Of course. If there’s one thing that no one associates with Oberlin, it’s liberal activism.

David Knowles of Bloomberg reports.

Michelle Obama Urges Activism in Oberlin College Commencement Speech

First lady Michelle Obama had a message for the graduates of Oberlin College on Monday: Get to work.

“I want to urge you to actively seek out the most contentious, polarized, gridlocked places you can find,” Obama said during her commencement address at Ohio liberal-arts school. “Throughout our history, those have been the places where progress really happens, the places where minds are changed, lives transformed, where our great American story unfolds.”

Citing liberal priorities such as fighting global warming and passing equal pay legislation, Obama recalled the example set by civil-rights champions such the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and suffragist Lucy Stone, an Oberlin graduate, as examples of courage in the face of hatred and bigotry.

“These folks didn’t let the ugliness and the obstacles deter them,” Obama said. “They didn’t just give up and retreat to the comfortable company of like-minded folks, because they understood that this is how democracy operates.”

As with her May 9 commencement address at Tuskegee University in Alabama, Obama drew upon her own experiences when arguing for greater social and political engagement.

“It is loud and messy, and it’s not particularly warm and fuzzy,” Obama said. “And believe me, I know this from personal experience. Over the years, I’ve occasionally run into the noise myself. But I’ve come to realize that most of that clamor is really coming from just a handful of very loud folks out on the fringes.”