Reed College Magazine December 2010

Reed College

3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard Portland, Oregon 97202-8199

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December 2010

Growing the Curriculum

The cross-pollination of Reed’s

new environmental studies major

photo by eric cable

Prakher Bajpai ’14 of Kathmandu hangs the Nepalese flag at a brunch welcoming international students. Prakher is one of 112 international students from 46 countries, and the Nepalese flag is the only national banner that is not rectangular. Can someone furnish a plausible geometric or vexillological name for its unusual shape? Beam thoughts to puzzled@reed.edu.

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MY LIFE AS A MICROBE Page 18 WHO KILLED REED U? Page 32 OBAMA’S GAY MENTOR Page 43 10/29/10 1:23 PM

REED

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—Jamie Loos ’11, American studies major

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The Annual Fund is a point of intersection between alumni support and student scholarship.

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p h o t o ( b e l o w & l e f t ) m at t d ’a n n u n z i o • p h o t o ( r i g h t ) D a r r y l J a m e s

‰ December 2010

9

Departments 2 From The Editor That Old Sportin’ Life

3 Letters Humanities and the Brain.

Fred Ellis ’38 and the San Juan Preservation Trust.

Ten from ’10.

Yes, but what about the Sauna?

Against Prohibition.

Party in the Restroom.

Remembering Wayne Altree ’40.

Remembering Gail Ryba ’84.

Remembering Pat Pruyne ’83.

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Features 18

Living Small

You think your life is tough? Try swimming through roofing tar with a flimsy flagellum. David Dusenbery ’64 explores the everyday perils of being a microbe.

6 Eliot Circular News from Campus Joining the Tribe.

New Faces.

Underground Restaurant.

Last Call for the Lutz.

Remeandering the Canyon.

Portland Reeds the Classics.

Invasion of the Clickers.

Recognizing Women Faculty.

Nuclear Croquet.

Druker Wins Vollum Award.

By William Abernathy ’88

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Life After Dark

Sneaking past the red velvet ropes with nightlife authority Taylor Plimpton ’99.

By Stewart Stone ’06

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Finding Balance

How does Reed help students stay healthy and sane on a campus defined by its intensity?

ALUMNI PROFILES 41

By Chris Lydgate ’90

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Laurie Halpern Benenson ’71 seeks some respect for the Rodney Dangerfield of Aristotelian elements.

Growing the Curriculum

The cross-pollination of Reed’s new environmental studies major.

By Geoff Koch

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43

Obama’s Gay Mentor

Lawrence Goldyn ’73 influenced a future president’s views on gays and lesbians.

Reed U

The short unhappy life of the great experiment that never was.

By Jim Kahan ’64

Digging Dirt

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On a Wing and a Prayer Bob Sallinger ’91 wages the battle of Hayden Island.

on the cover: Biology professor Keith Karoly helps Charlene Grahn ’11 collect larkspur specimens for her thesis research. p h o t o b y M at t D ’A n n u n z i o

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16 Empire of the Griffin

Connecting Reedies Across the Globe

Diaspora Pizza.

ORGY. Boar’s Head.

16 Puzzled Corner 17 Centennial Campaign Money is not a dirty word.

21 Caption Contest 37 Class Notes 52 Reediana Books by Reedies 56 In Memoriam 64 Apocrypha Tradition. Myth. Legend.

Hog Wild. Aristotle, Arragon, and Boris, the boar’s head.

December 2010 Reed magazine

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From the Editor photo by Edis jurcys

‰ December 2010

www.reed.edu/reed_magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 89, No. 4, December 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 alumni news editor Robin Tovey ’97

That Old Sportin’ Life More to the point, Reed boasts an incredThe traditional approach to sports at Reed ible (if unorthodox) athletic tradition. The was to shun them at all costs.

At least, that’s one way of looking at it. legends of rugby—particularly women’s For almost a century, Reed was renowned rugby—could fill an entire volume. Crew. for a studious disregard for athletic compe- Baseball. March Madness. Renn Fayre tition. Our first president, William Trufant Softball. Juggling. Ultimate Frisbee. The Foster, inveighed against the “three great Ski Cabin. In one form or another, sports vices” of higher education: football, fraterni- are deeply woven into the fabric of our histies and frivolity. Students earned PE credit tory, albeit not always in their conventional for raking leaves. When the football team forms. (We skip lightly over naked croquet.)

In fact, students today are more involved of ’57 scored the first touchdown of the season, it was actually booed. Something about in athletics at Reed than ever before (see the obsession with winning, the pom-pom Finding Balance, page 22), and surely this is jubilation, the existential pointlessness of a good thing. After all, there’s a lot more to chasing a ball around a field, just seemed to sports than winning. Sports teach us discipline, preparation, teamwork, and—if we’re rub Reedies the wrong way.

This was certainly true for me. A classic lucky enough to have a coach like Jerry— geek in high school, I was proudly allergic grace. They strengthen the body, sharpen to sports when I arrived at Reed. I clung to the focus, and revive the spirit. It was the my cackhandedness in spite of the valiant singleminded obsession with sports, rather efforts of Jerry Barta [coach, 1956–88] who than sports themselves, that Foster objected used to drive me and other hopeless cases to. And we now have scientific evidence to to a bowling alley in Sellwood, where we support what Juvenal knew all along, that heaved gutter balls at the imperious pins for the foundation of a productive life is a a frame or two before recovering from our sound mind in a healthy body.

It took me many years to figure this exertions with beer and Marlboros.

But this image of sports at Reed is a cari- out—I am glad today’s students are getting cature at best. Almost from its founding, the nudges, gentle and otherwise, in the same college imposed a graduation requirement direction. —Chris Lydgate ’90 of six quarters of PE. (And the registrar brooks no tomfoolery on this, as scofflaws find to their regret.)

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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.

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Reed magazine December 2010

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Letters to Reed Humanities and the Brain

yourself. You will have to analyze a variety of arguments presented by readings, professors, and your peers, and, along the way, you’ll learn how to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your own arguments.”

I think another way of putting it is that the Reed humanities course teaches you to be a critical thinker and avid reader who doesn’t need political pundits to interpret the news for you, and who doesn’t need FOX News to tell you what are supposedly the facts and how you should think.

So, all Reed grads should be grateful that they were required to take the humanities course.

—Marvin H. Lehr ’54 Austin, Texas

Environmentalist, professor, cattleman: Fred Ellis ’38.

with the land, and to the San Juan Preservation Trust, which is instrumental in helping to keep the islands this way!

Me? I’m one of the little people who’s placed my few acres under a conservation easement with the San Juan Preservation Trust; my shoreline and bluff will remain subject to natural erosion only; my acres of second-growth trees will never Fred Ellis ’38 and the San be logged, and I will cut only snags in order to Juan Preservation Trust I grinned at your not-at-all-subtle hints that you feed my wood-burning stove. No one will ever want more news! The grin turned south, however, build another structure on this property, with when I read Fred Ellis’ hugely informative obitu- its accompanying utility needs: well, septic sysary. Both my cousin and neighbor (he’s a board tem, wires, drainage. When my son, who wants member of the San Juan Preservation Trust—hint, to inherit my little paradise, comes to live here, hint!) and I were struck at the slighting treatment it will look exactly the same as it does now. (He given to Fred’s land donations on Shaw and Lopez does stipulate that he won’t retire here if Lopez Islands. Yes, he donated a lot of his land to the ever gets a traffic light!)

Thanks for letting me correct the reporting University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs.

He also donated almost 500 acres of land on errors, and for letting me go on about the San Shaw to the San Juan Preservation Trust, and Juan Preservation Trust!

—Virginia Greene Lowell ’62 he placed conservation easements on 366 acres Lopez Island, Washington on Shaw and 408 acres on Lopez, which the San Juan Preservation Trust holds in stewardship.

