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June 2010
Deconstructing Wikipedia Larry Sanger ’91 helped launch a revolution. Why does he want to start over?
p h o t o b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o
Physics majors Alexa Ross ’12 and Meg Millhouse ’12 root for the departmental softball team in front of Old Dorm Block. Both the opposing team and the final score remain indeterminate.
campus in mourning page 2 REVENGE OF THE CLONES page 22 COMIC ECONOMICS page 53 cover.indd 1
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Annual Fund “Now I can fully appreciate just how much this place has strengthened my character and shaped my mind. I am graduating, but I know that the time I have valued and the skills I have learned at Reed will stay with me for the rest of my life.” —Ida Peric ’10, chemistry major
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Departments
June 2010
2 From The Editor A confluence of horrifying events.
3 Letters
Features 22
Ottomar’s Odyssey. Channelling Sappho. Defending the Citadel. Remembering Dick Jones. Owlish Impostor. Why I Give To Reed.
Spellbound
Mutants. Draugrs. Drug lords. Author Nancy Farmer ’63 writes children’s stories that combine fantastic protagonists, bedeviling bullies, and decidedly oldfashioned themes. By Megan Holden
7 Eliot Circular Crew returns. Power Struggle. New Dean of Faculty. Chittick Scholarship. Kelly Scholarship. Linehan Scholarship. New Trustees. Fulbright Scholar. Medicine Show.
Sharpening Skills At The DOJO
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Students learn from their peers at the Academic Resource Center, named for Dorothy Johansen ’33. By Romel Hernandez
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13 Empire of the Griffin
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Deconstructing Wikipedia
Larry Sanger ’91 launched a revolution. Why does he want to start over? By Chris Lydgate
16 Confronting Drug Use
At Reed
18 From Light, Truth How Reed transforms lives— and how you can help.
ALUMNI PROFILES 40
20 Three Professors
Country Doc Goes Back to Basics
Granted Tenure
24 Adventures In the
Dr. Fred Matthies ’49 promotes the reform of medical education.
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First Person
Corals and Tsunami in Samoa.
36 Reunions Schedule
Cycling and Circumcision
Susan McLucas ’73 teaches people how to ride bicycles and campaigns against genital mutilation.
Comics and Economics
Yoram Bauman ’95 is writing a cartoon introduction to economics—seriously.
Connecting Reedies Across the Globe. Back to School—at Reed. Ultimate Triumph. A Visit to the Getty Museum.
38 Class Notes
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55 Reediana Rescue and Flight Susan Subak ’82 Viral Loop, Adam Penenberg ’86 The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet, Myrlin Hermes ’96
58 In Memoriam 68 Apocrypha
cover illustration: Howell Golson
Tradition. Myth. Legend. Bouncing Off The Walls.
June 2010 Reed magazine
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photograph by orin zyvan
‰ June 2010
www.reed.edu/reed_magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 89, No. 2, June 2010 Magazine editor Chris Lydgate ’90 503/777-7596 chris.lydgate@reed.edu class notes editor Laurie Lindquist 503/777-7591 reed.magazine@reed.edu graphic designer Tom Humphrey 503/459-4632 tom.humphrey@reed.edu
From the Editor “A Confluence of Horrifying Events” The Reed campus was rocked in March by two beauty of the Canyon, with its budding heartrending tragedies. dogwood and its broody ducks, seemed First, philosophy junior Jessica Ettenger unscathed. ’11 was found dead in her dorm room at the It is hard to know how to write intellibeginning of spring break. Although the gently about such awful events, especially nature of her death remains uncertain, the late in the magazine’s production cycle, but medical examiner’s office ruled out alcohol, we have tried. The piece on page 16 examillegal drugs, and foul play. In deference to ines Reed’s evolving approach to drug and the wishes of her family, Dean of Students alcohol abuse on campus. We have also Mike Brody asked the community to refrain included obituaries for the students. (See from speculation as to the remaining possi- In Memoriam.) For alumni, the deaths will trigger a range bilities, and to attempt to “make some semof emotions, from sorrow and sympathy blance of peace with the unknowable.” Even as the community struggled to to disappointment, frustration, and even make sense of Jessica’s death, calam- anger. After these have run their course, I ity struck again a week later, when physics would like to propose another one: resolve. In the final analysis, it seems to me that senior Sam Tepper ’10 suffered a fatal heroin overdose in his off-campus apartment. the best way to honor the dead is to redediAt a staff meeting the following day, Pres- cate ourselves to the living; to reach out to ident Colin Diver referred to the tragedies, those in need; to share our wisdom and expewhich are completely unrelated except for rience with those who are willing to listen; their temporal proximity, as a “confluence and to be ever mindful of our collective obligation to help young people navigate the vast, of horrifying events.” For a place as tight-knit as Reed, the loss strange, and sometimes treacherous waters of two students struck with terrible force. between adolescence and adulthood. For days, the mood on campus was palpably —Chris Lydgate ’90 somber. Grief-stricken students, tears running down their faces, hugged one another in the Quad. The cheerful din of Commons was reduced to a quiet murmur—even the scroungers seemed subdued. Only the raw 2
alumni news editor Robin Tovey ’97 development news editor Matt Kelly Reed College Relations vice president, college relations Hugh Porter director, public affairs Jennifer Bates director, alumni & parent relations Mike Teskey director, development Jan Kurtz Reed College is a private, independent, non-sectarian four-year college of liberal arts and sciences. Reed magazine provides news of interest to alumni, parents, and friends. Views expressed in the magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent officers, trustees, faculty, alumni, students, administrators, or anyone else at Reed, all of whom are eminently capable of articulating their own beliefs. Reed (ISSN 0895-8564) is published quarterly, in February, May, August, and November, by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to Reed College 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Portland OR 97202-8138.
Reed magazine June 2010
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Letters to Reed Ottomar’s Odyssey I read with interest the article on Professor Ottomar Rudolf and the subsequent letters. I have two comments. First, Ottomar is quoted as saying he knew nothing of the mass murders. I cannot believe this. My mother, born in 1929, was also in the Hitler Youth. She told me of a song she had been taught with a line in it that translates as “The Jews are shot.” She admitted that she did have knowledge of the mass murders. Secondly, Paul Bigman ’71 states, “There is, simply put, no imaginable justification for participation in the Nazi cause.” My mother’s participation may not be justifiable, but it may be understandable. In 1932, my mother’s family were ethnic Germans living in the village of Kolb in what was the Autonomous Volga German Soviet Socialist Republic. Local officials came and removed every bit of food from the family’s home, including seed for the next planting. Food confiscation was not limited to Volga Germans. It was carried out in massive regions of the Soviet Union and is believed to be responsible for the starvation of two million Soviet people. In 1933, when my grandmother spoke out against collectivism, the entire family of six was put into a labor camp in what is today Belarus. My mother began work in a brickyard at the age of eight. As war between Germany and the Soviet Union became likely, ethnic Germans were taken from the camp and submitted to electrical shock torture to induce confessions of espionage. My mother’s father would not confess and was released. Others disappeared. Medical supplies were short. My mother’s elder brother died of surgical poisoning. When German forces entered Belarus, my mother and others saw them as liberators. Many rural areas of the Soviet Union did not have electricity or radio. Knowing little about Hitler and fascism, a significant number of people of varying ethnicities of the Soviet Union aided the German forces, believing that collectivism would end and their lands would be returned. Also, memories of induced mass starvation remained. My mother remained in the occupied area and worked as an interpreter/babysitter at a vodka plant that supplied fuel to the German military. Perhaps participation of these people and my mother in the Nazi cause is not justifiable. Is it not understandable? —Joe Ried ’74 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
tion, passion, culture, irony, drive. I had to smile when I read Mr. Bigman’s thinly veiled critique of what Mr. Rudolf should have done while living under the Nazi regime; I guess the arrogance of youth doesn’t always fade with age. Mr. Bigman makes the intellectual and anachronistic mistake of projecting his own values and past onto another culture, time, and place, in order to make a rather self-righteous judgment. Mr. Rudolf was dealt a certain “hand” being born in Germany in the 1920s; he did not have the luxury of looking to the 1960s American counterculture to show him the way of protesting the war. Before you criticize another’s life, walk a mile in his boots. But I don’t think Mr. Rudolf needs my help in defense; an ex–tank gunner from the German army on the eastern front has the cojones to do that quite splendidly. Witness the life lived. —Stuart Byles ’75 La Crescenta, California
Channelling Sappho
Some readers took umbrage at our profile of poet Mary Barnard ’32.
her senior thesis, “Creed”, which predated her reading of Pound’s manifesto. Imagism fitted with her matured way of thinking; she did not try to emulate it out of youthful sentiment and nostalgia. That Barnard “produced only about 150 poems, all told” gives a false picture of her output. Barnard published a range of works, which won important awards (Poetry’s Levinson Award in 1935, the Elliston Award for Collected Poems, the Western States Book Award for Time and the White Tigress) and broke new ground, such as The Mythmakers; and she worked successfully in genres other than poetry. Yet doubt is cast on her ability: “One has to wonder: How did such a cool character ever pull off a translation of Sappho that was so white-hot, so on-the-money? Likely, no one will ever know.” As I told the author in conversation, I don’t think that any writer who knew Barnard was at all surprised at her Sappho, least not Williams, who wrote a fragment joining Barnard to Sappho as early as 1940, or Pound and Moore, whose letters demonstrate nothing but respect for her writing long before she attempted her translation. Given that the 2011 alumni college will feature a session on Mary Barnard to explore her achievement in full, which I am co-organising, such debates are timely. While I was disappointed with this article, the intellectual rigour of alumni discussions will surely restore Barnard’s many distinctions to the centre of the page. —Sarah Barnsley ’95 London, England
Given her important contribution to American literature, it was only appropriate that several pages were recently devoted to Mary Barnard ’32 to mark her centenary. (“Channeling Sappho,” Autumn 2009). However, Barnard’s true literary context was somewhat missed in this article. Some inaccuracies persist: Barnard moved to New York in 1936, not 1935; her meeting with Williams was on a strictly literary basis; she turned away from Eliotic impersonality, not towards it; and Pound did not “hatch” modernism all on his own. The extended focus on Sappho as a “sultry beauty”/“a feminist voice”/leader of a lesbian cult plays up cultural stereotypes misplaced in any discussion of a translation concerned with the plain-speaking verbal grit of Sappho’s fragments, not with “gossip” and other “material irrelevant to the reading and enjoyment of the poems,” as Barnard explains in her translator’s footnote. More interesting things can be said about why Sappho appealed to the modernists as an exemplar of a “new” idiom, as well as to American poets. These are the traditions deserving of more critical attention in this instance than lesbian/feminism movements with which Barnard did not associate. Nor is it fair to say that she was “star-struck” by the Imagist movement. On the contrary, what Barnard says about her discovery of “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste” is measured and insightful: “It seemed to me the only really worthwhile piece of poetry criticism I had ever read—worthwhile The article on Ottomar Rudolf was fascinating, for the maker, that is, as opposed to the con- Mary Barnard ’32, author of Sappho: A New revealing a past that I never knew about my student sumer” (Assault on Mount Helicon, 52). Barnard Translation, distinguished alumna of Reed, and advisor. What a life! Idealism, warfare, devasta- had formulated similar ideas in the preface to generous donor of humanities scholarships to June 2010 Reed magazine
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Letters to Reed continued Reed students, is rightly recognized in an article in Reed honoring the centenary of her birth. What she does not deserve is an article that presents inaccurate facts about her life and poetry, refers to her in personally demeaning terms, and speculates about her sexual orientation simply because she provided us with the definitive translation of Sappho’s poems. Barnard’s interest in Sappho was not genderbased, but primarily poetic. Furthermore, her interest had to do mainly with meter, in contrast to the title of the piece, which emphasizes the “prison of rhymes.” Following Pound’s advice, she became seriously interested in Greek metrics in order to find an alternative to the commonplace iambic pentameter that she felt did not reflect American speech patterns. Because Greek is a quantitative language, measuring the length of vowel sounds, the distinctive stanza form named after Sappho is written in a quantitative meter. In adapting this meter to English, which is based on stress rather than quantity, Mary found “the sound of a speaking voice making a simple, yet emotionally loaded statement” (Assault on Mt. Helicon, 282). The idea that Mary Barnard translated Sappho because she identified with Sappho as a “friend” who “shared much with the odd bird [Barnard]” is a fictional statement expressed in pejorative terms. Conflating Barnard and Sappho in “modern guises (Super Dyke, Porn Queen)” is irrelevant and disrespectful. Similarly, Mary Barnard’s relationship to Pound is distorted in the article. Her native wit came through in their correspondence, but she did not “play” earnest student to him, nor “sass” him. She was too straightforward for that. Her respect for him was immeasurable, and her correspondence with him drew forth some of his most seminal ideas. Characterizing Mary’s life as “solitary, and small” is disparaging and just plain untrue. Her voluminous correspondence, which has been preserved at Yale’s Beineke Library, proves her friendships included not only Reedies, but literary figures she met in New York, like Moore and Williams, and as Poetry Curator for the Lockwood Library in Buffalo. When Barnard returned to Vancouver, her life was not one of “drab misery.” In fact, she wrote seven books after her Sappho was published, two of which garnered distinguished awards. These accomplishments, or the trips to New York to do research, or the many extended trips to Europe with friends are not mentioned. Finally, what is most disturbing about the article is the self-admitted dismissal of accurate facts and its assertion that somehow Mary Barnard’s Sappho translation was an unexplainable, chance act of imagination by this “odd bird laid low.” But it is so much more than that: it is a product of her diligent study of the classics, a meaningful dialogue with an accomplished mentor, lots of hard work, and her God-given talent. Mary Barnard deserves a more scholarly examination
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of the clear, precise writing she left us and more respect for the brilliant, generous person she was. —Elizabeth Bell MALS ’87 Literary Executor for Mary Barnard Vancouver, Washington
You have not heard from me for a long time. I earned a master’s degree in 1989, comparing translations of Sappho, which took the long route of Greek, Latin, German, British (male) English, and, at last, Miss Mary Barnard. My newest personal joke is “I earned a Greek college degree in Mother’s womb.” Actually, it’s true. Mother attended public school in Haverhill, Massachusetts, but preferred to speak and sing her Greek. Indeed I remember everything. I attended a private Greek school there (John Greenleaf Whittier). I expect to be 91 on 3rd May, and enjoy good health—tons of discipline. Recently, nieces half my age have “given me cardiac arrest”—brain surgery, spine surgery. Miss Mary phoned often. We talked and laughed a lot. Lots of agape. —Angela Christy Boston, Massachusetts
eral books (see Reediana). I wrote some articles and I was a keynote speaker at the International Telemedicine Conference in London in 2003. I’m single, have no cats (I’m allergic), and spend my free time—what there is of it—traveling in Europe. It has been some wild ride these past few years! What can I say? I had some mild amusement dealing with this book in my vitae on the witness stand as a forensic psychiatrist. You can, perhaps, imagine the glee of the prosecuting attorney coming across this little gem. Like I said, a wild ride. But it does keep me interested in life around me, and in my own life. After many years of seeing psychiatric patients, I must say that people are far more different from each other than snowflakes. Snowflakes may be unique, but they are seriously less interesting than my fellow humans. I worked at the Quest when I was at Reed, and I “covered” the protests against the Vietnam war. I believe that Nixon was hung in effigy (we obviously couldn’t hang him in person . . .) and Eliot Hall was occupied by student protesters for several days. Now I work with the soldiers in a war, which is probably just as unpopular (my own opinion must wait until I do not work for the U.S. Army), but the soldiers are my patients. I care about them deeply and worry every day about what I read in the Stars and Stripes. Did I ever care about the Stars and Stripes before? No. Life gives us weird twists of fate. Closing my private practice was heartbreaking. I had seen some of these people from the time their children were born to the time their grandchildren were born. Some of my patients grew up with me—we spent 25 years together, one way or another. Some of my patients were new and even then, surprisingly painful for both of us to part. It’s snowing here today, like it is in Portland (according to the internet). I go to work at 7:30 a.m. well before the sun comes up. It’s like living in Alaska where I grew up. I find myself musing on wheels and the turns that bring us always back to some starting place. And that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. It wasn’t me, everyone has a double and I was in Philadelphia at the time. God bless us every one. Merry Christmas, —Esther Gwinnell ’75 Schweinfurt, Germany
Standing Up for ’75
Editor’s Note: Thank you, Esther! See Reediana for
I confess my surprise that these two eminent correspondents, both so familiar with Mary’s work, should dislike this piece. Author Bill Donahue included the exotic portrayals of Sappho precisely to demonstrate that, right or wrong, she has become for many a symbol of lesbian love. He then proceeded to explore the life of the poet who brought Sappho back into the public eye. Surely it is reasonable to wonder, as Donahue did, whether Mary’s own sexuality played a role in her work, and to conclude, as he did, that we have too little evidence to know. Personally, I believe the piece celebrated Mary’s remarkable achievements without descending into fulsome sentimentality. Readers can find longer versions of these letters posted on our website. Editor’s Note:
“ Barnard’s interest in Sappho was not gender-based, but primarily poetic.” —Elizabeth Bell MALS ’87
I read the note begging for information from the class of ’75, and I stand up to tell you about myself. I had a private practice in Portland for 25 years. One day (actually, the anniversary of the week I started practice) I got this letter—flaming pink paper and the question: “Want to be a psychiatrist in Germany?” The same week, I got a fortune cookie that read: Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. Well, why not? So I am in Germany now. I am the mild traumatic brain injury psychiatrist in Schweinfurt, Germany, for the U.S. Army. I have written sev-
more about Esther’s books.
Defending the Citadel It has been interesting to read letters from Karen Smith and Jeffrey Kovac regarding the Black Studies crisis in the late 60s. I went to UCSB (my daughter goes to Reed) about the same time, and recall the Black Student Union takeover of one of our buildings. I speculate if this movement began the growth of new departments, which has left colleges and universities today with a substantial burden of not only greater overhead but perhaps inflated status:
Reed magazine June 2010
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e.g., a history department can adapt to changes in academic interests; a Black History department has to sustain itself if it were to fall out of fashion. —Glenn Umont Alamo, California
Another Roger Sup-Porter While I’ve been following the “defending the citadel” disagreement since it started, I’ve refrained from commenting. It has seemed like crying over spilled milk. However, I’ve read one too many oblique references to Roger Porter to continue sitting this out. Roger Porter is the only reason I graduated from Reed, rather than leaving my senior year to finish elsewhere. He was concerned enough about seeing me leave with a Reed degree that he combined being thesis adviser with offering me a challenging and motivating course of independent study—which was unusual because I was not majoring in literature. He just happened to be the most qualified faculty member in my area. He was also the best professor I ever had, undergraduate or graduate. When I later taught graduate school, Roger was my teaching model. Was he a “young Turk,” some folks having twisted that into a pejorative term? Yes. Did Reed need young Turks at the time? More than it had, many more. The “Old Guard” stood on ceremony. Roger stood for fairness and for student development. Reed badly needed people like Roger to open wide the windows of the faculty lounge to let in some fresh air. —Dick Lee ’68 St. Paul, Minnesota
Remembering Dick Jones Few college alumni mags could match the passionate and diverse views articulated by Reed graduates over “Defending the Citadel.” One of Reed’s strengths would seem to be the different ways in which students experience the college, depending in large measure upon their field of study and the profs with whom they bond, or don’t. Not having experienced myself the 1960s “Citadel” adventure, this older alum initially had no inclination to comment, until the debate widened in subsequent issues of Reed to encompass broader observations about key College figures, particularly prof Richard Jones. I now feel compelled to register a view from the ’50s. As a Reedie who values highly his college years, I consider Dick Jones to have been the preëminent player in that experience. In his conference sessions, Dick evinced an elevated respect for every student’s opinion together with the expectation that all participants would arrive at class prepared to engage in professional-level discourse. The reading list for English history was endless and included texts usually considered beyond undergraduates’ capability, as I later discovered in graduate school. As regards level, intensity, and stimulation, Jones’ courses dwarfed my others, as good as some of them were. I consider the
Quincy partisans Jeff Gilbert ’62, Don Pavia ’62, and Ted Jonson ’61 pose with a captive Doyle Owl in an undisclosed location, 1959.
