Oberlin Yeomen

Oberlin College

Former names	Oberlin Collegiate Institute (1833–1864)
Motto	Learning and Labor
Type	Private Liberal Arts
Established	September 2, 1833
Endowment	$770.3 million (2016)
President	Marvin Krislov
Administrative staff	1,058
Students	2,900
Location	Oberlin, Ohio, USA 41°17′35″N 82°13′07″W / 41.292929°N 82.218576°W / 41.292929; -82.218576Coordinates: 41°17′35″N 82°13′07″W / 41.292929°N 82.218576°W / 41.292929; -82.218576
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Cardinal red       Mikado yellow
Athletics	NCAA Division III – NCAC
Nickname	Yeomen / Yeowomen
Affiliations	CIC Annapolis Group Oberlin Group CLAC GLCA Five Colleges of Ohio NAICU
Website	oberlin.edu

Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. The college was founded as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1833 by John Jay Shipherd and Philo Stewart. It is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, part of the college, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States.

The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 50 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Five Colleges of Ohio consortium.

Both the college and the town of Oberlin were founded in northern Ohio in 1833 by a pair of Presbyterian ministers, John Jay Shipherd and Philo Stewart. The College was built on 500 acres (2.0 km²) of land specifically donated by the previous owners, Titus Street, founder of Streetsboro, Ohio, and Samuel Hughes, who lived in Connecticut. Shipherd and Stewert named their project after Jean-Frédéric Oberlin, an Alsatian minister whom they both admired. The ministers' vision was for both a religious community and school. Oberlin's founders bragged that "Oberlin is peculiar in that which is good," and the college has long been associated with progressive causes.

Asa Mahan (1799–1889) accepted the position as first President of the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in 1835, simultaneously serving as the chair of intellectual and moral philosophy and a professor of theology. Mahan's liberal views towards abolitionism and anti-slavery greatly influenced the philosophy of the newly founded college; likewise, only two years after its founding, the school began admitting students of all races, becoming the first college in the United States to do so. The college had some difficult beginnings, and Rev. John Keep and William Dawes were sent to England to raise funds for the college in 1839–40. A nondenominational seminary, Oberlin's Graduate School of Theology (first called the Theological Department), was established alongside the college in 1833. In 1965, the board of trustees voted to discontinue graduate instruction in theology at Oberlin, and in September 1966, six faculty members and 22 students merged with the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University. Oberlin's role as an educator of African-American students prior to the Civil War and thereafter is historically significant. In 1844, Oberlin College graduated its first black student, George B. Vashon, who became one of the founding professors at Howard University and the first black lawyer admitted to the Bar in New York State.