Meredith Raimondo to step down as Oberlin VP, dean; will return as tenured faculty

OBERLIN — Oberlin College Vice President and Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo will step down from those roles, take a sabbatical at the end of the spring semester and return to Oberlin College as a tenured faculty member, the college announced Friday. A replacement will be named after a national search, college President Carmen Twillie Ambar wrote in a letter to the Oberlin community posted on the college's website Friday. She thanked Raimondo "for her role safeguarding students during this pandemic." "Her tireless efforts in support of students have been invaluable these past several months," Ambar wrote. Ambar said Raimondo "developed an invaluable perspective and sensitivity that she brought to our leadership team and applied when working with students and enhancing our campus culture," helping to improve dining options, collaborations between Student Senate and other student organizations and college leadership. Raimondo, who spent five years as dean during her 18 years in both teaching and administrative roles, and the college were defendants in a lawsuit brought against the college by the Gibson family and Gibson's Bakery. The Gibsons argued in court that Oberlin College allowed its Student Senate to pass a resolution calling the bakery and its owners racists, and that Raimondo handed out protest flyers saying the same during two days of student protests in November 2016. Students were protesting the treatment and arrest of fellow students after a shoplifting incident that month. The bakery won its lawsuit in Lorain County Common Pleas Court in 2019 and was awarded $44 million in damages by a jury, an amount that was later reduced to $25 million under Ohio law. Both the Gibsons and the college filed appeals, and their arguments are under consideration by a three-judge panel of the 9th District Court of Appeals in Akron. Ambar said Raimondo's change in jobs was one of two changes to college leadership that will happen this year. She also announced Friday that Ben Jones (Oberlin College class of 1996) will become the college's first assistant vice president of admissions communications. Jones "threw himself wholeheartedly into this work of recruiting and yielding new students through innovative ways of storytelling, both excelling at and enjoying this new focus" during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ambar said. His new position starts at the end of the summer semester, she wrote. Jones spent 13 years in charge of the college's Communications Office, where he overhauled the college website three times, redesigned the college's two magazines and supported the campus capital campaign, Ambar wrote.