- Ishmael Beah
Ishmael Beah (b. 1980 in Sierra Leone) is the author of the memoir, "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier". In 1991, a vicious civil war overtook Sierra Leone. His parents and two brothers were killed; at the age of 13, he was pressed into service as a child soldier. He fought for almost three years before being rescued by UNICEF. In 1998, he fled from Freetown after the 1999 coup to New York City. He now calls his foster mother, Laura Simms, his mother.
- Gary Lee Nelson
Gary Lee Nelson (born Albion, Michigan, 1940) is a composer and media artist teaching at Oberlin College in the Technology in Music and Related Arts department. He specializes in algorithmic composition, real-time interactive sound and video along with digital film making with his partner, artist Christine Gorbach.
- Michelle Malkin
Michelle Malkin (née Maglalang is an American columnist, blogger, author and political commentator. She is a social and political conservative who makes frequent guest appearances on national syndicated radio programs and on television networks such as MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and C-SPAN. As well as her written blog, she posts regular video blogs.
- Charles Grandison Finney
Charles Grandison Finney, often called "America's foremost revivalist," was a major leader of the Second Great Awakening in America, which had a great impact on the social history of the United States.
- Nancy Dye
Nancy S. Dye was the 13th president of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She was appointed President of Oberlin after having served as Acting President of Vassar College for several months in 1992. Dye attended Vassar College as an undergraduate. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 1974, and accepted a position at the University of Kentucky, where she taught from 1974 to 1988. In 1988, she accepted a position at Vassar, …
- Lucy Stone
Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 - October 18, 1893, died at age 75) was a prominent American suffragist. She was the wife of abolitionist Henry Brown Blackwell (1825-1909) (the brother of Elizabeth Blackwell) and the mother of Alice Stone Blackwell, another prominent suffragette, journalist and human rights defender. Stone was best known for being the first recorded American woman to keep her own last name upon marriage. </tr> <tr> <td><center></center></td> </table>
- Michael Dirda
Michael Dirda (born 1948), a Fulbright Fellowship recipient, is an award-winning book critic for the "Washington Post". Having studied at Oberlin College for his undergraduate degree, Dirda took a Ph.D. from Cornell University in comparative literature. In 1978 Dirda started writing for the "Washington Post"; in 1993 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his criticism.
- Asa Mahan
Asa Mahan (November 9, 1800, Vernon, New York - 1889), U.S. Congregational clergyman & educator; 1st pres. of Oberlin College 1835-1849.
- John Mercer Langston
John Mercer Langston (December 14 1829 - November 15 1897) was an American abolitionist and U.S. Congressman from Virginia. He was one of the first blacks in the United States to be elected to public office when in 1855 he was elected as a town clerk in Ohio. Langston was born in Louisa County, Virginia, the son of Ralph Quarles, a white plantation owner, and Lucy Langston, a slave of mixed African and Native American background.
- Paul Sears
Paul Bigelow Sears (December 17, 1891-April 30, 1990) was an American ecologist. He was born in Bucyrus, Ohio. Sears attended Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Chicago. He taught at University of Oklahoma, Oberlin College, and Yale University.
- Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon (born 1964) is an American author. His best-selling first novel was "You Remind Me of Me" (2004). His short-story collections "Fitting Ends" (1996) and "Among the Missing" (2001) were both well-received; the latter was a finalist for a National Book Award, …
- Karen O
Karen Lee Orzołek, better known as Karen O, is the lead vocalist for the New York art punk band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Karen's mother is Korean and father is Polish. Karen grew up in New Jersey, and attended Oberlin College, but transferred to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Karen O has been noted for her sense of fashion, wearing over-the-top outfits made by her friend, fashion designer Christian Joy.
- Henry Churchill King
Henry Churchill King was an American theologian and educator. At Oberlin from 1884, he taught in mathematics, philosophy, and theology. From 1902 to 1927, he was president of the college. In 1919, he served on the King-Crane Commission. He was prominent in the councils of the Congregational Church and a moderator (1919–21) of its National Council as well as chairman (1921–27) of the Congregational Foundation for Education.
