Administrative/Biographical History
Nancy Schrom Dye (1947-2015) served as the thirteenth president of Oberlin College from 1994 to 2007. Selected from a national search, she accepted the presidency, leaving her position as dean of the faculty and professor of history at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, New York).[1] Upon coming to Oberlin, she arrived “during what was considered a difficult period in the institution’s history: morale was low, the deficit was high, and the future was uncertain.”[2] She had her work cut out for her given the high expectations placed before her administration to establish a fresh vision and become a change agent for Oberlin College. Her personal style of engagement and communication contributed to a wide support base, as did her student-centered focus and progressive approach to address issues in higher education.
To describe the tenure of the first woman president, this history focuses on six particular subsets of the Dye administration: 1) reorganizing the role of senior staff; 2) creating two campus-wide strategic plans; 3) leading a $165 million capital campaign; 4) identifying new resources to expand the physical campus; 5) fostering valuable partnerships with the City of Oberlin; and 6) contributing to Oberlin’s global understanding and multicultural education. “Think one person can change the world? So do we!” initially became the slogan of Oberlin.[3]
Despite this administration’s advancements of engaged citizenship and global awareness, it experienced conflict and controversy stemming from personnel issues, financial strains, and later, reduced support from students and faculty members. The going became more difficult in the last half of the administration, and it began to lose some of its luster, especially after the difficult strategic planning process of 2004-05. Throughout the successes and difficulties, Dye formed a number of collegial relationships with confidants in administration, faculty, and staff. William (Bill) R. Perlik (d. 2006), who served on the Board of Trustees (1978-2000; chairman 1993-2000) and headed the search committee that led to her appointment, became her closest confidant and mentor.
Reorganizing senior staff, administrative units, and changing curriculum
The first administrative subset involves the naming of a senior staff team, and the subsequent changes to reconfigure administrative units and contribute to academic curriculum growth. Dye quickly set out to distance her administration from that of Starr’s presidency in important ways. After one year in office, Dye abolished the Office of the Provost (established in 1961) in an effort to give college and conservatory deans “more authority over their own division’s resources.”[4] To assist in leading in a fresh direction, internal appointment Clayton Koppes became Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and external appointment Andrew B. Evans became Vice President for Finance. (The provost had served as the financial officer.) Dye re-staffed the Office of the President, including high-level presidential assistants Kathryn Stuart and Diana Roose.
In the area of campus administrative offices, two notable additions were the Center for Service and Learning (1994) and the Office of the Ombudsperson (2000). In her October 1994 inaugural address, Dye voiced the indispensability of a liberal arts education coupled with civic engagement. An anonymous gift established a Center for Service and Learning and resurrected the meaning of the college’s “Learning and Labor” motto. In a campus environment that did not always easily arrive at a consensus, the Office of the Ombudsperson was formed to oversee two conflict resolution programs: the Oberlin College Dialogue Center and the student mediation program. Not to be overlooked is the reconfiguration of the Dean of Students (1997-98) and Dean of Studies (2002-03) offices.
To position Oberlin on the forefront of higher education, the administration acted on student and faculty appeals to advance a multicultural curriculum. For example, Dye and a select number of Oberlin students promoted global education with an emphasis on Middle East and North Africa (MENA) studies beginning in 2002. Additionally, a Comparative American Studies program, literally built from scratch, entered the curriculum in the fall of 2003. The final development was the Graduate Teacher Education Program (GTEP), established in 2006, which served as a twelve-month program combining graduate study with hands-on classroom experience in the Oberlin School District. Overall, the academic curriculum expanded to 1,000 course offerings.
Defining Oberlin College through long range planning
When the Board of Trustees requested a long range plan, Dye answered with a strong call for full campus participation to create a new vision for the college. Upon assuming office, she briefly attempted to revise her predecessor’s Strategic Issues Steering Committee (SISC) draft to craft “SISC Lite.” However, the revision was soon abandoned in favor of a new plan with input from fourteen planning teams consisting of alumni, faculty, staff, students, and trustees. Titled “Broad Directions for Oberlin’s Future” (1996-97), this eleven-point plan redefined the college’s mission by affirming traditions of exemplary education in art, science, and music. By combining a commitment to sustain a diverse community with a responsibility to foster civic engagement, the administration successfully elevated degrees of trust on campus and with Oberlin city.
In the introductory remarks to “Broad Directions,” Dye identified the need for the college to move in “the direction of a more supportive, cooperative and collaborative Oberlin, and an Oberlin with far more flexible and permeable boundaries.” Fully aware of the historic role played by Oberlin students as change agents, she understood she had to dissolve the boundaries between students and the president’s office. Early on, she established office hours for students to spontaneously drop in, selectively taught classes in women’s history and private readings, and served as an academic advisor to a small number of students. Outside of the office, her busy schedule included time to attend student art exhibitions, senior music recitals, and athletic contests. To support the multifaceted interests of Oberlin students, “Broad Directions” called for the need to educate the whole person (physically and mentally) through a “renewed commitment to the importance of sports, broadly defined.”
