Yoshiko Tsompanos, panel organizer and assistant director for the Business, Consulting, and Finance career community spoke to the Review about the event. 

“How do we acclimate to those circumstances?” Tsompanos said. “How do we make the best of the situation and how do we support each other? How do we utilize our network? I know that a lot of students, they’re very eager to get out into their profession, and sometimes it isn’t always what they think, and that’s alright — sometimes a lot of really exciting new situations come about because of that.”

The virtual event was open to all students and satisfied one of the career panel participation requirements of the Internship+ program, which provides funding for those who pursue an internship the summer before their senior year.

The panel hosted Sarah Klauer, OC ’07, strategy director with Sterling Brands; Maria Piper, OC ’07, program management; and George Saines, OC ’08, senior product manager with Google, who all spoke about their experiences joining the labor force after graduating during the 2008 financial crisis. 

“It’s really important to be flexible and to set your expectations broadly versus specifically,” Piper said. “The world won’t be what you expect when you graduate, and it’s still not what I expect. … Those are the kinds of things that I’m hoping people get out of [the panel]: be flexible and have your own code core of where you’re willing to go and what your own boundaries are.”

Following a brief introduction, the moderator moved through questions, which led to a discussion about the impact of the 2007–2008 recession on their professional careers. The third question was: “Many students at Oberlin College are marked by good fortune to have a network that provides useful internships, consequently, often opening doors to employment opportunities. How do you manage to make that transition if you have limited resources?” 

Referring to the relationship between them and the friendships that they found at Oberlin, panelists emphasized the benefits of a close-knit network of Obies before opening the floor to questions from students.

Dae Williams, Social Media Engagement Coordinator at Oberlin College, OC ’20, graduated during the COVID-19 recession. When interviewed for the Review, they expressed how much they would have appreciated a formal panel discussion on the impact of economic circumstances on their career opportunities. 

“I received no training at all when it came to a recession,” Williams said. “I don’t know necessarily of any conversation that happened along a recession line … in the career development space.” 

After graduating with degrees in Anthropology and Musical Studies, they spoke to their own struggles when navigating the job market after graduating.

“I couldn’t find a job for a year and a half, and so I was mostly doing freelance projects here and there,” Williams said. “I’m still lost in terms of how things really work and what you need to land a job.”

Tsompanos emphasized the importance of a network upon graduation, and illustrated how Klauer, Piper, and Saines remained in touch and were a support system during this period. 

“I want students to understand … how [the panelists] supported each other through that process, and also what happens when you don’t have a network at hand,” Tsompanos said. “What are your resources then?”

With a high demand for introductory classes in all majors, some departments have prioritized hiring continuing faculty for core courses. Ron Cheung, chair of the Economics department, which added two assistant professors this fall for the first time in around four years, explained the department’s priorities. 

“We always do need our professors to provide some support for our core courses,” Cheung said. “So this year, for instance, we definitely wanted to bolster our professors who could teach Intermediate and Advanced Microeconomics as well as … our introductory Econometrics course. But in addition to that, we definitely want to have professors who work in applied fields.” 

In other disciplines, finding academic advisors has been difficult as the number of students grows. The Psychology department is excited to add tenure-track faculty as one of six departments adding more than one tenure-track professor to their ranks. 

“I personally asked a new professor last year to be my advisor, and she had to turn me down because she couldn’t take advisees,” College third-year and Psychology major Skye Slade said. “Ultimately, I asked a professor who I had less of a previously established relationship with. It ended up working out really well, though, and I admire all of the professors, new and old, for their adaptability and kindness to their students.” 

Students also find it challenging to find academic advisors when many of their classes are taught by visiting faculty. 

“In both of my majors, I have had similar experiences in that I have had professors that I developed a rapport with and that fit my learning style very well, and they have both left Oberlin,” College second-year Ana Howard said. “That has made me question my major choices and also increased my anxiety about this year in general. … It almost felt like [the first] year all over again.”

Cheung highlighted the importance of representation in hiring, especially when considering gender equality and racial diversity. 

“Students have noted that they like to take courses from professors who they can see themselves being, or that they can share experiences with,” he said. “In such a male-dominated field, … it’s really important for the [Economics] department to really demonstrate that we understand some of the concerns of women students, and we want to provide for them. It’s really exciting as well to have two faculty members of color joining our department. Again, Economics [is] not often seen as an ethnically diverse field.” 

Recently hired assistant professors also bring along a diversity of pedagogical techniques. It is these techniques that benefit the student body by diversifying the department and broadening students’ worldview. 

“In the Biology department, all of the faculty teach in different ways in order … to figure out what [works] best for students,” new Assistant Professor of Biology Gabriel Moore, OC ’15, said. “And we’re encouraged to do so, especially using different evidence-based approaches. It’s been really nice to be welcomed back by all the people I saw as mentors now being colleagues.”

NOACA is a transportation and environmental planning agency funded by federal dollars. It is currently leading a series of “engagement meetings,” facilitated by NOACA staff and the Joel Ratner Community Partnership, to gather feedback across Northeast Ohio’s five counties — Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Medina, and Lorain — on NOACA’s Climate Action Plan.