The preservation trust holds thousands of acres Editor’s Note. Thanks for clearing that up. We of donated lands, and conservation easement included some of these details in a piece about Fred properties, around the San Juan Islands. The (“Land Preserver”) back in August 2007. trust works in partnerships with other local, state, and national organizations to purchase What’s Wrong with Ten From ’10 lands in order to preserve them in their current The “Ten from ’10” feature (Reed, September 2010) status. The trust has had three very successful does not showcase as much daring as it claims. fund-raising drives that have led to the preserva- For one, it is a feature that, like many of Reed’s tion of almost a thousand acres of land on Orcas showcases of talent and brilliance, appears from (Turtleback Mountain); on Lopez (Watmough a shroud of silence and a circle of those “in the Bay); and most recently on Guemes, the highest know,” incredibly at odds with the all-inclusive and land on that island. All of this acreage was set to out-in-the-open academic and cultural community be sold and developed; it is now preserved forever “experience” pushed on Reed’s surface by its faculty, for our future enjoyment and for the protection staff, students, and publications. This is a fact that of fragile ecosystems and species. this feature’s inclusion in the September issue, far This note started out as a correction to a away from when its merits might have been judged reporter’s story, or a complaint at an overzeal- by the rest of the graduates of ’10, and could cause ous editing job! But I see it has also allowed me any harm to the facade of academic bliss on campus, to wax enthusiastic about this local organization does little to dismiss. In reality, the “Reedie” thing that for the last quarter century has worked so to do would have been to let all the students have hard (and has been so successful) to preserve these their say. Instead, what we are presented with is a beautiful islands. Many thanks to people like Fred list of students and their work that does little to and his family, and lots of other people who have represent the student body, let alone the various made the commitment to live here in harmony academic experiences that Reed actually offers, but December 2010 Reed magazine

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p h o t o c o u r t e s y o f s a n j u a n p r e s e r vat i o n t r u s t • b y j a n e k . f o x

These two seemingly unrelated subjects came together recently when I read an online description of the humanities course, by an anonymous Reed student, which I shall refer to later.

But, first, I have read lately a couple of stories of medical scientists studying the way the memory and reasoning parts of the brain interact when a series of questions is put to the listener. The scientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to elucidate the brain responses in two groups of volunteers, one a group of young adults in their late teens and the other an older group in their late 20s and early 30s. I should add that until these studies were done it was common medical thinking that the basic development of interaction between the memory and reasoning parts of the brain occurred only during infancy.

Of all the questions the researchers posed, I only remember one that I thought was humorous: “Would you eat a cockroach?” The older group immediately answered: “No!” The younger group took time to answer similarly. In response to this question and all the others, the MRI results were different between the two groups. The researchers concluded that there is a second period of basic brain development and that it occurs in the late teens.

One can probably explain a number of behavior traits of the late teen population because of their different way of processing memory and reasoning.

One of course is their proclivity to taking risks, and their thinking that they are indestructible.

This was the reason why General Eisenhower and the other military leaders chose young, untested troops to land at Normandy. They didn’t want the battle-hardened troops who fought in North Africa and Italy and who knew that they could die.

There are several technical questions that occur to me about the brain studies. First, did the teens show 10 years later the same MRI results as the earlier-tested older group? And, secondly, was the older group representative of the population as a whole?

I would be especially interested in the answer to the latter question because I think that many, if not most, adults, based on their prejudices and beliefs, have not gone through the second stage of brain development.

If the reader will grant me the license (tongue in cheek) to make a connection here, I will suggest that the Reed humanities course catches the freshmen at a critical time in their basic brain development. To quote the anonymous student on the humanities course, it teaches you how”. . . to criticize others (constructively) and be criticized

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Letters to Reed continued

the “once” picture in the magazine), when, to my consternation, I discovered that the door had rather represents the wills of those faculty and slammed shut and locked behind me. My friends staff who are connected, know the system, have had apparently retreated from the sauna (or were been at Reed the longest, and have gotten their snickering behind the closed door), leaving me respective students through the proper channels. to scamper through the snow to the front of the This is not to say that I am not proud of my fellow cabin. I threw open the front door with great Reedies who made the cut; in fact some of them gusto, ready to yell accusations and profanities are my friends, and one of them has even been at my friends, only to discover that a whole new my room- and bandmate. Instead, what I am not crowd of Reedies had arrived at the cabin while proud of is the pure “chance” of it all, that students we had been in the sauna. My surprise was no at Reed might end up in the more well-thought- match for theirs upon seeing an apparently new of department, work under the better-connected arrival, stark nude. Here’s to hoping that future (and preferably not visiting) professor, be told to Reedies will continue to enjoy the pleasures (and apply for the right scholarships and grants whose embarrassments) of the sauna.

—Katya Wesolowski ’92 availability is never truly publicized on campus, Durham, North Carolina be invited to the special and secret luncheons and breakfasts, and come out on top. The theses of 2010 that Reed and Reed have presented to us Editor’s Note. Fear not, Katya—the sauna steams still! here are very clearly those theses that would succeed at any institution, and that will work the best Against Prohibition (as the feature shows) in propelling these students The unnecessary death of a brilliant young student into future academic study. Where are the theses is by definition tragic and inestimably painful to that helped Reedies find themselves, that showed the surviving friends and loved ones. For this an alternative to academics and to strict academic reason it may be vulgar to pair such an event with form? Where are the theses that were just plain fun an article in praise or even in general approval of

“ The “Reedie” thing to do would have been to let all the students have their say.”

— Natan Diacon-Furtado ’10 to write and to read; to paint, to sculpt, to create, and to see; to compose and to hear? Sadly, as “Ten for ’10” would have it, they are not at Reed, at least not for the outside world to see.

—Natan Diacon-Furtado ’10 Amherst, Massachusetts

this wholly false prosecution. These travesties are being committed by law enforcement officials in every state. (For details see The Criminalization of Medicine, by Ronald T. Libby (Praeger, 2008) and www.aapsonline.org/press/hurwitz929.htm.)

There is no dispute over the fact that unwise use of some drugs can cause harm and even death, as in the case of the student whose death is the identified inspiration for your paean to the importance of drug prohibition. Unfortunately the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that drug prohibition causes even more harm than drug use. Should a college alumni magazine be used to celebrate drug prohibition as a rational response to drug abuse if the evidence clearly shows otherwise?

—Laura Fisher ’68 Providence, Utah Editor’s Note. These cases sound disturbing, but I’m

not sure how they bear on our recent tragedy. Reed maintains that drug use is fundamentally antithetical to its academic mission. As an educational institution, it emphasizes prevention and treatment; for these to be effective, however, there must also be some sort of enforcement. For a detailed explanation of Reed’s drug policy, please see www.reed.edu/academic/gbook/ comm_pol/implem_plan.html.

Party in the Restroom You rightly noted that alumni from the ’70s on up rubbed shoulders (at minimum) during the reunions dance party in the commons men’s restroom. We can only hope for a repeat centennial performance at this venue next year. Credit for organizing the event, however, rests with the inimitable Kate Forbes ’10, who I hope, for the greater glory of our class, doesn’t too much mind being outed.

Or should I say, grouted?

—Joel Batterman ’10 Ann Arbor, Michigan

the current style of drug prohibition enforcement, as in “Fatal Overdose Focuses Attention on Drug Use at Reed,” Reed, June 2010.

Targeting pot smokers has become decreasingly popular among law enforcement agencies since cannabis is associated with far less medically significant harm than several other widely used substances that are legal for adults. To fill the gap Editor’s Note. Here’s how we select seniors for this feature. In the spring, we ask faculty and staff for and to continue to justify spending substantial Editor’s Note. Nice one, Joel—a tile well told. suggestions. We receive scores of incredible nominees. public funds on enforcement of drug prohibition, From this embarrassment of riches we must select a the DEA has switched its focus to alleged physician Remembering Wayne Altree ’40 mere handful. We wish we had space—and time—to diversion of prescription analgesic medications. We got a call from David F. Aiken MAT ’65, retired The tremendous social harms of drug prohibi- curriculum vice president for Portland Public showcase every one of our outstanding seniors, but the resulting magazine would cost a fortune to print tion more than outweigh any purported benefits, Schools, who wanted to share some of his rememand taxpayers are paying a great deal to put inno- brances of (Charles) Wayne Altree ’40, MALS ’68 and stop a bullet at five paces. cent physicians behind bars for alleged narcotics [In Memoriam, September 2010]. David was a diversion. In my county of residence, an anes- student of Wayne’s at Grant High School, where Yes, but what about the Sauna?