Eight years later in 2004-05, the college developed a third plan titled “A Strategic Plan for Oberlin College.” To keep Oberlin prominent in the competitive market of liberal arts colleges, the plan identified the need to increase internationalization (of students, faculty, and curriculum) and also to move toward environmental sustainability. Its accompanying financial plan called for reducing the number of student and faculty members in the two main divisions in an effort to improve the revenue line. When the General Faculty impeded the approval of the plan by debating various points, the administrative team regrouped and worked towards achieving a new consensus. In the end, the General Faculty approved the plan by a vote of 170-33, with two abstentions, on March 4, 2005.
Confronting financial issues
The Dye administration confronted ongoing financial issues – the size of Oberlin’s endowment and the bottom revenue line coming off of tuition. To remedy the need for an enlarged operation’s cash flow, the Board of Trustees increased draw on the endowment to support general operations and special projects. On the front side, Dye led a capital fundraising campaign and pushed the college’s sponsored programs office to solicit more corporate and foundation grants. Through the efforts of Young Dawkins, Kay Thompson, John Hays, and later on Ernie Iseminger of the Development and Alumni Affairs office, the “New Oberlin Century” campaign (1997-2004) exceeded the original goal of $165 million by ten million dollars. It was the largest campaign in the institution’s history. The college directed these new funds to four critical areas: student support (i.e., 127 endowed scholarships); faculty support (i.e., 14 endowed funds, 8 endowed professorships); facilities enhancement (i.e., Science Center, Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies); and current-use support (i.e., financial aid, faculty salaries, student support services).
An unstable U.S. economy after September 11, 2001, elevated financial pressures in higher education circles at Oberlin and elsewhere. Declining operating budgets, financial aid, and scholarship funds forced the Dye administration to make a second round of employee layoffs in 2002-03. Additional cost-saving cutbacks resulted in adjusting health care benefits to employees and imposing a college-wide hiring freeze. In early fall of 2002, Dye’s trustee-approved deferred compensation package was publicly announced. Immediate protests poured from community members as they connected the employee cutbacks with the very unpopular compensation package.
Expanding the physical campus
During this time, Oberlin’s physical landscape was altered and expanded. In the area of environmental studies, professor David Orr initiated the plan to construct the Adam Joseph Lewis Center, an ecologically designed 13,600-square-foot building located at 122 Elm Street. Upon its completion in 2000, this $7.2 million “design on the edge” became a green building model for other institutions. Second, a strong need existed to upgrade science classroom and laboratory facilities to attract top students in biology, chemistry, neuroscience, and physics. After much effort, the college constructed a $65 million, 344,620-square-foot Science Center to replace the aging Kettering Hall (built in 1961).
To advance the arts as well as sciences, Dye worked to carry forward four restoration phases of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, designed by Cass Gilbert in 1917 and expanded by a Robert Venturi design in 1977. This campus jewel was in a state of deterioration, and the inadequate environmental controls failed to preserve the building or the artwork contained in it. Improvements to both the interior and exterior of this structure were made from 1997 to 2005, with further revitalization steps planned. Finally, “A Strategic Plan” called for “a lively residential community” that returned a majority of students to campus housing. Construction of the 11-building Union Street complex in 2006 provided 132 students with village-style dorms.
Partnering with the City of Oberlin
Following in the footsteps of predecessor presidents, Dye sought to create valuable partnerships with the City of Oberlin and Oberlin School District. Her efforts in this arena not only exceeded previous commitments but also defined her presidency because she appreciated that the successes of the college and the town were intertwined. The flagship program, among many, was the Oberlin College – Schools Partnership program (2000). It initially paired college students with local school children for tutoring programs, writing assistance, and music lessons. The administration advanced the program by creating a full-tuition scholarship opportunity for qualified Oberlin High School graduates. A Graduate Teacher Education Program followed, in part, to elevate Oberlin School District’s academic ratings from the state board of education. Coupled with the efforts of the Center for Service and Learning, these initiatives provided students with opportunities for engaged citizenship at a local level.
The College’s additional community involvement included a partnership with the City of Oberlin and Community Health Partners to stave off closing the local hospital in late 2000. The college drew $2 million from its endowment to purchase the hospital’s land and buildings, and then leased the property back to the corporation for one dollar. Other examples of assistance: $300,000 for new equipment for the city’s fire department; $500,000 to ensure the building of a community aquatic center to be operated by the Lorain County Metro Parks; and administrative resources to ensure that a proposed expansion of the Lorain County airport (Oberlin) did not go forward.