- Josh Ritter
Josh Ritter is an American singer-songwriter born in Moscow, Idaho, Idaho in 1976. Ritter began writing songs while attending Oberlin College. He eventually changed his major from neuroscience and graduated in 1999 with a self-created American History through Narrative Folk Music major. His style is in the tradition of folk music and ballads - influenced by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen, …
- Richard Miller
Richard Miller (born 1926) is a professor of singing at Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and the author of numerous books on singing technique and vocal pedagogy. He sang as a lyric tenor with opera companies in Europe and America. He is considered one of the most influential vocal pedagogues. In November 2005, he retired from his professorship at the Oberlin Conservatory, where he had taught for more than forty years.
- Brian Chase
Brian Chase (b. December 2 1978) is an American drummer with the New York rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Chase grew up in Long Island and attended Friends Academy in Locust Valley, and Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio. Now living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he also plays for the rock band The Seconds, and used to play drums for his longtime girlfriend Emily Manzo's band, until the pair split in 2006.
- Mary Church Terrell
Mary Church Terrell (born September 23, 1863 in Memphis, Tennessee - July 24, 1954 in Annapolis, Maryland) was a writer and civil rights activist. Both her parents, Robert Reed Church and Louisa Ayers, were former slaves. Her father, Robert Reed Church, reputedly became a self-made millionaire off of real-estate investments in Memphis. He was the son of his white master, Charles Church.
- Edmonia Lewis
Edmonia Lewis was the first African American and Native American woman to gain fame and recognition as a sculptor. At a time in America when slaves were just freed, she found inspiration in the lives of abolitionists and Civil War heroes. In a world which didn’t encourage women of color, through incredible determination and sense of purpose, Edmonia Lewis created great art and received world acclaim. The daughter of a Chippewa Indian woman and an African American man, …
- Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor (born December 15 1952) is an American director of Broadway theatre and film. Taymor's work has been received many accolades from critics, and she has won several Tony Awards for her work, noted for its visual flair and colorful costuming choices.
- Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel , author of the critically acclaimed Fun Home (called "one of the very best graphic novels ever" in Booklist ) and of the syndicated comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For (DTWOF), has become a cultural institution for lesbians and discerning non-lesbians all over the planet. At the podium, Bechdel redefines race and gender roles while taking aim at some of the most controversial topics of the day.
- S. Frederick Starr
S. Frederick Starr (born Stephen Frederick Starr on March 24, 1940) is the founder and Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucus Institute. He is also a noted musician.
- Robert Krulwich
Robert Krulwich is a New York-based correspondent for ABC News, reporting primarily for "World News with Charles Gibson." He has also reported extensively for "Nightline" and "Good Morning America."
- Geoffrey Blodgett
Geoffrey Blodgett (October 13, 1931 - November 15, 2001) was Robert S. Danforth Professor of History at Oberlin College, located in Oberlin, Ohio. As a student at Oberlin from 1949-1953, he was a wide receiver on the Yeomen, the college's men's football team. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Oberlin in 1953, Blodgett served two years with the United States Navy in the Pacific Fleet. He received a PhD at Harvard University in 1961, …
- Donald Byrd
Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (born December 9, 1932) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues trumpeter, born in Detroit, Michigan. He attended Cass Technical High School. He performed with Lionel Hampton before finishing high school. After playing in a military band during a term in the United States Air Force, he obtained a bachelor's degree in music from Wayne State University and a master's degree from Manhattan School of Music.
- Dan Millman
Dan Millman is an author of thirteen self-help books, the most famous of which is the semi-autobiographical novel, "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" (1980). The winner of the 1964 World Trampoline Championship in London, he co-captained the 1968 NCAA University of California gymnastics team and has also worked as a gymnastics instructor at Stanford University and a professor of physical education at Oberlin College.
- David Zinman
David Zinman (b. 9 July, 1936) is an American conductor and violinist.
- Fanny Jackson Coppin
Fanny Jackson Coppin (October 15, 1837 - January 21, 1913) was an African American educator and missionary. Born an American slave, Fanny Jackson's freedom was purchased by her aunt at age 12. Fanny Jackson spent the rest of her youth working as a servant for author George Henry Calvert, studying at every opportunity. In 1860, she enrolled in Oberlin College in Ohio, the first college in the United States to accept both black and female students.
- Lee Fisher
Lee Fisher (born 7 August, 1951, in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American politician. He is a member of the Ohio Democratic Party currently serving as the Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. Fisher also serves as Ohio Director of Development. Fisher is a graduate of Oberlin College (where he has served as a college trustee) and of Case Western Reserve University School of Law. He is a member of Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity.