intellectual rigor of those meetings and the work course at Reed in 1971. I’ve taken a lot of other that went into preparing for them to have built history courses at all levels from grade school to my personal confidence and laid the foundation grad school, and I am a history professor myself. Dick Jones, more than anyone else, inspired me for a professional career. The distinctive feature of the true liberal arts to go on and become a historian, which is why college, exemplified by only a few institutions among I dedicated my dissertation monograph to him which Reed has stood preëminent, seems to be a along with my two graduate advisers at Wisconsin. learning culture centered upon the undergraduate Dick Jones was the best teacher I ever saw. —Dan Feller ’72 student. It presupposes a faculty dedicated above all Knoxville, Tennessee to teaching, skilled in awakening the latent talents of postadolescents, and unencumbered by the “publish or perish” dictum that reigns at so many Owlish Impostor? universities. In my opinion, Dick Jones most suc- The “furry-feathery creature” posing with Microsoft cessfully exemplified that learning culture at Reed. Reedies on page 31 of the March 2010 magazine is As noted above, I cannot speak to Jones’ role a feckless imposter! I am enclosing some pictures in the ’60s controversy. I do know that he was one (dark, dank, undisclosed location) from 1959 for of the most ardent champions of Stanley Moore comparison. I and my fellow mates from Quincy following the latter’s betrayal by the Trustees in Dorm captured the Doyle Owl in 1958 during a the 1950s (later reversed, to their credit). However, showing that year. We retained it for over a year, as so well stated by Gerson Robboy (“Cultural showing it ourselves three times. One of our most Shift and the Old Guard,” Reed, Summer 2009), successful showings was in the old commons while different eras present different contexts and the everyone was at dinner. We blocked the doors issues often shift. The purpose of this letter is and showed it at a window. Of course numerous simply to record one alum’s gratitude to Reed for hopefuls bailed out of other windows and a merrye the opportunity to study under so outstanding chayse was had by all. We had planned the showing an educator as Dick Jones. to a fare-thee-well, blocking all roads in and out —Bill McGrew ’56 with vehicles, and creating raucous diversions. A Thessaloniki, Greece postwar, multigear, go-anywhere, weapons-carrier vehicle, belonging to Bill Brack ’62, assured that I see there has been some controversy in Reed no that one could follow us through the Elysian, about Richard H. Jones. I never knew anything but roadless, fields on the other side of campus. about his politics, academic or otherwise. But, I do —Donald L. Pavia ’62 know and remember this. I took his English history Bellingham, Washington June 2010 Reed magazine
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Letters to Reed continued Why I Give To Reed I give because I am grateful for the education Reed offered me in intellectual discipline and in social life, quite different from my small town in Virginia. Courses and conversations at Reed revealed worlds unknown to me. I devoured Humanities 110 readings and lectures. I could not take notes fast enough in engineering block capitals and had to learn italic handwriting. My conference-mates Joe Alex ’70, Greg Lee ’70, Jeff Nakamura ’70, and Pat Honchar ’70 nearly always had something worthwhile to say. First Hum papers were marked by all-night group brainstorming in cross-canyon dorms, frenzied writing and typing, and a mad dash to turn in papers at Eliot Hall by noon, Saturday, before Professor Richard Tron sealed the envelopes. John Tomsich’s American Intellectual History, an autobiographical subject for Reedies, was the only history class I took. For the first hour, Professor Tomsich sat silent as the Doyle Owl. Occasionally he smiled while watching the hesitant and floundering student-led discussion. After a brief break, he revealed all about the readings in brilliant summations and deeper insights. Gradually we learned how to do it ourselves— which was of course his plan. Learning took place informally, too. Reedies were activists and pranksters—intense, intelligent, and immature. We held a public burning of the MLA style sheet, and we fought slingshot-pitched water-balloon battles. Alan Walworth ’72 and I hitchhiked to San Francisco in 15 hours, starting at midnight during reading week. Wayne Grytting ’70, Seattle fisherman, went off to feed the fish at Marineland of the Pacific. We organized serious counter-classes, made pamphlets and single-issue newspapers, wall posters, and radio programs. One roommate’s hobby was knife-throwing; others knew about brewing, jazz, palmistry, Quakerism, Zen Buddhism, and women. Strong Reed women seemed to know more than the men, certainly more than I did. Taz Wilson ’70, Sandy Osborne ’70, Holly Hart ’70, Linda Howard ’70, Shirley Mayer ’70, Callie Wilson ’72, and Deborah Bigelow ’73 made lasting impressions on me, though I haven’t seen them for decades. Lois Drew ’72, one of five women in Physics/Chemistry 120, once relieved the hard grind by announcing: “We cannot have a test on Friday because it’s Halloween!” Professor William Parker ’36 agreed. At Reed in the 1960s, politics and personalities generally coexisted. Opposition to the Vietnam War was nearly universal on campus. I marched in demonstrations, signed petitions, and served on the bail bond crew. In 1968, Professor John Pock and I watched the disgusting tele-spectacle of the Democratic and Republican conventions, cynicism carried to new lows. When the candidates campaigned in Portland, unapologetic
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liberal Hubert Humphrey argued with anti-war coach discovered the nude swim-in. Outraged, protesters. By contrast, Spiro Agnew was glad he shouted to one hairy male student: “Aren’t “the delegation from Hanoi” left his rally, so that you ashamed, exposing yourself to women like he could deliver his “real speech,” a ghastly vision this?” Hairy male: “No, Coach, they’ve already of a totalitarian American future. The two Reed seen everything I have!” During the troubles of 1968, Jonathan Moscow, Republicans who attended were horrified. The first Reed radical I met was Jonathan Stuart Demmy ’69, and I went to downtown Moscow ’69. We made grilled cheese and ketchup Portland for Rhodes Scholarship interviews. None sandwiches at his off-campus house, and we of us got the scholarship, probably because we all talked about politics long afterwards. Lance disagreed with the committee. Professor Maure Montauk ’71, guerilla-theatre star of draft resis- Goldschmidt, who taught classes at home during tance, gave me an unforgettable lesson in teaching the crisis, was unable to attend and explain the
“ Learning took place informally, too. Reedies were activists and pranksters—intense, intelligent, and immature.” —Maarten Ultee ’70
at Beaverton High School China Day. Jeff Kovac radicalism of Reed students. To console us, Price ’70 and I were droning about American foreign Zimmermann revealed that “those committees are policy when Lance made his entrance in a red suckers for oriental faces.” I had worked for the velvet suit, red cowboy hat, red boots, and dark Multnomah County District Attorney’s office and sunglasses. There was a chorus of wolf-whistles resolved to go to law school. It was “something and cheers. Lance slipped us a note, “The great- to fall back on,” as my Chinese mother said. But est sin is to be boring.” Then he seized students’ my plans changed at the last minute. Diskin Clay attention by talking about the poetry of Mao ’60, John Tomsich, and Mary Catherine Pedersen Tse-tung. “Cool!” [assistant professor of political science 1968–71] Ralph Stavins’ political science classes were recommended me for a Woodrow Wilson fellowdefinitely not boring. We explored the internal ship to sink-or-swim in the shark-infested waters logic and working of terror by analyzing imperial- of Johns Hopkins. I studied European history ism, fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism. Mr. Stavins and enjoyed an academic career. This year I am giving to Reed in memory held office hours and classes at night, and allowed students to call him by his first name. He was a of four classmates: Joseph Alex ’70, Martha tough-talking, chain-smoking lawyer, University Downs ’70, Jeff Nakamura, and Anne Tazewell of Chicago PhD, and student of Hannah Arendt, Wilson. I wish they were still with us to celebrate herself student and lover of Martin Heidegger. our 40th reunion. I am confident that Reed will Stavins inspired me to major in political science spend the money wisely, despite the turbulence (which I did), and advised me to take three years of the 1960s, a rose-colored history that needs rewriting, and all too much time spent on politics of Greek (which, alas, I did not). My all-time favorite politics course was State and self-contemplation. According to roommate and Local Government. Professor Richard Frost James Wheeler ’70, “Reed College is a good place invited politicians, policy makers, academics, and to get an education, and a great place to grow up.” even prisoners from Oregon State Penitentiary to Final comment by roommate Joel Greenberg his house to meet five students (Gray Pedersen ’70: “Mooooh?” ’68, Pat Mapps ’70, Pam McFarlane Rosenberg —Maarten Ultee ’70 Palo Alto, California ’69, Jim Joseph ’69, and me), once a week, 8:30 multee@simplecom.net p.m.–midnight, or whenever the booze ran out. What we learned about the real world in that class was amazing. Keep It Up Coach Jerry Barta also offered worldly wisdom Congratulations on putting out a splendid Reed in golf class: “Boys, this is the most important (March 2010). It had a number of outstanding course you will take in college!” If we had only articles, among them Ted Katauskas’ “On the listened to him, cut our hair, and become bankers Ledge.” You were right to include so many letters and big-business types, he would have been right. from alums, too. What a contentious bunch! Keep For many of us Coach Barta was a father figure, up the good work. not always in touch with the times. I worked —R.E. Myers MAT ’60 for him as a lifeguard and was at the pool when Healdsburg, California
Reed magazine June 2010
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Hardy Crew It takes a special kind of devotion Seven decades after Mar y ’s to attend Reed. Then again, it also accomplishment, Dave rallies his takes a special kind of devotion to troops at 6:30 a.m. before sending wake up before sunrise twice a week them onto the steely grey water, and row furiously up and down the where he spends two hours bellowchilly Willamette River in all variet- ing encouragement and pointers ies of inclement weather. This year, a through a plastic bullhorn. The crew, coed team of intrepid students, led numb fingers resolutely gripping by coach Dave Constant ’09, have their oars, respond with sardonic proved themselves in both categories. enthusiasm, adjusting strokes and The resurrected Reed College Rowers, postures amid jokes about dodging the college’s first official team in over the unsavory debris washed into the three decades, took to the water last river by heavy spring rain. “It’s about fall and have been honing their skills consistency and rhythm,” explains ever since. With one race under their history major Aaron Mendelson belts (their four-person boat took sec- ’10. “I was used to endurance sports ond place in Portland’s fall regatta), in high school—just going all out the team—half of whom had never until the finish line, but if you rush lifted an oar prior to joining—is out through rowing you’re missing the every week preparing for their second point.” race this spring. In spite of the predawn reveille They join an illustrious tradition and freezing wind, Aaron and the of Reed rowers, among them Mary team ship oars and haul their vessels Elizabeth Russell Bauer ’43 , who onto the dock in high spirits, ready earned the prestigious distinction to be back on campus in time for 9 in 1941 of being the first female cox- a.m. lectures—but only after a nice, swain in collegiate rowing. (See In hot shower. —Lucy Bellwood ’12 Memoriam, March 2010.) June 2010 Reed magazine
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Stauder to Be Dean of Faculty
Senior Nabs Fulbright
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Psychology major Marjorie Nicholson ’10 has won a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue neurological research at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Marjorie will investigate the neurological circuitry of alcohol addiction—specifically the role of the hormone ghrelin in increasing the pleasurable effects of alcohol. She will conduct her research in the laboratory of physiologist Dr. Suzanne Dickson at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology at Gothenburg. Marjorie was thrilled to learn she had been awarded the scholarship. “I am looking forward to diving into this awesome adventure,” she told us. “I would like to thank everyone in the Reed community for their help, love, and support. I could not have done it without them.” Describing Marjorie’s proposal, Dr. Dickson wrote: “The ideas are rather advanced for such a young researcher and I was much impressed.” The Fulbright program provides students with the chance to exchange values, knowledge, and ideas with citizens and institutions abroad. It was founded under legislation drawn up by the late Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946, and is sponsored by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Today, the Fulbright program operates in more than 150 countries and its scholarships are among the most highly coveted academic awards worldwide. Marjorie, who is an accomplished cellist, also looks forward to playing classical music during her stay in Gothenburg. —Anna Mann
Ellen Keck Stauder, the David from Keats to Levertov. In 2000, Eddings Professor of English and she created an interactive tutorial Humanities, has been appointed that helps students understand the by President Colin Diver to serve way rhythm structures temporal as Reed’s next dean of the faculty, experience in poetry (give it a whirl starting in June. at academic.reed.edu/english/intra). “I am honored to have been cho“There are some obvious things sen for this position,” says Professor that people point to when we Stauder, “and very much talk about what makes look forward to working Reed distinctive,” she with the faculty and the says. “The humanities, entire community, espethe junior qual, the cially as we celebrate senior thesis. And, of Reed’s centennial and course, overall there is begin a new chapter in a level of seriousness the college’s history.” about the academic Stauder did not grow program—our mission up dreaming of being a is focused on the intelcollege dean. An accomlectual experience. But I plished clarinetist, she Professor Ellen Keck Stauder think what makes Reed originally intended to special are the people become a professional musician, but who are committed to that mission, an accident in college involving her and who bring their own vision and wrist made playing more difficult. dedication to it.” Switching to music history, she was Among the many issues that intrigued by the different ways in Stauder will face is the role that which performers and historians scholarship should play in the evaluviewed the same piece of music, ation of faculty members. “Reed has and then by bigger questions such never valued publication for its own as the relationship between music sake,” Stauder says—but there is and other forms of artistic and intel- an argument to be made about the lectual expression. “I sort of backed value of scholarship in broadening into academia,” she says. a professor’s knowledge of the field. Stauder earned a BM at the “Among the current faculty there Eastman School of Music, an MA is really no one who is as well prein English at the College of St. Rose, pared to step into the shoes so admiand a PhD in the history of culture rably filled by Peter Steinberger over at the University of Chicago. She the past 13 years,” says President has been teaching at Reed since Diver. The news of her appointment 1983. She served as associate pro- triggered enthusiastic and sustained vost from 1989–93 and as interim applause at the faculty meeting dean of the faculty in 2001–02. when it was announced. Stauder’s interests include the Stauder will succeed Peter Steinpoetry of Ezra Pound, modern- berger, the Robert H. & Blanche ism, lyric poetry, the relationship Day Ellis Professor of Political between poetry and the other arts, Science and Humanities, who has and prosody—the study of rhythm, served as dean of the faculty since intonation, and stress. She has 1997, except in 2001-02, when he recently completed a book manu- served as acting president of the script, Form Cut into Time: The Poet- college. Professor Steinberger will ics of Rhythm in the Poetry of Ezra take a yearlong sabbatical in Paris Pound, and begun working on a new to conduct some research and will project involving the ethics of listen- return to full-time teaching in the ing and the role of beauty in poetry fall of 2011. —Anna Mann
monk photo by orin zyvan
Grains of Sand
Kilkenny Founds Chittick Scholarship
A group of Tibetan monks came to Reed in March to construct a stunning sand mandala, painstakingly assembled grain by grain over the course of several days. The monks, who hailed from the Drepung Loseling monastery in India, created a type of mandala dedicated to the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, who embodies compassion. When the mandala was finally complete, they led a procession to the creek at the mouth of the Reed Canyon, where, to the clash of cymbals and the groan of horns, they cast the sand into the air, representing the eternal cycle of chaos and order, life and death. The event was sponsored by the Gray Fund, which was established in 1992 by Betty Gray with the aim of bringing top-notch cultural, social, and recreational activities to campus. Other Gray Fund events this year included an appearance by writer Ursula K. Le Guin, moonlit snowshoeing on Mount Hood, whale-watching on the Oregon Coast, old-growth tree-climbing, and an outing to the Portland Jazz Festival.
The Victor and Edna Chittick Scholarship was endowed by Jane Winks Kilkenny ’33 to support Reed students who entered the college as Oregon residents. Victor was a professor of literature at Reed College from 1921 until his retirement in 1948; Edna was a music professor at Reed from 1930 to 1938. Jane, a history major who went on to run Winks Hardware (a family business), attended Reed’s first graduation at four years of age. Her mother decided then and there to send her to Reed. At the end of Jane’s life, she founded Victor Chittick this $800,000 scholarship with gifts that were to be anonymous until the time of her death (see In Memoriam). The scholarship has welcomed four Oregon residents to Reed since its inception in 2008.
—Anna Mann
Jane corresponded with President Colin Diver about her old mentors: “My four years at the college, 1929–1933, and my friendships with the Chitticks are among my most cherished memories of a long and rich life. I am doubly fortunate to be able to put a down-payment, so to speak, against a debt I have always felt I owed, both to the Chitticks, Edna and Victor, and to the college they so ably served.” President Diver referred to Jane’s scholarship recipient as a “Chittick Scholar.” Herself a former student of Chittick, she replied: “When I read in your letter the words ‘Chittick Scholar,’ tears came to my eyes remembering that I, too, was a Chittick scholar many years ago.” —Matt Kelly
June 2010 Reed magazine
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Gail Kelly Memorial Scholarship Founded Reedies Robert McCullough ’72, Karen Tosi ’76, and Stephen Foster ’69 created the Dr. Gail Kelly Scholarship fund in hopes that others would be inspired to honor Professor Kelly with additional gifts to bring this scholarship to a fully funded level. Gail Kelly ’55 , legendary for her hardnosed approach, taught courses such as social anthropology and anthropological theory while focusing her own research on the anthropology of marketing and consumption patterns in the non-Western world. Gail taught at Reed for 40 years. A Festschrift was held in her honor in April 2005; she died in August of the same year.
“ The very best teachers are often frightening.” —Robert McCullough ’72 Stephen submitted a paper for the Fest- sense of humor. He remembers that upon schrift. “She mixed a deep disciplined knowl- her retirement, Gail said, “Time for me to edge of the literature with a skepticism and stop corrupting the youth.” Robert, an economist who knew Gail an ability to raise the important questions,” he says. In his life, says Stephen, always socially after leaving Reed, described her asking the question beyond the question as having two sides: the martini-drinking started with Gail. He also appreciated her Noel Coward side and the Paper Chase John
Math major Galen Pyle ’10 had scant interest in chess until he got to Reed. Then a chance game on the Great Lawn kindled an unexpected passion. Now he has won several tournaments and is ranked among the top three dozen players in Oregon. “Chess is a really intense intellectual experience,” he says. “It’s exciting. There’s a story in every game . . . . I always wanted to be an artist, but never had a medium until I found chess.” Galen’s thesis is concerned with the question of whether the formal syntax of chess is isomorphic with the syntax of mathematics. (In a word, yes.) He also teaches chess in Portland schools and is captain of the Reed chess team. Here he demonstrates a position arising from the Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defense. (A free bumper sticker to any reader who can tell us how this one ends up.)—Anna Mann
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Houseman side. “She was an extremely compartmentalized person,” he says. “There were 50 people at her wake, but very few knew each other.” “She was brilliant, acerbic, an excellent conversationalist who liked good food, design, nice clothes, and telling other people what to do,” he recalls. “She was the arbiter of our life.” Gail arranged for Robert to buy history professor Rex Arragon’s house, unhappy that it might go to someone outside the Reed community. Standing beside the fireplace in the wood-paneled library of the house on Reed College Place, Robert says that if Gail “saw an intellectual flaw in your argument, she was on it right away. She terrified every student she ever came in contact with.” “The great mystery of education,” he says, “is to challenge someone to be the best they can be without destroying them. The very best teachers are often frightening.” Robert hopes there are many old students who will make a gift in honor of their intimidating yet beloved professor. To make a gift to the Dr. Gail Kelly Scholarship, use the enclosed envelope or visit giving.reed.edu.—Matt Kelly
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Reed Welcomes Two New Trustees Konrad S. Alt ’81 is a managing director in the San Francisco office of Promontory Financial Group, which specializes in regulatory and financial consulting services for financial institutions. He advises clients on compliance, risk management, governance, and regulator y communications. Konrad previously served as Konrad S. Alt ’81 chief public policy officer and executive vice president at ProKonrad chairs Reed’s newly vidian Financial Corporation, formed Alumni Development senior vice president at World Committee and is a member of Savings Bank, senior deputy the Reed Campaign Commitcomptroller for economic analy- tee—San Francisco Bay Area. He sis and public affairs and chief of previously served as president staff in the Office of the Comp- of Reed’s alumni board, a memtroller of the Currency, and ber of the National Advisory counsel to the Senate Banking Council, and class reunion gift Committee. He also practiced chair. Konrad’s wife, Maureen law at Dewey, Ballantine, Bush- Kennedy, is a real estate broker by, Palmer, and Wood. Konrad with Pacific Union Internationreceived his BA in political sci- al. Konrad and Maureen live in ence from Reed, an MPP from Piedmont, California, and they Harvard’s Kennedy School of have three children. Their son Government, and a JD from Wyatt is a freshman at Reed. Harvard Law School, where he Matthew Bergman ’84 is the was an editor of the Harvard founder and a managing partner Law Review and an Olin Fellow of the law firm Bergman Draper in Law and Economics. and Frockt, which represents
Matthew Bergman ’84
McAuliffe, and as a law clerk in the U.S. Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit. Matt received his BA in sociology from Reed College and his JD from Lewis and Clark Law School. He has been active in state and national politics, serving as delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2000, 2004, and 2008. Matt is a member of the Board of Visitors at Lewis and Clark Law School, where he previously served on the alumni board. He is chairman of Neural IQ, a high-tech startup marketing antihacking software to government agencies and private industry. Matt also serves as chairman and principal funder of the Maasai Childrens Initiative (maasai childrensinitiative.org), which provides school feeding, female literacy, and computer technology training to rural Maasai communities in southern Kenya. Matt lives in Vashon, Washington, and has two children. His father is Abraham Bergman ’54 and his uncle was the late Elihu (“Eli”) Bergman ’50.
individuals and families in complex cases involving personal harm. The firm has represented hundreds of asbestos victims in the last decade and helped negotiate billions of dollars in global settlements. Matt is nationally known for his work on behalf of asbestos victims, and he has served on numerous creditors committees and trust advisory committees, testified before the U.S. Congress on asbestos legislative issues, and spoken at national and international seminars on asbestos litigation. Prior to founding Bergman Draper and Frockt, he worked as an associate at Heller Erhman White and —Anna Mann
Friends Rally for Andrew Linehan Scholarship At the end of a long battle with cancer, who could bring all parties to the table. He la Renewables, says that Andy’s openness Andy Linehan ’78 heard from friends and col- was able to bring developers, conservation- and penchant for critical analysis led him leagues who wanted to honor him with a gift. ists, and landowners together, assess all the to challenge his own industry to improve Andy, already making estate plans with Reed, motivations, ask the difficult questions, and its environmental record. In one case, he was moved by their overture and decided to take a creative approach to thorny issues that brought the concerns of environmental create the Andrew Linehan Scholarship. left all parties feeling respected. groups back to his company and convinced An astounding 98 individuals and 10 “Everyone came away happy with the result, them to test shutting down turbines on companies contributed to the fund. “The and liking Andy,” says Peter Mostow ’87, a low-wind nights in an attempt to reduce email spread like wildfire across the country,” Washington lawyer who worked with Andy danger to bats, something that had never said Brian Walsh, a coworker at energy com- on the negotiations surrounding the State- been done previously. pany Iberdrola Renewables, who encouraged line Wind Farm near Walla Walla, WashingThe Andrew Linehan Scholarship will gifts to the scholarship. ton, a project that helped shape both of their be awarded to a student with financial Andy’s colleagues remember him as a careers. “He was a classic product of the con- need, with preference to a student in the straight shooter who lived and breathed the ference system, committed to open media- environmental studies program that will principles he espoused in his professional life. tion and intellectual inquiry as opposed to be launched this fall. To make a gift to the As a negotiator for wind turbine permits, he party-line approaches.” Linehan Scholarship, visit giving.reed.edu. was an expert in avian and bat protection Sara Parsons, Andy’s protégé at Iberdro- (See also In Memoriam.) —Matt Kelly June 2010 Reed magazine 11
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Garden House Wins Power Struggle Reedies struck a blow against global warming—and demonstrated creative frugality—in the third annual campus-wide “Power Struggle,” in which dorms vie against one another to see who can cut their electricity consumption most dramatically during the month of February. The Garden House (a former residence located on SE 28th Avenue that the college converted into a dorm in 1994) clinched the competition, cutting energy consumption by 20 percent. Dormmates achieved this feat by unplugging appliances, dousing lights, and holding house dinners that were illuminated by candles and flashlights. Power Struggle is sponsored by the student environmental group Greenboard, which checks the electricity meters in each dorm each week during the contest, while the dorms try to reduce their power usage by the greatest proportion. In the first year of the competition, its founder, Devin Judge-Lord ’09, spent several hours hunting for a meter in a cross-canyon dorm before discovering it hidden in a maintenance closet. That year, Bragdon Hall won the contest by spending the entire month living in the dark. “I remember taking tours through there and having to explain why the lights were off,” Devin recalls. Power Struggle represents just one of the ways students are working to cut the college’s carbon footprint. The Student Senate and President Colin Diver this year committed approximately $12,000 for campus sustainability projects, such as a covered bike shelter. In addition, the Reed Sustainable Food Project, a studentrun garden on the west side of campus, is raising fruit and vegetables to provide commons with delicious, healthy, and local greens. For more on the college’s sustainability efforts, see web.reed.edu/ sustainability/. —Ethan Knudson ’11
Miracles and Mountebanks Bearded ladies, miracle workers, con- tics major Lauren Banister ’10, who mestortionists, belly dancers—all these merized the crowd with her isolated hula and many other performers crammed hoop stylings, recalls being arrested by into the student union in March for the unexpected wafts of burning sage and Great Hereafter Medicine Show . The bittersweet morsels of candied orange show, which played during Reed Arts peel during the course of the evening. “It Week, held the audience spellbound was stunning,” she exclaims. “A unique, with vaudeville acts and carnival oddi- yet thoroughly Reed experience: disties. Staying true to this year’s theme of orienting in the best way.” Considering “alchemy,” students transformed the S.U. that students have praised the show into a revival tent extraordinaire with as “the best event after Renn Fayre,” patchwork tapestries, bizarre wooden we can only hope for a revival in 2011. structures, and colorful lights. Linguis- —Lucy Bellwood ’12
Psychology Professor Wins $1 Million Grant Psychology professor Tim Hackenberg has received a five-year grant of more than $1 million from the National Institutes of Health for his project, “Behavioral Economics in a Laboratory-Based Token Economy.” Behavioral economics is an approach to understanding how constraints such as restricted income, limited options, and incomplete and uncertain information about the world impact behavior. The aim of this project is to develop a laboratory-based system for examining behavior from an economic perspective. Building on an extensive body of animal research, the project uses pigeons as workers in a miniature and selfcontained economy. The centerpiece of the experiment is a token-economic system, in which tokens are earned, accumulated, and exchanged for other commodities. This research brings within reach a wide range of economic variables never before studied in the animal laboratory and, with it, exciting new possibilities for students to participate in the burgeoning field of experimental economics. —David Frazee Johnson
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Empire of the Griffin Connecting Reed alumni across the globe
Back to School—at Reed This year, Reed hosted its first Winter Alumni College during Paideia. The topic was technology and how it affects society in the areas of communities, health, food, and the environment. Alumni College consists of several days of classes with presentations by experts, group discussions, and time for socializing during on-campus meals. I registered on a whim, and then had second thoughts, because I’m retired now, and I’m allergic to whatever smacks of work. The day before classes, I realized with shame that I had neglected the reading list. When I finally got my hands on the readings, I was dismayed to heft a stack of paper two inches thick, weighing over three pounds. I flashed back to that sinking feeling freshman year when I discovered I was supposed to breeze through the Iliad in about the same time it would take to watch a movie. I pawed through the essays, expecting to be bored, but the depth and variety of topics quickly captured my interest. The healthcare issues were relevant to pending healthcare legislation. The papers on genetic engineering had me glued to my chair. I entered the still-venerable portals of Eliot Hall and was glad that it retained its air of stately (if soggy) elegance. Our classroom emitted the welcome aroma of coffee and pastries. Sitting around the conference table, we ranged from recent grads back to members of the class of 1960. Professor John Pock [sociology, 1955-98] attended in the unaccustomed role of student. We struggled to define technology, and found the term elusive. When Professor Pock declared our attempt “useless,” it triggered a further round of discussion. Was Pock goading us yet again? Laura Leviton ’73, special advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, spoke to us on how technology affects health. She pointed out that skewed public spending does not reflect real risks to health; compare your chance of death in a car crash (1 in 85) to your chance of death in a terrorist attack (near-zero) yet look at our upsidedown spending. Keith Allen ’83 , the head of computa-
tional biology at Syngenta Biotechnology, stands for Singing Loudly Unto Reed. On the last day of the college, I was discussed how genetic engineering can help address water shortages and reduce the struck by a comment from Professor Pock. need for chemical fertilizers (ironically a He told us that when he first came to Reed, large part of Syngenta’s product line). He the intelligent discussion he encountered wishes that organic farmers would not view in conferences “blew my mind.” At first, he genetic engineering as the enemy, since it was surprised when students told him what holds such enormous potential to solve they were thinking about. “No student had ever done that before,” he said. But he wonenvironmental problems. Howard Rheingold ’68 , the author of dered about “the life expectancy of this enerSmart Mobs, could not appear in person, but getic intellectual activity.” Does this fade he came to us larger than life via a You-Tube away when we become real adults in the video. He said that new forms of coopera- real world? Participating in Alumni College, he said, tion enabled by new technologies create new forms of wealth, and explained how sharing showed him that “this has a lot of durabilcan be in a company’s best interests, citing ity to it.” And then, in a heartfelt moment of Google, where “free information pays.” In our lively breakout sessions, we brought humility, he thanked us. to bear our real-world experiences as we pin- —Constance Emerson Crooker ’69 balled from topic to topic. When we tried to organize the results of our discussions, I was For more on Alumni College, see reunions.reed. amused at the array of sticky-note categories edu/alumni_college.html. that our energetic leader Jim Kahan ’64 kept amending as demanded by rival camps of Further Reading David Nye, Technology Matters . Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006. “lumpers” and “splitters.” Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think,” The Atlantic Monthly, Walking around campus, I enjoyed the August, 1945. creative energy of today’s students. One fellow was running inside a fifteen-foot high, Howard Rheingold, “Virtual Worlds Research: Past, Present & Future,” Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1987. student-designed, hamster wheel (See Eliot Pamela Ronald, “Making Rice Disease-Resistant,” Scientific Circular, March 2010) while a cacophony of American, Nov. 1997 banging, drumming, whistling, and tooting Donald Engelbart, “Augmenting Human Intellect: A came from colorfully clad students march- Conceptual Framework,” Stanford Research Institute ing in their Noise Parade, which was led by Report AFOSR-3233, October, 1962. a shirtless man in a ballet tutu. This racket Ted Williams, “Sin City Goes Dry,” Audubon, March 2007. competed with an informal gathering of student folk musicians called S.L.U.R., which June 2010 Reed magazine 13
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Left to right. Top Row: Mike Deen ’06, David Jackson ’09, Shane Rubenfeld ’06, Andrew Lynch ’12, Russell Mayhew ’10, Doug Galbraith ’07, Sasha Nemchonok ’10, Duncan Kochhar-Lindgren ’07, Chris Nutter ’00, Bryson Uhrig-Fox ’10 Bottom Row: Josh O’Rourke ’09, Joe Hand ’09, Ari Leventhal ’07, Ian Fisher ’07, Andrew Winterman ’10, Adam Halverson ’00, Rami Bridge ’08, Tom Weaver ’06.
