Center for Engaged Liberal Arts
Winter Term
Students celebrate the season at the Winter Term Carnival, one of numerous social events planned for those who choose to pursue Winter Term projects on campus.
Photo credit: Yevhen Gulenko
January means Winter Term.
What your Winter Term means is up to you.
Winter Term is Everywhere
Every year, Oberlin students pursue Winter Term projects in just about every place you can imagine: from Oberlin’s labs to their own hometowns, on prominent stages and in locales around the globe.
With the bustle of regular classwork and exams cleared from the schedule, Winter Term on campus takes on a unique and lively vibe: Students spend their weekdays pursuing their projects, while evenings and weekends are filled with winter-themed festivities, performances, trips to Cleveland, and social events like the annual Winter Term Ball.
Group Projects
Winter Term is an invitation to learn new things in new ways, while working in small groups with faculty and peers. Every January, students may choose to enroll in one of more than 50 different faculty- and staff-led group projects.
Interdisciplinary Arts
The open-ended nature of Winter Term encourages students to push artistic boundaries in finding new forms of creative expression. A vibrant arts community on campus fosters collaborative innovation in areas from dance and book arts to composition and light sculpture.
One recent Winter Term saw the conservatory’s TIMARA Department team up with the Cleveland-based dance company GroundWorks for a project that united composers and dancers in events on campus as well as in Cleveland.
Photo credit: Peter Swendsen ’99
Research and Practice
Winter Term projects are a great way to jump-start research and professional projects. Whether learning a new programming language, training as a museum educator, or apprenticing as a researcher in a scientific laboratory, students can use Winter Term to roll up their sleeves in their chosen field.
Geosciences professor Zeb Page and student Hiba Shaalan at the controls of the VEGA3 Scanning Electron Microscope, used for Shaalan’s Winter Term research project.
Photo credit: Yvonne Gay
Community Engagement
On-campus Winter Term projects provide the perfect context for working with community partners in Oberlin and throughout the Cleveland area. From podcasting local news to art therapy to interfaith dialogue, Oberlin students pursue an endless array of meaningful projects that support positive change and hone their collaboration and leadership skills.
During a recent Winter Term, student Jackie Brick interned in the emergency room at Mercy Health–Allen Hospital.
Photo credit: Yvonne Gay
Musical and Theater Performance
Every January, Oberlin musicians, actors, and technicians go all out in their love for craft and performance. Whether they’re mounting a new opera, staging a series of lieder performances, or promoting gender inclusivity in voice ensembles, their work brings music and theater alive for the entire community.
Students in the Film and Television Scoring intensive take center stage in the Joseph R. Clonick Studio with L..A-based television and film composer Adam Cohen ’91.
Photo credit: Peter Swendsen ’99
Independent Winter Term Stories
Traveling Strings
The Kulas String Quartet, composed of four first-year Oberlin students, traveled to the embassies of Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia for enthusiastically received performances in January. The Winter Term tour was conceived shortly after the students first connected during Orientation Week just months earlier.
The Auto Drink Dispenser
Creating an auto drink dispenser was something student Thomas Heffer had toyed with for a long time. It wasn't until an individual project during Winter Term that he was able to learn everything he would need to make it a reality.
Building Solidarity with Nepali Youth
When researching colleges in the United States, Bikalpa Baniya was drawn to Oberlin because of the opportunities he would have to engage in service projects on a local and global scale. With a Shansi in Asia grant, he was able to return to Nepal with fellow Obies to help communities affected by a devastating earthquake.
From the Classroom to the World
The Engaged Liberal Arts at Oberlin takes what you’re learning in your courses and puts it into practice through internships, research, study-away experiences, Winter Term, career exploration, and more.
Winter Term Resources
Catalog and Calendar
Resources for Students
Resources for Faculty and Staff
Next Steps
An Oberlin education puts the liberal arts to work in achieving a life of meaning and purpose.
Students gather as part of the Winter Oberland festival featuring skating, music, and hot chocolate.
Photo credit: Mike Crupi