum's galleries, and explores the museum's discovery of a great painting. Database software enables searches through the AMAM's entire collection of over 10,000 objects. Funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the three-year project involved College and Conservatory students and alumni and Oberlin art historians. To find out more, visit the museum's web site at www.oberlin.edu/allenart/CD-ROM.html or call the museum store, Uncommon Objects, at (440) 775-2086.

A letter from Oberlin's admissions office can make the heart of even the most stalwart prospective student beat just a little faster. Imagine the effect of such a letter on a prospective who is also a romance-novel heroine. Historical-romance writer Laurel Collins describes that scene in her latest novel, The Firebrand, published by Zebra Books. The novel is set on the Oberlin College campus and its heroine, Caroline Harlowe, was inspired by Lucy Stone, Class of 1847, a pioneer in the movement for women's rights. Caroline is denied the right to speak at her graduation ceremony, as was Lucy Stone. And when her passionate affair with a local miller, whose tortured past drives him to drink, culminates in marriage, Caroline keeps her maiden name, just as Lucy Stone did when she married Henry Blackwell in 1855.

• Back to the ATS January 1999 Table of Contents