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Chapter spotlight:
Southern California After the rain, Saturday, February 20, turned into a gloriously clear (smog-free) day in Southern California. The panoramic views from the Getty Center, located high atop the Santa Monica Mountains, were breathtaking. Thomas Rhoads ’75, associate director of administration and public affairs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, pulled more than a few strings to arrange a private tour of the unique exhibit, “Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference,” followed by a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum’s paper conservation studios. The excellent tour was lead by exhibit curator and Rembrandt scholar Lee Hendrix; the intimate behind-the-scenes tour was lead by senior paper conservator Mark Harnly. A group of 50, composed of Reed alumni, family, and friends, enjoyed the experience and a smaller group stayed for dinner and lively conversation after the tour. We warmly encourage all area alumni to contact the chapter steering committee with any ideas they may have for upcoming events. Activities currently in the planning stages include a career-development event, a picnic, a ride on a sailboat, and raku pottery.
Ultimate Triumph For the second year in a row, a group of Reed alumni and a handful of current students traveled to Phoenix, Arizona to participate in an ultimate Frisbee tournament called New Year Fest. The group spanned many years at Reed, with graduates from 2000 and hopeful grads for 2012. The weekend was filled with highlights including delicious tostadas and brisket, swimming under the January Arizona sunshine, and above all, lots and lots of Frisbee. Representing Reed under the name “Crom,” (a Viking god who rose to prominence in the classic film, Conan the Barbar-
ian) the team finished third for the weekend. “Ultimately (no pun intended), we proved ourselves as the best all-around team at this year’s New Year Fest, and we did it all with grace, humor, and above all, facial hair,” writes captain Ian Fisher ’07, noting that the tournament fee was offset by a generous subsidy from the Reed College alumni office. “We hope to continue this tradition for many years to come, and we continue to share excitement at having the opportunity to represent the small part that athletics plays in the unique Reed experience.”
—Lisa Gillette ’78 & Amy Lindsay ’81
PUZZLEd CORNER
Searching For Clues You know Reed. But how well do you know Reedies? A free bumper sticker to the first 12 readers who can correctly answer the following questions about our illustrious classmates. Note that the puzzle has been designed to minimize the usefulness of tools such as Google and to encourage good old-fashioned perusing. The answers are all in this issue of Reed! —Alix Vollum ’12
Camp Westwind
The weekend retreat at Camp Westwind for alumni and their families, sponsored by the Portland alumni chapter, will be held October 15-17, 2010. Join alumni from a variety of eras and swap Olde Reed stories and songs in a beautiful forested setting on the Oregon coast. A limited number of reduced-rate spaces are available for kitchen and cleaning crew people. For details and registration, please see www.reed.edu/ alumni/westwind/.
Who managed the iconic Portland hardware store W.C. Winks Hardware for almost 50 years? Who escaped from Nazi soldiers by climbing out of a schoolhouse window, emigrated to Portland, became a successful businessman, and has a hangar at the Portland Air Base named after him?
Who invented the Gordon wrench? (“Don’t stay home without it!”) Who said, on her retirement from Reed, “It’s time for me to stop corrupting the youth.” Who made his Broadway debut in January, playing opposite Scarlett Johansson?
Got ’em? Email your answers to puzzled@reed.edu or send postcard, letter, or other literary contrivance to Puzzled Corner c/o Eliot Hall 212, 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland Oregon 97202.
14 Reed magazine June 2010
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SPONSORED BY THE PORTLAND ALUMNI CHAPTER
W E E K E N D R E T REAT: OCTOBER 15–17, 2010
Camp Westwind J O I N A L U M N I F R O M A VA R I E T Y O F E R A S to swap
Olde Reed stories and songs in a beautiful forested setting on the Oregon coast. The Camp Westwind weekend retreat for alumni and their families, sponsored by the Portland alumni chapter, will be October 15–17, 2010. A limited number of reduced-rate spaces are available for kitchen and cleaning crew.
http://www.reed.edu/alumni/westwind/.
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Photo, Paul Manson ’01
For details and registration, please see
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Fatal Overdose Focuses Attention on Drug Use at Reed By Chris Lydgate photograph by Edis Jurcys
Like other colleges across the country, Reed has long confronted the intractable problem of drug and alcohol abuse. The ongoing discussion gained renewed urgency in March, with the fatal heroin overdose of physics senior Sam Tepper ’10 in his off-campus apartment (see In Memoriam). As news of the calamity rippled through campus, students, professors, and staff alike grappled with a range of emotions: shock, grief, horror, bewilderment, frustration, and anger, followed by a host of difficult questions. How could this happen? Why did it happen? What can we do to prevent these sorts of tragedies? T hes e questions car r y par ticul ar force because two years ago, freshman Alejandro Lluch ’11 suffered a fatal heroin overdose in his dorm room, prompting similar anguish. Even before Alejandro’s death, Reed had launched an initiative to review its approach to drug and alcohol use on campus. In the “ The use of hard drugs destroys lives and destroys the college. wake of that tragedy, the college adopted We have to drive this off campus and out of the lives of far-reaching changes to its standing proce—President Colin Diver dures. It redoubled its efforts at prevention our students.” and education, strengthened its counseling staff, and clarified language on enforcement. While the new stance has been widely ment a strong and effective, yet humane, sons, the college’s official Drug and Alcohol applauded, it is clear that drug and alcohol policy to curtail the use of illicit drugs Policy has for many years declared that “illeabuse remains an extraordinarily difficult, among its students,” they told Reed. “It’s gal drugs and drug paraphernalia are not complex, and stubborn problem. Heroin is a tragedy that so many of the promising permitted anywhere on the Reed College a particular concern: since the mid-1990s, young lives that Reed works so hard to pre- campus” and that substance abuse “should studies have shown a substantial uptick in pare for the real world are so at risk. Please be treated with exceptional concern and heroin use among young people, especially let Sam be the last!” gravity.” in the Pacific Northwest, driven partly by While the policy clearly sets forth the greater purity, which has made it possible Shaping a Policy college’s overall philosophy, it is vague in for users to get high without employing Reed has long forbidden the use of illegal terms of application. Over the years, stuneedles, and partly by the unfortunate phe- drugs, for reasons which are obvious but dents, faculty, deans, and community safety nomenon that researchers refer to as “gen- which bear repeating. They inflict real harm. officers have interpreted it in various ways. erational forgetting.” They are incompatible with the college’s mis- In addition, the policy makes no distincAt a campus-wide forum on drug use and sion. They are against the law. If that were tion among different kinds of illegal drugs, the honor principle following Sam’s death, not enough, Congress amended the Drug- implying identical consequences for, say, President Colin Diver delivered a clear mes- Free Schools and Communities Act in 1989, sharing a puff of marijuana and distributsage: “The use of hard drugs destroys lives requiring institutions of higher education ing a lethal quantity of heroin. and destroys the college,” he said. “We have to adopt drug-prevention programs in order In 2007, Reed embarked on an effort to to drive this off campus and out of the lives to receive any form of federal assistance, overhaul its approach. Led by professors of our students.” including grants and student loans. Those Arthur Glasfeld [chemistry], Kris AnderSam’s parents, Alan and Barbara Tepper, regulations specifically state that campuses son [psychology], Libby Drumm [Spanish], echoed this call to action. “Reed must imple- must prohibit illicit drugs. For all these rea- Wally Englert [classics], Maureen Harkin 16 Reed magazine June 2010
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[English], and Peter Steinberger [political co, or drugs. The college also presents ses- of such drugs is, of course, a felony: stuscience], a task force reviewed scientific sions at Orientation explaining the effects of dents engaging in such behavior face arrest research and investigated current practices AOD on brain chemistry and overall health. and prosecution. among peer institutions. In addition, the college is preparing to train Since the new plan was adopted, college “We looked at the best science we could peer educators and advocates, in accordance officials have referred several drug-related get our hands on,” says Dean of Students with research that suggests peers are highly incidents to civil authorities such as the Mike Brody. “What we found was that heavy- effective in influencing behavior. Portland police or, in one case, the FBI. handed enforcement—in isolation—doesn’t Finally, self-help groups such as AlcoholThe recent tragedies have put Reed work. But we also found that prevention and ics Anonymous hold regular meetings on squarely in the media spotlight and drawn education don’t work without enforcement.” campus and throughout the Portland area. the attention of local law enforcement Unfortunately, despite these efforts, officials, who say that sophisticated drug After extensive discussion and debate, the college finally adopted the new imple- some students continue to misuse and cartels are increasingly focusing on college mentation plan in May 2009. Officially abuse AOD. Reed’s health & counseling students. “Today’s drug dealer is targettitled the “Health and Wellness Plan center offers robust services to students ing middle class and wealthier kids,” wrote Relating to Alcohol and Other Drug Use at Reed College,” it sets out a three-pronged approach: prevention and education, thera- “ Heavy-handed enforcement—in isolation—doesn’t work... peutic intervention, and enforcement.
But prevention and education don’t work without enforcement.”
A Three-Pronged Approach
Current research suggests that the promotion of healthy lifestyles is a key factor in reducing the risk of AOD use by encouraging more wholesome activities such as exercise, sports, drama, adventure trips, volunteerism, and so on. Reed already places a much stronger emphasis on extracurricular activities than in years past, with offerings through the sports center, the Gray Fund, the student activities office, and SEEDS. “Our approach to prevention is based on the assumption that students are more likely to make healthy decisions if we provide them, in a non-judgmental way, with scientifically based information about the potential physiological, social, and academic consequences of misusing and abusing alcohol and other drugs,” says Brody. “We discuss these issues in the context of the honor principle, and the fact that students’ decisions about their individual behavior invariably have consequences for friends, family, and for Reed as a whole.” Because psychological health is so strongly tied to physical well being, Reed has hired a nutrition and wellness counselor to provide education and support for students coping with the stresses of college life. Reed maintains several dormitories that are explicitly substance-free (“sub-free” in campus lingo) for students who prefer to live in an environment free of alcohol, tobac-
—Dean of Students Mike Brody
who come forward to identify themselves Multnomah County District Attorney Mike as being at risk for problematic AOD use. Schrunk and US Attorney Dwight Holton In addition, if a student demonstrates prob- in an open letter to Reed students. “It’s an lems relating to AOD, counselors can insti- unexploited market with more cash and less tute appropriate intervention, ranging in guns, and it avoids competition with bigger intensity depending on the degree of risk. Mexican drug cartels, who have traditionally For example, counselors may refer a student targeted people living in poor communities. to drug education classes, specialized treat- To be perfectly clear: the new market which ment off-campus, or arrange for an immedi- drug dealers are targeting is you.” ate medical leave of absence. The science—and the politics—of drug “We are dedicated to removing any barri- prevention will doubtless continue to evolve. ers that might otherwise dissuade students In the meantime, it remains, in the words of from availing themselves of therapeutic Dean Brody, “an issue that demands persisresources,” says Brody. “Our counseling ser- tence and vigilance and allows no respite.” vices are completely confidential, and our overall goal is to serve the academic mission FURTHER READING of the college and provide for the safety and Reed’s drug policy: www.reed.edu/academic/gbook/ comm_pol/drug_policy.html wellbeing of the individual student and the AOD Plan: www.reed.edu/academic/gbook/comm_pol/ entire Reed community.” implem_plan.html
A Tougher Stance
The new plan takes special aim at hard drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, whose use “poses health risks to users that are inherently unpredictable and potentially catastrophic.” Possession of these drugs in any amount constitutes a serious violation and is grounds for immediate disciplinary proceedings. Possession of “distribution quantities”
Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act Amendments: www.higheredcenter.org/mandates/dfsca/ Monitoring the Future, National Survey Results on Drug Use 1975-2008. National Institute on Drug Abuse: www.monitoringthefuture.org National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. www.niaaa.nih.gov/Publications/AlcoholResearch National Institute of Drug Abuse. www.drugabuse.gov/ newsroom/09/NS-02.html Centers for Disease Control. www.cdc.gov/family/college
June 2010 Reed magazine 17
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From light, knowledge. From you, opportunity. The people on this page all had one thing in common: none of them could afford to go to Reed. They came here because of generous donations from readers like you—readers who believe in the transformative power of a Reed education. When you give to support the Reed students of today, you help shape the inventors, writers, thinkers, and leaders of tomorrow. Your gift has a profound effect both on the lives of current students, and on the lives of everyone they touch. There’s something else these alumni have in common: they’ve all given back to Reed. When you flip through this magazine in ten, twenty, or thirty years, what achievements will have been spurred on by your gifts? —Matt Kelly
Kenneth Koe ’45 Chemistry Inventor of zoloft
Larry Sanger ’91: Philosophy Co-founder of Wikipedia (See page 30.)
graphic by Tom Humphrey & cate whitcomb
“I was lucky to go to Reed in the ’60s. No one there suggested that girls weren’t supposed to do things like be mountain climbers or chemists.” Arlene Blum ’66: Chemistry Leader of first all-woman ascents of Mt. McKinley and Annapurna
“Reed is my intellectual touchstone. I have devoted much of my time and wealth to helping future students have a similarly transformative experience.” Peter Norton ’65: Mathematics Founder of Norton Utilities
“Attending Reed would have been impossible for me without the very generous scholarship I was offered.” Karen Oppenheim Mason ’64 Sociology Former Director, Gender and Development, World Bank
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How many lives will your gift to reed change? To make a gift, visit giving.reed.edu or use the enclosed envelope.
“I came in as impoverished as a student could come in.” Gary Snyder ’51: Anthropology Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet
“Academia works by people talking to each other, face to face. At Reed, I learned how to communicate with people, learned to stand on my position if I believed in it. Reed captivated me; I’ll be a Reed supporter till the end of my days.“ Laurel Wilkening ’66: Chemistry Former Chancellor, University of California at Irvine
“I recognize the voice in my writings from when I was at Reed, not before.“ Tamim Ansary ’70: General Literature Author (West of Kabul, East of New York)
“I remember sitting in small rooms and listening to Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch talk and read from their work. Reed put me in touch with a whole world of writers and poets—a world I hoped would somehow rub off on me. ” Eric Overmyer ’73: theatre Playwright (On the Verge) and Screenwriter (Law & Order, The Wire, treme)
“Once a young boy with no financial resources, in a segregated and foundering inner-city school, I am now a Colorado Supreme Court Justice. I had the benefit and privilege of a quality education made possible by the generosity and foresight of people who believed that educational opportunities for people without financial means can change lives.” Alex Martinez ’73: history colorado supreme court justice
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Joel Franklin ’97 Ask how long he’s wanted to teach at Reed, and Joel Franklin answers immediately: “Since I was five years old.” His mother, Joan Garstens Franklin ’65, taught political science at Antioch and urged him to go to Reed. Perhaps urged is an understatement: “Instead of being a firefighter growing up, I always wanted to teach at Reed. When you mom goes to Reed, and teaches…needless to say I always wanted something like this. This is a dream job.” by David Frazee Johnson After earning his BA from the students feel free to interact Reed, Joel earned a master’s with me at all times.” In February, the board of trustees granted tenure to degree from Brandeis and a Physics major Jeremy Silver ’11 three members of the Reed faculty: Joel Franklin ’97 PhD from Stanford. Following says Joel’s dedication yields divand Darrell Schroeter ’95, both in physics, and Luc Mon- a post-doctoral position at MIT, idends for his students. “Joel is nin in French. specializing in field theory and my adviser as well as my quan“We’ve long been proud of offering what we truly computation, Joel returned to tum professor, and he has been believe to be the most serious and rigorous physics his Reed in 2005, having been absurdly adept at cramming program in the country,” says Peter Steinberger, dean recommended by colleague and giant amounts of physics into of the faculty. “Darrell and Joel—themselves products classmate Darrell Schroeter ’95 my head and making it stick. of our program—are brilliant teacher/scholars who (see below). His style is particularly effecwill, without any doubt, help us maintain this very high John Essick, chair of the phys- tive because of his energy and standard for many years to come.” ics department, is effusive in his clarity at the blackboard, his “Luc Monnin is a masterful teacher and also a literary theorist of unusual breadth and erudition,” he adds. “His range of interests and knowledge is astonishing. He “ Every single year I’ve been here, something brings real intellectual distinction to the college, and unexpected, exciting, and different has students are crazy about his courses.” happened, which I love.” —Joel Franklin ’97
Three Professors Granted Tenure
praise. “Joel is an energetic, effective, popular teacher,” Essick says. “All of his courses have been well received by our students… The commitment and enthusiasm he brings to our departmental work has buoyed all.” Given his first-hand experience with the rigors of the Reed curriculum, it is no surprise that Joel points to his work with students as the most enjoyable aspect of his position. “This is probably one of the few places where the job you wind up with is exactly what you think it’s going to be,” he says. “I try to engage the students, and I try to interact with them. I try make it a classroom where
enthusiasm for his subject, and his insistence on teaching via intuitive, underlying truth rather than pedantic mathematical progression.” This spring, Joel will publish his first book, Advanced Mechanics: An Introduction to General Relativity, at Cambridge University Press. Asked what he envisions for himself in the next decade, he smiles. “It’s hard to say. Every single year I’ve been here, something unexpected, exciting, and different has happened, which I love.”
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Luc Monnin Born and educated in Geneva, Luc Monnin first came to the United States as an exchange student at Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his doctorate. A specialist in 18 th century French literature, Monnin says working with students is the highlight of his job. “The Reed educational model is one of the best you can find,” he says. “Reed students are amazing in the fact that they dedicate themselves to learning whatever you provide them with,” he says. “They want to study French poetry of the 16th century, and you never have to justify why.” Ann Delahanty, chair of the French department, says Monnin’s arrival has been a boon for students and faculty alike. “In the French department, we very much appreciate the depth of knowledge that Luc brings to his teaching and scholarship,” she says. “He has an encyclopedic knowledge of French literature and his passion for the history of ideas is profound. He is an extremely devoted teacher who develops his own materials for his language classes, loves teaching language and literature, and always finds time to discuss ideas with students and
Darrell Schroeter ’95 recalls. “Luc did not have a background in this period, but he went out of his way to direct me toward sources and help me focus my ideas in a way that I believe few others would be able or willing to do.” Because her thesis was written entirely in French, she relied upon Monnin’s language, as well as literary, expertise. “As a result, I think my French improved as much in that year as it did during the year I spent living in France,” she says. “Working with Luc was the most intellectually rewarding experience I have ever had.” Monnin employs an unusual technique to stay fresh as a teacher: he destroys his class notes at the end of each semester. “What is necessary when
“ W hat is necessary when you teach is that you renew your interest every year.” —Luc Monnin
his fellow professors. We think of Luc as the quintessential Reed professor whose devotion to teaching overlaps all areas of his scholarship.” Jennifer Smith ’05, a recent thesis student of Monnin’s, testifies to the effort he puts into his partnerships with his students. “I wrote my thesis on the Arthurian romances of 12th century French poet Chrétien de Troyes,” she
you teach is that you renew your interest every year,” he says. “In order to do that, every time I finish a class, I scratch my notes and throw them in the garbage, to renew what I’m doing, to remain new.”
After earning his doctorate from Stanford in 2002, condensed matter theorist Darrell Schroeter found that change is the only constant in academia. After Stanford, he took a visiting position at Swarthmore, followed by one at Reed. When that position expired, he headed to Occidental, only to return to Reed two years later. “I think in six years I moved six different times,” he says. “Needless to say I’m happy to be here.” Physics chair John Essick says the search committee was camera to figure out the oriendelighted by Darrell’s ability tation, and do a tremendous to maintain the department’s amount of analytical work on strong theoretical tradition. “All that. It was fascinating physics, of Darrell’s courses have been and a lot of fun.” Darrell knew he wanted to excellent and well received by our students,” Essick says. “Darrell return to Reed almost as soon brings a high level of profession- as he went to graduate school. “After being in a research univeralism to his teaching.” One of Darrell’s thesis stu- sity setting, I realized really fast dents, Kassi Dallavis ’08, notes that the Reed environment made that his strength as a mentor me happy to be part of it, which extends beyond physics. “When a in turn made me more producstudent looks for an adviser, they tive as a researcher,” he says. have a lot of qualities in mind. Darrell’s dedication to his They want someone who is avail- craft, Essick says, has inspired able for questions, someone who his students. “Everything in each doesn’t condescend, and some- course … is there for a sound one whose work habits comple- pedagogical reason and he is ment their own. In Darrell, I had good at ‘selling’ his demanding all of these—and more,” she instructional program to stusays. “It is because Darrell was dents. Reed students are chalmy freshman year physics profes- lenged in Darrell’s courses and sor that I continued in physics. they work very hard for him.” His excitement as a scientist was Darrell has teamed up with very clear in his lectures and our Joel to teach a course on scienconversations since. My experi- tific computation. Outside the ence at Reed would have been walls of the physics building, the much less fulfilling had I not two classmates are also teammates on the legendary physics worked with Darrell.” Darrell cites Kassi’s thesis softball team that plays every project as an example of one year at Renn Fayre. of his favorite aspects of Reed: Darrell says returning to Reed working closely with students was a perfect move for him. “It’s on original works of research. fun to be an alum and to teach “Kassi took a simple toy, called here, because you an appreciate a chatter ring, which has lots the idiosyncrasies and quirks of great physics involved with of a place. You have a personal it. She wrote her thesis about it, investment in the school—comand built a machine that could ing back as an alum, you realize rotate it as we used a high-speed how much you love this place.” June 2010 Reed magazine 21
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photograph by ariel zambelich
Spellbound Mutants. Draugrs. Drug lords. Nancy Farmer ’63 writes children’s stories that combine fantastic protagonists, bedeviling bullies, and decidedly old-fashioned themes. Nancy Coe Farmer ’63 has always had a penchant for roving. Growing up on the Mexican border in Yuma, Arizona, she frequently played hooky, hanging out with “illegals”— the children of illegal immigrants. She and a friend would roam the banks of the Colorado River, skirting hobo camps. Sometimes, they’d explore the ruins of a nearby abandoned prison, before gingerly picking their way back along the river’s shore to avoid quicksand. Nancy’s knack for getting herself into— and out of—tight spots has been crucial in writing her award-winning children’s books, filled with incredible imagination, heart-stopping adventure, and amazing characters. The teenage protagonist of The House of Scorpion is a clone who is being raised as spare parts for an aging drug lord. Then there are the Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, a trio of African detectives who gained their superhuman ability to hear, to see, and to feel as a result of a nuclear meltdown. Her villains include a willful dragon, a talking monkey, and an undead spirit known as a draugr. It’s not hard to figure out how Nancy dreams up her ideas, once you know something about her life.
