The
Lines That Divide Us
By Douglass Dowty
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.
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