One Oberlin

One Oberlin is a bold vision that builds on Oberlin’s powerful legacy and ensures Oberlin’s reach and relevancy for its third century and beyond. The plan’s recommendations focus on enhancing student learning outcomes and supporting academic and artistic excellence, while developing a roadmap to financial resiliency.

In the spring of 2018, President Carmen Twillie Ambar and Oberlin’s Board of Trustees launched Oberlin’s year-long Academic and Administrative Program Review (AAPR). Its 31-person steering committee, composed of faculty, staff, students, trustees, and alumni, was charged with undertaking an ambitious, comprehensive, data-driven examination of Oberlin’s programs and activities.

The AAPR sought to address head-on the challenges facing Oberlin and many of the nation’s top-tier liberal arts colleges and conservatories, and to provide a venue and an opportunity to build on Oberlin’s strengths while refocusing the entire community on what Oberlin distinctively offers to its students and to the world.

Download the One Oberlin report (accessible PDF)

“One Oberlin” is the name of the final report  produced by the AAPR steering committee. The report chronicles the work of the AAPR and includes the wealth of data that informed the committee's deliberations. It lays out ten major recommendations for the College and Conservatory, designed to better align institutional resources to Oberlin’s mission, and to champion investments that will build upon Oberlin’s academic excellence for many decades to come.

The General Faculty voted overwhelmingly to endorse the report on May 15, 2019, and the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to approve it on June 7, 2019.

The spirit of the AAPR process—its rigor, its enterprise, and its community-wide dedication to the best interests of Oberlin—will carry forward in the work ahead. Dedicated implementation committees have formed to address each of the AAPR recommendations. The committees will communicate their progress in this space as their work unfolds.

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