Born in 1941 in Phoenix, Arizona, to older and often distracted parents, Nancy felt wanderlust early—she repeatedly escaped from her Kiddie Koop (a locking playpen reputedly designed by Buckminster Fuller). When she was eight, her family moved to Yuma to manage a hotel. The town was not exactly a tourist destination: in summer, the temperature soared over 120 degrees and frequent dust storms blackened the sky. Still, she found plenty of opportunity for mischief. School was a formality; Nancy’s real education took place in the hotel lobby, its library, and 22 Reed magazine June 2010
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photograph by ariel zambelich
the streets of Yuma. “I learned self-reliance at and Zimbabwe. Her first job was collecting Nancy Farmer’s Worlds a very early age. My parents expected me to solfugits—“big, ugly spidery things”—on a The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (1994) chronicles the work,” she says. By age nine she was managing busy airstrip. “You’d see a shadow pass overkidnapping and eventual escape of three kids who encounter a ragtag assortment of criminals living in the front desk. There she met cowboys, railroad head,” she remembers, “then you’d run like the underbelly of Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2194. men, truck drivers—staying up until midnight hell for the bushes!” A Girl Named Disaster (1996) follows a Shona tribal girl to listen to their stories and play cribbage. She Ever the observer—she describes herself who battles drowning, starvation, and wild animals, recounts jumping the rooftops along Main as “fading into the wall paper”—she spent only to meet an even worse fate—arranged marriage. Street at night—from the hotel, to the liquor the next 17 years monitoring water weeds, The House of Scorpion (2002) is a coming of age story store, to the movie theater where she’d open a helping control tsetse fly, and listening to about a boy who refuses to endure the grasp of his trap door to sneak into a show. stories. In Africa, she honed her sense of power-hungry family and his fate as a clone. Winner Nancy was thrown out of two high schools humor. “African humor is low key. They skip of the National Book Award. early on. At a Catholic school in Yuma she got the straight gag—stringing you out for a The Sea of Trolls (2004) trilogy includes The Land of in trouble for putting salt instead of sugar long time, instead.” A charismatic lab techSilver Apples (2006) and The Islands of the Blessed into pies for visiting priests. Her folks sent nician in Mozambique told her many of the (2009). Layered with Norse mythology and ancient European history, the books tell of the quests of an her to a Presbyterian school in Mt. Pleasant, outlandish tales that ended up in The Ear, apprentice bard and a Viking warrior maiden. Utah, to straighten her out. There, “I got pun- the Eye and the Arm. ished for telling fortunes… and channeling In 1978, she met and married her husband, the spirit of Mary, Queen of Scots, through Harold Farmer, a Namibian-born writer who From The Ear, the Eye and the Arm: a candle.” During a snowstorm, she joined taught English at the University of Zimbabwe. students in a riot; they locked the headmis- She quit her job following the birth of her son “Tendai saw—and almost fell, so great was tress out and ran wild—unrolling toilet paper, and shortly thereafter began writing children’s his terror—that chunks of the ground that hijacking the Coke machine, and taking off books. Hungry for publication in the United their shirts to wave at the boys’ dormitory States, she submitted a story to the Writers he took for trash stood up. They moved from the school’s roof. of the Future Contest in 1987 and won the toward him from all sides. Even down in Despite her antics, Nancy did well at grand prize. With the award money, she and North High in Phoenix and won a scholar- her family moved back to California. Nancy the hollow where they had just hidden, a ship to Reed. “In those days the college had worked in the genetics department at Stanford lump detached itself and crept up the side. a wild card quota for eccentric students who University—deforming fruit flies and helping didn’t have a hope of getting in anywhere them mate—until she could no longer bring ‘Mama! Mama!’ Kuda screamed. Tendai else,” she quips. Apparently, the admission herself to be a “fruit fly pimp.” On the day she turned desperately, trying to find an committee was so entertained by a “blister- quit her boss refused to write her a reference. ing” reference written by one of her teachers Devastated, she came home to discover a letter opening, but the creatures were all around. that they accepted her. from the National Endowment for the Arts They moved toward him with a shambling She struggled to find her place at Reed. awarding her a grant. She has been a full-time “Being at college was not a holiday,” she recalls. writer ever since. gait. They had eyes—They were people. With little money for expenses, she worked Thanks to her scientific training, her novTendai watched them slowly turn from at a Japanese vegetable stand; when her hair els are impeccably researched, with every fact began to fall out from a lack of protein, she checked. In A Girl Named Disaster, for instance, nameless horrors to human beings like bought horsemeat from a slaughterhouse. It she consulted over 400 books and newspapers himself. ‘It’s all right, Kuda,’ he whispered. didn’t help that she chose the wrong field of to ensure the accuracy of the Zimbabwean study. “I should have been a scientist. Instead, customs, legends, and religion. Her trilogy ‘They’re like us.’” I took lit courses, thinking it would teach me The Sea of Trolls includes a bibliography and to write.” appendix on Norse mythology. “I make stuff T h e n s h e d i s c o v e r e d p r o f e s s o r up only when there is nothing to go on,” she Lloyd Reynolds [English and Art, 1929-69]. says. “Everything else is built on facts.” “I took every class he taught—calligraphy, art, Never cartoons, her characters encom- reliance that young readers find most compelcreative writing, Zen Buddhism. He was the pass the full range of human feelings and ling. She writes of heroes and heroines who only professor who taught me anything. Pos- foibles—that goes for villains, too. In The Ear, compete against all odds—and triumph. She sibly because I neglected everything else to the Eye and the Arm, Nancy introduces a char- believes that kids should be taught to take care listen to him”—or possibly, she confesses, acter named the She Elephant, who rules over of themselves. She’s adamant that authors, because she stayed up most nights playing Dead Man’s Vlei, a toxic-waste dump where as well as parents and teachers, have a duty poker with friends. her captives mine trash. As big as an armchair to teach self-reliance: “Schools in the United After graduating with a degree in general with ham-like hands, the She Elephant steals States train kids to be weak and I don’t like it. literature, Nancy traveled to India with the and sells children, but also mothers them Most Americans haven’t seen what it’s like to Peace Corps, then returned to the United with mouth-watering meals. Under the right live in other places where life is much harder. States to pursue a longstanding fascination circumstances, even her most notorious bad We must teach kids not to fold—to fight and with insects in the entomology department guys can be charming or kind. never give up.” —Megan Holden at UC Berkeley. In 1971, she moved to Africa In addition to the deep research and the to work as an entomologist in Mozambique humor, it is perhaps Nancy’s theme of self- Megan Holden is a Portland writer. left: Nancy Farmer at her home.
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Adventures in the First Person
By Douglas Fenner ’71
Corals and Tsunami in Samoa On the morning of September 29, 2009, I was getting ready to drive to work when the shaking started. My house groaned and swayed, but it was a smooth side-to-side motion that was slow for an earthquake. Once, in Philadelphia, I was in a minor quake that had short, sharp motions, and things clinked on the shelf and fell off. Not this time. I walked outside, and watched the car jiggle back and forth for about a minute. I knew it was a big one. I live on American Samoa, a 17-mile-long rock in the middle of an ocean that covers half the planet. American Samoa is thought to be the starting place for the Polynesians who spread across the Pacific, discovering and inhabiting islands from Samoa to Easter Island to Hawaii to New Zealand. For 2,000 years, they were the world’s greatest navigators. Their great catamarans were capable of traveling vast distances and could outmaneuver the clunky wooden ships of the European explorers. Lacking the compass, they navigated by observing the stars, the wave patterns, the birds, bits of algae, cloud formations, and clever strategies to explore vast oceans and get back home. When outsiders came, Samoans called them “palagis” (“g” is pronounced “ng”) which means “burst from the sky.” American Samoa lies north of the Tongan Trench, where the rigid plate beneath the Pacific dives under the Australian plate. Like the San Andreas Fault, it tends to stick and every once in a while break loose, generating an earthquake and—every once in a while— a tsunami. (The last big one was in 1917.) After the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, the territorial government here set up a warning system that consisted of signs on the waterfront stating that tsunamis could happen. No joke. In fact, it takes the warning center in Hawaii 10 minutes to figure out if there is a tsunami after it detects an earthquake. We are about 120 miles from the Tongan Trench, and tsunamis travel at over 500 miles an hour. You do the math. We had about five minutes’ warning—at least, we should have had five minutes’ warning. Turns out that $13 million that was supposed to pay for a tsunami warning system can’t be accounted for. It certainly never paid for a warning system.
“ Pumps at a gas station were bent over flat on the ground with the outsides ripped off. A car was sticking out of a second-story window.” AMERICAN SAMOA Tula Pago Pago AUNU’U I SL A ND
TU TUIL A I SL A ND
Poloa Tafuna Fagatele Bay
South Pacific Ocean
North America
Hawaii
South America
American Samoa Austrailia
South Pacific Ocean New Zealand
So the earthquake stops. What now? I’m due at work. The Tongan Trench almost never produces tsunamis. So I hop in my car and head to the office. I work for the local government, monitoring coral reefs. Take data each year to see how they are doing. Raise the alarm if there are any problems. Did I mention that they pay me to dive on beautiful coral reefs? Wonderful job, best I ever had. The two-story building where I work is in the harbor. The harbor, by the way, is why the U.S. owns American Samoa. It is the finest harbor in the South Pacific. Nearly cuts the island in two. It is maybe 200 feet deep, and when the QE2 came here, I went up on a hill to photograph it. It looked tiny, dwarfed by vertical green walls rising a thousand feet on every side. The island is very steep, and still covered with rainforest. It is so steep that farming and logging are impossible. The land had no commercial value, so outsiders didn’t want it—unlike in Hawaii, where they pushed the Hawaiians off their land. If you go to Hawaii and listen, you will soon realize there is resentment. You can see why. But not in American Samoa, where all the U.S. really wanted was a coaling station for the navy. The deal went
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photos courtesy of douglas fenner
something like this: Cede your islands to us. We will use the harbor. You keep your land and your culture. We will protect you. No resentment here. Before long, there’s a police roadblock. They’re turning everybody back. I drive back home. I can’t tell anything is happening. It is a nice day, I talk with some neighbors, I check the internet. Later that afternoon I finally manage to drive down to the office. I was stunned. Devastation everywhere. The area around the harbor was littered with the hulks of cars, boats, and random junk. All the vehicles in our parking lot had been swept out into the street, their engines ruined by salt water. A 50-foot fishing vessel was sitting on the grass beside the road, leaning up against a telephone pole. A cyclone fence was flattened to the ground. Pumps at a gas station were bent over flat on the ground with the outsides ripped off. A car was sticking out of a second-story window. An entire wooden house had been lifted off its foundation and bent over. Only later did we learn the full extent of the damage. In some parts of the island, the water reached as far as a mile inland. One tiny village had every house flattened. The tsunami killed at least 33 people in American Samoa and demolished hundreds of structures. Later I heard that a yacht was pushed right up the middle of the road, clipping off telephone wires with its mast. The word “tsunami” is Japanese and means “harbor wave.” They are hard to detect out at sea, but once they reach shoreline they swell. The bay acts like a funnel to concentrate the energy and build the wave higher. It is not a breaking wave like surf, but rather like a tidal bore—a wall of water 40 feet high rushing inland at 50 miles per hour (they slow down as they near the shore). Checking the reefs over the following days, I found patchy damage. A few small areas were completely obliterated by the water motion. Overall, however, the tsunami was not a disaster for the reefs. For a little perspective, consider that this island is 1.5 million years old (young by geological standards). If tsunamis happen roughly once every 150 years, then there have been approximately 10,000 tsunamis in the life of the island, and the reefs are still here. Tsunamis are sudden, brief, natural events, with many years in between for the
The Tsunami of 2009 wrought widespread damage to the islands of Samoa and American Samoa. Above, a beached boat leans against a telephone pole. Left, a car dangles from a second-story window. Below, a house has been dragged from its foundation.
reefs to recover. Some recovery has already FURTHER READING begun—new coral branches were starting to “Scores are killed as tsunami hits Samoa islands,” Meraiah grow after just three weeks. (Granted, they Foley, New York Times, September 30, 2009. were only a couple millimeters long, but it’s “Samoa tsunamis obliterate some coral, spare others,” a start!) My guess is the hardest-hit areas Audrey McAvoy, AP, October 17, 2009. will take 10–20 years to recover. Reefs have adapted to hurricanes and tsunamis over millions of years. They recover well from natural disasters. The real threat is not tsunamis, but humans, especially climate change. Douglas Fenner is author of Corals of Hawaii, published by Mutual Publishing in 2005.
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Sharpening Skills at the DoJo
Students learn from their peers at the Academic Resource Center.
By Romel Hernandez
I
t is raining. Again. It is raining and cold and dark, you have had too much coffee and not enough sleep, and you have a humanities paper due on Friday. Or maybe an economics problem set, or a biology lab report. Or all three. Then, through the gloom, a warm and welcoming glow beckons you to a little house at the edge of the canyon. Stepping inside, you find a couple dozen students working at tables scattered with notebooks, textbooks, and assorted academic detritus. In one corner, by the windows, physics students huddle together calculating electric potentials. In the next room, economics students squint at laptop screens as they argue about supply and demand. Across the hall a student writing a Hum 110 paper is pondering the meaning of nothingness in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura. You take a deep breath and tell yourself everything is going to be all right. You’re at the DoJo. The Dorothy Johansen House, home of the Academic Resource Center, is where Reedies go to get help from other Reedies when they are grappling with a nettlesome paper or problem set. “The DoJo is really a collaborative space,” says Ethan Knudson ’11, a sociology major from Iowa who works as the center’s head writing tutor. “You realize that you’re not stupid or screwing something up on your own when you don’t understand a problem, because there are a lot of other people in the same boat. You can get help here, and you can have fun, too, because everyone is hanging out at the same time they’re working.” Last year, more than one in four Reed students visited the DoJo at least once, averaging 4.9 visits per “tutee,” as they are known in campus vernacular. “The idea is to provide students a service that helps them not only to survive, but to flourish,” says Lily Copenagle, the associate dean of students for academic support, who helped create the center. Many Reed students were academic stars in their high schools. Approximately seveneighths of them graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school classes; 11 percent were valedictorians; and their median SAT
from left: Jen Byers ’13 works on physics problems with tutor Laurel Stephenson Haskins ’10, while history major Liz Monsen ’10 solves equations with tutor Greg Hoth ’10.
scores were 680 math, 720 verbal, and 690 writing. They are so bright, in fact, that their brainpower may have masked deficiencies in their study skills. Sometimes they’re procrastinators or perfectionists. Sometimes their quantitative skills need shoring up, or their writing is muddled. When they get to Reed, however, they can’t fake it. The rigor of the curriculum exposes their weaknesses. They have to work hard—really hard—for the first time in their academic careers. The stress can even cause some students to suffer from what’s known as the “Impostor Complex.” They start to worry they are intellectual
phonies, that everyone on campus is smarter than they are, and that they don’t deserve to be at Reed. The mission of the DoJo is to restore students’ confidence and set them on a practical path to success. Through its outreach, the center aims to overcome any embarrassment that students, especially freshmen, may feel about seeking help. The key to this strategy is spreading positive word of mouth among students as well as professors, who plug the center in their classes and syllabi, reinforcing the idea that visiting the DoJo is not an admission of weakness— it is a sign of strength.
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z
photography by orin zyvan
from left: Tutor Marjorie Nicholson ’10 works on a paper with Alanna Lynn ’13.
B
iology major Kelsey Wood ’10 first went to the DoJo for help with organic chemistry—one of those legendary classes that generations of Reedies have spoken about in hushed tones. “I was stressing out more than I needed to be,” she says. “The problem sets weren’t straightforward, so it helped to discuss the problems with other people. I wasn’t having such a hard time, but I wanted to solidify my understanding.” Kelsey’s experience at the DoJo was so productive that she is now a tutor, spending several hours a week helping her peers with chemistry, biology, and science writing. She
says being a tutee (and attending the cen- come to the DoJo to go over their philosoter’s procrastination workshop) made her a phy papers and philosophy majors come to review their chemistry lab assignments. better tutor and a better student. “I know what the students are looking for, Sometimes tutors will switch tables to get what they’re going through,” she says. “I try help themselves in a different subject. The DoJo boasts a roster of over 200 stuto keep things positive.” A good tutor, she notes, “is there to guide the tutee’s thinking, dent-tutors, each required to receive a faculty recommendation and maintain a 3.0 GPA. The so they can solve things themselves.” Kelsey plans to go to graduate school and tutors run drop-in sessions and one-to-one envisions herself teaching one day. “I just tutorials. And tutees aren’t the only ones to love learning,” she says. “You learn so much benefit from the arrangement. Aside from as a teacher. You hear that a lot, but it’s true.” earning about $9 per hour, tutors reap acaThe DoJo came into being in 2007 through demic benefits as well, deepening their own the consolidation of existing tutoring pro- understanding of the material in their subject grams (the mathematics department still runs areas, even helping prepare themselves for a separate tutoring center out of the Hauser the junior qualifying exams. For those tutors Library). Locations, schedules, and policies who might be considering careers in academia varied widely under the old system, confusing (this being Reed, there are quite a few), the and frustrating students seeking assistance. experience gives them a taste of what it is like The DoJo hosts drop-in sessions in a range of to teach. The tutees surveyed last fall rated their subjects, with physics, chemistry, and writing experience an average of 4.36 on a 1–5 scale, (in that order) seeing the highest demand. The typical tutees who come to the DoJo with one indicating “terrible” and five “excel“are a little anxious if they haven’t been here lent.” The DoJo provides peer tutoring in a before. It can be hard for smart folks to ask for help,” says Julie Maxfield, the center’s “more thoughtful and productive way” than on-site academic support coordinator. They past efforts, says Professor Arthur Glasfeld, might need tips on taking notes or organiz- who has referred his chemistry students as ing a paper. They might be suffering writer’s both tutees and tutors. “I can’t think of a year when I’ve had a block. “Sometimes,” she adds, “folks are just looking for a confidence boost, a sense that stronger group of seniors (majoring in they’re on the right track so they can stop chemistry), and each of them is a tutor at the DoJo and each of them has gotten tutorfreaking out.” Reed doesn’t offer courses such as “phys- ing at the DoJo,” he says. Glasfeld’s only concern—relatively ics for poets” or “poetry for physicists,” so students often seek tutoring for coursework minor, he says, but shared by some of his outside their majors. Chemistry majors colleagues—is that “the better the DoJo gets, June 2010 Reed magazine 27
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The Dojo
As a result, professors don’t have to spend valuable class time rehashing basic concepts. the less likely students are to turn to faculty Physics professor Mary James often sugfor assistance with their coursework.” gests that her students and advisees make Of course, seesions at the DoJo are not the DoJo part of their regular routine. They intended as a substitute for face-to-face- can get help with homework, she says, and time with faculty, any more than they will at the same time pick up important time replace midnight dorm debates about Aris- management and study skills. totle. The DoJo is designed to complement “It really is one-stop shopping,” James says. the work students do with their professors. “Of course, they should think of professors as Sometimes students will seek out a tutor their first resource, but it is valuable to have when they’re too intimidated to talk to a another place where they can go . . . There are professor. A session hashing out ideas with nuts-and-bolts skills students need to be successful, and they can get those at the DoJo.” The DoJo is also a useful resource for “ There are nuts and bolts students with learning disabilities. Often, students first realize they may have a learnskills students need to be ing disability when they arrive at college successful, and they can get and start to struggle. “(The disability) may have never gotten in those at the DoJo.” their way before because they were able to —Professor Mary James compensate,” Copenagle says. “Say you’re a slow visual processor. You may have never the tutor is often the confidence boost a thought it was a big deal until you get to student needs to go to his or her profes- Reed and you have to do 400 pages of readsor’s office. In fact, tutors frequently refer ing a night. All of a sudden, you think, ‘Why students back to their professors. can’t I keep up?’ You may have a reading The center is nimble about responding disability . . . Here we can key you into the to the needs of students, making sure to right resources to help.” provide extra staffing the nights before big The DoJo is really part of a broader effort papers or weekly problem sets are due. At Reed is making to support students—not faculty request, the staff will even organize just as scholars, but as human beings—along miniworkshops designed to address specific with other major enhancements to residence issues their classes are struggling with—a life, health and counseling, and student session reviewing linear equations for an activities. That new approach is in evidence introductory chemistry course, for example. across campus—from the new dorms, to the continued
better food in Commons, to Gray Fund trips, to cultural and sports events, to nature hikes in the great outdoors. Reed has moved beyond the “sink or swim” ethos of yester year, says Mike Brody, vice president and dean of student services. “Reed has always been defined to a great extent by its academic rigor, and I don’t hear anyone saying they think that will or should change,” he says. “We just want to make sure that students have at their disposal the most effective support resources possible, so that they can make the most of their Reed experience.”
Remembering Dorothy Johansen The DoJo’s namesake, Dorothy Olga Johansen ’33, was a fixture at Reed for more than half a century. A native of Seaside, Oregon, Johansen majored in history-literature at Reed and returned to teach history in 1935. She gained renown as the coauthor of the landmark book, Empire of the Columbia, A History of the Pacific Northwest, published in 1957. For many years she worked on a history of Reed, which remains unpublished. When she retired, she became professor emerita and the college’s official archivist (1969– 84). A.A. Knowlton Professor Nicholas Wheeler ’55, who has taught physics at the college since the early 1960s, recalls dropping in to chat with “Dorothy Jo” from time to time on his
way home from campus. “She would always offer me whisky and we would have a nice little chat,” he says. The topic was nearly always Reed, whether she was reminiscing about her student days or commenting on college matters. “Her whole life was here.” “She was a thinking person, often dubious about developments at the college,” Nick recalls, but “sufficiently wise to understand that things happened, that that was life.” Johansen’s work as a historian earned her numerous honors over her long career. She also served on the boards of the Oregon Historical Society and the Portland Public Schools. Johansen built her midcentury modern home on the southeastern edge of the campus in 1951, on the
far side of what was once a grove of holly trees and is now a parking lot. The structure is architecturally interesting, as befits its original owner, with its distinctive butterfly roof and tall windows. The custom-designed speaker system “must have been the height of audiophilia in 1950,” says Towny Angell, director of facilities. Since Johansen donated the house to Reed in 1991, the DoJo has served various functions, including, most recently, housing the college career center, before becoming the academic resource center in 2007. She died in 1999 at the age of 95. Her papers, including typescripts of chapters 1 through 9 of her Reed history, are housed at the college library.
Dorothy Johansen 1963
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It’s hard to establish a causal link, but Reed’s six-year graduation rate currently stands at 78 percent, a dramatic improvement over previous decades (20 years ago, the rate was 58 percent) that Brody attributes in part to better support. “The high student attrition of the past was woven into the fabric of this place. There seemed to be an assumption that because Reed is not for everyone, many of the students who matriculated at Reed just wouldn’t graduate from here,” Brody says. “And while it remains true that Reed isn’t for everybody, students who might have really struggled and even failed without substantial support are now quite willing to ask for help. I think we have begun to embrace the culture of academic support at Reed, and that’s a very positive development.” “We had to make do back in the day because academic support was so threadbare,” Professor Glasfeld says. “We frustrated a lot of very talented students by not giving them the resources they needed.” The DoJo, he adds, “is an answer to that.” By improving retention, Reed also hopes to improve diversity. Some of the students who struggle academically, especially in their first few months at Reed, may be the first in their families to attend college, or may have attended high schools that didn’t prepare them for a college that takes great pride in its intellectual rigor. The DoJo helps them to thrive. Many students, however, don’t visit the center because they are struggling. Quite the opposite. They go because they are driven to excel. Those students—many of them regulars at the center—find that the oneon-one sessions with peers help them think more clearly, argue more persuasively, and prepare them to engage more meaningfully with classmates and professors. They don’t have hang-ups about going to the DoJo. English major Marvin Bernardo ’12 immigrated to Los Angeles from his native Philippines in the 9th grade, so English is his second language. Although he admits he felt “a little embarrassment” when he first went to the DoJo, he now makes a point of regularly visiting writing tutors when he is putting together a paper. “I use them for brainstorming and for making sure my grammar is perfect and my arguments are clear,” he says. The first member of his immediate family to attend college, Marvin is motivated by his own desire to do well at Reed. “It’s an extra thing I feel I must do,” he says. “I have high standards for myself and my work.”
Academic support coordinator Julie Maxfield chats with writing center tutor Daniel Carranza ’12.
Head Tutor Helps Students Stop Procrastinating A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College of William & Mary, in patent leather boots, Julie Maxfield has got both the chops and the credibility with Reedies to do the job as the DoJo’s academic support coordinator. She can also relate to what students are going through, admitting that she procrastinated planning the “Preventing Procrastination” workshop at the DoJo. Seriously, though, the DoJo does put on some informative workshops for students. The sessions this past spring included: Reading Effectively: “Develop strategies for reading more quickly and getting more of what you read, even when you’re pressed for time.” Stress Management: “Finding balance between school, work, and play is essential. Learn strategies to help you achieve stability and success.” Time Management: “Learn how knowing your style and playing to your strengths can lead to a better personal form of time management.” Preventing Procrastination: “Explore the pros (yes, pros!) and cons of procrastinating, consider why so many students do it, and develop strategies to help you overcome destructive procrastination.”
Five Weapons to Fight Procrastination (now!) Here are some of Maxfield’s maxims on procrastination: Break down papers, assignments, exams, etc. into small pieces. Give yourself 10 minutes of break time for every hour you spend on task. When you’re in the flow, keep going as long as you can. When you’re genuinely stuck, give yourself permission to step away. Plan a big reward for when you finish.
Romel Hernandez is a freelance writer living in Portland.
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Deconstructing Wikipedia
By Chris Lydgate
Larry Sanger ’91 launched a revolution. Why does he want to start over? Larry Sanger was shocked but not sur- lished an editorial in USA Today blasting prised. Wikipedia. “What purports to be helpful A septuagenarian journalist from Nash- fact may well be harmful fiction,” he wrote. ville named John Seigenthaler was on the “And, there is no way to tell the difference.” line, and he wasn’t happy. The criticism stung, but Sanger hoped An elder statesman of Southern jour- that the incident would push Wikipedia to nalism, Seigenthaler spent many years as confront its problems—problems he had reporter, editor, and publisher been warning about for years. Instead, of the Tennessean and served the Wikipedia community responded as editorials editor of USA with a collective shrug. “What no Today. He also worked for one would admit was that the Robert F. Kennedy, foundepisode suggested something ed the First Amendment wrong with the basic model Center at Vanderbilt University, that Wikipedia operates and wrote several books, including a under,” he says. biography of President James K. Polk. Sanger had always been But Seigenthaler wasn’t calling to discuss proud of his creation. Now, however, he his résumé. In a deliberate, courtly drawl, he was beginning to fear that it suffered from said that he had been the victim of charac- a fundamental flaw. ter assassination, and that he held Sanger responsible—at least indirectly. The Cathedral and the Bazaar For several months, Seigenthaler’s biographical entry on Wikipedia had made Sitting in an iron chair in the Commons the outrageous claim that he was complicit breezeway on a sunny spring afternoon, sipin the assassination of both John F. and ping a decaf latté from the Paradox Café, Robert F. Kennedy, a particularly spiteful Sanger exudes an air of restlessness. His defamation because he had in fact been one long, nimble fingers fiddle with a pencil of Robert Kennedy’s pallbearers. Because while he rocks his foot under the table. Wikipedia contributors are anonymous, Sei- From time to time, he taps a couple of genthaler had no way of tracing the author— candy Nerds into his hand. He is wearing but he was able to track down the original a red-checked short-sleeved oxford, blue architects of the system, which is why he jeans, black leather shoes, and enormous was calling Sanger. eyeglasses that lend him an air of bemused At the time of the call, in fall 2005, detachment. Since the age of eight, Sanger Sanger no longer had any connection to has suffered from mild hearing loss, a defiWikipedia. He was living in a house in cit that is “one reason that I am who I am,” the redwoods above Santa Cruz working he says. “It has definitely made me more on other projects. Still, he was dismayed introspective.” Sanger grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. His by what he heard. “I had seen all sorts of abusive, wrong, and silly things written in father was a seabird biologist; his mother Wikipedia before,” he says. “But I never had took care of the children. His family attenda distinguished old gentleman harangue me ed Lutheran Church twice a week. Listening to Bible readings, he often used to wonder on the phone for an hour like this.” In November 2005, Seigenthaler pub- about the difference between mind, soul, CONTINUED PAGE 32
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p h o t o g r a p h b y C h a r l e s G u l l u n g • o p p i s i t e pa g e a n d c o v e r i l l u s t r at i o i n s b y h o w e l l g o l s o n
Philosopher Larry Sanger: something went awry with Wikipedia.
