The President of Oberlin College is the chief administrator of both Oberlin College and Oberlin Conservatory of Music.^[1] Each is appointed by and is responsible to the other members of that body, who delegate to him or her the day-to-day running of the university. The current incumbent is Carmen Twillie Ambar.^[2] As part of Oberlin's inherent mission of a vastly interdisciplinary education, presidents have been chosen from a wide range of fields as diverse as musical performance (Starr), theology (Finney) physics (Fuller), law (Krislov), athletics (Stevenson) and pure mathematics (King). Thus, each president is a qualified academic professor who has the opportunity to teach classes.

• Asa Mahan, 1835–1850^[3]
• Charles Grandison Finney, leader in the Second Great Awakening, president 1851–1866^[3]
• James Fairchild, 1866–1889^[3]
• William Gay Ballantine, 1891–1896^[3]
• John Henry Barrows, 1899–1902^[3]
• Henry Churchill King, 1902–1927^[3]
• Ernest H. Wilkins, 1927–1946^[3]
• William Stevenson, 1946–1960^[3]
• Robert K. Carr, 1960–1969^[3]
• Robert W. Fuller, 1970–1974^[3]
• Emil Danenberg, 1975–1982^[3]
• S. Frederick Starr, 1983–1994^[3]
• Nancy Dye, 1994–2007^[3]
• Marvin Krislov, 2007–2017^[3]
• Carmen Twillie Ambar, 2017–present^[3]