Hello, posting back the solution. I contacted SAS support and was pointed to this note:
http://support.sas.com/kb/14/862.html
In my case, the problem was that the people who installed Oracle installed 64 bit database software (other parts of the application require 64 bit oracle) version 11.2.0.1 and then also added 32-bit libraries necessary for SAS (as of Oracle 11gR2 the lib32 directory is no longer shipped with the 64 bit software) but with a version of 11.1.0.7. This version discrepancy is the cause of the problem I asked about.
Just in case anyone finds this with the same problem I thought I'd post up the solution in my case.
Thanks!