A Brief History of Encyclopedias
80 AD
630 AD
960
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Pliny the Elder compiles 37 chapters of Naturalis Historia, relying on 470 previous authors. Although he died before finishing the project, it proved wildly successful and was still relied on until the 17th century.
Saint Isidore of Seville compiles his Etymologiae of 448 chapters, 20 volumes, considered a landmark of glossography.
The Brethren of Purity of Basra publish the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, “a curious but fascinating mixture of the Qur’anic, the Aristotelian and the Neoplatonic,” according to one historian.
Chinese scholar Li Fang launches giant project known as the Four Great Books of Song, namely: Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era; Extensive Records of the Taiping Era; Finest Blossoms in the Garden of Literature; and the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau.
Bartholomeus Anglicus completes De Proprietatibus rerum. Book 12 contains descriptions of 38 different flying objects.
Bankrolled by Louis IX, Vincent of Beauvais pens gargantuan 3-million-word Speculum Majus. Includes early reference to use of magnet for navigation.
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Wikipedia
continued
and spirit. “The way my parents spoke about it, I thought there had to be a clear distinction,” he says. “But I was disappointed with the answers they gave.” Like other Reedies before him, Sanger struggled to find his place in high school. He was a champion debater and played piano. But he also did cross-country running and skiing. “I was kind of a misfit,” he Larry Sanger in the 1986 Freshman Funnies.
says. During his senior year, he quit going to class because he had already fulfilled all his requirements. Instead, he stayed home and worked on a novel—about a young artist who drops out of high school. Meanwhile, his friend Russell Fraker ’89 brought back glowing reports about Reed. Sanger enrolled in fall 1986. A slow and deliberate reader, he was daunted at first by the sheer volume of the assignments but enjoyed philosophy, ultimately writing his thesis on Descartes with professor Marvin Levich. “My training at Reed shaped me as a thinker,” he says. “Marvin Levich more than anyone taught me how to critically examine an argument.” After Reed, Sanger went to graduate school at the Ohio State University, eventually earning a PhD in philosophy. In the late 1990s, Sanger grew intrigued by the “millennium bug.” There was wide-
spread concern—at times verging on panic—that the “rollover” of digits from 99 to 00 at the turn of the millennium would cause computer systems to behave erratically or even crash. Sanger created a popular digest of news reports that soon became required reading among Y2K experts. When the new century dawned and the apocalypse failed to materialize, Sanger started casting about for a new job, sending out proposals to various friends and acquaintances. To his surprise, he heard back from a dot-com entrepreneur named Jimmy Wales. A former options trader, Wales had been involved in several moderately successful online ventures. Now he was contemplating a new project—an online encyclopedia. Wales was inspired by the success of “open-source” software projects, where an army of volunteer programmers around the world contributed lines of software and fixed one another’s mistakes. Defying all logic and good sense, the open-source system worked remarkably well. Wales wanted to apply the concept to building an encyclopedia, and was looking for a philosopher to lead the project. Sanger seemed like the perfect editor-in-chief. In February 2000, Sanger drove his old Toyota Corolla from Columbus, Ohio, to San Diego, where BOMIS, Wales’s company, was based, to oversee the new project, dubbed Nupedia. Sanger immediately set about crafting guidelines and recruiting volunteers. He was convinced that the only way to build a credible encyclopedia was to make sure that editors had expertise in their field, preferably with a PhD or other credential. They would assign articles, oversee a rigorous review, and make final revisions. The project quickly attracted volunteers, but the seven-step editorial process, conducted over email, proved painfully slow. It
took seven months before the first article, an article on Atonality by German music scholar Christoph Hust, was approved. By the year’s end, the 2,000 volunteers had finished fewer than two dozen articles. Software engineers at BOMIS created a new system to make collaboration easier, but it didn’t help much. By January 2001, Nupedia seemed to be stalled. Then Sanger met up with an old friend named Ben Kovitz at a Mexican restaurant. Kovitz told Sanger about a simple program called WikiWikiWeb that offered an easy way to collaborate. It was a radical idea: anyone could edit any page at any time. Sanger instantly recognized the enormous potential this held for his project. Within days, he sent an announcement to Nupedia’s volunteers: “Let’s make a wiki.” …what it means is a VERY open, VERY publiclyeditable series of web pages. For example, I can start a page called EpistemicCircularity and write anything I want in it. Anyone else (yes, absolutely anyone else) can come along and make absolutely any changes to it that he wants to.
At the time, Sanger thought of the wiki as an experimental offshoot that could generate content for Nupedia. He called it Wikipedia—“a silly name for what was at first a very silly project.” (It is worth noting that since 2005, Jimmy Wales has portrayed himself as the sole founder of Wikipedia. Most sources, however, confirm Sanger’s key role in developing the site. Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution, calls Sanger “the earliest editor and leader;” Wikipedia’s first press release says Sanger “led the project;” and Wikipedia itself identifies him as its co-founder. For more on this convoluted question, see Further Reading.) Wikipedia.com was launched on January 15, 2001; its first article was on the letter U.
1637
1728
1751
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Song Yingxing, also known as the “Diderot of China,” publishes the Tiangong Kaiwu, or Exploitation of the Works of Nature. Mostly technical topics, including gunpowder use.
London globe-maker Ephraim Chambers publishes twovolume Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences; an instant hit with Georgian gentry.
Impressed by success of Cyclopedia, a Paris publisher decides to bring out a French translation. First editor fired for incompetence (doesn’t speak French). Publisher turns to Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert, who transform the project into the Encyclopédie, a major intellectual accomplishment and a pinnacle of French Enlightenment. Encyclopédie eventually comprises 35 volumes and 71,818 articles.
D’Alembert’s controversial article on Geneva in Volume VII of the Encyclopédie causes a national scandal.
First installment of Encyclopaedia Britannica, intended as a sober British response to the “radical” French Encyclopédie.
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Sanger soon realized there was nothing silly the printed page. The 15th edition of the about the idea; he began to promote it with Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in near-missionary zeal. He also set out several 1974, comprised 30 volumes and weighed guiding principles: that it should maintain 143 pounds. Moving it from one shelf to a neutral point of view; that contributors another was a logistical challenge, never should be allowed to make mistakes and mind keeping it up to date. The advent of digital publishing was a learn by doing; and that the goal of each edit giant boon to the field. Microsoft launched was not perfection, but improvement. Somehow the idea caught on. In the first Encarta (essentially repackaging Funk & month, Wikipedia had 1,000 articles. In one Wagnalls) in 1993. The Britannica released year, it would have 20,000 articles. In five its first CD-ROM the next year. Despite the years, it would become the most compre- advantages of the digital format, however, encyclopedias remained expensive. Writers, hensive encyclopedia in history. editors, artists and other contributors had to be paid, not to mention the expense of The Piranha Effect marketing and advertising. Wikipedia turned the traditional model Since ancient times, encyclopedists have strived to achieve three essential qualities: inside out. Instead of teams of professionbreadth, depth, and authority. As Pliny the als, it relied on a vast army of anonymous, Elder wrote in his groundbreaking Naturalis unpaid volunteers. Why did this work? Or, to steal a line from author Andrew Lih, how Historia: “It is a difficult task to give an air of nov- did a bunch of nobodies create the world’s elty to old themes, authority to new ones, greatest encyclopedia?
minimal just to move the project along. For example, the original entry for owl, created in February 2002, read in its misspelled entirety: In the Harry Potter books, an owl was a (possibly magical) bird which deliverd letters and small packages. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.
Three weeks later, another contributor added a few lines: An owl is any of several species of nocturnal, predatory birds. They hunt small mammals and birds. Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom and with the goddess Athena. In the Harry Potter books, owls deliver letters and small packages for wizards. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.
A few months later, another contributor reworked the entry: Owls (Order Strigiformes) are a group of nocturnal, birds of prey. They hunt small mammals and other birds. Owls have large front facing eyes and ears, a hawk-like beak and a conspicuous circle of feathers around each eye. Owls are traditionally associated with wisdom and with the goddess Athena. In the Harry Potter books, owls deliver letters and small packages for wizards. The term owl also referred to a letter sent by owl.
I n a month, Wikipedia had 1,000 articles. In a year, it had 20,000 articles. In five years, it would become the most comprehensive encyclopedia in history. luster to well-worn topics, light to the obscure, charm to the boring, credit to the dubious, nature to all, and all that is her own to nature. Hence, however incomplete our success, the scope of our undertaking is truly beautiful and glorious.” Over the centuries, as encyclopedias grew longer, these conflicting imperatives generated endless headaches. More entries implied more pages, more authors, more organization, more indexing, more expense, and more errors. Even the most successful encyclopedias struggled with the inherent limitations of
The answer is simple: writing an encyclopedia is a thrilling, even addictive, intellectual enterprise. Sanger talks about the “pure joy of proving to the world that you know something by writing it down and having it immediately available to others, who then affirm your own knowledge by adding to it.” The first Wikipedians had a free hand to recreate the world in their own image. From quantum mechanics to string quartets to Simpsons characters, almost no subject was off limits. In the beginning, contributors were encouraged to add entries that were rough or
Paradoxically, the slapdash quality of some early entries actually enticed new contributors. Visitors who came to scoff discovered that they could make improvements with a few strokes of the keyboard. Wikipedia benefited from a virtuous cycle: the bigger it grew, the more useful it became; the more useful it became, the bigger it grew. Today, Wikipedia boasts more than 3.2 million articles—far outpacing venerable rivals such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica in both breadth and depth. But Sanger wasn’t worried about breadth or depth. He was worried about authority. CONTINUED PAGE 34
1911
1993
1994
1995
February 2000
September 2000
Encyclopaedia Britannica publishes 11th edition, often cannibalized (by Wikipedia and others) because its copyright has elapsed.
Microsoft publishes Encarta CD-ROM, based on Funk & Wagnalls. Later upgraded with material from Collier’s.
Encyclopaedia Britannica publishes first CD-ROM. Cost: a mere $995.
Ward Cunningham, former programmer at Tektronix (founded by Howard Vollum ’36), invents WikiWikiWeb.
Larry Sanger hired as editor-in-chief of Nupedia.
Nupedia completes its first article, on atonality. By end of year, will only have two dozen articles.
January 2001 A friend shows Sanger the WikiWikiWeb. Sanger grasps implication for his project and coins phrase “Wikipedia.”
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Wikipedia
continued
Invasion of the Trolls At first, Wikipedia’s contributors were drawn primarily from Nupedians, who generally agreed that experts should prevail when writing about their own field. Conflicts (there were many) were settled by consensus. But Sanger soon found himself preoccupied with preventing the project from slipping into anarchy. By October 2001, Wikipedia had 13,000 articles, and new contributors were arriving every minute. Graffiti and vandalism were increasingly common. Dealing with vandalism was fairly straightforward— entries could easily be reverted to their previous versions. But some contributors wanted to use Wikipedia to broadcast their political views or personal opinions. Worse, self-important windbags sometimes reverted
BOMIS was running short of money. Sanger was laid off in February 2002, but continued on as “chief instigator” at Wikipedia. However, the community’s indifference to expertise continued to needle him. Worse, the anonymous nature of the project (contributors are known only by their online aliases) gave cover to bullies and cranks. After a few stillborn attempts to recruit experts to vet articles, he quit the project for good in January 2003. Sanger’s departure did nothing to slow Wikipedia’s momentum. Despite, or perhaps because of the project’s not-for-profit status, its growth was explosive. Inventive contributors found ways to mine sources of information such as the U.S. Census and works whose copyright had expired. But the problems he warned about did not vanish. Although Wikipedia gradually adopted rules to discourage squabbling and devised software to combat
A FLOOD OF ENTRIES
Wikipedia has seen explosive growth in the number of articles. 2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
only if they can be identified—and Wikipedia’s lax registration does not even require them to leave valid email addresses. (The smear was eventually traced to a Nashville man who worked for a delivery service; he had posted the article as a prank.) Sanger hoped that the painful episode “ An encyclopedia entry is not just a collection of facts. It’s the would have the salutary effect of pushing Wikipedia to address its problems, but he ability to construct a narrative... that separates the real expert was disappointed. Wikipedia adopted rules from the ersatz expert.” —Larry Sanger to prevent unregistered contributors from creating pages, but they could still edit pages—and registration was no guarantee of identity. In fact, Wikipedia is rife with the changes of genuine experts because they outright vandalism, its core culture remained preferred their own phrasing or focused on unchanged. In December 2004, Sanger wrote “sock puppets,” contributors who create alternative identities to express differing views. pedantic quibbles. “There was a growing an essay, “Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Sanger finally decided that there had problem,” Sanger later wrote. “Persistent and Anti-Elitism,” calling once again for a board to be another way. In September 2006, difficult contributors tend to drive away bet- of experts to review Wikipedia articles—a he launched Citizendium, an alternative ter, more valuable contributors.” proposal that met with an icy reception. to Wikipedia with several crucial changes. One example of the maddening disputes First, contributors cannot be anonymous. that periodically erupted was how to refer Quest for Authority Second, articles are reviewed by experts to the city of Gdansk, or Danzig, which has at various times lived under German, Pol- For many years, Sanger’s misgivings about before they gain the coveted status of ish, and independent rule. Each name had Wikipedia had remained somewhat abstract; “approved.” Visitors can read draft articles, it was hard to pinpoint any real harm result- but they are clearly marked as such. its partisans, who periodically embarked At first, Citizendium “forked” or copied ing from a substandard Wikipedia entry, on search-and-destroy missions to change references from one to the other. (This con- except that some random websurfers might Wikipedia, so as to begin with a rich storeflict, and a related argument about Poznan/ be misinformed about some random topic. house of information. (Wikipedia maintains no copyright on its articles.) However, But the Seigenthaler episode transformed Posen, simmered for years.) Sanger quickly realized that simply cleanthe debate. Here was an individual whose Sanger did his best to damp down the fires, but his moral authority—never very reputation had been undeniably savaged— ing up Wikipedia articles was not much fun. strong—became progressively more diluted. but who had no obvious remedy. By a quirk Many articles, he felt, were not inaccurate per se, but poorly written. “An encyclopedia Consensus became elusive, then impossi- of federal law, Wikipedia is immune to libel suits. Individual authors can be sued, but entry is not just a collection of facts,” he says. ble. Meanwhile, Nupedia was stalled and
Jan 15, 2001
February 2001
January 2002
January 2003
March 2005
November 29, 2005
March 2006
Wikipedia launched, intended as proving ground for Nupedia. First article is on the letter U.
Wikipedia publishes 1,000th article.
Wikipedia publishes 20,000th article.
Wikipedia publishes 100,000th article on the town of Hastings, New Zealand.
Wikipedia publishes 500,000th article on involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union.
Journalist John Seigenthaler denounces Wikipedia for falsely identifying him as a conspirator in the Kennedy assassinations.
Wikipedia publishes 1 millionth article on the Jordanhill railway station.
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les.
2008
“It’s the ability to construct a narrative of the “We are no longer at the point that it subject, the ability to describe things in a way is acceptable to throw things at the wall that does not supply a misleading implication. and see what sticks,” Wikimedia chairman You have to have lived with a topic for a while Michael Snow told the New York Times. to do that. This is the sort of thing that sepa- “There was a time probably when the comrates the real expert from the ersatz expert.” munity was more forgiving of things that Instead, Sanger and his partners decid- were inaccurate or fudged in some fashion— ed to start from scratch. For an example of whether simply misunderstood or an author their approach, compare the beginnings of had some ax to grind. There is less tolerance the articles on Life: for that sort of problem now.” Wikipedia has also developed sophistiWikipedia: Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic cated software to repair vandalism. A 2007 that distinguishes objects that have selfstudy from the University of Minnesota sustaining biological processes from those that estimated that 42 percent of all vandalism do not—either because such functions have was fixed within minutes, and that only a ceased (death), or else because they lack such tiny fraction (0.75%) survived long enough functions and are classified as inanimate. to be seen more than 1,000 times. Citizendium: The definition of life, the deterWikipedians often cite these sorts of mination of the fundamental nature of living statistics to buttress their argument that things, and the explanation of life’s origin and the site is reliable, and the change in policy evolution, have engendered much thought, has improved the quality of many BLPs. But debate and research throughout history. Wikipedia remains exquisitely vulnerable to those who have an agenda to pursue—or a Citizendium’s challenge, of course, lies in machete to sharpen. achieving critical mass. Currently the project On March 1, Wikipedia’s “Feature Artihas 13,000 articles—a respectable number. cle”—the most prominent location on the Of these, however, just 1,000 are reason- site—profiled a retired Oxford biologist ably complete, and a scant 121 are actually named Mike Handel. After duly noting details approved. As with Nupedia, progress has of his academic career and research interests, been excruciatingly slow. Sanger still makes the article reported that his laboratory had contributions, but devotes most of his time once been the target of an attempted arson to other projects, such as WatchKnow, a cat- by animal rights activists. Then it dropped a alog of free educational videos. bombshell in the eighth paragraph, when it implied—without citing any sources—that Dr. Handel had engaged in an affair with a Holes in the System lab assistant and killed her to keep her quiet. In recent years, the free-wheeling anarchy This article remained on Wikipedia for of Wikipedia’s early days has slowly been several hours and was read by thousands of codified, sometimes in surprising ways. In people. Unfortunately, there is no such person May 2009, for example, it banned all users as Dr. Handel. The article was fabricated by a from the Church of Scientology from editing former contributor known as “John Limey” to any articles. demonstrate the holes in Wikipedia’s proceSince August 2009, biographies of living dures. Using sock puppets, Limey wrote the persons (known as BLPs) are subject to extra entry, added salacious details, and even creatscrutiny; changes to these articles must be ed phony newspaper articles to gull Wikipedia reviewed by experienced editors before they editors. Some editors raised questions about are made public, and material from dubi- the unsourced allegations; others were more ous sources is forbidden. Wikipedia’s official concerned with grammatical issues. policy runs to 4,000 words and is a paragon “The entire saga is, undoubtedly, a great of responsible journalism. failure for Wikipedia,” Limey wrote later.
Although the vast majority of Wikipedia’s editors and contributors are conscientious, he concluded, the system has profound limitations. “Wikipedia doesn’t need better editors. It needs better rules.” The Handel affair generated considerable brouhaha among Wikipedians, but virtually no one else seemed to notice—or care. The truth is that, whatever its flaws, Wikipedia has become so useful it seems unlikely to be dislodged from its perch any time soon. It is currently the sixth most popular site on the web, while its erstwhile rivals struggle for relevance. The Encyclopaedia Britannica ranks at 27,284; Encarta was shut down last year. Until something better comes along, Sanger’s “very silly idea” is destined to be the first stop on the information highway for millions of people who need a quick primer on every subject from laetrile to Lady Gaga. What is perhaps disturbing is that it may also be the last stop. Larry Sanger will speak at commencement on Monday, May 17. FURTHER READING Larry Sanger. Various essays available at larrysanger.org. John Seigenthaler. “A False Wikipedia ‘Biography.’” USAToday.com. USA Today. Web. November 29, 2005. Eric Goldman. “Wikipedia’s Labor Squeeze and its Consequences.” ssrn.com. Journal of Telecommunications and High Technology Law, Vol. 8. Web. August 19, 2009. Reid Priedhorsky, et al. “Creating, destroying, and restoring value in Wikipedia.” cs.unm.edu. University of Minnesota. Web. 2007. “Dr. Handel or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Wikipedia.” On Wikipedia. onwikipedia.blogspot.com. Web. March 2, 2010. Andrew Lih. The Wikipedia Revolution. How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia. New York: Hyperion. Print. 2009. Andrew Dalby. The World and Wikipedia: How We are Editing Reality. Siduri Books. 2009. Print. Dan O’Sullivan. Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice? Ashgate. Print. 2009. Philipp Blom. Enlightening the World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Print. 2005. Eric S. Raymond. The Cathedral & the Bazaar. O’Reilly Media. Print. 1999.
September 2006
September 2007
August 2009
September 2009
March 1, 2010
April 2010
Sanger launches Citizendium.
Wikipedia publishes 2 millionth article on Spanish TV comedy show El Hormiguero.
Wikipedia publishes 3 millionth article on the Norwegian actress Beate Eriksen.
Microsoft shuts down Encarta.
Fake biography of imaginary researcher Mike Handel is featured as article of the day.
Wikipedia is the 6th most popular destination on the web, attracting 68 million visitors a month; has 3.2 million articles; 12 million registered users; 1,716 administrators; Top articles include Brittany Murphy, Avatar, Lady Gaga, and The Beatles.
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Reunions 2010 For updates and the full schedule: Check reunions.reed.edu/schedule.html; the final schedule with confirmed locations can be picked up at Reunions Central in the Student Union when you arrive!
F riday, June 4
Noon–1 p.m.
Lunch with Profs: Break bread with current and emeritus faculty.
2:30–4 p.m.
All-Class Wine Tasting: Attend the fifth-annual tasting, featuring alumni wineries from around the Pacific Northwest.
2:30-4 p.m.
Tie-Dyeing, sponsored by the class of ’90: Come relive your hippie or psychedelic Reed days, or just renew your love of swirly colors by tie-dyeing a t-shirt to wear during Saturday’s thesis parade. White t-shirts and all dyeing materials will be provided. We’ll have gloves to protect your hands, but wear stain-tolerant clothing. Feel free to bring another 100% cotton item to dye. This is your chance to brag, “I dyed at Reunions 2010!”
4:30–6 p.m.
Convocation: Reunions kicks off with this fifth-annual event featuring the reflections of Igor Vamos ’90.
6–8 p.m.
President’s Reception and Class Dinners: This event is for all alumni.
8 p.m.–Midnight
Hold-’Em Poker Tournament: Come see if you know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em at this event hosted by Mark Humphrey ‘85.
8:30–11:30 p.m.
Folk Dancing: Kafana Klub plays a blend of songs from the Balkans and beyond that stirs the feet as well as the soul.
8:30–10:30 p.m.
Talent Show: Hosted by Mateo Burtch ’82 and featuring Yoram Bauman ’95, “the world’s first and only standup economist.” Itching to play your favorite song? Want to read some poetry? Chomping at the bit to pull out those tap shoes? Sign up in Reunions Central when you arrive on campus to be part of the show.
9:30–10:30 p.m.
Tango Lessons: Get a Reunions PE credit for joining Alex Krebs ’99 as he teaches the basics of this South American classic.
Midnight–1 a.m
Dancing: Shake your dancing leg to tunes spun by recovering KRRC DJ, Dr. Demento, aka Barry Hansen ’63.
Reunions 2010 Highlights Classes ending in 0s and 5s are a focus, but all Reedies are welcome! See the complete schedule at http://reunions.reed.edu/schedule.html Register for Reunions at https://reunions.reed.edu/ Questions: Contact Alumni & Parent Relations at alumni@reed.edu or 503/777-7589. science and technology events interviews and special sessions that commemorate aspects of the college’s distinctive history
Wednesday–Friday, June 2–4
Alumni College: How does society manage technology? We will gather and examine ethical, legal, and economic approaches to this issue. Sign up today!
Thursday, June 3
7–9 p.m.
Storytelling: Technology At Reed, Or Let’s Dye the Canyon Green for Graduation: The impromptu storytelling sessions hosted by Cricket Parmalee ’67 continue to be among the most popular activities at Reunions. Come share your stories. Extra points for a technological angle (carbon paper, phones, computers, the Pill, helicopters . . . helicopters?)
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photos by orin zyvan
Show & Tell with munchies, sponsored by the class of ’75. Please bring at least one physical item from the ’70s such as clothing, a piece of music, a knick-knack, a photograph, a personal letter, a newspaper clipping, or anything that represents that era in a tangible and personal way to present to the group with an explanation of its significance. We’re looking for talismanic, shamanistic, historical objects, or their equivalent. Softball, sponsored by the class of ’95 Build-your-own-sundae get-together and games, sponsored by the class of ’00.
Saturday, June 5
10–11 a.m.
Noon–1:30 p.m.
Technology in Higher Ed, or How Would Homer Text?: Presented by President Colin Diver. Foster-Scholz Club & Annual Recognition Luncheon: This event honors alumni volunteers with the FosterScholz Distinguished Service Award and the Babson Award. If you attended Reed 40 or more years ago (currently the classes of 1970 and earlier) you are automatically a member of the Foster-Scholz Club. You and your guests are invited to attend a variety of Foster-Scholz events throughout the year.
1–5 p.m.
1:30–3:30 p.m.
Carnival: This year’s carnival includes a fantastic juggler, an inventive balloon artist, an inspired face painter, an enchanted magician, and harmonious folk music by Rebecca Parks ’85.
1:30–5:30 p.m.
Class Photos
3:30–5:30 p.m.
Class Stories: As we approach Reed’s centennial in 2011, add your voice to the legend by participating in a group oral history interview. Share your memories of social life, pranks, political intrigue, and other events both great and small for the following milestone classes: 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, and 2000.
5:45–8 p.m.