I agree with the assessment of furniture maker thesiologist was ruined by being falsely accused Wayne taught social studies and was department Todd Nopp ’96 that the ski cabin was “super- and prosecuted for allegedly trading narcotics chair before he moved to the East Coast. David comfortable but grungy,” so, here’s to sprucing prescriptions for sexual favors from patients, recalled that Wayne was always available to students it up! However, I am concerned about the fate and afterwards all of the testimony used to vilify and kept in touch with them long after he had of the sauna built by George James ’77 (thanks, him was shown to have been perjured testimony taught them. He inspired them to apply to Reed George). The sauna was the making of my own traded for sentence reduction on narcotics convic- or to go into public education, and supported their personal Reed lore, perhaps remembered by me tions that were unrelated to him. In an adjoining efforts. (David’s entry into the Mat program at alone, but a story I continue to tell as emblematic county, a psychiatrist was falsely accused of the Reed was partly due to Wayne’s influence.) David of my many untraditional college experiences: opiate poisoning of five elderly patients who were noted that Wayne assigned readings and held on my first trip to the ski cabin, I arrived late on later shown (via exhumation and examination classroom discussions about increasing population a snowy evening, and my friends immediately of their remains) to have died natural deaths. versus diminishing resources worldwide, together introduced me to the pleasures of the sauna. I No evidence supported the accusations, and the with concomitant ecological consequences. “He was enjoying my final jump from sauna to snow accused psychiatrist was finally acquitted after was ahead of his times on this, as well as on other through the door (which I believe is visible in being financially and professionally ruined by concerns to which he alerted his students. He was

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Reed magazine December 2010

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it, in his world people made trips to the coast and worked hard and were kind to each other. That must be idealized, but he seemed to have no awkward learning period—he appeared full-grown at what, 19? He worked at the coolest restaurant in Portland and wore a velvet jacket and the smoothest of demeanors. He kept a clinically clear focus when everything was bloody and messy and bad. He could tell you when you were being cruel or thoughtless and you wouldn’t mind. He seemed to know lots of cool stuff, and was willing to share it, like how to use a chef’s knife to whack garlic out of its skin, that there’s “a rat” in the word separate (preventing a lifetime of misspelling), and his incontrovertible theory that when you see two people in a couple Remembering Gail Ryba ’84 Thank you for the obituary for Gail Ryba [September who have wildly divergent levels of attractiveness, 2010]. It was with sadness, as well as a sense of one of them is great in bed. He was the ideal end- John D. Bowman ’57 as a senior at Reed. pride, that I attended Gail’s funeral in Santa Fe in lessly interesting friend to lie out on the grass and May. Sadness at the loss of a friend, colleague, and talk about everything with.

Remembering John Bowman ’57 I ran into him years after college and we talked Ted Edlin ’57 alerted us to an error in our reporting important member of New Mexico’s community; and pride because she embodied the absolute about pomology and the history of gardens, and of his Reed roommate, the late John D. Bowman ’57. best qualities of a Reedie. Although she is best he was clearly crazy in love with his children. In previous obituaries, we had mistakenly connected known for her bicycling advocacy, I was friends I’m jealous of everyone who had decades with John to the Linden B. Bowman ’35 family. Thanks with Gail through her work promoting consumer him—lucky you, and poor you, to have lost him. to Ted’s tip, and sleuthing by Ben Bradley ’88 in the energy efficiency in New Mexico, in addition to He left a vivid mark on me. registrar’s office, we were able to correct our records.

—Anne Lauer Schwab ’83 John was the only child of W.F. Bowman, who our having known each other at Reed. Although Kansas City, Missouri owned and operated Blue Banner Foods in Tacoma, we represented different interests (I represent a regulated public utility), Gail had a way of workWashington. His mother, Grace Bowman, remained ing with people that didn’t allow for high-handed Editor’s Note. For Pat’s obituary, see In Memoriam. a friend of the college until her death in 1990. behavior or ruffled feathers from anyone, even when the issues themselves were contentious.

She did this by bringing to the table her own special curiosity, intellectual rigor, joyfulness, civility and problem-solving skills, and her ability to engage in critical analysis and assessment of each party’s position (including her own) coupled with a genuine respect for the viewpoints of others. She was one of the few people I’ve ever met who made practicing what you preach seem both easy and inevitable. Gail lived every day of her life applying the best of the educational ideals that Reed strives to instill in its students.

Another testament to her ability to influence everyone and everything in positive and important ways came in August. when the city of Albuquerque dedicated a new $7 million bicycle and pedestrian bridge connecting popular hiking and biking trails across the Rio Grande. Its name: the Gail Ryba Memorial Bridge.

—Stacey Goodwin ’83 Sante Fe, New Mexico also an early predictor of the rise of China, Korea, and Japan, and he caused me to pursue Asian studies.” Wayne was a voracious reader, on top of current events, and with an intellectual vigor that was undiminished by age. David and Wayne’s last conversations—well into Wayne’s 90s—consisted of lively, two-hour discussions. “He had a very gentle way of wagging his finger verbally. ‘You might not know this,’ he would say, or he might suggest reading material to expand or clarify a viewpoint. In an age of superlatives, when it is difficult for words to stand out, it must be said that Wayne was superlative. He was magnificent.”

Remembering Pat Pruyne ’83 The first time I saw Pat Pruyne he was wearing a big velvet hat—I think that can’t be right, but that’s what my wobbly memory is bringing up for me. He should have looked like a ’70s pimp, but he looked like a Renaissance prince, the one in the fresco who has turned away from the procession and is measuredly gazing out at you. Of course I was drawn to him. He seemed to manufacture his own gravitational force.

We were satellite friends in two different collegiate sets that didn’t mix much. As I remember

To be carried on, traditions must be passed down.

When you make a gift to Reed through your will, you ensure that future generations will create defining moments of their own.

Contact Kathy Saitas at 503/777-7573 or plannedgiving@reed.edu to make sure Reed can accept your gift as written.

http://plannedgiving.reed.edu

December 2010 Reed magazine

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Eliot Circular Joining the Tribe Convocation 2010 With a flourish of trumpets and an extravagance of sunshine, Reed welcomed a bumper crop of 373 freshlings at Convocation, held beneath a suitably gleaming Big Top on August 25.

In his opening remarks, President Colin Diver stressed both the radical and the traditional origins of the college.

Today’s convocation officially begins the one-hundredth year of Reed’s existence as simply the best liberal arts college on the planet. Our founding president was a transplanted Easterner who sought to establish an academic community on the somewhat revolutionary principles of scholarly pursuit and honorable behavior. Imagine: an educational institution dedicated to scholarship and honor! He was particularly insistent that Reed be free of what he saw as the three great vices: football, fraternities, and frivolity. Fortunately, he succeeded in stamping out only the first two. Frivolity, thank goodness, escaped his reformist zeal, and has remained an essential part of our character ever since.

But if we value frivolity, it is in service of something we truly revere: inquiry and discovery. In a word, learning.

We are a learning community. What we do is teaching, research, debate, discussion, scientific experimentation, artistic creation. But what we seek is learning. Not just learning facts and figures, but learning the skills and habits necessary for a lifelong pursuit of knowledge.

The incoming Class of ’14 is a little more numerous than usual and its SAT scores a little stronger (see chart).

It includes 42 “first-generation” students, that is, students who are among the first in their family to go to college. It also includes 79 minority students, which is slightly fewer than in recent years. In particular, there are just 8 African-American freshmen, compared to a recent average of 13. “We hope this is just a one-year trend,” says Keith Todd, director of admission. “We want to refocus our efforts to make sure students of all backgrounds feel comfortable on campus.”

To this end, the college has hired a new dean of inclusion, engagement, and success to provide additional support for students of all backgrounds. (See page 8.)

Other highlights of the Class of ’14 include an accomplished oboist who cuts his own reeds; a practitioner of traditional Thai dance; a student who recited Hamlet’s soliloquy from memory during the admission interview; and a former manager of a Chick-Fil-A in Florida who used to daydream about quantum computing. Daydream no longer! Welcome to Reed. —Anna Mann

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The Class of ’14

The Winnowing

2010

Avg. ’05–’09

Applicants

3,075

3,142

Accepted Apps

1,311

1,198

% Accepted

43%

38%

Matriculants

373

355

Yield

28%

30%

Reed magazine December 2010

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Academics

2010 (% of total)

Avg. ’05–’09

Minorities

2010

Avg. ’05–’09

Average GPA

3.9

3.9

Hispanic

21

28

SAT Verbal

712

709

Native American

9

5

SAT Math

675

668

African American

8

13

SAT Writing

694

686

Asian

39

32

Valedictorians

20 (14%)

15 (10%)

Other

1

9

Total

79

87

% Minorities

22%

24%

1st Generation Applicants

Applications

Accepted Apps

% Accepted

Matriculants

Yield

543 (18%)

434 (14%)

121 (9%)

108 (9%)

22%

25%

42 (11%)

35 (10%)

35%

32%

photo by eric cable

Figures do not include transfer students. Minority figures include only self-reported ethnicity and do not count foreign nationals. SAT writing test scores were first reported by applicants in 2006. For more statistics, see www.reed.edu/ir/students.html/.

