Strolling once again on campus last weekend was a pleasant déjà vu. A lifetime Midwesterner, I had spent the summer in a Manhattan apartment dreaming somewhat wistfully of the little house on the prairie and Land Rover jeeps.
Walking around the friendly, small, cornfield-bound commune, it occurred to me that Oberlin was every bit as unique as that behemoth of a metropolis I had just left. True, it looked and moved differently — the landscape had changed, from mounds of earth to a completed Science Center. The main eatery, from the forsaken Stevenson to the Dascomb 17-hour breakfast/continental breakfast/lunch/dinner/4th meal workhorse. But Oberlin to the 700 new Obies was the same entity my class discovered a year before. It hadn’t changed.
The truth is, Oberlin is not perfect, and there are silent lines that continue to undermine much of the campus, creating a dichotomy that no one talks about but everyone recognizes. It can be summed up in one three-word Obie FAQ: Con or College? Like that question answers as much about someone as: Do we have anything in common or not?
But it really is not that. In Oberlin lingo, one simply wonders: Will I ever see you again in the next four years or should I even bother to try to know you? Hence, a silent line is drawn. Con or College? Obie or Connie?
Oberlin student or Oberlin student?

Separating People By Their Interests

Of course, no one can claim that applying for the College is anything like applying for the Conservatory, and vice versa. If that were the case, New York’s Juilliard School and Columbia University would recycle each other’s leftover applications. The standards for admission in both are written in two different languages—one a personal essay in words, the other in music.
But surely there is some common ground here at Oberlin. The college has a thriving arts scene. True, art varies from music to theatre to dance. But people vary even more. Artists by their nature have something to offer one another. Con or College? has never meant to imply: arts or letters?
Oberlin has a campus of artists, Con and College.
Conservatory students talk to each other in English. In the College, that language is used frequently (yes, even if you wonder sometimes), and music is not any more cryptic than quantum tunneling that physics majors pull their hair out about. Con students have many interests, even while the primary one is their major. Same in the College.
In the end, the silent line exists out of convenience. Why bother with one when you have plenty of friends and headaches in the other? Conservatory students have everything they need (except bed, meals, and a showerhead) in one building, while College people scamper around the entire campus—except for that one building. Those elongated triangular windows and pearly-white stucco, contain an insulation material of mystical proportions, forming a metaphysical barrier. In or out? Con or College?
Oberlin or Oberlin?

In The Oberlin Review

Maybe the implications of this super-insulator are a legitimate explanation for Oberlin’s bipolar demeanor. We don’t have Rumble in the Cornfields or WWF Ohio Smackdowns on campus. There is a certain awkwardness, but in the end everyone has the right to decide whom to relate to, and whom he or she feels most comfortable around.
But Oberlin is one school made of two parts. The Oberlin Review has an Arts section where this column appears. No distinction is made between Con and College because supposedly it should cover exactly what it implies: art on Oberlin’s campus.
Opening an issue of the Review from last year (April 5th, 2001), I came across the following headlines in Arts: “The ’Sco: A Jammin’ ’70s New York Club?”, “Eels Rock Despite Frat Boys,” “Images Duke it Out in Student Art Show,” “Pullman to Bring Avant-Folk” and, of course, “What Would Nina Do? “
All interesting articles. But would someone who knew nothing about our campus ever think that there is an institution called the Oberlin Conservatory? Seems like an interesting place, they would say, flipping through Oberlin’s publication.
You smile. Con or College? They look at you blankly. Huh? Wait, there’s a Conservatory too? You nod.
So when does their publication come out?
This cry has been raised many times. Last year I authored a dry, if passionate, perspective on bringing more Conservatory voices to the Review. It is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. It will require those in the Con and the college to work together. But it can be done.
As a Midwesterner, it felt strange living in New York for several months. I lived 150 feet higher off the ground, paid twice for my chicken nuggets, covered my ears in the subway, and had the personal space of an ant in an ant colony. Sometimes it seemed almost an alternate universe. It really wasn’t though, and I learned how to be myself and break down much of the notoriety that surrounded the people of that great city. It is a unique place, and I had just left isolated Oberlin, a place that prided itself on being so different. New York or Oberlin? An interesting question. Con or College? C’mon.