large open classroom setting with professor working with 5 students.
Students taking courses in StudiOC have discussions and do coursework in a modern and spacious learning environment.
Photo credit: Brad Feinknopf

Oberlin Center for Convergence (StudiOC)

Oberlin Center for Convergence (StudiOC) brings together the college and conservatory to address the complex, seemingly intractable challenges of our era. StudiOC theme-based learning communities are multidisciplinary, which allows students to make connections across disciplines and develop meaningful interactions with their peers and with faculty.

StudiOC is both a modern and flexible educational space and a new method for faculty to pursue multidisciplinary collaboration. StudiOC is designed to refine the art of creative and integrative multidisciplinary inquiry in students as a means for them to interpret and address social, cultural, artistic, political, and scientific questions.

Learning communities provide two or three courses from different academic departments. Faculty and students within a learning community work together at key points throughout the semester for multidisciplinary discussion, shared assignments, and programming.

This Fall's StudiOC learning community, "On Being Social Beings," is open to first-year students.

 

StudiOC contacts:

Plan your Schedule

Plan your schedule by using Banner Self Service accessible through OberView to check your course schedule, your academic records, financial aid award (if any), and other details related to your academic program and academic standing.

Academic Calendar OberView

Browse 2020/2021 Learning Communities

StudiOC offers up to six semester-long learning communities each academic year. Learning communities within the college or the conservatory are comprised of three individually instructed courses from different academic departments clustered around a common theme and with shared programming. Learning communities from both divisions feature two individually instructed courses.

Review the learning community that interests you for enrollment requirements.

Spring 2021 Offerings

Fieldwork: The Art of Place Through Poetry and Dance

Examine how place shapes artistic practice and the artistic subject and how engagement with place impacts and sustains creative production.

Browse this Cluster

illustration of house and tree.

Creative Placemaking

Explore history, the physical space, the economy, and the people of a community to propose how to address challenges through the medium of the arts.

Browse this Cluster

illustration of figure dancing and music symbols.

Recent Learning Communities

These learning communities held in fall 2020 explored racial and environmental disparities in public and global health; how art, music, politics, and religion influence political campaigns' and the challenges and promise of DNA technology.

Reconstructing the FutureIt‘s in Our DNAElection 2020
three women professors sitting in plush lounge chairs.

Premier Location

Classes meet in the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center, a four-story, mixed-use building. Some classes may convene remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. StudiOC is on the upper level of the College of Arts and Sciences Office of Admissions building and adjacent to the Hotel at Oberlin.

Gateway CenterGertrude B. Lemle Teaching CenterHotel at Oberlin Arts and Sciences Admissions
lobby area in building leading to upstairs classrooms.

StudiOC Facilities

StudiOC learning communities typically meet in a modern, flexible, and active learning space that features large picture windows, ample classroom space, and a common area. It is part of the Peter B. Lewis Gateway Center. Classes may meet remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.

StudiOC Facilities View Classrooms, Spaces

Fourteen faculty and staff members comprise the StudiOC Planning Committee. The group reviews and approves applications for course clusters as proposed by faculty from the college and conservatory. Faculty and other administrators have access to a conference room to review proposals, curriculum, and other related projects.

Empty classroom in StudiOC.
Conference room and classroom in StudiOC
Photo credit: Tanya Rosen-Jones '97

Additional Resources