December 2010 Reed magazine

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Eliot Circular

continued

New Faces Trustees John D. Bergholz ’83 is the vice president of university advancement at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. Before that, he worked for two universities in Chicago.

A first-generation college student, John drove a truck to pay tuition at Reed, where he earned his BA in international studies. He has been a donor to Reed since he paid off his last student loan. He has also served on Reed’s alumni board and the Chicago alumni chapter committee, and helped to establish the Class of ’83 Well-Endowed Scholarship.

He serves on the board of directors for Thresholds, an organization in Chicago providing service to people with severe mental illness. John and his wife, Katherine, are from Oak Park, Illinois; they have four children.

Linda H. Matthews ’67 is a former publisher of Chicago Review Press, which she co-founded in 1973 with her husband, Curt. Chicago Review Press publishes about 60 new titles annually under four imprints and is the parent company of Independent Publishers Group, the nation’s third-largest distributor of independent press titles. Linda earned a BA in general literature from Reed in 1967 and an MA in English literature in 1969 from Tufts University, where she also completed the coursework for a PhD. She is the author of Middling Folk: Three Seas, Three Centuries, One Scots-Irish Family, coauthor of The Balancing Act: A Career and a Family, and has contributed several articles to The Mill Racer, the newsletter of the Occoquan Historical Society. Linda served on Reed’s board of trustees as an alumni trustee from 2005 to 2009 and on Reed’s National Advisory Council. The Matthews live in Evanston, Illinois, and have three adult children. Their son, Clark Matthews ’04, graduated with a degree in English.

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Professors Kara Becker, assistant professor, linguistics (TT).

Luc Boisvert, visiting assistant professor, chemistry (2-yr).

Alec Campbell, visiting associate professor, sociology (1-yr).

Danielle Cass, visiting assistant professor, chemistry (2-yr).

Doris Chon, visiting assistant professor, art history (1-yr).

Stephan Clark, visiting assistant professor, creative writing (1-yr).

Troy Cross, assistant professor, philosophy & humanities (TT).

Evan Dawley, visiting assistant professor, history & humanities (1-yr).

Michael Faletra, assistant professor, English & humanities (TT).

Andrew Jalil, assistant professor, economics (TT).

Hannah Kosstrin, visiting assistant professor, dance (2-yr).

Peter Kupfer, visiting assistant professor, music (1-yr).

David Latimer, visiting assistant professor, physics (1-yr).

Brad Luen, visiting assistant professor, mathematics (1-yr).

Morgan Luker, assistant professor, music (TT).

Nelia Mann, visiting assistant professor, physics (2-yr).

Peter Marks, visiting assistant professor, psychology (1-yr).

Michele Matteini, assistant professor, art history & humanities (TT).

Acacia Parks ’03, visiting assistant professor, psychology (1-yr).

Traci Reeves, scholar in residence, English (2-yr).

Jonathan Rork, associate professor, economics (TT).

China Scherz, visiting assistant professor, anthropology (1-yr).

Xin Zhang, visiting assistant professor, political science (1-yr).

Staff Bruce Smith is dean of inclusion, engagement, and success. He comes to Reed from Colorado State University, where he served as director of the Black/African American Cultural Center. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brown University, his master’s from USC, and his PhD in education from UC Berkeley.

Bruce’s job was previously known as dean of multicultural affairs, but he prefers the new title.

“I want the campus to be more inclusive,” he tells Reed. “I don’t particularly like the word ‘diverse.’

Diversity lets people off the hook. People say, ‘We have all different kinds of people here, so therefore we’re diverse.’ But I’m seeking more than that. I want those people to work together. The real test of a community is whether all the folks can communicate with one another and engage with one another.”

Gary Granger is the director of community safety. Gary comes to Reed from Oregon Health & Science University, where he was director of public safety. To prepare for his job at Reed, Gary read the Odyssey, the Student Handbook, and worked the night shift as a community safety officer patrolling the campus. He comes well prepared for the surreal situations CSOs sometimes encounter: in honor of National Poetry Month, he once composed an entire security blotter in limerick form.

Reed magazine December 2010

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ALE to the chief: political science major Chris Chapman ’11 pours libations at Uncommons, Reed’s underground student restaurant.

Reed’s Underground Restaurant

December 2010 Reed magazine

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photo by darryl james

White tablecloths. Glittering candles. Fresh “With academics, I work and work and work cooked on the porch barbecue, sliced and flowers in glass vases. Oysters on the half- and if I’m lucky, I’ll have a few sheets of ink served over rustic rye pasta with a densely and paper to show for it. With Uncommons, spiced berbere sauce. The meal wound up shell. Star Wars poster. we work very hard and then there is this with a babka bread pudding accompanied by Wait a minute…

Improbably, this is the setting for lovely meal.” a remarkable creamy mocha stout, brewed Uncommons, a fine dining experiment The threesome soon added Graham Myers by students (let us not ask where). concocted by three Reed students that has ’12 as dish boy; he is paid in peanuts (one of Despite the unorthodox setting (a room become the hottest ticket on campus. many ongoing jokes; another involves ston- in the less-than-lovely RCAs), the atmoEvery few weeks, a dozen lucky diners ing new members with shallots) and the sphere was one of glamorous simplicity— (chosen by lottery) gather in a dorm room group now includes a dozen students. like an after photo in a “How To Decorate to share an elaborate meal entirely prepared The October dinner would have wowed Your Dingy Room For Less Than $200.” by students. the fussiest critic. It began with an amuse, The experience would surely have delightOriginal founders Chris Chapman ’11 , an oyster on the half shell with fried shallot ed some of Reed’s famous culinary innovaBryan Nakayama ’10, and Becca Traber ’12 and egg confit and a snack of crisp home- tors, such as James Beard ’24, Amelia Rosabonded while studying political theory but made potato chips with spicy romesco dip. mond Hard ’67, Monique Siu ’74 and Michael then realized they also shared a passion for These were paired with nicely balanced white Hebb ’99 (whose roving “family suppers” food. Almost by accident, they say, Uncom- nectarine sangria. were infused with a similar insurgent spirit). mons became an official student organizaThe meal was expertly paced, moving “The real beauty of Uncommons is that it tion last fall. through an arugula and sorrel salad with has really become more than just a student Its popularity has risen faster than a nuggets of black pepper bacon and rye crou- group,” Bryan says. “It is a group of friends cheese soufflé, taking second place in the tons. But the showstopper was the soup— who are all passionate about food, aesthetics, most recent funding poll. Did we mention sultry lipstick-colored tomato and beet purée and bringing a great time to fellow Reedies.” it’s just $5 a person, including drinks? topped with crispy-tender lamb carnitas.

—Audrey Van Buskirk “Part of the reason we started it and keep An unusual preparation of slippery fin- To peruse forthcoming Uncommons menus, see http:// doing it is that it is a very different kind of gers of grilled squid with a dab of black uncommons.co.cc. For more on Michael Hebb ’99, see “A hard work than our school work,” Becca says. ink was followed by tender bavette steak, Moveable Feast,” Reed, Spring 2007.

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photo by vivian johnson

Restoring the Canyon On Canyon Day, Reed celebrated the completion of an $850,000 initiative to restore the lower Canyon, replace a treacherous culvert, and “re-meander” the creek that connects Reed Lake to Johnson Creek and ultimately the Pacific Ocean.

For decades, the journey to the Canyon for anadromous fish such as salmon and steelhead trout has been somewhat perilous because of a gauntlet of unnatural hazards: a narrow culvert under SE 28th Avenue and a long trench leading through the Rivelli Farm property next door, which impeded passage with high water velocities and little opportunity for the fish to rest. With support from the City of Portland, Metro, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, and the Jubitz Family Foundation, Reed has transformed the waterway from a miniature Erie Canal to something reminiscent of an Andy Goldsworthy project, with twisting turns, deep resting pools, and fallen timbers for shade.

Replacing the culvert was a major operation that required shutting down traffic on SE 28th Avenue for three months. But the project will carry enormous benefits for anadromous fish, according to college naturalist Zac Perry.

