The Danenberg Oberlin-in-London Program offers students the opportunity for intensive disciplinary and interdisciplinary study with Oberlin College and Grinnell College faculty, and to live and work with a small group of Oberlin and Grinnell students, all set within a great, diverse city. Curriculum is designed to take advantage of all that London has to offer. The program was instituted as a memorial to the late Emil Danenberg, eleventh president of Oberlin and a great friend to international education. In the fall of 2006, Professor of English John Olmsted will direct the program; in the spring of 2007, two Oberlin faculty members still to be chosen, each from a different discipline, will offer courses and lead the program. In addition, students have the opportunity to take courses and internships offered by Grinnell-in-London.
Admission to the program is by application only. Applications are due in February for the fall semester and in the first half of the fall semester for the spring semester. Students are notified by e-mail early each semester when the applications are available and due. Applications are reviewed by the faculty directors of the program and by the chair of the London Program Committee.
The program is open to any Oberlin student who will be at least a second-semester sophomore at the time the student participates in the program. The faculty and committee will be especially interested in students who show a serious interest in taking advantage of the resources of the program. The faculty and committee hope for applications from a wide range of Oberlin students. Limited funds may be available to sponsor two credits’ worth of music study for a small number of Conservatory performance or composition majors each semester.
The program maintains classrooms and an office alongside Grinnell-in-London within the Florida State University Centre in Bloomsbury, which also contains a library, lounge and internet facilities. Students live in small groups away from the Centre, usually in small apartments (“flats”) with kitchen facilities. Since students on the Program are registered as Enrolled-Not-In-Residence at Oberlin, and since financial aid applies as well (except for the work-study component, for which adjustments to aid packages are made), the tuition costs are identical to those on campus. Students are responsible for their own housing and food costs, which are higher than in Oberlin, and the London Program Committee works with the Financial Aid Office to adjust aid packages accordingly.
Each student’s academic program will normally include 14 credit hours. In the fall semester, students choose from a range of courses offered by Oberlin and Grinnell faculty. In the spring they take an interdisciplinary team-taught course, one of the two departmental courses offered by Oberlin faculty, and a two-credit course on British history and culture offered by a member of the Grinnell staff. In all cases, course work will have a strong experiential component, involving the student in the vibrancy of life in London and Great Britain.
Further information about the program may be found on the web at www.oberlin.edu/london. Information about the Grinnell program and offerings may be found at www.grinnell.edu/academic/gil/.
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