- Robert W. Fuller
Robert W. Fuller (1936 -)earned his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University in 1961, and taught at Columbia University where he co-authored the book "Mathematics of Classical and Quantum Physics". The mounting social unrest of the 1960s drew his attention to educational reform, and in 1970 he was appointed president of his alma mater Oberlin College at the age of 33, one of youngest college Presidents in US history.
- Franz Wright
Franz Wright, born in Vienna, Austria in March 18, 1953, won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book "Walking to Martha's Vineyard" (ISBN 0-375-41518-1), published in 2003. He is a 1977 graduate of Oberlin College. Franz Wright and his father, James Wright, are the only parent/child pair to have won the Pulitzer Prize in the same category (Poetry). Denis Johnson said this about Wright's book "Entry in an Unknown Hand": "These poems break me, …
- Dorothy Delay
Dorothy DeLay was an American violin instructor at the Juilliard School. Born in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, her pedagogy is considered revolutionary, and she is generally regarded as the most influential American violin teacher of the late 20th century.
- Eduardo Mondlane
Eduardo Chivambo Mondlane (1920-1969) served as President of the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) from 1962 until his assassination in 1969. The fourth of 16 sons of a chieftain of the Bantu-speaking Tsonga tribe, Mondlane was born in Portuguese East Africa in 1920. He worked as a shepherd until the age of 12. He attended several different primary schools before enrolling in a Swiss-Presbyterian school.
- Tracy Chevalier
Tracy Chevalier (born in Washington, DC in October of 1962) is a bestselling historical novelist. Her career began with the book "The Virgin Blue" but she became well known with her novel "Girl with a Pearl Earring", a book based on the creation of the famous painting by Vermeer. The film based on the novel received three Academy Award nominations in 2004. Chevalier was raised in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, …
- Bill Irwin
Bill Irwin (born April 11, 1950) is an American actor and clown noted for his contribution to the renaissance of American circus during the 1970s. He is known for his vaudeville-style stage acts, and has made a number of appearances on film and television.
- Chris Brokaw
Chris Brokaw is an American musician, mostly known for his work with the bands Come and Codeine. While studying at Oberlin College, Brokaw was introduced to many people who became figures on the American indie rock scene of the 1990s, among them Stephen Immerwahr, who formed Codeine with Brokaw, as well as Sooyoung Park of Bitch Magnet and Seam, Liz Phair and John McEntire of Tortoise.
- Johnnetta B. Cole
Known to many of Spelman College's extended family as Sister President, Johnnetta Cole is the first black woman to lead the nation's oldest college for black women. Cole's presidency began in 1987. Under her guidance, the school has reenforced its reputation for academic excellence, strengthened its partnerships with the business and corporate community, and integrated volunteer work into the Spelman experience.
- Jerry Greenfield
Jerry Greenfield (born March 14 1951) is an American entrepreneur, a co-founder of Ben & Jerry's. He was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Oberlin College, where he followed a pre-med curriculum. He applied unsuccessfully for medical-school admission in two successive years. In 1978 Greenfield and his friend Ben Cohen opened Ben and Jerry's Homemade ice cream scoop shop in an old gas station in downtown Burlington, Vermont.
- Avery Brooks
Avery Franklin Brooks (born October 2, 1948 in Evansville, Indiana) is an accomplished stage and television actor and jazz and opera singer. Brooks is best known for his television roles as Benjamin Sisko on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", and as Hawk on "Spenser: For Hire" and its spinoff "A Man Called Hawk".
- Marc Cohn
Marc Cohn (born July 5, 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for his song "Walking in Memphis" from his eponymous 1991 album "Marc Cohn". He has issued two other studio albums to date, "The Rainy Season" (1993) and "Burning the Daze" (1998), both on Atlantic Records. A self-released live compilation, "Live 04-05" (2005), is being sold at concerts on his current tour.
- John Kander
John Kander , the composer half of the legendary songwriting team, Kander and Ebb that has produced Cabaret , Woman of the Year , The Act and the incomparable Chicago , was born in Kansas City, Missouri on March 18, 1927. Kander began studying music as a child and in his early career worked as a conductor and accompanying pianist for many productions. From 1955 through 1958, Kander was choral director and conductor for the Warwick Musical Theatre in Rhode Island.