The project caps a decade-long push to restore the Canyon, which has been made possible with the help of donors like Laurel Wilkening ’66, Michael Herz ’58, and emeritus trustee John Gray. Thanks to their support, the old outdoor pool was demolished and replaced with a fish ladder that now leads up to the lake. Invasive plant species have been removed (a constant battle), and a large pipe crossing over the east end of the lake has been helicoptered out. As a result of these efforts, wild species have begun to return to the Canyon, including salmon, steelhead, eagles, and coyotes. —Matt Kelly

Last Call for the Lutz

photo by jarod opperman

On its last night, the Lutz removed After 57 years, the venerable Woodstock institution known as the Lutz some of those hallowed booths to Tavern served its final round on Thurs- accommodate the wall-to-wall crowd. day, September 30. Whether its demise Robin Tovey ’97 and Mike Teskey , was due to its reluctance to embrace representing the alumni office, aimed cocktail culture (it never acquired a to buy a round, but all bets were off liquor license), Portland’s smoking when the tap ran out at 7:46 p.m. This ban, or the toll of technology on social seemed like the death knell (Auld Lang mores, it will be sorely missed.

Syne was sung), but an emergency To some, the Lutz may have seemed back-up keg arrived, then another… unremarkable—a working-class water- ultimately the diehards made do with ing-hole with a juke box and a pool Miller, then Coor’s Light—desperate table and a clutch of grizzled regulars. measures, indeed!

But to Reedies of a certain era, the Lutz Details are blurry, but it seems that was something special. For many of Mike Rosen ’04 enjoyed the Lutz’s us, it was the first bar we ever walked final quaff at 9:56 p.m., when the into. The first place we were (legally) last tap ran dry. The party continued, served alcohol. On Thursday nights, however—late arrivals included the Reedies by the score would make our Doyle Owl. True to tradition, the Owl pilgrimage up the hill to its comfort- was elusive and slipped away into the ing red booths, hot pickles, and cheap night, the Lutz shuttering (shudderpitchers to escape our studies and to ing?) behind him before turning off the haggle over Hume. The Oregonian even neon glow of its iconic sign for the very credited the Lutz with resuscitating the last time. —Anna Mann popularity of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Check out video highlights of Canyon Day at www.reed. edu/canyon. The page also features video captured by our “fishcam,” purchased with a special gift from Michael Herz ’58, a long-time protector of endangered Atlantic salmon in the rivers of Maine.

For a video putting the canyon into perspective within the larger Crystal Springs restoration project, see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELTrKuVp7BA.

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Photo by LanLan Jin ’11 • courtesy of the Quest

No mere precipitation can dampen true Reed spirit. Ethan Linck ’13 and Lacy Lackey ’11 pause from their muddy labor on a well-moistened Canyon Day.

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Our Brilliant Students

Professor Lena Lencek (right) and MALS director Barbara Amen (left) bring Frankenstein to a Portland library.

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Portland Reeds the Classics photo by vivian johnson

This fall, Reed professors are sallying level of discussion. “When we started forth into Portland libraries on a fan- the program, I’d picked relatively ‘fun’ tastic mission—to bring the great books books—Robinson Crusoe, that sort of they teach at Reed to a wider audience. thing—but when I saw the level of disSponsored jointly by the college and the course these people were bringing to Multnomah County Library, the initia- the table, I knew we could go bigger.”

Authors run the gamut from Homer tive, known as Read the Classics, offers Portlanders the chance to read and dis- to Voltaire, Milton, Tolstoy, and cuss literature under the guidance of a Faulkner. Portlander Reuel Kurzet was thrilled by a discussion led by profesReed professor—for free!

The architect of the program is Port- sor Lena Lencek [Russian, 1977+] on land librarian Tom French. “I started Frankenstein at the Belmont Library. rereading a lot of these works four “The reason it’s so wonderful to come years ago,” French recalls, “and I found back to these books again and again is myself sitting there thinking ‘My God, that you’re never the same reader,” she this is hot stuff!’ I had to do something says. “Every time you’re going through about it.” At first, French began by different things, dealing with different approaching Reed professors individu- issues. It makes the text speak to you ally; now Barbara Amen , director of in new ways every time.”

Reed’s MALS program, helps to coorThe Frankenstein class was particudinate the classes. larly animated, with participants drawThe program features five tracks, ing on their differing perspectives and each centered on a particular theme. life experiences to explore the text.

Professor Sonia Sabnis [classics, Interest in the program is so strong 2006+] raves about the experience: that slots are generally filled a few “People of all ages came from all over hours after registration begins. Just Portland—they were so enthusiastic! goes to show that the thirst for great It was a pleasure to let them go at the literature, once awakened, is never material, and a great way to spread really slaked. — Lucy Bellwood ’12 awareness of Reed’s conference-style Find out more at www.multcolib.org/events/classics/. learning dynamic.” French adds that For more on Reed’s MALS program, participants have a big impact on the see www.reed.edu/MALS/.

The American Society for Microbiology has selected Rosie Lawrence-Pine ’11 as a recipient of the ASM Undergraduate Research Fellowship, aimed at highly competitive students who wish to pursue graduate careers in microbiology.

Fellows have the opportunity to conduct full-time summer research at their institution with an ASM mentor and present their research results at the 111th ASM General Meeting. Each fellow receives up to a $4,000 stipend, a two-year ASM student membership, and reimbursement for travel expenses. “I’m really happy to have won this award,” Rosie says.

Rosie’s mentor is biology professor Jay Mellies; she is investigating the role of a particular gene in virulent E. coli. The rather imposing title of her project is: “YqeF, a putative acetyl-CoA transferase upregulated by the virulence regulator PerC in enteropathogenic Escherichia coli.”

Locher Scholars The five recipients of the 2010 Kaspar T. Locher Summer Creative Scholarships presented their projects in the Studio Art building gallery.

• Camille Charlier ’11, “Vindication of Subjectivity” (music composition and performance) • Art Johnstone ’11, “Single Sitting Gestures: butt shots of 15 friends” (paintings) • Jeremy Nelson ’11 , “Cities Evergreen beneath a Steel Sky” (short-short fiction) • Christina de Villier ’11 , “GOLDEN: POEMS” (English/French poetry) • Maya West ’11, “Home” (family narratives) The scholarships honor legendary professor Kaspar T. Locher [German, 1950–88].

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Invasion of the Clickers

p h o t o b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

Monday morning. Chemistry 101. Students gulp coffee and scribble notes as professor Julie Fry gives an animated lecture on the ionization energy of hydrogen. After drawing a small galaxy of diagrams on the board, she asks the class if it all makes sense.

In earlier days, she’d judge the answer on the basis of vague nods and timidly raised hands, but instead she says “Let’s find out!” She displays a diagram of energy levels on the projector and asks students to select one of four possible solutions. Nothing seems to happen. No hands shoot up, no voices call out the correct answer. Yet, within seconds, a graph of responses appears on the screen, allowing Julie to see exactly how many people are with her. Telepathy?

Magic? Actually, it’s technology.

Welcome to the world of clickers.

Clickers, formally known as “Classroom Response Systems,” are the latest technological teaching aid to appear at Reed.

The credit card-sized devices we hope to provide that studentallow students to answer mul- centered learning experience for tiple-choice questions via radio everyone.” signal, giving professors instant Some 160 students are using feedback on how well their the devices in Chemistry 101 material is being absorbed. and 201 this semester, with “Students learn and retain several more spotted in laninformation better when they guage and economics classes. are actively engaged in the While they have yet to infiltrate lecture instead of listening to humanities courses, chemistry a professor ‘broadcast,’” says professor Alan Shusterman is chemistry professor Maggie confident that clickers will be Geselbrecht. “With the clickers, applicable across disciplines.

“Students come to Reed because they want to connect with other interesting people—people who do things differently,” he says. “Clickers work to stimulate thinking and discussion.

If someone’s committed to an answer and then asked to discuss it with their neighbor, a learning exchange takes place.

Processes are uncovered, connections are made. The clicker is, first and foremost, a tool for communication.”

The response from students and faculty so far has been immensely positive—even after initial skepticism. “When I first got my hands on it, I wasn’t thrilled,” admits junior Mathilde Mouw ’12, “I couldn’t see how I would make use of it. But now I love it! It’s proved really useful in lecture.” Of course, the technology has a way to go before it dominates campus. After all, we did have to ask her the old fashioned way. — Lucy Bellwood ’12

p h o t o C o u r t e s y t h e J o h n D . & C at h e r i n e T. M a c A r t h u r F o u n d at i o n n

More Proof Of Genius As if any further proof were needed, another Reedie has nabbed a “genius” fellowship.