Advancing a global and multicultural perspective
The final important subset of the administration identifies the advancement of diversity, multiculturalism, and internationalism on campus. As a historian and product of a liberal education, Dye not only recognized and appreciated Oberlin’s interracial and coeducational legacy, but she led from the front on these matters by calling for the Oberlin experience to reflect changing ethos of society. In her inaugural address, Dye claimed that the time was right to build “cooperation and mutual understanding…across the lines of social class, race, and ethnicity.” This commitment drove the administration’s actions and decisions for expanding curriculum, creating faculty appointments, and forming the student population.
To carry forward the diversity and multicultural agendas outlined in “Broad Directions,” the college assigned both monetary and staffing resources to new initiatives. In addition to the multicultural curriculum and Oberlin College – Schools Partnership (points one and five above), Dye gave attention to the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC). Following the death of Rachel Beverly, MRC director from 2000-03, a memorial fund was established to financially assist student-initiated projects relating to diversity and student engagement. Responding to concerns expressed by students about the fate of the MRC (after budget cutbacks of early 2000s), as well as national issues of affirmative action and civil liberties, Dye appointed a campus-wide Diversity and Multiculturalism Task Force (2002-05).
Dye, like her predecessors, grappled with the admission and retention of African American students. In one college study (1996-97), directed by her assistant Diana Roose, a committee assessed the reasons for lower graduation rates of this subset of the Oberlin community. Following the lead of other colleges and universities in the U.S., the administration later sought the assistance of the external organizations QuestBridge and Posse Foundation to attract promising African American students to Oberlin.
In addition to diversity and multicultural concerns, “A Strategic Plan” identified internationalism as a key element of an Oberlin education. During Dye’s trips to Asia and the Middle East, she formed global connections for Oberlin sparking her interest for curricular initiatives like MENA studies, an Arabic language course, and a musical exchange program with the University of Tehran in Iran. In 2006, she made a student recruitment visit to Karachi, Pakistan. She also gave service to a number of external organizations whose missions matched a commitment to global affairs, such as International Research and Exchanges (IREX) board of directors, Cleveland Council on World Affairs board of trustees, and Search for Common Ground.
Ending a thirteen-year administration
By academic year 2004-05, the Dye administration had lost some of its luster. Oberlin College faced a number of struggles to keep up with its peer-related schools in matters relating to financial endowments and national rankings and to maintain amiable working relationships with faculty, staff, students, and others. In December 2004, the sudden suspension of the Danenberg-in-London program was a decision quickly viewed as a violation of the college’s faculty governance system. Many in the faculty were also lukewarm towards the five-year financial plan that called for reducing the student population and eliminating twelve faculty and ten staff positions. In the spring of 2005, students too showed their waning support in the administration by passing a vote of “no confidence” in Dye, as part of a larger Student Senate referendum.
The accumulation of a number of bumps in the road through a long presidency led Dye on September 10, 2006, to announce her intent to retire, effective June 30, 2007. As Dye told the Alumni Magazine, ‘“Why am I leaving? Because it’s time.”’[5] In the final year, she distanced herself from campus while continuing development trips and international travel. To recognize her thirteen years of distinguished service, the Board of Trustees bestowed upon her the title of President Emerita, and at the May 2007 commencement exercises, she became the fourth president of the college to receive an honorary Oberlin degree. From February to August 20, 2008, Dye served as the first vice chancellor and president of the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Nancy Schrom Dye died on October 28, 2015, at her home in Lakewood, Ohio, after a lengthy illness. She was 68 years old.
Notes
[1] She also served as acting Vassar College president when Frances D. Ferguson went on sabbatical. Before joining the faculty at Vassar, Dye worked as a history professor and an associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky).
[2] Mike McIntyre, “Portrait of a President,” Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Spring 2007, 11-17.
[3] Not all areas of the Dye administration can be covered in this history. For additional details, see also the scope and content note and the series descriptions.
[4] Carol Ganzel, “President Dye is shaping a new administration,” Oberlin College Observer, April 27, 1995.
[5] McIntyre, 2007, 14.
Sources consulted:
Oberlin College Alumni Magazine, Spring 2007, p. 11-17.
Oberlin College Alumni Magazine, Winter/Spring 1994, p. 9-11.
Oberlin OnCampus, 28 October 2015.
The Oberlin Review, 8 February 2008, p. 3.
The Oberlin Review, 13 May 2005, p. 1, 5.
The Oberlin Review, 6 May 2005, p. 1, 4.
The Oberlin Review, 3 September 2004, p. 2.
The Oberlin Review, 11 March 2004, p. 1, 7.
The Oberlin Review, 6 September 2002, p. 1, 4.
RG 26, Development & Alumni Affairs, Subgroup II. Campaign, Series 5. New Oberlin Century, Box 1.
Author: Emily R. Lockhart Forms of Material (links to similar genres) Administrative Information
