We the undersigned alumni and current Oberlin College students are writing to express our extreme disappointment and frustration upon learning that Oberlin College no longer will host cluster reunions during Commencement Weekend. We are frustrated with the College’s lack of transparency and communication with alumni leading up to this major change. 

We urge you to reconsider this unfortunate decision and keep reunions tied to Commencement on campus for the entire weekend.

1. We love Oberlin College and want to support it to the best of our abilities and circumstances. This major change regarding the timing and off-campus accommodations for the reunion is alienating many of us at a time when the College needs our financial support more than ever. Oberlin also needs us to encourage future generations of students to matriculate when it has been falling in the rankings at a precipitous pace. 

2. Commencement Weekend Reunion and Illumination in late May is Oberlin’s largest longstanding alumni tradition for current students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members who live in town. It is wildly popular, magical, and meaningful. It helps support the local businesses and Oberlin needs to do better developing a strong and supportive rapport with them. A reunion without Illumination and graduating students and their families will be FLAT and unexciting. Why destroy something that is so beloved? 

3. Fall Homecoming is meaningless to us and people give when they are passionate about a place and feel connected to it and engaged. We go back to Oberlin to experience the dynamic, creative campus that we once were part of during some of the most important years of our lives. The College reveals its true riches annually when the warmer weather allows people to be outside, to interact, and to play. We are much more likely to give generously when we see and experience students who are showing off their achievements during their senior recitals, exhibitions, theatrical performances, and more. 

4. Yes, we are nostalgic and impassioned and that is good for Oberlin’s Office of Advancement. We want to be able to retrace our footsteps, to walk across campus, to lounge in the quads, to walk through our old classrooms and dorms, to hear Rumi readings in Peters Observatory, to do contact improv in Warner, and to hang out in Tappan Square. This is the one time that we have the opportunity to come to campus when it is at its best: beautiful weather (usually) and grounds, the energy of graduating students, and the plethora of amazing planned and impromptu events throughout the weekend. We want to show the graduating students that they can always have a home to come back to where their friends will return as well. The spring reunions are special precisely because they are tied to graduation, allowing alumni to remember those very special moments in their lives and to ensure (through gifts) that what makes Oberlin unique remains. Illumination during Commencement is important because it also binds the college with the town (which Oberlin needs to do more). Now what is reunion tied to? Nothing.

5. No one wants to go to a reunion where they can’t stay in Oberlin. It’s supposed to be a reunion at our college in our college town. People want to reunite on campus with their clusters. The whole point is to be together again in the place that was formative to our development and lives. The Hotel at Oberlin cannot accommodate all alumni for a fall reunion and the dorms will be full of students. We do not want to stay in Elyria or some other town that we have no connection to. The reunions are big fundraising opportunities, and being on campus together is a key part of the event. 

6. Many Conservatory alumni who are professional musicians will not be able to attend because it would mean they would have to turn down a significant amount of paid employment (or take unpaid leave) to be gone from Friday to Monday in the fall. Same issues hold for all of the people who have become teachers and professors. And the fall dates will frequently conflict with the Jewish High Holidays, which are the Holiest Days of the year for the Jewish people.