Archaeologist and anthropologist Shannon Lee Dawdy ’88 , assistant professor at the University of Chicago, won a $500,000 fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Shannon was hailed for her “insightful studies of New Orleans from its establishment as a French colony to the present day.” In particular, the foundation cited her book, In Building the Devil’s Empire: French Colonial New Orleans (2008), in which she integrates the intellectual life of the community with the story of the adventurers, entrepreneurs, and smugglers who resisted governance.

For a video of Shannon discussing her work, see bit.ly/dmh5gf.

December 2010 Reed magazine 13

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Some Notable professors. Clockwise from top left: Lisa Steinman [English 1976+]; Marianne Beth [sociology 1939–43]; Eleanor Rowland Wembridge [psychology 1911–17]; Jacqueline Dirks ’82 [history 1991+]; Natalia Aponiuk [Russian 1967–72]; Helen Stafford [biology 1954–87].

Center: Mary James [physics 1988+]. To see the slideshow, go to www.reed.edu/reed_magazine.

Recognizing Women Faculty Women faculty gathered at the Parker Their images flashed across the screen with House on a blustery September morning sparse captions to underscore a point— to celebrate their heritage at Reed. The Sun- their impressive feats are largely unknown day brunch was an opportunity for women to the college community. professors to meet one another and discuss “While it was radical in 1911 for Reed their experiences at the college. to welcome both male and female underAs late arrivals trickled in, a slideshow graduates, co-education is no longer seen displayed notable women professors past as innovative,” said Jacqueline Dirks ’82 and present. Highlights from the roster [history, 1991+], who spoke at the brunch. included Eleanor Rowland Wembridge “That’s one reason that the story of women’s [psychology, 1911–17], who pioneered experience at Reed is often hard to trace. the first psychological aptitude tests; Since Reed had a co-ed student body from Marianne Beth [sociology, 1937–1943], the beginning, why then did it take so long a refugee from Nazi Germany who taught to hire a substantial number of permaan early course on the sociology of women; nent female professors? I don’t yet have an and Cordelia Dodson [German, 1939–40], answer to this puzzle, and I may never find who later became a CIA intelligence analyst. one, but it seems a worthy question to ask.”

Some 416 women have taught at Reed since the college was founded, with more than half hired after 1980. Women now represent 40% of the 161 professors currently teaching and occupy many crucial positions, such as dean of faculty Ellen Stauder [English, 1983+].

The brunch helped junior and senior women faculty cultivate new ties and a better sense of Reed’s female scholastic tradition.

“I think women still need that mentorship and support even though we’ve made great strides,” said brunch organizer Charlene Makley [anthropology, 2000+]. “And I think it happened; I think it was a good experience.”

—Brandon Hamilton ’10

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photo by chris lydgate

photo by kevin myers

Will the iPad kill the Textbook–or save it?

To hear the NPR report, go to http://n.pr/8YhXpA

Nuclear Croquet Rivalry. Dominance. Betrayal. Recurring themes both in international politics and, of course, croquet.

In POL 240 (Introduction to International Politics), professor Alex Montgomery-Amo gives students a taste of territorial expansion, temporary alliances of convenience, and operation without a central authority by engaging them in a game of croquet. “Within minutes, a group of generally pacifistic, cooperative Reedies turn into vigorously competing, aggressive countries,” he says. “Often they adopt names charac-

teristic of their behavior—North Korea and Iran are very popular. The feedback from this exercise has been overwhelmingly positive; it makes concrete completely abstract theories about the balance of power, hegemonic dominance, and alliance formation.”

Here students from POL 240 observe as Sophie Naranjo-Rivera ’14 takes a whack at disrupting a shaky alliance between two rival teams. (Professor Montgomery-Amo is holding the clipboard.) —Anna Mann

Druker wins Vollum Award photo by eric cable

Is the longstanding dream of the electronic textbook finally in sight?

Ever since the advent of the personal computer, techno-evangelists have been predicting the demise of the traditional textbook. But despite its well-known shortcomings, the textbook lives on, reminding us of Churchill’s observation that democracy is the worst form of government, “except for all those others.”

Reed is now testing electronic textbooks on the Apple iPad, and the early indications are surprisingly hopeful.

As reported by National Public Radio’s Lynne Neary in September, students taking POL 240 from Alex MontgomeryAmo [political science, 2006+] generally seem to like the iPad. “I thought it would just kind of be a fun toy,” political science major Michael Crane ’11 told NPR. “It still is a fun toy, but it also … makes it really easy to read articles for class. In fact, I read pretty much all my articles for all my classes on this now. The instant boot time I think is really nice because if I have half an hour somewhere, I don’t have to set up my laptop to get my articles out.”

Students so far appear to find the iPad much more useful than the Kindle, which Reed tested last year, according to chief technology officer Marty Ringle. “People seem to like a multi-use tablet more than a dedicated e-book reader,” he says.

Reed is conducting a study of student and professor reaction to the iPad, which should be finished by the end of the year.

Alumni with questions about the study should contact Ringle at ringle@reed.edu.

Reed’s 2010 Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology was awarded to Dr. Brian Druker, inventor of Gleevec. The Vollum Award goes to an innovator in the scientific and technical community of the Pacific Northwest.

Druker, Director of the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health and Science University, revolutionized cancer treatment with the development of Gleevec. This drug treats chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and other neoplasms by targeting malignant cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

“The way I’d been trained, cancer was seen as something like a light switch that was stuck in an ‘on’ position,” Druker said last year. “You were given a baseball bat, which was chemotherapy, and told to knock the light out with the bat. I thought, ‘Why don’t we just try to figure out why the light is stuck on, then we can fix it without breaking everything.’” —Matt Kelly December 2010 Reed magazine 15

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Empire of the Griffin Connecting Reed alumni across the globe

Compiled by Brandon Hamilton ’10

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 this puzzle has been fiendishly designed to confound Googlers and to encourage good old-fashioned browsing. And yes, the answers are all in this issue!

Who worked in the Portland shipyards in WWII, built a solar home, and was elected to the Oregon State House for 10 years?

Which classical violinist played opposite Peter Russell [biology, 1972+] in the classic Reed band Peter J. Ribosome and the Subunits?

Who was kidnapped by bandits on a trip to Yemen but was released unharmed after surreptitiously texting the U.S. Embassy?

Got ’em? Send us your answers in the enclosed envelope, or email puzzled@reed.edu. Hints available if the price is right . . .

illustratioin for reed by s.britt

Who bribed his way out of a Nazi prison, fled the Red Army on horseback, swam the Danube, escaped to Paris, felled trees in Oregon, and became a political scientist of international renown?

photo by eric cable

Diaspora Pizza The Boston chapter had a phenomenal Reed Diaspora Pizza event planned and executed

by Emma Rowe ’06! We had 16 attendees, including two spouses, one new grad, and six people who had never attended a Boston chapter event before. We went to a new venue, the Dogwood Cafe in Jamaica Plain. Emma, a trivia buff, brought trivia questions and we formed teams and played several rounds. The game of trivia ended in a tie between two teams, but the win went to the new grad in attendance, Greg Given ’10, and Susan Landy ’81. The prize for Greg was, fittingly, a stuffed griffin. (Jessica Stern Benjamin ’93) An intrepid band of Chicago Reedies gathered for pizza at Piece; we drafted two new members and discussed how the clam and sausage pizza was trafe (the opposite of kosher) and clearly spiritually questionable as compared with the morally virtuous vegan pizza. A few days later, a somewhat larger group of Reedies descended upon the Athenaeum Theatre to see Mortar Theatre Company’s world premiere of Under America, written by Jacob Juntunen ’99.

The Chicago chapter is planning lots of fun events for the coming year and we would really love to see you at one of them.

Yes, I mean you, the person reading this blurb in the magazine; clearly you have an interest, so stop by and say “hello” sometime. You never call, you never write, and yet you magazine stalk us like this; the least you could do is come eat dim sum with us in February or join us for a tour of Fermilab in the spring. (Alison Birkmeyer-Aske ’93) FIND YOURSELF Seeking Reedies near you? Check out our chapters at reed.edu/alumni/chapters/ Boar’s Head Mark your calendar for the alumni holiday party on Saturday, December 18. Dust off your finery, pull out your dancing shoes. See Apocrypha, page 64, and register online at www.reed.edu/alumni/holidayparty/.

