Endquotes
“Are we going to acknowledge that the question is not how do we get diversity into bluegrass, but how do we get diversity back into bluegrass?” Musician, songwriter, and podcaster (Aria Code) Rhiannon Giddens ’99
“The work influences the science as opposed to the science influencing the work. I might be interested in magnetism, so I’m going to design this experiment that’s hopefully going to be visually beautiful and hopefully it will reveal something that you wouldn’t get from doing calculations. I still think there’s mystery surrounding even the most basic principles. A lot of times profound discoveries come from the simplest things and just playing around with materials and the environment.” Cleveland-based artist Matthew Gallagher ’13
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“What’s more, whites’ good intentions—their impulse to use ‘Uncle Tom’ to castigate internal foes of black progress—blind them to the fact that they are using a term of derision applied almost exclusively to black people, which puts it in the same league as another word.” From “Dear white people: Stop using the term Uncle Tom,” a November 16 op-ed in the Washington Post written by Cliff Thompson ’85
“To me, Oberlin was a place where people went to give themselves over fully to whatever weird, bizarre, brilliant thing it was they wanted to do with their lives. And that was seriously beautiful to me. I feel a great honor in belonging to that community of Obies in the world.” Thisbe Nissen ’94, author of, among other books, Our Lady of the Prairie (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), during a fall visit to campus
“If you think of psychology as the individual, sociology as society, and social psychology as the study of small group dynamics, I was already identifying the opinion leader, the emotional leader, early on in my career. I was breaking down every group into the categories I studied while I was in college, and it actually was really helpful.” Ian Siegel ’95, cofounder and CEO of the Santa Monica-based ZipRecruiter
“Losing Bill Goldman made me cry. My favorite book of all time is The Princess Bride. I was honored he allowed me to make it into a movie. I visited with him last Saturday. He was very weak but his mind still had the Goldman edge. I told him I loved him. He smiled & said f--- you.” Tweet from Rob Reiner after the death of William Goldman ’52