Professors left last Wednesday’s general faculty meeting without having discussed the current draft of the College’s strategic plan. The item had been pushed from the agenda to allow more time for discussion of the College’s budget. It was a moment that was emblematic of the College’s current situation in which long-term planning discussions are often sidetracked by grim economic realities.

The strategic plan is a sprawlingly ambitious blueprint, which aims both to set the institution’s priorities for the future and define what kind of College it intends to be. The administration hopes to have it approved by both the faculty and trustees by the end of March.

However, as philosophy professor and planning committee member David Kamitsuka put it at a forum last Sunday, the College is only in the “first quarter” of the planning process. It still remains unclear how the implementation of the plan will take place and how it will be affected by the College’s financial situation.

The recent decision to cancel the Oberlin-in-London program has cast doubt on the plan’s promise to “internationalize” Oberlin’s course of study and the reductions in teaching staff may make it hard to achieve the plan’s goal of reducing the course load for faculty.

In the ’90s, a program of expansion under President Nancy Dye led to the creation of 15 new faculty positions, designed to lower Oberlin’s student-faculty ratio and increase its national profile.

The post-9/11 recession, a decrease in donations and lower than anticipated enrollment have made this expansion unattainable for Oberlin’s next century. It now appears that the College must “build on its strengths and move forward” on a smaller scale than was originally expected.

In the coming years the College will have to make difficult choices about which sections of the College must be cut or reduced in the name of financial sustainability. These choices will have to be made at the same time that the College is talking about how to expand for the future.

If current trends continue, it also appears that many of the decisions for cuts will be made with little or no input from faculty and students. This contrasts sharply with the strategic planning process, which has been among the most transparent and inclusive undertakings in recent Oberlin history.

According to Oberlin graduate and planning committee member Vivek Bharathan, this has led some members of the Committee to question “exactly what the process would mean if such decisions could be made spontaneously.”

College Dean Jeffrey Whitmer also remarked on the two competing trends in the College’s governance.

“[In planning] you have to be aware of the short term decisions which are more difficult,” he said.  “Otherwise you find out you have to scrap your plans because you can’t afford them.”

What this means for the future of Oberlin is that the College is facing a period of long-term expansion coupled with short-term cuts. The seeming discrepancy between these two is likely to cause a good deal more friction of the type seen after the London program decision was made last semester.

On the other hand, it may actually be to the benefit of the planning process that it is being implemented against the backdrop of financial constraint and resource scarcity.  In the 90s it may have been easy to pour resources generously into programs throughout the College.

Today, however, Oberlin’s economic reality is forcing it to examine what its core strengths and values are as an institution and make the tough but necessary decisions about how it will choose to define itself in the world of higher education.