All-Class Parade and Dinner: The evening starts with the all-class parade, followed by dinner. Music is by Sweet Baboo, featuring Scott Foster ’77 on acoustic guitar and vocals. Enjoy the wine and the stars, dance the night away, and enjoy a grand finale of fireworks.
8–11:30 p.m.
So: Remember when...? sponsored by the class of ’70. Meet with your classmates to share recollections from Reed and times since then through song, story, dance, or any way you wish. We suggest you remark on the effects of the ’60s on your lives, and we will conclude with a group discussion.
8–9:45 p.m Kyle Alden (Thayer) ’80 is a singer/songwrit-
er/guitarist with roots in the San Francisco Irish music community. His songs and voice have been compared to Canadian songsters Ron Sexsmith and Neil Young. He is performing with Robert Powell, known internationally for his innovative approach to the pedal steel guitar.
10–11:30 p.m. Lauren Sheehan ’81 joins forces with
Greg Clarke, heralded regionally for his superb bluegrass and old-time music, to keep your toes tapping and hearts reeling.
Class Gatherings: Céilidh, sponsored by the class of ’60 :The class of 1960 will do what it has done for the past several reunions: a céilidh! What, you may ask, is a céilidh? It is a literary entertainment where stories and tales, poems and ballads, are rehearsed and recited; songs are sung; conundrums are put; proverbs are quoted; and many other literary matters are related and discussed. Our version starts with a wine and cheese get-together, followed by performances by our classmates—instrumentals, songs, recitations, harangues, or . . . It has been great fun in the past, and we expect no less on our 50th!
Folk Music Showcase:
8 p.m.–1 a.m.
Music Showcase: Stumptown Family Ramblers featuring Sarah Dougher ’90 and Puddle City Bluegrass.
8–9:30 p.m.
Sound Experiment: Jazz musicians, bring your horn, voice, or whatever for an all-class jam session/Sound Experiment! Enthusiasm is more important than proficiency. If you nail all the changes and sound like Stan Getz or Diana Krall, that’s cool; if you play outside—either on purpose or by accident—that’s cool, too. Our focus will be on relatively simple tunes (a mix of standards, blues, bossas and bebop) in order to maximize participation. Drop your inhibitions, bring your axe, and be there!
9–10 p.m.
9:45–10 p.m
10–11 p.m
Stumptown Blues Band: This band features Michael Tippie ’80 and Neil Minturn ’79. Fireworks: Enjoy the grand finale of Reunions ’10. Festival Of Dementia: The good doctor is back. This multimedia show by Dr. Demento, aka Barry Hansen ’63, features a crazy dose of science and technology and some select clips for the occasion.
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Reediana Books by Reedies
Adam Penenberg ’86 Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves
Susan Subak ’82 Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis
(Hyperion, 2009)
(University of Nebraska Press, 2010)
photograph by marc golbert
In this appealing and insightful book, Adam surveys the brave new world of Web 2.0, delivering an insider’s view of how we ended up permanently turned on, plugged in and never off. Through a series of engaging anecdotes, Viral Loop takes the reader from the incubation through the fledgling to the multimillion dollar stage of several Internet success stories such as Facebook, eBay, Flickr, PayPal and Hotmail. Lovelorn programmers may experience a profound case of “I could have thought of that,” when they read about the creation of Hot Or Not, the attractiveness-rating site that was born over a few Heinekens and changed the world — or at least the World Wide Web. A business writer for Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times, and Salon, Adam is perhaps best known for exposing the New Republic’s Stephen Glass as a fabricator, a role immortalized in the film Shattered Glass. In this book, he delivers more than mere fly- Adam Penenberg ’86 goes viral. on-the-wall reporting: he also explores the imperative “viral factor” of these Internet triumphs, demonstrating how it was the chain-letter quality of these ideas (forward this to five of your friends) that made them so successful. He has even come up with a formula to determine the viral coefficient of individuals and companies, (to download the related iPhone app, visit www. viralloop.com). Whether or not readers care about their own viral coefficients, the book should be required reading for aspiring entrepreneurs. The stories are both cautionary and inspirational (most of the people interviewed wound up selling their concept for many millions, despite shaky profitability). And everyone following our transformation into a fully wired and connected society should be interested in the book’s other conclusions (print media is dead, forget privacy). While it’s easy to find gloom and doom in our growing tendency to conduct our lives on a 10- (or even two-) inch screen, Viral Loop asserts that as human beings we are biologically wired to connect and to spread. The “viral” quality of the most successful sites is the same property that has enabled our species to propagate across the planet. To “friend” is to be. —Audrey Van Buskirk
Some Reed assignments don’t fade away. In 1981, Susan wrote a history paper on the Roosevelt administration’s response to the Holocaust, and was left with a gnawing question that she set about answering more than 20 years later. In the class at Reed, she learned about Oskar Schindler and about the village of Le Chambon, but where were American individuals and organizations? “I knew they had existed,” she says. “My father, through a chance meeting with an American family, had been able to immigrate to the U.S. after Hitler took over his native Austria. After helping my father, the couple, who worked for the Unitarian church, went on to found a Unitarian organization devoted to rescue. How significant was this program for refugees I wondered, and why had the people involved gone unrecognized? Many years later, I opened some declassified intelligence files at the National Archives, and my quest began again.” After years of research, Susan uncovered the untold story of the Unitarian Service Committee, which rescued European refugees during World War II, and the remarkable individuals who made it happen.
Myrlin Hermes ’96 The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet (Harper Perennial, 2010)
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet imagines Shakespeare’s characters, as well as the Bard himself, together at Wittenberg University, grappling with questions of skepticism, seduction, sexuality, philosophy, literature, and love. Brimming with wit and allusion, Myrlin’s novel draws on Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays to think afresh about Hamlet and his relationships. Myrlin’s intimate knowledge of Shakespeare and Elizabethan England makes this book a pleasure to read; such is her affection for his characters is such that they truly come to life in this novel. —Alix Vollum ’12
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Reediana
continued
Ted Gurr ’57 is founding coauthor of Peace and Conflict 2010 (Paradigm Press, 2009)—now in a fifth edition. Peace and Conflict is a biennial publication that provides key data about national and international conflicts ranging from acts of terrorism to internal strife to full-fledged war. An article, “Got Up By Philaura B Stebbins” by Eli Leon ’57, was published in the winter/spring 2010 issue of Vermont History. The article represents Eli’s first signature quilt article and features a quilt made between 1862 and 1896. David Coleman ’60, professor emeritus in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia, has published Big Ecology (UC Press, 2010), which documents his “historically fruitful” collaborations studying large ecosystems in the U.S. David notes that the concept of the ecosystem—a local biological community and its interactions with its environment—has given rise to many institutions and research programs, and he provides an insider account of this important and fascinating trend toward big science. Barbara Ehrenreich ’63 has written Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (Metropolitan Books, 2009). Barbara examines the cultural role of positive thinking, an idea that has grown from a marginal 19th-century healing technique into “a dominant, almost mandatory, cultural attitude.” Dennis McGilvray ’65 is coeditor with Michele R. Gamburd of Tsunami Recovery in Sri Lanka: Ethnic and Regional Dimensions (Routledge, 2010). It has been five years since the Indian Ocean tsunami struck the coast of Sri Lanka, demolishing beachfront communities and
Cover and inside spread from Helvetica and the New York Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story, by Paul Shaw ’76
killing over 30,000 Tamils, Muslims, and Sinhalese. This book offers a multidisciplinary set of essays about how Sri Lankans have coped with the deluge of international aid in the midst of an ongoing civil war. Chapters explore the effects of national ethnic politics, regional inequalities in aid distribution, cultural constructions of charity, religious interpretations of the tsunami, women’s dowry and home ownership, and competition between international NGOs. Dennis is professor and chair of anthropology at the University of Colorado–Boulder. Leslie Scalapino ’66, who is currently teaching at Mills College in Oakland, California, is the author of Floats Horse-Floats or HorseFlows. The novel, which has been described as poetic, politically engaged, and startling in its beauty, was published in March by Starcherone Press. Martha Mikkelson Yee ’69, cataloging supervisor of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, has published the books Moving Image Cataloging (Libraries Unlimited, 2007) and Improving Online Public Access Catalogs (American Library Association, 1998). To view a list of articles and publications, and a delightful image by her husband, Wei Yee ’67, visit her homepage, myee.bol.ucla.edu/. Esther M. Gwinnell ’75 is coauthor of The Encyclopedia of Addictions and Addictive Behaviors (Facts on File, 2005). She also published two articles, “Unique Aspects of Internet Relationships” in Telepsychiatry and e-Mental Health (Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2003) and “Risk Factors for the Development of Internet Adultery” (Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, 2001), which are related to her book Online Seductions: Falling in Love With Strangers on the Internet (Kodansha America, 1998). (See also Letters.)
Paul Shaw ’76 designed and published Helvetica and the New York Subway System: The True (Maybe) Story (Blue Pencil Editions, 2009). Subway is an “updated, expanded, annotated and profusely illustrated version of the essay originally written by me for AIGA Voice in the fall of 2008.” The book version takes into account new information and is supplemented by comprehensive notes, a bibliography, and a chronology of the New York City subway system. Paul designed the book with Abby Goldstein. For more information, visit www.helvetica subway.com.
The newest book by Mira Kamdar ’80, Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy and the Future of Our World (Scribner 2008), has been published in over a dozen editions around the world (mirakamdar.com). “Starting work on a new book on Gandhi and our present difficult global moment.” Mira is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and is writing for Le Monde diplomatique and Courier International. She is now living in France, and taught at Sciences Po in Paris this spring. Congratulations to Mary Hower ’83, whose essay “When Gladiolas Surprise the Nasturtiums” appeared in New Letters magazine in spring 2009 and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
Penny Hummel ’83 wrote an article about Mary Frances Isom, the Library Association of Portland’s amazing and Marjorie Wight Olsen ’78 has pubvisionary early director. Isom’s tenure lished the book Hollow-Ways (Maria (1901–20) coincided with Reed’s earliMann, 2009), which contains over 50 est days, and she worked closely with of her paintings and a selection of her poems. Marjorie’s art has been widely architect A.E. Doyle on the design of the Central Library. The article was pubexhibited, and her poetry grew out of her experiences with yoga, spirituality, lished by Multnomah County Library and meditation. This is her first publi- and may be viewed at www.multcolib .org/about/mcl-his_isom.html. cation combining the two forms. Described as uplifting, genuine, and conveying a beautiful message, Hollow-Ways has been well received by adults and adolescents alike. (See also Class Notes.)
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Courtesy of the Estate of Richard Saunders
Reediana
continued
Under his pen name Nathaniel Mead, Mark Mead ’84 has written numerous articles for national and international magazines and coauthored several books, including The Rapid Recovery Handbook (HarperCollins 2006). He currently has 34 articles listed on PubMed. (See also Class Notes.) A new book by Doug Sackman ’90, Wild Men: Ishi and Kroeber in the Wilderness of Modern America, has been published by Oxford University Press (2010). The book explores the relationship between the Yahi man dubbed the “last wild Indian” and one of the founders of American anthropology, in the context of anxieties about modernity and a cultural longing for the wild and the wilderness. “I worked in three references to Reed—one to Gary Snyder ’51, who helped in the process of creating the ‘Ishi Wilderness’; one to Reed professor of anthropology William Ogburn [1912–17] and his student Esther Watson ’17, who visited Ishi in Berkeley in 1915; and one to the illimitable Gail Kelly ’55, in whose class I first began researching the relationship between Kroeber and California Indians.” Doug is a professor of history at the University of Puget Sound. Alafair Burke ’91 published the novel 212 (Harper Collins, 2010), with detective Ellie Hatcher following a trail that stems from the murder of a New York University sophomore. Alafair was in Portland in April, for promotional events at Murder by the Book and Powell’s Books. Jose-Antonio Orosco ’92, associate professor of philosophy at Oregon State University and director of the OSU Peace Studies Program, is the author of Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence (University of New Mexico Press, 2008). He was visiting professor in Rosario, Argentina, this spring, offering classes in peace studies and global justice in Latin America.
The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography (University Press of New England, 2010), by Erina Duganne ’93, examines the historically specific ways in which notions of selfhood have been experienced, conceptualized, and reflected in relation to photographic representations of blackness in post–World War II America. Erina, who is assistant professor of art history at Texas State University– San Marcos, taught at the University of Potsdam this year on a Fulbright scholarship. “The thrill of having this material finally in print has not only made the difficulties fade into the distance but the entire process more meaningful.” Photo by Richard Saunders, View of street from fire escape, Harlem, from The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography, by Erina Duganne ’93.
“ The thrill of having this material finally in print has not only made the difficulties fade into the distance but the entire process more meaningful.” —Erina Duganne ’93
Aaron Glass ’94 has published his first book, The Totem Pole: An Intercultural History (University of Washington, 2010). In The Totem Pole, Aaron and coauthor Aldona Jonaitis describe their theories on the development of the art form; its spread from the Pacific Northwest coast to world’s fairs and global theme parks; its integration with the history of tourism and its transformation into a signifier of place; the role of governments, museums, and anthropologists in collecting and restoring poles; and the part that these carvings have played in Native struggles for control of their cultures and their lands.
Edited by Melanie O’Brian ’96, the nine essays in Vancouver Art & Economies (Artspeak & Arsensal Pulp Press, 2007) address the organized systems that have affected contemporary art in Vancouver over the last two decades, during which the once marginal city has become an internationally recognized center for contemporary visual art.
and Afghanistan, as well as interviews with soldiers, their families and friends, military officials, and the victims of torture, None of Us Were Like This Before reveals how soldiers, senior officials, and the U.S. public came to believe that torture was both effective and necessary. The book illustrates that the damaging legacy of torture is borne not only by the detainees, but also by American soldiers and the country to which they have returned. (See also Class Notes.)
Joshua Phillips ’96 has published None of Us Were Like This Before: How American Soldiers Turned to Torture (Verso, 2010). Based on firsthand reporting from Iraq
Matthew O’Sullivan ’06, who is working on a doctorate in neuroscience at UC San Diego, was a contributor to the report “LRRTM2 Interacts with Neurexin1 and Regulates Excitatory Synapse Formation,” which was published in the journal Neuron in December 2009.
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In Memoriam By Laurie Lindquist
professor L.E. Griffin at Missouri College. “He was very anxious to have me take a course from Dr. Griffin,” she told Lucy Palm Smith ’48 in an oral history interview. Sally spent two years at Reed, and completed a BA at the University of Oregon. In her senior year of college, she met Walter H. Evans Jr.; they were married for 44 years. Sally’s first job was in a Portland medical laboratory that paid $10 a month. “I was grateful for my one year of biology at Reed, because it was the only science I ever took in college.” Sally and Walter had two daughters and a son. She was active in volunteer work and won the David E. Abrams Award for Philanthropic Leadership from the Emanuel Medical Foundation in 1992.
Martha Elizabeth Powell Wilson ’25
November 19, 2009, in Annapolis, Maryland; she was 105. Martha was born in Mitchell, South Dakota, and started her schooling in Cove, a remote community in the Grande Ronde Valley in eastern Oregon. Her family later moved to Vancouver, Washington. She attended Reed as a day-dodger: her commute took an hour and half, with many miles traveled on foot. She attended the college during its golden age, she told Cricket Parmalee ’67 in an oral history interview in 2004. “I was always satisfied that I had gone to Reed instead of some other college, because I think it gave me a better background for life.” Martha majored in contemporary literature and minored in classical literature, and wrote her thesis on George Bernard Shaw in the same year that Shaw received a Nobel Prize. After graduation, she married her high school sweetheart, Ralph E. Wilson, a career navy officer; they raised a son and two daughters. In 1989, they settled into the Ginger Cove Retirement Community in Annapolis; Ralph died a year later. Well past her hundredth year, Martha remained a formidable force at Trivia Night. Survivors include their children, nine grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren, and two great-great-grandchildren. Martha’s sister, Evangeline Powell ’27, also graduated from Reed.
Sarah E. Holloway Evans ’31
December 7, 2009, at home in Portland, following a brief illness. Sally’s father encouraged her to come to Reed because he had studied with Reed biology
skipper Iceberg Smith, who had explored various parts of the Arctic. Richard served 27 years with the Coast Guard and published Ice Patrol, an Jane Winks Kilkenny ’33 December 18, 2009, in Portland. illustrative narrative about his experiences. Later Jane led a full and adven- he worked for outdoor gear sales for Smilie and turous life in the finest Eddie Bauer in San Francisco and Seattle. RichReed tradition. After ard enjoyed backpacking and snowshoeing with earning a BA from Reed the Sierra Club and with the Seattle Mountainin history, she married eers. His last years were given to hiking, photoyacht-builder Thomas F. graphing wildflowers, and watching the passage Kilkenny. The couple of ships through Puget Sound. In his public obitulived in Japan and the ary, we read: “He remained kind-hearted, humorSouth Pacific before ous, open to new experiences, and good-natured moving to a farm in through his final days.” Richard married Helen M. C l a c k a m a s C o u n t y, Chelland in 1944. They were together until her where they bred cattle death in 2004. Surviving him are his daughter and raised game birds. After Thomas’ death in and son and four grandchildren. 1956, Jane took on the role that would endear her to generations of Portland handymen and Helen Lucille Irwin Schley ’35 women: she assumed management of her father’s November 25, 2009, in Portland. iconic hardware store, W.C. Winks Hardware. Helen was 16 when she entered Reed, and earned Established in 1909, Winks Hardware built its a degree in art. She taught art and did drafting legendary reputation on an inventory of more work for the Kaiser shipyard in Vancouver, Washthan 50,000 doohickeys, thingamajigs, and what- ington during the war. After the war, she worked chamacallits. Jane’s personable and respectful for the American Red Cross in Japan. In 1949, she treatment of customers and employees cement- took a linguistics course at UCLA that launched ed the store’s place as a Portland institution: it her on her “true” vocation—teaching English as thrives to this day under the leadership of her a second language. For the next 14 years, she daughter, Anne. Wishing that more local students taught English to immigrants in Oakland, Calicould have access to a Reed education, Jane estab- fornia, and in Portland. Helen studied linguistics lished the Victor and Edna Chittick Scholarship. at Lewis & Clark College, Oregon State Univer(See Eliot Circular.) sity, and Portland State College, where she subsequently taught English to international students for 15 years. She also taught at Mt. Hood Richard C. [Lawford] Green ’35 September 18, 2009, Community College and at Linfield College. She in Olympia, Washington. had a natural instinct for language and teaching, Richard came to Reed from Bromley, in Kent, to which her students responded with joy and England, where he spent most of his childhood. enthusiasm. From a public obituary, we learned He earned a BA from Reed in biology, self-direct- that Helen cared deeply about civil rights and ing his studies to support an ardent interest in international justice and attended peace marchoceanography. After graduation, he took a walk- es and vigils in her 80s. In her 90s, she studied on position on a 45-foot Coast Guard cutter with Spanish at Portland Community College. “Reed
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the University of Rochester and did postdoctoral work at Cornell Medical School. During the war, he worked on a research team led by Nobel Prize– winning chemist Vincent du Vigneaud that was the first to synthesize penicillin. At Cornell, Art received a visit from his former adviser, Arthur F. Scott, who invited him to return to Reed. Back at the college, Art taught courses in chemistry, biochemistry, and the use of radioactive materials. In 1954, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work in molecular and cellular biology. He was also the host of the local TV show Secrets in Science, broadcast on Portland’s KGW-TV, intended to popularize sciJeanne Hazen Oliver ’39 November 12, 2009, at her home ence for a young audience. He began a nationwide in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, event designed to teach meteorological concepts where she lived for 62 years. to elementary and middle school students, and Jeanne attended Reed and the University of Ari- also worked on the development of the Einstein zona. During World War II, she served with the Fellows program, which introduced outstandU.S. Navy. She was a member of the Century Club ing secondary school science and mathematics of Scranton and Covenant Presbyterian Church. teachers into the ranks of Congressional staffing. In 1965, Art resigned from his position as She also was a weaver, sculptor, and dog-lover. Jeanne married William J. Oliver; they had two professor of chemistry at Reed and worked daughters, a son, and two grandchildren, who full time at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washingsurvive her, as does a sister. ton, D.C., where he focused on developing science curricula for elementary classrooms and Felice Lauterstein Driesen ’40 July 22, 2009, in Portland, where improving the quality of science teaching at all she lived her entire life. grade levels. He retired from AAAS in 1981, but Felice attended Reed for two years. In 1943, she continued to work as a consultant with the State married Ralph Driesen, a New Yorker who opened of Maryland, Friends of International Education, a men’s clothing store in Portland. Felice was a the Triangle Coalition for Science and Technollifelong member of Congregation Beth Israel, and ogy Education, and the International School in was honored in 2003 for 55 years of service as Washington, D.C., and as a volunteer in public a volunteer for the American Red Cross. Survi- schools. Art’s passions included sailing—whetvors include a son and daughter, two grandchil- ted in his years as a Sea Scout—as well as time spent in the Cascade Mountains and at the Oredren, and three great-grandchildren. gon Coast. He played piano, and sang baritone roles in madrigal quartets, in Gilbert and SulliArthur Hamilton Livermore ’40 professor of chemistry [1948–65] van operettas, and in the St. Columba Episcopal October 12, 2009, in Gloucester, Church choir in Washington, D.C. Art married Massachusetts. Janet E. Hays ’38 in 1940, and Jane E. Marye Art’s fascination with in 1965. He had two daughters and four sons, chemistry was sparked including Arthur H. Livermore ’69. at the age of 12, when he received a chemistry Dixon Yoshio Miyauchi ’40 set for Christmas, he June 14, 2009, in Salt Lake City, Utah. told Gwen Lewis ’65 in Dixon came to Reed from an oral history interview Seattle and received a BA in 2005. Too young to in history. He served as take chemistry in his an interpreter during first year of high school, World War II, and was in he resorted to building Japan with the army and a laboratory in his basement. “There was a drug air force in 1947–52. He supply company in downtown Portland, and I earned a PhD from Harbought all sorts of chemicals there including vard in East Asian studsome chemicals that you’d be in real trouble sellies, and retired as profesing kids today—potassium chlorate and sulfur. sor emeritus of Asian You mix them and you have an explosive mixture. histor y from SUNY– I mixed the dry powders and wrapped them in Plattsburgh in 1983. Dixon had two sons and a layers of newspaper, and then hit them with a flat daughter. He kept close connections to Reed head of an axe, and it went boom! Made a tremen- throughout his life, and established the Dixon Y. dous noise.” After earning a BA from Reed in Miyauchi Scholarship. chemistry, Art earned a PhD in biochemistry from life. For her 50th-class reunion, she noted: “Now that I’m writing again— or still—I have more to think and say. I’m much more oriented to human concerns, and I begin to see the outlines of what I want to express. Count me as a late bloomer.” Survivors include her children.
Splashdown! Helen Irwin Schley ’35 tests the waters at the Oregon Coast in 2007.
influenced me, most importantly, by my personal appreciation of intellectual stimulation and activity. By intellectual, I mean, thinking of things and studying things, and thinking of opinions and having to support my opinions. Those are important things from Reed.” Helen’s happy marriage to Robert C. Schley, which began in 1953, ended tragically with his early death in 1964. Survivors include their two daughters and her brother, Richard Irwin ’42. A second brother, Phillip R. Irwin ’40, also attended Reed.
Elizabeth Louise Rossiter Krauss ’37
January 1, in Seaside, Oregon. Elizabeth attended Reed for two years, and was an accomplished pianist. In 1940, she married Walter J.M. Kraus, an officer with U.S. Army Special Services. Survivors include her daughter, son, and three grandchildren. Her husband died in 2004.
Margaret T. Johnson Larrance ’38
September 3, 2009, in Portland. “After satisfying the intellectual half of my brain and earning a bachelor’s degree in French—thank you, Reed, and Benjamin Mather Woodbridge—I left our cultural hothouse to learn more about the world and the strange life forms outside.” Margaret taught in the Sacramento Valley and traveled to the Yucatan and Panama before returning to Portland. In 1951, she married Clifford Larrance, and raised three sons and a daughter. Margaret maintained an interest in writing throughout her
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In Memoriam continued Watford Reed ’40
July 5, 2009, in Portland.
A lifelong newsman, Wat—nicknamed “Kilowatt” for his energetic copy—was a college correspondent for the Oregon Journal at Reed. After earning his BA in political science and psychology, Wat worked as a staff reporter, covering education, politics, crime, business, religion, and diverse other subjects for the Journal, the Oregonian, and the International News Service. He wrote about fires, accidents, murder, stranded climbers, roller skating and municipal scandal. He profiled politicians, musicians, firefighters, gas station owners and prisoners of war. He wrote about a skin graft that allowed a six-year-old boy to walk again; a woman who survived a 40-foot plunge down a well; a man whose heart stopped beating for seven minutes following an electric shock. He officially retired from the Oregonian in 1991, but continued to write for the paper and for the East County News, and its successor, the website EastPDXNews.com, chronicling developments in outer East Portland well into his eighties. He dutifully turned in stories even when his health was failing, according to his editor, David Ashton. By summer 2009, Wat could no longer drive, but Ashton would pick him up and take him to report on civic and business meetings. The last couple of stories he wrote were very short, Ashton recalls, and Wat felt they weren’t much good. “I’m surprised you haven’t given up on me,” Wat said. “I put my arm around him and told him, ‘Watford, I’ll never give up on you. Never.’” Wat died a month later. He was active in the Methodist church, and enjoyed mountaineering and baseball. Following a brief marriage, he raised his only daughter, Stacy, who survives him.
