Oberlin College & Conservatory

Letter from the Vice President and Dean of Students

This published version of the Oberlin College Student Regulations, Policies, and Procedures is intended to be a guide to the principles and policies that shape and regulate our community. Those who matriculate at Oberlin have entered into a unique community, dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and excellence. By joining this community, you are expected to understand and abide by the principles and policies that enable us to thrive as educators, scholars, and learners.

From its inception, Oberlin College has been dedicated to free and open thought and expression. The community’s positions on social issues have often been quite varied; our members have included abolitionists, missionaries, libertarians, integrationists, and prohibitionists, as well as suffragists, nationalists, communitarians, pacifists, and fundamentalists. Although frequently regarded as progressive in their time, Oberlinians have promoted ideas that by some interpretation – or by the terms of another era – may not seem so. What has remained constant is our belief in the importance of allowing ideas to flourish, regardless of their popularity at a given moment. Moreover, it is a mark of an Oberlin education to apply the insights and values of the classroom to the understanding and resolution of pressing social issues of the day. And while those issues have frequently evolved and changed, the principles of tolerance, self-determination, social responsibility, and intellectual integrity have remained constant.

Oberlin College was founded on principles of inclusivity and equal opportunity. As such, it has been the country’s historical leader in the education of women and people of color. We are dedicated to the celebration, advancement, and greater understanding of diversity in all its manifestations and complexities.

Eric Estes
Vice President and Dean of Students