A college cannot legally limit the free speech of a student. Oberlin College had no role in the Gibson’s protests. A very small number of students were involved with a student protest. Oberlin was not protesting the assault by a Gibson’s employee on a student. The students were protesting the assault. Oberlin should be commended for protecting the rights of students to peacefully demonstrate…by not getting involved. Gibson’s did not sue the students. The students don’t have millions of dollars. Oberlin is just a proxy - protecting free speech on campuses across the country.
@rayrayray20 I have a very happy kid at Oberlin. I will PM you in case you want to message me back (you need 15 posts to send a message but not to respond to one). The Gibson’s incident happened before she enrolled and the current president had to pick up the pieces. I am not going down that rabbit hole but I can tell you that the majority of students were not involved. 180-200 protesters is less than 10% of the Oberlin student body of approximately 2,500-3,000 students, including the conservatory.
Oberlin is a tolerant, live and let live sort of place. My child and her friends are not strident SJWs. They are kind, earnest, idealistic, smart, and hardworking. It is very inclusive of all sorts of gender identities and sexual orientations. I can’t speak to the visual arts offerings, but performing arts, creative writing, and music (obviously) are all stellar. The Allen art museum is quite good and the art museum in Cleveland is excellent. There is also a peer mentoring program that begins at orientation to provide students with support as they transition to college.
My kid did not consider women’s colleges so I cannot speak to MHC except by reputation. Your child would also find a warm, inclusive environment and strong academics there.
Given that you have two good choices before you, maybe encourage your daughter to take a deep dive into the course catalogs and departmental web pages to see what speaks to her. Maybe have her check out the Oberlin student blogs if she hasn’t done so already. My kid found them very helpful in making her choice.
Also, look into what’s involved in getting her there and back. Oberlin is about a 30 minute drive to the Cleveland airport; MHC is probably 1.5-2 hours by shuttle from Boston Logan. Figure out how that meshes with air travel, availability of nonstop flights, etc. If after all of this, if she’s still undecided, the merit award could be a deciding factor.
Good luck and congratulations!
Thanks so much for your thoughts on the issue. As I said I do NOT want to rehash the incident, and have no first-hand knowledge personally, but I did find this thread interesting to read. I copy the url here in case you’re interested.
Thank you for your insights. This is my impression of Oberlin based on experiences with about a dozen graduates. I’ll encourage her to read the blogs and catalogs.
I grew up about an hour from Oberlin, and I live about an hour now from Mt. Holyoke. I know graduates of both colleges, from my generation as well as my kids’.
Both are excellent and highly regarded colleges where your daughter will get an excellent college education. Whatever the admit rate is at MHC, remember that there is some self selection before students even apply there.
I think you should focus less on perceived reputations of these two fine schools…and more about which one your daughter likes best (assuming that cost is not a variable).
That seems now to be very common, not just in young adults, college students, or left-wing social-justice types. People are easily outraged (often due to being deceived by partisan or hype-driven media) and want something done right now before knowing the full story (even if no one knows the full story, such as with COVID-19 now).
Interesting. I have a gaggle of millennials working for me, and I have children aged 18 and 24. I see this behavior in both of these populations and I find it scary.
That was a statement of my perception. This is interesting because shutting down thoughtful dialogue is what got Oberlin in trouble.
Not to get off topic, but we seem to have full information THAT EXISTS about COVID – from the CDC, NYT coverage with plenty of data for example yesterday–location by location trends in new infections, death rates, etc, and world-wide sources of information that’s objective. Are the pieces still being put together? Yes, but what objective information exists is possible to find and not being repressed, in the press, in academic articles, and elsewhere.
Now back to the original topic. And to my read, the thread I posted above seemed to contain several well-documented sources that showed the administration helping to lead the charge against the bakery, including one administrator who said “release the students” in an email, and providing pizza and winter gloves to the students, and showing up with a megaphone to direct the students – and the current president changing positions several times and astonishingly still moving forward with yet more court proceedings.
To keep this from veering off track, I will stop commenting on this thread further. And I want to thank everyone for helping to sort this issue.
@rayrayray20 Oberlin got into trouble because they cancelled a longstanding contract with Gibson’s without fully knowing what the circumstances were. In short, the college behaved just like college students.
Hi! I am currently going through the college process and my top schools are also Oberlin and Mount Holyoke. I’d love to hear what your daughter ended up deciding and why. Thanks