Hugh McKinley ’41
November 7, 2009, in Springfield, Oregon, from age-related causes. Mac was the son of Charles McKinley, Reed political science professor [1918–60]. “I guess I heard municipal government from the time I was old enough to listen; at breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” he reported. He earned a BA from Reed in political science. During World War II, he was stationed in Texas, where he met and married Evelyn Griffin
before serving in Germany. After the war, he worked at the University of Oregon’s bureau of municipal research, and from there launched a career as a city manager, assisting in Corvallis and holding the lead position in Sutherlin, Grants Pass, and Eugene, where he served for nearly 15 years, earning a national reputation as a respected administrator. Colleagues described him as humble, honest, and tough—a man who provided not only ideas but also solutions. During his tenure, he helped orchestrate Eugene’s growth as its population doubled from 50,000 to 100,000. In 1975, he was recruited to be city manager for San Diego; after three years, he left for a similar position in Glendale, California. Mac and Evelyn moved back to Eugene around 1990 and lived in a retirement community; he was devoted to caring for Evelyn in her failing health. Survivors include his wife, two sons and a daughter, and three grandchildren. Mac’s siblings, Maude McKinley ’39, Donald McKinley ’40, and Jean McKinley Johnson ’45, also graduated from Reed.
later completed a bachelor’s degree in political science at the University of Washington. During World War II, he worked for Boeing Aircraft in Seattle. Later he was a manufacturer’s representative, a volunteer at the Seattle Art Museum, and a member of Epiphany Episcopal Church. In 1970, he married Mary Jane Jacobs, who survives him. During his oral history interview with Brie Gyncild ’91 in 2003, he stated that his year at the college fueled a love for Reed that lasted a lifetime.
Glenn Hays Johnson ’42
September 27, 2009, in Portland, from a brief illness and Parkinson’s disease. Hays grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and came to Reed, following the path of his parents, Glenn R. Johnson ’15 and Grace Hays Johnson ’15, who were members of Reed’s first graduating class. Fearing that he might be drafted before he could see his family, Hays moved home after his freshman year. He then enrolled at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and completed a bachelor’s degree in sociology, before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a glider pilot trainee. After the war, he went to New York as an employee for the Royal Bank of Canada. There, he also rekindled a friendship with artist and teacher Evelyn Brown, whom he knew from UNC; they were married for 25 years. Richard J. Akers ’41 December 4, 2009, in Portland. Hays served in the Korean War, after which he Dick attended Reed for two years before enlisting earned a PhD in sociology and social psycholoin military service during World War II. He com- gy from New York University. He taught at the pleted a BA at the University of Idaho and an LLB university and at Smith College, and later was a at Lewis & Clark College in 1948. He was a law- consultant for industry and the armed forces at yer for a title insurance company for 30 years. In NEXUS in Santa Monica, California. He returned retirement, he enjoyed painting and reading. Sur- to Portland in the late ’70s. In 1987, he married Virginia Moore Coffman, who survives him. Survivors include his niece and nephew. vivors also include one son and six stepchildren. A second son predeceased him. Virgil P. Barta ’41 January 18, in Tigard, Oregon. Virgil earned a BA from Reed and a DSc from Gertrude C. Osborne Gill ’43 Oregon State College in physics. During World July 27, 2008, in Hawaii. War II, he served in Europe as a radar operations Gertrude was a missionary with the organizaofficer with the U.S. Army. He received both the tion Youth with a Mission. For many years, she Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. His career in went with her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, graphic arts and sciences included positions with to third world country health clinics in order to the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Tech- teach indigenous physicians modern orthopedic nicolor Corporation, and the Stanford Research surgery techniques. Institute. An expert in securities protection and fraud prevention, he became a consultant in 1968, Marilois Ditto Kierman ’43 working with banks, specialty paper and ink com- October 27, 2009, in Houston, Texas, panies, and security printing and fraud protec- from pulmonary complications. tion companies. Many of the security features Marilois’ passion for piano led to her the Juilthat he created are still in use today. Virgil and liard School before she enrolled at Reed, where his wife, Helen, were married for 67 years. Survi- she earned a BA in English literature. In 1941, vors include two daughters and a son, four grand- she married Frank A. Kierman Jr. MA ’43, whose children, three great-grandchildren, and a brother. work for the State Department led to assignments in Nanking, Hong Kong, Karachi, Nairobi, Khartoum, and Washington, D.C. In 1965, she Elmer Bailey Clark Jr. ’42 October 26, 2009, in his hometown, earned an MA in music from American UniversiSeattle, Washington. ty. After Frank retired, the couple moved to New E.B., or Jiggs, attended Reed for a year before Jersey, and Marilois became organist and piano returning home because of a family illness. He instructor at the Lawrenceville School (1967–92).
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papers for classes at Following Frank’s death in 1992, she moved to wife, Elizabeth Rohr Cole, to whom he was marReed! Robert earned a Houston, where she worked with the Houston ried for 62 years; two sons; three grandchildren; BA from Reed and an Ballet Academy, and as organist at Grace Unit- and two great-grandchildren. MA from Yale in mathed Methodist Church. Survivors include a son ematics. He went to and daughter, seven grandchildren, and three Jean Yount Smithson Heintz ’47 work at the Naval Ordgreat-grandchildren. We thank Marilois’ son-in- October 17, 2009, in Portland. nance Test Station in law, Norman Fischer, for supplying the details for Jean earned a BA at Reed China Lake, California, this in memoriam. in psychology and sociand wrote his first line of ology during an era at computer code in 1953 the college that welMary Jane Christgau Sills ’43 January 16, in Portland. for the IBM 70. His comcomed returning veterputer work led to a varians—both new and forMary Jane began her undergraduate studies at mer students. Jean said ety of positions at Stanford, the Northrop CorpoReed. In 1954, she moved to Washington, D.C., that their presence com- ration, Raytheon Computer, and Scientific Data and worked as an aide to Senator Richard Neupletely altered campus Systems. He set up the first computing centers at berger, and later to Senator Maurine Neuberger. at m o s p h e re . “ T h e y UC Irvine and at Victoria University in WellingIn 1969, she married Harold Sills; they lived in brought a larger perspec- ton, New Zealand. In 1978 he invented mNemoOakland, California, and enjoyed traveling and tive on history, and their Dex, or “memory index,” an information retrieval visiting their four grandchildren. Her husband experiences made their comments in class so system that garnered a great deal of positive press. died in 1993. valuable!” One veteran was Charles H. Heintz ’49, But his most notable invention came years later, whom she married. Jean taught social studies, after a frustrating encounter with a stubborn Marcia Swire Weinsoft ’43 July 2, 2009, in Portland. history, and psychology in Portland high schools shut-off valve that was hard to reach with a pipe Marcia spent a year at Reed before she married for 30 years. “Looking back, I realize I learned a wrench. Robert built a homemade tool to solve Jack W. Weinsoft, a wholesale merchant of small lot about teaching just by being a student at Reed. the problem. Marveling at the effectiveness of his household appliances, in 1941. She was secre- Dorothy Johansen’s humanities seminar was my plywood prototype, a plumber encouraged him tary to chemistry professor A.A. Knowlton in his intellectual awakening.” Jean also volunteered to sell it. Robert’s device—known as the Gordon capacity as director of premeteorology training at with the Parry Center for Children and the Cub Wrench (catchphrase: “Don’t stay home without Reed in 1943–44. She also was a secretary at Kel- Scouts, traveled, practiced Tai Chi, and swam. Sur- it!”)—has since been a boon to weekend plumbwin Distributing Company and at Lewis & Clark vivors include two sons and three grandchildren. ers everywhere. “Although more than 25 years have elapsed since I left Reed College,” he wrote College. Following her husband’s death in 1984, Charles Heintz died in 1995. in 1975, “the college has never left me. Never, she returned to Reed and audited classes. Survifor a minute, have I doubted the profound effect vors include two sons; her daughter died in 1994. Katherine Emilie Ware on me of my whole experience at Reed.” Robert’s Ankenbrandt ’48 January 17, 2006, in Oak Park, Michigan. brother, Edward M. Gordon ’48, also attended Philip Blank ’44 May 8, 2009, in Portland. Katherine earned a BA from Reed in literature Reed. Betty died in 2007. Survivors include two Philip spent one year at Reed. In 1946, he opened and an MA from UC Berkeley in English. She was daughters and a son. Ace Radio, TV and Appliance in downtown Port- a professor in humanities at Oakland Community land, where he sold radios and records. Thirty years College in Auburn Heights, Michigan. Nearly 50 Mary Louella Weible later, he opened Blank’s Home Furnishings, adding years after she graduated from Reed, she wrote: Maxwell ’49, mat ’67 furniture to his inventory. Philip is survived by his “I still miss the atmosphere of intellectual excite- September 8, 2009, in ment and social ease.” Katherine had two daugh- Lakewood, Washington. wife, Fay Mills Blank, and three sons. ters and a son. Mary earned a BA from Reed in chemistry and Joseph Henry Bruemmer amp ’44 February 20, 2008, in Tampa, Florida. married fellow Reedite Louis Harold Fulkerson ’48 Robert M. Maxwell ’50. Joseph studied at Reed in the premeteorolo- February 22, 2005, In order to be with him gy program. For his service with the U.S. Army in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. during his service in the during World War II, he received a Purple Heart Louis earned a BA from Reed in mathematics and Korean War, she traveled and two Bronze Stars. He completed a doctorate a master’s degree from Columbia University. In to Japan on a ship from the University of Missouri and was direc- 1959, he married Lettice Sterling; they had two bound for Yokohama. tor of research for the U.S. Department of Agri- sons. Louis worked for IBM research and for the Mary’s passion for mathculture. He moved to Tampa from Buffalo, New electrical engineering department at the Univerematics, which Robert York, in 1966. Survivors include his wife, Nancy; sity of Ilorin, Nigeria; was a lecturer at the Instisupported, was exemplihis daughter and son; and his sister and brother. tute of Computer Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria; and was vice president of the Nigerian fied in her career as a high school teacher. In pursuit of that goal, she earned a BA in general eduStatistical Association. Melrose R. Cole amp ’44 November 10, 2009, cation from Ohio State University, a BS in mathin Danvers, Massachusetts. ematics from Pacific Lutheran University, and an Robert Melvin Gordon ’49 MAT from Reed in education. She taught mathMel came to Reed in the premeteorology program, September 25, 2009, ematics in the Clover Park School District in Lakeand, during World War II, served as a weather- in Cottage Grove, Oregon. man with the U.S. Air Force in China, Burma, and Robert and Elizabeth R. Browne ’50 met in wood, Washington. Colleagues at Pacific LutherIndia. He earned a degree in electrical engineer- 1939 in Los Angeles and both served in the mil- an greatly prized her mathematical prowess, and ing at Wayne State University, and founded Prod- itary during World War II. They married in 1947 hoped she would become an instructor at the uniucts for Research in Danvers. He enjoyed operat- and enjoyed a honeymoon at the Oregon Coast versity level. Robert says that Mary was devoted ing a ham radio and sailing. Survivors include his over spring break—despite pressure to complete to her high school students, and so thorough in June 2010 Reed magazine 61
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In Memoriam continued her teaching that she regularly stayed up past midnight to correct papers and provide students with constructive comments. Further, he marveled at her determination and attention to detail, and noted that she was a caring and loving individual, who was always learning. In addition to Robert, survivors include their daughter and son.
Edwin Max Jacobs ’50
Fred Mayer Rosenbaum ’50
emeritus trustee January 12, in Portland, from kidney cancer.
Youth; and national commissioner of the AntiDefamation League. The Anti-Defamation League presented him with their Humanitarian Award in 1964. He also received the B’nai B’rith Akiba Award; the Human Relations Award from the City of Portland; the Equal Opportunity in the Area of Housing Award from the Urban League; the Human Relations Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews; the Foster-Scholz Distinguished Service Award; and the Republic of Austria’s Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver. “He saw things that never were and said, ‘Why not?’” Jane Rosenbaum said. Son Mark said: “All of his work stemmed from an extreme appreciation for the freedom and opportunity presented by this country and his understanding of what it was like to be discriminated against based on religion and the impact of economic deprivation.” Raymond Rees, Adjutant General of the Oregon National Guard, stated: “Generations of the Oregon Guard can point to his leadership as key to our great success in all areas of fair and equitable treatment of all soldiers and airmen and our remarkable efforts to be of service to our communities.” The Fred Rosenbaum Hangar at the Portland Air Base was established to welcome soldiers returning home from Iraq. Survivors include Jane, and his children and grandchildren.
October 17, 2009, at home in San Francisco, California. Edwin served in the U.S. Army in Europe and the Philippines before coming to Reed and earning a BA in biology, an experience he would later recall as “incomparable” and “one of the best” in his life. He earned an MD from Cornell University Medical School in 1954 and specialized in oncol- Civic leader, philanthropist, and lifelong champiogy at Bellevue Medical Hospital and Sloan-Ket- on of the poor and disenfranchised, Fred was born tering Cancer Center. In 1960, he became head of in Vienna in 1926. At the outset of the Holocaust, clinical cancer research at the UC San Francisco he escaped advancing Nazi soldiers by climbing Cancer Research Institute. Later he became asso- out of a schoolhouse window, and left Austria on ciate chief of the clinical investigation branch of a Kindertransport. He lived in England for almost Arno Gerhard Preller ’51 the National Cancer Institute, clinical professor of two years before being reunited with his parents. December 24, 2009, medical oncology at UCSF, and a fellow of the His childhood experiences set Fred on a lifelong in Vancouver, Washington. American College of Physicians. One of the nation’s path to community service. In 1941, Fred and his Arno came to the U.S. from Germany and earned leading chemotherapists, he took an innovative family arrived in the United States. Fred enrolled a BA from Reed in political science. Reed was the approach to cancer therapy, utilizing a variety of at Reed, but enlisted in the U.S. Army when he place where he learned critical thinking skills, he drug programs and providing patients with hope. turned 18, hoping to fight in Germany (he was said, but also was where he savored the experiHe recognized the prejudice and fear prevalent in ultimately sent to the Pacific Theatre). After the ences of long discussions in the coffee shop, sitcancer treatment at the time. “I felt an honest and war, he returned to Reed for an additional three ting under a tree, “trying to make sense of things,” open approach with patients, putting forth our years. At that time, he also joined the Oregon Air and trying to stay awake in the library. In 1967, best efforts, was justified.” In 1990, he married National Guard, eventually rising to the position he earned a PhD in German and linguistics from musician and singer Shari Levinger Jacobs. Togeth- of Brigadier General and serving as Assistant Adju- the University of Colorado–Denver. He was proer they attended opera, symphony, and ballet, col- tant General for the State of Oregon. Fred stud- fessor and chairman of the foreign languages lected historical recordings, and enjoyed time with ied at Northwestern School of Law in the 1950s, department at Colorado State University, where grandchildren. Survivors include his wife, three and in 1955, he married Jane Schlesinger, a Holo- he was recognized with a distinguished service stepsons, two grandchildren, and his brother. caust survivor from Berlin; they raised a son and award and the Durrell Award for Creativity in Edwin’s mother, Flora Sommer Jacobs ’16, also daughter. Later he founded a life insurance bro- Teaching. In the early 1980s, he became a Chrisgraduated from Reed. kerage, now Rosenbaum Financial, and served as tian Science practitioner, teacher, and lecturer. chairman for the Housing Authority of Portland. Arno was married to Paula Page; they had three In 1968, Fred came up with an idea to run a sum- sons and a daughter. Gerald Vern Kehrli ’50 December 26, 2009, in Roseburg, mer camp for children from the projects at Camp Oregon, of age-related causes. Rilea, a national guard facility on the Oregon Coast. Lindsay Dune Warren ’51 Gerald grew up in Portland, and was with the From a humble start (the first summer’s budget January 14, in Portland. U.S. Air Force as a B-29 navigator during World totaled $750, a couple of footballs and some Fris- Lindsay received a BA from Reed in general litWar II. He spent two years at Reed, with a bees) the camp blossomed and to date has served erature. He earned a BD from Bexley Hall Semfocus on political science, before returning to more than 6,500 disadvantaged children. inary in Ohio, and was ordained an Episcopal Fred’s associations, achievements, and awards, priest in 1955. While working as an assistant at the Air Force to become a meteorologist and pilot. He married Julie R. Johnson, an army here much abbreviated, include service on the St. John Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, New Jernurse from Minnesota, in 1949. Gerald had a Reed board of trustees (1984–96), the Hous- sey, he met author Mary A. Phraner; they mar30-year career with the air force before mov- ing Authority of Portland, the Chamber of Com- ried in 1956. Lindsay worked in Montana before ing to Roseville, California. In 1990, Gerald and merce, the University Club, and the City Club. moving to a parish in Salem, Oregon. In 1966, Julie moved to Roseburg to be closer to fam- Fred was director of the Urban League of Port- he accepted a position as chaplain and director ily. Survivors include his wife, three children, land; president of the Oregon Museum of Science of religious education at Good Samaritan Hospifour grandchildren, and his brother. His uncle, and Industry; trustee of Congregation Neveh Sha- tal in Portland. He was a pianist, poet, and artist. lom; member of the Governor’s Committee on Survivors include his wife and children. Herman Kehrli ’23, graduated from Reed. 62 Reed magazine June 2010
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Daniel Howard Fletcher ’52
September 23, 2008, in Pleasant Hill, California. Daniel studied mathematics at Reed for two years before transferring to UC Berkeley. Later he worked as a hospital administrator, and did systems research and consulting for medical care delivery systems. He was also a consultant for medical database design. In 1945, he married Eleanor MacMickle ’44; they had two sons and one daughter. In retirement, Daniel managed the couple’s rental properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Eleanor died in 1997.
Richard Gene Long ’52
December 21, 2009, at the Hospice of the Valley in Peoria, Arizona, following a lengthy illness.
Richard earned a BA from Reed and a PhD from the University of Washington in mathematics. He and Shirley Sawtell ’53 were married in 1953. Richard’s first appointment was at Wesleyan University in Connecticut in 1957. Fo r fo u r ye a r s , h e worked in educational filmmaking for the Math Association of America. In 1969, he joined the mathematics department at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. He served as chair of the department for many years, developed “math anxiety” workshops on campus and in the wider community, and also helped found Lawrence’s computer science program. He retired in 1993. Richard’s marriage to Gretchen Lutey began in 1981. They spent summers in Michigan and winters in Arizona. In retirement, Richard devoted time to a variety of interests, including gem-cutting, pottery, genealogy, golf, bow-hunting, and woodworking. From public obituaries, we learned that Richard was known for his extraordinary ability to connect with diverse personalities and nontraditional learners. He was an unassuming, gentle, and generous man, and a lifelong learner. Survivors include his wife; two sons and two daughters; seven grandchildren; and two brothers.
Mary Betty Hurd Savela ’53
Martin Edward Fishbein ’57
December 14, 2008, in Kent, Washington. November 27, 2009, from a heart Mary earned a BA from attack, while traveling in London. Reed in general literature. She was married to Milo L. Savela for 25 years; they had one son. In 1977, she completed a BA in environmental science and urban planning at the University of Washington. Two years later, she earned an MA in public administration from Seattle University and entered a career as an urban planner for the City of Renton.
Garrett M. Flint ’54
August 25, 2009, in Honolulu, A prominent expert on attitude and behavioral Hawaii, from pancreatic cancer. change, Marty received a BA from Reed in psyGary received his BA from Reed in gener- chology and economics and a PhD from UCLA in al literature. He is survived by Ayame Ogimi social psychology. He married Deborah K. Alpert Flint ’54, Myles Flint ’58, Connie Flint in 1959 and began his teaching career at the UniRansom ’59, Gavin Flint ’83, Cameron Flint ’86, versity of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign in 1961. Marty’s research interests included attitude, perand Galen Flint ’87. suasion, behavioral prediction, and the effectiveness of behavior change interventions. He wrote Kaoru Carlos Ogimi ’54 September 18, 2009, in Ninomiya, Theory of Reasoned Action and Integrative Model Japan, from pneumonia. of Behavioral Prediction and Change, and his ideas Carlos received his BA from Reed in philosophy. were enormously influential in the fields of comHe is survived by his wife, son, and grandson, and munication, public health, advertising, and psychology. At various times, he was a visiting sciby his sister, Ayame Ogimi Flint ’54. entist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, professor and director of the health comJames Magruder Braun ’55 August 24, 2009, in Portland, munication program at the Annenberg School for from a cerebral hemorrhage, Communication at the University of Pennsylvathe result of an accident. nia, and president of the Society for Consumer Jim studied philosophy at Reed for four years Psychology and the Interamerican Psychological and earned a degree in mathematics from Port- Society; and he received many awards, including a land State University in 1980. He worked as a Guggenheim Fellowship and the American Public computer programmer for the city of Portland Health Association’s Mayhew Derryberry Award and for Multnomah County. Public remembranc- for outstanding contributions to health educaes focused on his insatiable curiosity, his inquir- tion. Marty also served on numerous boards for ing mind, and his love of music. He was a gifted the National Institute of Mental Health. Survipianist, and his record collection was described vors include his wife. as one of the largest, most eclectic on earth. Jim performed as a tenor with the Portland Symphon- Clyde C. Lamb ’61 ic Choir in the 1960s. From the early 1990s to the October 5, 2009, at home in end of his life, he volunteered for KBOO radio in Vancouver, Washington. Portland as engineer, producer, and on-air host Clyde served in the U.S. Army as a radio operafor everything from world beat music to classical tor at Eniwetok Atoll in the Western Pacific durand jazz. He coproduced a monthly Indian music ing the atmospheric tests of the hydrogen bomb. Eva Stern Silver ’52 April 18, 2009, show, Mandala, for over 10 years. Those remember- He attended Reed and the University of Oregon, in Los Angeles, California. ing Jim identified him as a scholar; a gentle, kind and worked at several Portland investment firms Eva attended Reed for two years, later earn- soul; and a true humanist. Survivors include his before starting his own firm, Lamb Brothers. Survivors include two sisters and four brothers. ing a BA from UC Berkeley and an MA from nieces and nephews. Pepperdine University. She was self-employed as a psychotherapist working with families. Louis F. Glatch Jr. ’56 Marjorie Roston Ireland ’62 September 11, 2009, Eva was married to Gerald Silver, who died in December 1, 2008, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 2003. They had a son, two daughters, and four in Corona del Mar, California. grandchildren. Louis received a BA from Reed in biology, and an After attending Reed for three years, she transMD from George Washington University. He was a ferred to the University of Minnesota, where she psychiatrist, and had two daughters and a son. His earned a BA in sociology. In 1994, she received cousin Adele Debeltz Daily ’60 also attended Reed. a PhD from the university in biostatistics. She June 2010 Reed magazine 63
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In Memoriam continued
Marjorie Ireland ’62
was a research analyst for the university’s school of public health and for the State of Minnesota. Marjorie was passionate about bicycling: she was a national champion racer in her 40s, and a dedicated commuter, who rode to work—weather permitting—and even to chemotherapy treatments. She volunteered with the Minnesota Coalition of Bicyclists and the U.S. Cycling Federation. During Renn Fayre 2007, she returned to Reed with roommates Kelly Pomeroy ’61 and Carol Petterson Hurwitz ’62. They brought a substitute for the Westport Cupids and its story, described in their delightful booklet The Woodstock Tales: À la Recherche de Choses Perdues (www. westportcupids.net/). Marjorie lived with ovarian cancer for nearly nine years. The online guestbook site dedicated to Marjorie, to which Don Enderton ’63 directed us, includes many exclamations about Marjorie’s vital and joyful presence. She was an intelligent, resourceful, and loving individual. Kelly wrote: “Marjorie was exposed to many influences as she grew to adulthood, but it was the rational and humanitarian ones that resonated with her, and that she chose to shape her life. I’m not sure where she got her sense of humor.” From Carol: “She was fun, full of interesting ideas, and artistically creative. Our friendship grew and grew in the years after our children were grown. My confidant and support, even when she herself was sick, will be missed, but the fun and shared love of learning will remain with me forever.” We learned from daughter Michele Ireland that Marjorie loved the outdoors and enjoyed teaching her children and grandchildren the names of plants and trees. Michele also shared a link, www. parknicollet.com/cancer/, which features Marjorie at the Frauenschuh Cancer Center of Park Nicollet, talking about living with a cancer diagnosis. Marjorie’s survivors include her two daughters; three grandchildren; two sisters, including Carol Roston Wyszomirski ’63; and two brothers. The Marjorie Ireland Research Scholarship at the University of Minnesota will be given each year to a fellow in the division of adolescent health and medicine.
