One of the Alumni Trustees we elected this year was Dr. Jay Whitacre '94.  In applying for a seat on the board, he wrote in part:

One of the few pieces of advice my father gave me was “get a good liberal arts education and it will be with you the rest of your life” — which, it turns out, is true.  I took this advice to heart.

My non-conformist tendencies, love of music, and desire to major in the sciences led me to shortlist Oberlin early in my college selection process.  Once I visited, I was sure that this was the place for me.  It felt like home.

The mentorship and guidance I received from an Oberlin physics professor, John Scofield, helped define my career.  I watched him work with a range of people from other disciplines and learned that thinking holistically — even considering economics and policy — matters greatly, even when conducting basic research. I came to see that there were many different ways to approach a problem.

I recently had a long car ride with someone with a very different political perspective than myself.  There were initial barriers based on “liberal” versus “conservative.”  I explained that, to me, “liberal” is not a set of static beliefs or political dogma but is rather a state of mind that values openness to all possible aspects of a topic.  Most issues are nuanced/not absolute, and common ground can often be found.  We started by agreeing on some basic facts; this helped greatly, and we ended up realizing we agreed on much more than one would have imagined.

The core values Oberlin has perpetuated are deeply needed in today's culture.  The one value that stands out is the concept that things can be different depending on from what perspective they are viewed.  Before judging/acting on anything, one must seek out multiple angles to understand how someone else may be feeling.

As a fellow physics major, I wrote Professor Whitacre to congratulate him, and I attached a pair of images.  He replied that when he wrote of multiple angles, he was indeed thinking of this stela.  It was erected near Wilder Hall during his commencement weekend in 1994, and “it's stayed with me all my adult life.”

John Frederick Oberlin used a similar fanfold picture for counseling.  His message was that people with diverse perspectives can nevertheless live in friendship with one another.