New School Year Brings New Locations for Campus Offices, Departments

Great strides in campus construction and renovation have resulted in a number of academic departments, offices—and student residents—landing in new spaces in time for the upcoming school year.

• The latest round of ongoing renovations at Wilder Hall began in July and will continue through summer 2026. Phase II focuses on renovation of the student union’s third floor. To accommodate construction, the following offices will be relocated for 2025-26:
  • Student Leadership and Involvement to Daub House (145 W. Lorain St., next door to Wilder Hall)
  • Student Finance Committee to Daub House
  • Concert Sound to Wilder Hall Room 212
  • ExCo Committee to Kade House (104 S. Professor St.) Room 104

In addition, offices for AVI Fresh, Oberlin’s campus dining partner, have been relocated from Wilder Hall to the Hales Gymnasium Office for the coming year.

Areas of Wilder Hall not included in the third-floor construction zone will be open during the coming year.

• This fall, Oberlin welcomes its first new residence hall in 15 years: Woodland Hall houses 402 students in convenient proximity to the athletics complex and Science Center. The arrival of Woodland Hall creates an opportunity to systematically assess and refresh Oberlin’s other residence halls; this year, Fairchild House, Old Barrows, and Johnson House will be taken offline in this way.

• Across Wilder Bowl, the new Campus Store, which replaces the former bookstore on College Street, opened August 22 in newly renovated space next to Azariah’s Café in Mudd Center. Over the summer, the store operated in a temporary space in Wilder Hall’s Main Lounge.
• Relocation of the Campus Store cleared the way for a key initiative in the College of Arts and Sciences: Redeveloping the former bookstore space to be a new academic arts space focusing on the college’s new BA+BFA Integrated Arts and Cinema and Media programs. Beginning this fall, the new Center for Media and Integrated Arts will house the integrated arts workshop, a core course for the BA+BFA, and expanded space for Cinema and Media. A complete renovation of the space will unfold over the coming year, with plans to include a public-facing area for community-engaged performance and practice.
• Also in the college, renovations to Bosworth Hall are complete, and Creative Writing, Business, and Data Science now call the historic building home.

• In the Conservatory of Music, construction of the new Conservatory East Studios (in the Hotel at Oberlin building) is nearly complete, and the new Music Theater program will start the fall semester in the space. Conservatory East Studios is also home to the conservatory’s Recording Arts and Production program, which launched in 2024.

For questions regarding campus construction and renovations, please contact Facilities Planning and Construction at fpc@oberlin.edu.