Monica Moseley ’64
Sarah Jenkins ’66
January 6, in New York. September 19, 2009, in Madison, Monica earned a BA in art and literature from Wisconsin, from complications Reed. Drawn to structure, she initially consid- related to Alzheimer’s disease. ered a career in architecture or law, but classes in literature, humanities, and art—with Lloyd Reynolds—altered her course. Lloyd supervised her thesis, Two Poems of the Air, composed of words by Reed poet-in-residence James Dickey and calligraphy by Monica. After graduation, she went to New York, working in the editorial departments of Mademoiselle and Dance Magazine. For several years, she worked on museum and trade color printing. “As lavishly surrounded by dance in New York, as I had been by books at Reed, I began again to study dance technique, and finally to perform.” She performed professionally for 10 years with Meredith Monk/The House. She trained in modern dance at the New Dance Group Studio, the Alvin Ailey Studio, and the Merce Cunningham Studio, and studied with Robert Joffrey’s American Ballet Center. In 1973, she created a mixed media work, Sally earned a BA from Reed in physics and an “Kelso, Washington,” which combined a Japa- MS in biophysics and physical chemistry from nese fable presented in calligraphy and a per- the University of Pennsylvania. She also did formance of theatre and dance. She also found- graduate work in journalism at the Universied Moseley and McLaren booksellers in Delhi, ty of Wisconsin. For 25 years, she worked for New York, in 1977. (“Never having achieved the Wisconsin Public Service Commission on one clear vision of vocation, I alternate between a broad range of energy-related issues. Sally dancing and books.”) Monica later earned an was a life member of the Sierra Club, and supMS in library science from Columbia Univer- ported the American Red Cross and the Nature sity and was assistant curator of the Jerome Conservancy. She enjoyed long walks with her Robbins Dance Division for the New York Pub- dogs, gardening, bird watching, and nature lic Library for the Performing Arts for over 20 photography. Survivors include her brother years. “Reed left me with a deep impression of and extended family. the importance of primary sources—the understanding that in any kind of research you must Patricia Svoboda Ruiz ’66, go to great lengths to look at the original and April 12, 2003. to understand it.” In retirement she worked on Patricia earned her BA from Reed in political scia number of dance projects that included the ence and a master’s degree from the University of 2006 documentary Lucinda Childs. Colleagues Washington in library science. She lived in Colostated: “She was a beloved and valued mem- rado Springs, Colorado, where she was employed ber of the dance division, who would generous- as a holistic health practitioner. She had one son ly share her great knowledge and insight about dance and dance archives with staff members (James) Michael Joyce ’67 November 3, 2009, in New York City, and the public. She is greatly missed.” from acute myelogenous leukemia. Joshua B. Diamond ’65 The son of a Broadway stage actor, Mike entered July 11, 2009, in Albany, New York. Reed intending to major in theatre but was Joshua attended Reed and UC Berkeley, and drawn instead to literature. At Reed, he met earned a PhD in physics from the University Hetty Y. Eisen ’67; they married and continued of Pennsylvania. He taught physics for nearly their studies at UC Berkeley, where Mike stud30 years, completing his career as an associate ied comparative literature. Mike served in the professor at Siena College. His colleagues estab- U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, studying Cantonese lished the Joshua B. Diamond Scholarship in his at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, honor, to be awarded annually to an outstand- California, and later earned an MBA at the Haring senior physics major. Joshua was an active vard Business School that led to a career in real member of Congregation Agudat Achim, Niska- estate finance, including positions with Citibank, yuna, serving on its school board and singing in Trammell Crowe, and UGL-Equis. Sister-in-law its choral group, Hava Nashira. Survivors include Isabel Eisen ’72, who wrote to the college about his wife of 40 “joyful” years, Celia; two sons; five Mike, stated: “He always talked about his Reed days fondly; was a real Reedie in heart and mind, grandchildren; and his sister and brother. as seen by his love of books, inquiry, history, literature, and rational debate, as well as business.”
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likely a ‘Judist!’” Many years later, he was quoted PhD from UC Berkeley in immunology. He was as saying: “It’s the work of a lifetime to be a faith- the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship in Lonful adherent of one tradition, much less to try to don and a number of scholarship and teachbelong to every tradition. But if you belong to ing awards at UC Berkeley. Stephen was owner one tradition and are thoroughly grounded there, of the www.grouppekurosawa.com website for there’s no reason why one cannot establish friend- the discussion of alternative and natural mediships that can cross any and every tradition.” Sur- cine and the author of the book If You Can Cook vivors include two sisters. . . . . He also served in the U.S. Navy. Survivors include his sister and nieces and nephews.
Phyllis Klein Miller mat ’67
The family asks that donations in Mike’s memory be made to the Hauser Memorial Library at Reed. Besides Hetty, Mike is survived by their children, Mary and Michael, and his brother John.
Mark G. Loeb ’67
October 7, 2009, in Milan, Italy. Mark earned his BA from Reed in general literature, and began rabbinic studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. In 1975, he received rabbinic ordination at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. He joined the Beth El Congregation in Pikesville, Maryland, as assistant rabbi in 1976, and was appointed senior rabbi four years later, a position he held until retirement in 2008. After his death, many people praised his powerful and wide-ranging intellect, his scholarship, and his efforts to promote learning as an important key to a meaningful life. Friends remembered his love of culture, travel, and food, and his immersion in current events. In 2001, Benjamin Cardin of the Maryland House of Representatives honored Mark’s work at Beth El Congregation, and also spoke of his work nationally: “He has championed any number of social and interfaith causes to improve the common good of people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds.” Mark was national president of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger. He chaired the board of Baltimore Hebrew University and promoted interfaith dialogue as a cofounder of the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies. Maryland governor Martin O’Malley said that Mark lived “the timeless Talmudic notion that ‘the highest form of wisdom is kindness,’ always standing up for our most vulnerable citizens, always fighting for social justice, always pursuing Tikkun Olam, repair of the world.” Fresh out of Reed, Mark said: “In reality, I am probably a Jew by inclination and a Buddhist by Lloyd [Reynolds]. As someone said recently, I am
January 5, in Bend, Oregon, where Michael Anthony Zerwas ’75 she had lived for over 30 years. January, in his backyard in Phyll received her bachelor’s degree from the Uni- Portland, from hypothermia. versity of Washington. After earning a master’s The circumstances of his death were as mysterious degree from Reed, she taught biology at Portland as they were tragic. His body was discovered in a State University, and then became director of stu- pit, which was filled with water, and a pair of green dent nurses activities at Good Samaritan Hospi- gardening shoes were found nearby. Detectives tal School of Nursing in Portland. She married concluded that the pit, which was five feet wide James B. Miller in 1973. Survivors include her and 35 feet deep, may have been an old cistern that husband, a son, three granddaughters, and two had been covered and forgotten over time. The cisgreat-grandchildren. tern’s covering of board and dirt collapsed under Mike, and created an inescapable pit. Mike earned a BA from Reed in anthropology and worked as an Molly Este Koch Nudell ’69 February 6, 2007, at her home in Halifax, investigator for the Metropolitan Public Defender Nova Scotia, from lung cancer. in Portland for 20 years. According to his website, Molly received a BA from Reed in general liter- Gumshoe (www.mz-pi.com), he had been a private ature. She was an early student and friend of investigator since 2005. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche—Tibetan Buddhist meditation master, artist, and poet—and Donald Wayne Breer ’77 was considered one of the principal holders of December 27, 2009, his visual dharma teachings. In January 2007, in San Francisco, California. Molly completed A Dharma Art Workbook, which Don received a BA from Reed in religion, and is available through the Halifax Shambhala web- was an early member of the Reed Gay Students’ site (halifax.shambhala.org). A radio interview Union. Says friend Katie Bretsch ’74, who providof Molly may he heard online at www.chroni- ed details for this in memoriam: “As a San Franciscleproject.com. Survivors include her husband, can, he was present at a number of historic events David; her daughter; and her brother. We thank of his time, including Harvey Milk’s ‘here to recruit Laura Fisher ’68 for providing details for this you’ speech and the Berkeley Peoples’ Park occuin memoriam. pation. He was very proud to have been present for that speech.” Don worked for the State Bar of California and served on the board of directors for Robert P. Kubale mals ’71 November 1, 2009, Western Star Dancers. in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Bob received a bachelor’s degree in education Deborah A. Lithgow ’77 from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh, and April 21, 2006, in Denver, Colorado. served with the U.S. Army in Alaska during the Deborah earned a BA from Reed in biology. Korean War. In 1961, he married Frances Birrin- Records show that she worked for Charles Schwab ger; they had two daughters. At Reed, his studies in San Francisco. Survivors include her parents focused on mathematics, and he approached his and extended family members. teaching of middle and high school students in Green Bay with skill and compassion. In retire- Andrew O’Brien Linehan ’78 ment, Bob volunteered as a tutor at many area January 8, in Portland, from schools and also served as a volunteer at Bell- metastatic melanoma. in Hospital. He was a member of St. Mary of the Andy was born in Paris and spent his childhood in Angels Parish for 45 years, where he was an altar Canada, Australia, Africa, and Washington, D.C., server, greeter, and member of the Men’s Club. as the son of a U.S. diplomat. He earned his BA Survivors include his wife and daughters, four from Reed in international studies, graduating grandchildren, two brothers, and three sisters. Phi Beta Kappa. Following that, he worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution. He joined the Peace Stephen Robert Martin ’75 August 2, 2009, in Santa Rosa, Corps for a tour in Mauritania. On a fellowship, California, following a brief illness. Andy studied at the Woodrow Wilson School at Stephen earned a BA from Reed in psycholo- Princeton University, and graduated with a masgy, a BS from UC Santa Cruz in biology, and a ter’s degree in public policy. He worked for the June 2010 Reed magazine 65
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In Memoriam continued
Jessica Finlay ’09 solves a physics problem on the blackboard.
Andrew Linehan ’78, described by colleague Peter Mostow ’87 as “a classic product of the conference system.”
life; she was definitely in the driver’s seat.” Tim Lehnen ’08, who had known Jess since they were in elementary school together, described her as brilliant, beautiful, and contrary. “I don’t think she ever held an unconsidered opinion. She examined every belief she was confronted with, every article of common sense that we take for granted. She did not see the world the same way we do. What we took as self-evident was not self-evident to her. She would argue for and against any position, on any issue—until she was sure a position was sound—with fire in her eyes and a grin on her face. I have met no one else who could really do that. We will always love her, and always miss her.” Memorial gatherings took place in California and in the Eliot Hall chapel in February. We thank Tim and Allie for sharing their memories of Jess as well as details about her life. Survivors include her parents, and her brother and sister.
Bonneville Power Administration, the engineer- independent films, TV pitches, and home movies, ing firm CH2MHill, and PPM Energy, a wind-ener- and shared in the joy of their successes.” Former gy development firm based in Portland. In 2007, housemate Phil Jenks ’90 described living with he was appointed to the federal advisory commit- Geno when Phil experienced his first grand-mal tee for wind power of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife seizure: “I came back to consciousness in my bedService. Andy was committed to community ser- room, terrified—I didn’t know what was going on. vice. He was president of the City Club of Portland, I remember Geno made me feel instantly at ease and was appointed by the Portland City Coun- explaining the situation. He was the one who cil to the Citizen Campaign Commission, where heard me and called the ambulance. He was all he helped to develop and modify Portland’s pub- heart.” Geno was caring toward animals, and trealicly financed election campaigns. He also was a sured his rescue dog Maggie. In 2008, he and his Samuel Ira Tepper ’10 founding board member of the American Wind partner, Rachel Litchfield, purchased Cafe Dana March 23, in Portland. and Wildlife Institute. Colleagues praised him for in Santa Monica. Survivors include Rachel; and Sam died of a heroin overdose in his off-campus his professional ethic, reflected in his concern for his mother, sister, and grandfather. apartment, according to the Multnomah Counthe environment and wildlife, and for his leaderty medical examiner. He was 22 years old and ship and teaching in the art of negotiation. He and Jessica Finlay ’09 just beginning work on his senior thesis, a physhis partner of 20 years, Carl Snook, enjoyed the January 22, in California. ics experiment investigating the energy level of landscapes and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest, Jess never revived from a coma she sank into after laser light refracted through a prism. the arts, and travel abroad. Toward the end of his being struck by a car on SE Foster Road in PortSam hailed from New York City and demonlife, Andy established the Andrew Linehan Schol- land on November 1, 2009, crossing the street strated early talent in mental calculation and fasarship. (See Eliot Circular.) Survivors include Carl, with roommate and friend Lindsay Leonard ’08, cination in how things work; at the age of two, he and Andy’s mother, brother, and sister. His cous- who died at the scene. Jess began her educa- correctly selected a Phillips screwdriver to change in Alison Publicover Martinez ’67 attended Reed; tion at Reed intending to major in physics, and the batteries in a favorite toy. In pre-kindergarten, his niece Ruth Linehan ’11 is currently a student. lived in the Mad Science dorm. She was involved he helped his older sister with her math homewith the campus Japanese Sword group, earned work. In fifth grade, his chess team won a city a black belt in Battojutsu, and also performed tournament; shortly thereafter, he began conEugene Walter Foster ’93 November 2, 2009, Krav Maga and capoeira. After her sophomore structing homemade computers from individual in Santa Monica, California. year, she took a leave of absence from the col- components. Sam was an accomplished bass playGeno earned a BA from Reed in art. In addition to lege in order to sort out her academic goals, and er who performed in several bands at Stuyvesant his flair for visual art, he also had an ear for music, was considering a major in religion or economics. High School, and later in the Reed Jazz Ensemble; conducting basement jam sessions, playing banjo At the time of the accident, she was volunteering he once transcribed a Bach concerto for the bass. and guitar, and creating complex electronic music at a local Portland women’s bookstore, In Other He was also active in his synagogue and served tracks and sound design. Geno’s interest in film Words. Friend Allie MacKay ’09, who met Jess as president of the youth group. At a memorial held in the student union, and television took root with Super 8 movies in at Woodside Priory School in California, shared childhood and later resurfaced in his jobs with the this observation: “She didn’t let anything stand friends remembered him as a quintessential New Will Vinton Studio and the Game Show Network. between her and happiness. She not only enthusi- Yorker with a warm heart and a wry sense of In his public obituary, we read: “He was always astically went after things she loved, but she also humor. “Sam was the first friend I made at Reed,” there to help a friend in the film and television found ways to be happy with the things she didn’t said chemistry major Stephanie Dillon ’10. “I industry, working late nights and weekends on have any choice about. She didn’t coast through was sitting by myself thinking ‘Okay, it’s been 66 Reed magazine June 2010
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photo by orin zyvan
Sam Tepper ’10 with his sister, Naomi.
Jessica Ettenger ’11 prepares herself for stage role in 2007.
Staff, faculty, and friends
Joan Hoiness White
director of campus events, December 6, 2009, in Portland. Joan’s career at Reed spanned almost 30 years. First hired as a secretary at the college in 1961, Joan accepted the position of campus events director three years later. She drew on her talents, ingenuity, and creativity to fulfill many roles surrounding an ever-growing number of events on campus and at the president’s home in Eastmoreland, including commencement, lectures, concerts, and receptions. She managed all aspects of audiovisual equipment, learned calligraphy for campus signage, catered meals, and created beautiful floral arrangements. Over many years she employed hundreds of Reed students and instilled a work ethic and attention to detail. Joan was a Master Gardener who always enjoyed talking about plants with others. During R e u n i o n s 2 0 0 9 , To m B l e n k o ’ 7 9 , Jim Coddington ’74, Jan Liss ’74, and Becky Rach ’79 met with Joan at her home. Later, Tom and Becky drove Joan to Reed. She had not been on campus for more than 20 years and was apprehensive about going. Tom said that Joan enjoyed herself greatly, “both recalling memories and taking a keen interest in the many changes that were visible throughout the campus.” In February, Reed president emeritus Paul Bragdon and his wife, Nancy, held a small gathering in honor of Joan at their home. Guest included faculty members Leila Falk and Ottomar Rudolf; staff members Lois Hobbs, Beverly Curtis, Nicky Larson, Debbie Martson, and Ineke Steele; and alumni Jim Coddington ’74, Jan Liss ’74, and Monique Siu ’74, who had worked for Joan at Reed. The group shared warm and humorous memories of a multitalented woman who will be remembered by generations of community members as a Reed treasure. Survivors include her daughter and two sons, two grandchildren, and a brother.
six hours, I need to talk to someone,’ when this departments don’t defend impervious boundarguy sat down and started talking about comput- ies, and that small colleges are much more colleers and physics and really made me feel comfort- gial and interdisciplinary in such matters. At the time, she seemed happy and interactive, and it able. That’s just how Sam was.” “He had a hard shell,” said math major saddens me that her closure with my own departAndy Malkin ’11. “But beneath it, he was a really ment would coincidentally foreshadow a greater closure . . . special guy and we loved him dearly.” “Let me close with quoting from one of those let“Dear Sam,” one well-wisher wrote at the memorial. “You were such a special, kind, intelli- ters of recommendation that I had written for her: gent young man. You mean so much to so many ‘I am currently teaching Jessica in a heavy reading people. We will never be the same without, but course (averaging at least 80 pages a day with weekly writing assignments in addition to formal papers when I think of you, it will be fondly.” In addition to his parents, Alan and Barbara and group projects) entitled “Religion and philosoTepper, Sam is survived by his his sister, Naomi, phy in pre-imperial China,” and while her particular class is overall extremely good, there is no doubt and his grandparents. she is among the best. She is extremely interactive in an informed manner, always prepared and with Jessica Eve Ettenger ’11 March 13, at Reed. thoughtful opinions about the materials. Yet she Jessica was found dead in her dorm room in Brag- is deferential to her colleagues and will ask about don Hall over spring break. She was 20 years their own insights. Jessica is definitely an asset to old and had recently declared her major in phi- our daily discussions and is a student I would be losophy. While the nature of her death remains happy to teach in subsequent courses.’ “There will of course no longer be any subseunclear, local authorities have ruled out foul play, illegal drugs, and alcohol. In deference to the quent courses, and she will be sincerely missed.” Spanish professor Diego Alonso wrote: “I wish wishes of her family, Dean of Students Mike Brody asked the community to refrain from spec- I could be with you on this day to try to bring you ulation as to the remaining possibilities, and to some comfort, talking with you about the great attempt to “make some semblance of peace with respect and affection I have for Jessica. I was her Spanish professor during her first year at Reed the unknowable.” Hailing from Santa Monica, Jessica arrived and from the first weeks of class, I discovered that at Reed in 2007 and cut a distinctive figure on she was a young woman with very special human campus with her engaging personality and styl- qualities. A person of deep intelligence and kindness. And while this may not be of real solace at ish outfits. In a letter to her parents, religion professor this moment, I want especially to tell her parents Ken Brashier wrote: “I was Jessica’s academic that they can be truly proud of having brought adviser for several years, and I had also served as up this beautiful person whom we will always her teacher in no less than four different class- remember. The news of her decease, which I just es. It’s hard for me to write letters of sympathy received in Buenos Aires, fills me with pain and when normally I’d be writing letters of recom- motivates these brief but heartfelt words.” Outside class, Jessica was passionate about Pending: As Reed went to press, we learned of the deaths mendation for her instead. “I knew Jessica even before she briefly trans- Project Eye-To-Eye, an arts mentoring program of the following individuals; please contact us if you have ferred to Chicago, and as she was always inter- which pairs college students with learning dis- memories of them that you wish to share. active and friendly, I got to know her as well as abilities with middle-schoolers with similar labels. a teacher ever gets to know his students . . . I She also enjoyed performing on stage, and was Helena Gannon Rivoire ’37, Fred Ellis ’38, Bessie Johnson Day last saw Jessica about two weeks ago when she rehearsing a role in a campus production of Anti- ’40, John Emley ’40, Thormund Miller ’41, Jean Lillig Lance dropped by my office to query about ‘change of gone. “Jessica was amazing,” says Fawn Livings- ’42, Elizabeth Rogers Walker ’42, Ann Rogers Stamps ’45, adviser’ forms. Typical of Jessica, she was wor- ton-Gray, director of the campus SEEDS program. Betty Lehmicke Andre ’46, John Siemens ’46, Valerie Strahl ried I’d be upset with her ‘defection,’ as we jok- “Passionate, idealistic, bright-eyed—a real delight Rabe ’48, Bernard Smith ’48, Henry Akiyama ’53, Thomas ingly called it, and wanted to know if she could to be around.” Idinopulos ’57, Louise Johnson Jolly MALS ’68, William Miller She is survived by her parents, Robert Ettenger MAT ’69, Juan Christian ’76, Cait Roguska Riniker ’80, and keep coming by even though she wasn’t in our department anymore. I assured her that Reed and Angela Castellano, and by her sister, Allison. Kirby Haltom ’92.
June 2010 Reed magazine 67
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Apocrypha
t r adi t ion m y t h lege nd
Bouncing off the Walls
This traditional November season-opener for the Reed Griffins goes back to the late 1990s. It serves to break the team in for a spiritually uplifting schedule which includes Mt. Angel Seminary, Multnomah Bible College, and Reed’s perpetual arch-nemesis, Eugene Bible College—a rivalry which survived an infamous mock crucifixion in the mid-nineties (For related lore on mock crucifixions, see Apocrypha, February 2009) But student/faculty games and student/alumni games go back much farther than that. The 1921 Griffin, for example, describes an intramural basketball tournament between teams of freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and distinguished professors—who apparently did not distinguish themselves on the court. “The faculty, after suffering two defeats, were forced to
photograph by leslie zukor
The warning horn sounded, the referees were ready, and it was time for the annual student vs. alumni game. The starting five for the alumni team headed to the court in the Watzek Sports Center stripped to the waist (due to a uniform mix-up, we had the indignity of playing as “skins”). None of us really wanted to be embarrassed by going head-to-head against the lanky springlegged student facing us in the jump ball circle. After some brief finger pointing, Imran Ahmad ’04 resignedly ambled up to perfunctorily lose the jumpball, and the game was underway. The Griffins (that’s the student team for those of you with short memories) scored first, slowing the pace as they tried to employ the offensive strategy instilled by new coach Mario De Ieso. Despite occasional bursts of superior speed and athleticism, their attack suffered from a lack of cohesiveness and apparent first-game jitters. The alumni didn’t do much to take advantage of our opportunities. Missed shots and deflected passes marred the early going, and a marked lack of conditioning made itself readily apparent as we huffed and puffed our way up and down the court. An appalling stretch of missed free throws didn’t help matters. But then a couple of threepointers by Jonathan Donehower ’05 and Colin Daniel ’01 brought us to within one point, 17–16, at halftime.
Back row, left to right: Bruce Talmadge ’88, Mike Rosen ’04, Imran Ahmad ’04, Colin Daniel ’00, Nayram Tay ’09, Chris Hallstrom ’92. Kneeling, left to right: Erik Brakstad ’89, Jonathan Donehower ’04, James Ocran ’09, Nick Silverman ’09.
withdraw from the tournament, and the victories scored over them by the Freshmen and Sophomores were not counted in the final reckoning.” (The Seniors won the final game, “trampling rough shod over the Freshmen aggregation,” 32–25.) When I played for the Griffins in the late eighties, I remember vividly the closing moments of a hard-fought contest against a combined faculty/staff team. Clinging to a one-point lead in the waning moments, my ill-advised outlet pass to a breaking John Holcomb ’92 was stolen by Johnny the security guard , and biology professor David Dalton sank a long, improbable moonshot at the buzzer to beat us by one. A tough loss, no doubt, but I remember marveling that nowhere else could a college basketball team possibly lose to their professors. Now that I play for the alumni, my primary goal for the game against the students is not getting run out of the gym. The Griffins came out of halftime with a vengeance. Matt Edwards’12 and Isaac Eger ’11 flashed along the baseline, working through our zone defense to score lay-ups. The students extended their lead to double digits, and it seemed like the game was going to
turn into another comfortable win for the younger side—as it often does. Then Coach De Ieso went to deep into his bench. Fourteen students suited up in uniform, and they all got a chance to play (eleven scored). And while the starters sat out, the alumni mounted our comeback. Imran Ahmad ’04 went to work, scoring from inside and out. The students fouled, but now the free throws were going in. By the time the starters were sent back in to salvage matters, the tide had turned. A late three-pointer brought the students close, but clutch free throws by the alumni down the stretch provided the winning margin 42—40. As we sauntered to the locker room, exchanging high fives, griping about aching muscles and sore knees, it was tempting to conclude that experience and guile had triumphed over youth and energy. But I’m not so sure. We were lucky that Coach De Ieso didn’t go for the jugular. In fact, I felt lucky just to be able to participate. The Griffins had their whole season—their whole lives, really—in front of them. For the alumni, this was one of our limited opportunities to show that we still had something. Basketball is a game for the young, and time is not on our side. —Erik Brakstad ’89
68 Reed magazine June 2010
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R E U N I O N S 2010 PROVE IT Tuesday, June 1–Sunday, June 6 reunions.reed.edu
See pages 36–37 for a listing of Reunions 2010 highlights!
Return for your class reunion (1935, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010)—but all alumni are welcome! THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS
Think you won’t know anyone else who is attending? You may be surprised! Get a sneak peek at who has confirmed under “Who’s Coming to Reunions” at iris.reed.edu. THE PHENOMENA OF PORTLAND
Enjoy your old stomping grounds in the real or liquid sunshine and celebrate all things Reed with an array of friends, new and old.
A LU M N I CO L L E G E
REGISTER TODAY! reunions.reed.edu alumni@reed.edu 503/777-7589
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S O C I E T Y A N D T E C H N O LO G Y: T H E M O R E T H I N G S C H A N G E , THE MORE THINGS CHANGE?
At Alumni College, June 2–4, we will examine how modern society both drives and is driven by technology. Discussions of Alumni College’s theme will examine the cultural, economic, and legal forces that can be harnessed to manage technology in order to reap its benefits while minimizing or averting its harms. You don’t need to have attended the winter session to enjoy the summer session—learn more and sign up today at reunions.reed.edu/alumni_college.html.
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Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard Portland, Oregon 97202-8199
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Periodicals Postage Paid Portland, Oregon
June 2010
Deconstructing Wikipedia Larry Sanger ’91 helped launch a revolution. Why does he want to start over?
p h o t o b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o
Physics majors Alexa Ross ’12 and Meg Millhouse ’12 root for the departmental softball team in front of Old Dorm Block. Both the opposing team and the final score remain indeterminate.
campus in mourning page 2 REVENGE OF THE CLONES page 22 COMIC ECONOMICS page 53 cover.indd 1
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