Seal of Oberlin College

The Oberlin College seal

Oberlin's seal was designed by Julia Severance and adopted in 1911. It depicts a school building and a field of grain, symbolizing the college's motto, "Learning and Labor".

"Miss Severance chose to retain the old Tappan Hall as the most characteristic possible college building as well as the most emblematic of all the Oberlin buildings. The building is flanked by a mass of trees characteristic of the college new and old. The field of wheat is well in the foreground, diversified and defined by the shocks of grain to the right. The road which separates the field from the building accentuates the perspective which a field of grain makes inevitable, and gives an interesting line in the composition." [1]