The Climate Action Plan aims to align with national and global efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as set out by the Paris Agreement in 2015, in order to reduce some of the more severe effects of climate change.

“A primary objective of a regional framework and plan for climate action (climate pollution reduction) is to create a foundation for transformative solutions that will enhance equity across the region,” NOACA’s website reads in their description of the plan.

This works in tandem with the City of Oberlin’s current five-year Climate Action Plan. The town will soon reset its climate goals as the five years come to an end.

“We want to be bold in our climate action so that we can be a model,” City of Oberlin Sustainability Coordinator Linda Arbogast said.

In order to create the regional climate action plan, NOACA is listening to what the people of Northeast Ohio’s five counties want. The engagement meetings have all followed the same structure. After a brief introduction and overview of NOACA and their current climate initiative, participants have the opportunity to talk in small groups and then vocalize their opinions and concerns, recorded by the facilitator.

College fourth-year Emily Bengston attended multiple engagement meetings.

“It was kind of cool to go from a year, a year and a half ago, reading about this bill that’s happening in the federal legislature and that felt so disconnected from my personal life, and to then see, okay, this is how the money is actually being spent,” Bengston said. “This is how these big federal laws that feel so distant can actually have an impact on my day-to-day life.”

Participants were presented with questionnaires in order to collect quantitative data. Additionally, NOACA facilitated an online survey open to the public which they encouraged everyone to fill out.

Arbogast commented on climate-denying groups that have come to past NOACA meetings in other communities.

“The people who are the deniers and the disruptors are the minority, but they’re very vocal,” she said. “They show up and they make their points heard.”

An organizer of these events, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Biology John Petersen, OC ’88, also expressed frustration with climate change deniers.

“Never underestimate what a small group of motivated people can do to change the world,” Petersen said, referencing a quote by Margaret Mead. “They almost ruined the whole planning process. [NOACA] had a vote last spring about whether they were just going to tank the whole climate changing process.”

When asked about future opportunities for involvement, Joel Ratner, founder of the Joel Ratner Community Partnership, talked about the online survey as the main way to make ideas heard. This is part of their feedback collection process and will impact their new plan draft. Following the meetings, the Joel Ratner Community Partnership will share the feedback with NOACA, which will then be used to help draft a report. This document draft report, which should be available around October or November, will then be made public and shared with everyone who attended the sessions.

“We need to work at every single scale concurrently to address this global problem,” Petersen said. “And I think the idea of working at the regional scale is absolutely critical.”

Several students voiced desires for there to be more engagement between the College and larger community.

“In general I think it’s super important for the College to have relationships with regional organizations because it’s very easy for College students to … not really engage in a community way,” College third-year, Oberlin Environmental Dashboard Research Team Member, and Community Voices Project Co-Lead Bryn Kearney said. “So I think anything that is really enhancing community engagement is super important and fruitful.”

“Everything has been already packed, we are getting all the produce taken care of, all the deliveries are already on the other building,” Suzette Sanchez, food programs coordinator for OCS, said. “So it’s just moving the office stuff … this weekend.” 

OCS’s Communications and Development Coordinator Jason Hawk gave a timeline for the moving of the food services. The last food distribution will take place Sept. 15. OCS will be closed and services will be suspended Sept. 18–22 while the organization is moving. On Sept. 25, operations will resume in the new location on 500 E. Lorain Street. With the move, they are increasing their parking capacity from seven spaces to 78. The new location will also include a truck turnaround and loading dock leading into their warehouse. This is expected to improve the efficiency of their services. 

When asked about the improvements the new building will yield to OCS, Hawk highlighted two main points: additional parking spaces to reduce waiting lines and increased inventory capacity. 

“The biggest headache that we have here, hands down, is parking, which significantly increases waiting time for people picking up food,” Hawk said. “So everything will just be so much smoother. We’ll be able to move people in faster … Hopefully, [people picking up food] will not have to factor in two hours to come to the food pantry anymore.”

Another issue OCS currently faces is inventory capacity. The seven tons of food distributed weekly take up a lot of space. Moving from their 5,600-square-foot footprint at their old location, the new building on Lorain Street gives the organization 27,000 square feet, about 14,000 of which will be dedicated to the pantry and warehouse.

While the move has benefits for OCS, there are also concerns about the accessibility of the new location, which is not connected to a sidewalk. 

“Even if we were to build a sidewalk in front of our building, there’s nothing for it to connect to on either side. So, it is a concern,” Hawk said. However, he said that out of all the people who receive services from OCS, “It’s a very small percentage that walk; almost everybody who comes here drives.”

Hawk also told the Review that in the future, OCS hopes to convince the city of Oberlin to dedicate a Lorain County Transport stop to their new building. 

Although OCS will start operating in its new location Sept. 25, renovations are still ongoing for office spaces and other parts of the new building, which are not as crucial to the delivery of their services. This means that collaborations with partner organizations will not be conducted this fall. OCS anticipates that those partners can move into the fully renovated office spaces after Jan. 1.