ORGY: The Offspring of Reed Grads of Yesteryear converged on campus for a joyous encounter at convocation in August 2010. Back row, left to right: Terry Lindell ’76, Kevan Shokat ’86, Kasra Shokat ’14, Gabriel Andreen ’14, Genevieve Medow-Jenkins ’14, Richard Pincus ’64. Middle row, left to right: Jennifer Lindell ’14, Kathleen Kruzich ’14, Elizabeth Harris ’86, Natalie Farnham ’14, Susan Brophy Spilka ’77, Toni DeVito ’77, and Rachel Pincus ’14. Kneeling: Molly Spilka ’14.

16 Reed magazine December 2010

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Raising Reed

By Chris Moses ’02

One common retort to the vulgarity of fund- be comfortable. We want to hear from you, raising is: “They only care about me if I give and to help create a new space for alumni money, and anyway, I can’t give enough to voices and involvement at Reed. make them care.”

As an AFR member, I want alumni giving That’s exactly right: giving matters if to change. I don’t want money to be a dirty you want to be counted. Not as individu- word—obsessing over its ill consequences is als—having worked closely with the College as detrimental as senselessly lusting for more.

Relations staff, I can assure you that, more Reed does have particular fundraising than anything, they want to hear alumni needs to ensure a successful future. Sucperspectives about the college, its problems cess here means having the most up-to-date and successes, your experience and opinions. facilities and academic resources, the best But as a collective, as an alumni body, the faculty, and the ability to attract and supcontributions we make determine whether port the most brilliant and independently we are considered real stewards in the life of minded students from around the world. the college. How serious are we? How seriMany have a misconception that Reed ously can we expect to be taken? was once need-blind. To the contrary, many Or to ask it another way, how do we, as needy students were admitted previously, Chris Moses ’02: money shouldn’t be a dirty word. alumni, take care of Reed? though some were admitted without any One key answer is: by giving money. financial support for the first year. This Certainly there are many important and “come anyway” policy was ethically dubious of $6.7 million in unrestricted Annual Fund essential forms of commitment and par- at best, and far more harmful to admission gifts; Reed brought in $2.9 million. Even if ticipation that don’t involve giving money, selection and student retention than today’s you include single, impossibly large endowand these supply a tremendous lifeblood for marginal need sensitivity. But that’s still ment gifts from one angel donor—an unsusthe college. It’s not a soulless corporation. not good enough: many AFR members hope tainable paradigm—Reed comes in at the But it is, like it or not, an institution—one that the college will become truly need-blind bottom of the survey. The average endowwith bills to pay, liabilities to insure, build- with solid support and sensible planning. ment among need-blind colleges is $498,000 ings to maintain. To further Reed’s mission of uncompromising academic excellence requires a tremendous amount of resources.

More than any topic, money provokes More than any topic, money provokes fierce debate and heated feelings amongst fierce debate and heated feelings amongst Reedies, whether resentment or joy, conReedies, whether resentment or joy, spiracy or generosity. Why is this? And does conspiracy or generosity. Why? it matter?

A group of alumni have come together to ask these sorts of questions, and to challenge common assumptions and long-held Simply put, Reed will be need-blind for per student, compared to Reed’s $224,000.) traditions about how Reed raises annual the first time when, for the first time, we Yet as a group—contrary to popular myth— fund contributions. Self-labeled as Alumni give it the resources to be need-blind. we’re not poorer or less able to give.

Fundraising for Reed, we are a small and Our overarching goal is to preserve a To have an honest conversation about growing handful of people drawn from financially healthy Reed, measured and made Reed’s future, we need to put our money across class years. We are volunteers and possible through sustained alumni invest- where our mouth is. To debate the way the exist independently from, though work ment. At the moment, the college relies far college allocates its resources, to help direct closely with, the college’s Development too heavily on a handful of extremely gen- its future, we can’t pick and choose what’s Office. We are united by a common hope: to erous alumni, rather than an appropriately about money and what’s not. We need to integrate a strong network of alumni sup- strong base of giving. Though some of us embrace the whole of Reed. This is the goal port that helps ensure Reed’s future finan- give generously, Reedies as a group give far the AFR has set for ourselves, and one in cial health. We give as we’re able, in both less often and far more stingily than our peer which we invite you to share. modesty and generosity. institutions. (A 2009 survey of need-blind If you want to get involved, or to offer The AFR wants all Reed alumni to be institutions showed that on average 48% any comments, please email me at moses@ excited about contributing, however they of their alumni made a gift to their college alumni.reed.edu. may be able. We alumni have life-long rela- in that year, compared to 33% at Reed. The tionships with the college, however that may need-blind colleges brought in an average December 2010 Reed magazine 17

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Living Small You think your life is tough? Try swimming through roofing tar with a flimsy flagellum. David Dusenbery ’64 explores the everyday challenges of being a microbe.

By William Abernathy ’88

Life as a microbe, it turns out, is no picnic.

Bacteria and other tiny life forms live in the same world that we do, but at their size, the laws of physics operate quite differently. If you were shrunk down to the size of a microbe, water would have the apparent viscosity of lukewarm roofing tar, the resistance of moving through it vastly exceeding your puny inertia. If you were lucky enough to have an appendage, and could figure out how to wiggle yourself forward, you’d stop moving the instant you were done thrashing, grinding to a halt in about the width of an atom. The tremendous effort of locomotion might not be worth it, though, since you wouldn’t be able to steer anyway: your surroundings would be a mosh pit of molecules battering you randomly from all directions. The smallest microbes literally can’t move on their own, can’t orient themselves to steer, and can only get around by random diffusion. And yet, these are arguably the most successful life forms on the planet.

At micro scale, forces that most scientists consider afterthoughts become vitally important. At our size, for example, Brownian motion (the tendency of microscopic particles to jiggle around in water) and the Reynolds number (the ratio of an object’s inertia to the viscosity of the surrounding fluid) are little more than curiosities—topics learned for an exam, then relegated to the Engineering department. (While the Reynolds number sees some use in airfoil and pump designs, the only practical application of Brownian motion is powering the Infinite Improbability Drive in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.) To a microbe, though, these physics footnotes are far more important than the gravity and inertia that rule life at our scale.

David Dusenbery ’64 has spent his scholarly career examining the bizarre world of the microbe from a physicist’s perspective.

Now an emeritus professor of biophysics at Georgia Tech, Dusenbery has shown his squarely interdisciplinary approach to the ecology of very small organisms in Living at Micro Scale: The Unexpected Physics of Living Small.

The unorthodoxy of Dusenbery’s approach is to start not from direct obser vation of microbes, but rather from the strange physical laws that govern them. This line of inquiry yields surprising insights. At the smallest sizes, for example, his calculations show advantages for organisms shaped like spheres; at slightly larger sizes, for elongated ellipsoids or rods. He also demonstrates distinct disadvantages to flattened, disk-like ellipsoids. Observed species bear out his findings: the smallest organisms are, indeed, spherical, while platter-shaped bacteria are unknown to science.

Likewise, by applying information theory, he identifies a certain threshold of smallness below which it makes no practical sense to use pheromones to find a mate or to detect prey. Below this threshold, the chance of bumping into a pheromone molecule is too small, the cost of secreting one too dear, the biological difficulty of interpreting and acting on the information too great, and the possibility of it giving away one’s location to a predator—armed with such microbial super-weapons as chemical detection, locomotion, and steering—too terrible. It makes more sense for tiny microbes to surf the random tides of Brownian motion, reproduce asexually when they can, and hope not to attract too much attention. Again, these theories are borne out by the observed behaviors of small and very small organisms.

Dusenbery suggests that the physics of the very small is crucial to understanding the everyday life of microbes—how they move around, how they find food, how they avoid suffocating in their own wastes. Indeed, he argues that microbes evolve physiologically, morphologically, and behaviorally to ecological boundaries described by laws of physics.

Now retired from a career that took him from Reed to the University of Chicago, Cal Tech, and ultimately to Georgia Tech, Dusenbery might not have seemed the most likely candidate for a career in biophysics. His senior thesis, which he wrote with Professor Dennis Hoffman [physics, 1959–90], was entitled Toward a New Type of Thin-Film Electron Emitter.

How does a solid-state physicist make the jump to biophysics? “At that time,” Dusenbery recounts, “the exciting physics seemed to be in the subatomic particles, which was done at expensive, one-of-a-kind machines involving hundreds of people. I was more interested in small-scale research where I had more control. Since I had always been interested in what animals know about their environment, biophysics seemed attractive.”

In addition to the firm footing in mathematics and physics he received at Reed, he credits Reed economics classes for a start down his eventual path. “Many of the same ideas,” he notes, “are used in ecology and evolutionary biology.” A Reed connection from professor (and later acting president) Byron Youtz [physics, 1956–TK] to the University of Chicago’s nascent biophysics program set him on his way.

His interdisciplinarianism has not always been appreciated. “Physicists get it,” Dusenbery says of his method. “They are used to the idea of making approximations to simplify the problem enough to make analysis possible. This leads to improved understanding, even if the analysis is of something not exactly like the subject in nature. Biologists often don’t see the value

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Dusenbery hiking Mt. Baker in 2009. “Hiking remains a big part of my life. I learned it from my parents who learned it at Reed in the 1930’s. At Reed, Outings Club was my main social activity.”

His parents are Harris Dusenbery ’36 and the late Evelyn Dusenbery ’37; his sister, Diane Dusenbery Waggoner ’68, is also a Reedie.

of this kind of approach and complain that some of the assumptions don’t fit details they know about.”

Biologists, Dusenbery notes, quoting oceanographer Peter Jumars, “are trained from Biology 101 onward to look for small differences among organisms. Physicists, on the other hand, are likely to want to know first the factors that explain the 90% similarity before they pursue the 10% dissimilarity.”

“Many biologists tend to think of organisms as magical things that can do anything, and the biologist’s job is simply to discover what things they, in fact, do.” Dusenbery says. “I think it is just as important to understand what they cannot do.”

Additionally, Dusenber y’s approach offers insight into larger animals and ecosystems, providing intriguing glimpses into problems such as why there are two sexes, how many predators an ecosystem can sustain, and how big apex predators can get.

Indeed, he sees implications for engineers as well as biologists. “Engineers interested in designing micro-robots,” he observes, “will need to deal with many of the same issues that bacteria have overcome.”

Looking forward, Dusenbery hopes other scientists will appreciate the power of this kind of analysis. “This book develops several theories that make quantitative predictions of the kinds of organisms that should be successful,” he says. “What I’d really like is for researchers to do the hard work necessary to ... test the theories more rigorously.

Hopefully, a new generation of students will be inspired to make these kinds of studies.”

It’s clear that future researchers, like the low-Reynolds-number creatures they’re studying, won’t get far by coasting.

Writer and amateur mechanician William Abernathy ’88 lives in Berkeley, California.

LAW OF ATTRACTION: This imposing specimen is a cyclops, a type of freshwater copepod belonging to the crustacean family. Copepods are among the tiniest organisms to be equipped with pheremone attraction.

Smaller creatures generally have not evolved the high sensitivity necessary for pheremones to be an effective strategy for tracking down mates. “One of my childhood memories is breaking ice on the Reed pond to get some pond water to view in my first microscope, probably a Christmas present... Cyclops were the most impressive organisms I remember from the Reed sample.”

FURTHER READING Living at Micro Scale: The Unexpected Physics of Living Small (Harvard University Press).

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Life After Dark

Sneaking past the red velvet ropes with Taylor Plimpton ’99

photo by landon nordeman

The massive front doors at Avenue, one of New York’s indisputable A-list nightclubs, are among the most unyielding in the entire city.

Even on a Monday night, there’s a growing line at the door, and the scent of anxious anticipation. Inside lies an exclusive world of celebrities and athletes, youth and beauty, loose money and tinselly glamour whose lure is so strong that clubbers will stand in line, for hours if necessary, for a shot at a onceover from the security staff and an approving “Go ahead in, Honey.”

Without breaking his stride, Taylor Plimpton ’99 skips the line, shares an easy handshake with the doorman, and spirits us through the checkpoint.

Now, perched on the spine of a long black banquette, he seems entirely unfazed by the extravagant scene we find within. This shouldn’t be surprising; he’s a veteran in this world of velvet ropes and Big Nights Out. In his new book, Notes From The Night, he condenses more than a decade of first-hand experience in the Manhattan club scene into a single, endless New York night.

Although it may not have all actually happened in one evening, it is all true, Taylor insists. The book tells the story of Taylor— sometimes called Tap, by his initials—and his friends prowling the city, trying to make it into the right place at the right time. Names and some details have been changed to protect his friends’ identities, but it’s clear that Tap’s crew, guys with nicknames like “Zoo” (the ringleader), “Hobbes,” “Fatdog,” and “Stibbs,” were always game to hop in a cab at a moment’s notice and take a shot at sweettalking their way into the VIP section. Monday night. Tuesday night. Any night.

Taylor’s partying career began while he was in prep school at St Paul’s in New Hampshire, when he would sneak out during his visits back to the Upper East Side to score drinks in Irish dive bars and less-than-scrupulous Chinese restaurants. Leaving New York for Reed was a chance to escape from the “country-club aspect” of his upbringing

and try something new. “I was definitely wearing a skirt at Renn Fayre,” he admits.

Like many classmates, he values having returned to the city with “a little West Coast in my blood.” Reed was also a place where he was able to experiment with his writing, hammer out his own voice and direction, and eventually stake his claim in the fields of creative nonfiction and memoir (his thesis project detailed a series of solo trips into nature across America). It’s no small feat when you consider that his father was George Plimpton, founding editor of the Paris Review, beloved New Yorker, literary lion, and an American master of the genre.

In Notes from the Night, Taylor condenses a decade of firsthand adventures in the Manhattan club scene into a single, endless evening.

On school breaks back in New York, Taylor and his friends dove into a world of legendary clubs with names like Life, Tunnel, Lotus, and Float—all places that defined the fame, glamour and unhinged indulgence of the club scene in 1990s Manhattan.

There’s a Big Moment he chases throughout Notes From the Night: a fleeting second he describes when all the pretensions and egos in the room melt away and one finds himself surrounded by instant friends all simply looking for a good time. He found proof of the bond, he says, on the nights when he would bring visiting classmates from Reed out on the town. If the stars aligned and they made it close to that perfect moment, he knew they would feel right at home, even three VIP rooms deep at Moomba, and even if they’d had to borrow a pair of shoes from the elder Plimpton to get in the door.

But how long can serendipity last? The charmed spells inevitably end, and the party evaporates as the next day begins. You drag yourself back home, and then back to work.

Ultimately, it’s a little hard to put your finger on what Taylor has taken away from these

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Caption Contest!

clubs beyond the memory of these occasional magic moments. And the effort involved in finding them is a hard sell on paper. There are countless rejections and ejections, drugs (“inebriation becomes a sport, a crescendo of consumption”), botched advances (“the ones you fall for are somehow always leaving … tomorrow, the next day, a week later for Los Angeles”), and moments of real despair and self-loathing (“Is this miserable Muppet what I’ve become?”). For all its debauchery, the book ends with an admission: chasing the moment is all there is to this particular world, nothing else, and disappointment is simply part of the deal.

Notes From the Night was in development for several years, and Taylor originally conceived it as a way to grease the doors at hot clubs—you’re the guy who wrote the book about all this! Since he began the project, however, the clubs have changed several times over, and he has changed, too. Even if his partying days are not entirely behind him, they have mellowed as he’s matured, moved uptown, and pursued his writing career. Taylor had invited Zoo out to join us that night at Avenue, but his former instigator declined, saying that these days he considered the prospect of making a sortie on Monday night to be “rather aggressive.”

At Avenue, Taylor is far from the “complete idiot on the dance floor” he describes himself as in the book. Instead, he seems pensive as he looks out beyond the champagneladen table in front of us, past the beautiful blonde in the green dress who is dancing on it, and through the mysterious and exuberant Malaysian gentleman who is (for some reason) laying out for the spread. We could snake some drinks from this extortionately expensive bottle of vodka and try to worm our way into the even more exclusive mezzanine above, but Taylor seems content where he is—taking it in, going with the flow, and seeing where the night takes him.

— By Stewart Stone ’06 FURTHER READING Notes From The Night: A Life After Dark by Taylor Plimpton.

Broadway Books, 2010.

The Dreaded Feast: Writers on Enduring the Holidays. Co-edited

by Taylor Plimpton. Abrams Image, 2009.

Last issue, we asked you for amusing captions for this historical Reed photo. And you answered. We received entries from classmates of all vintages, and from around the globe— from Portland to Italy. A sagacious Owl has granted eternal timê to the following brilliant correspondents.

Grand Winner No, silly. A toad; you’re supposed to turn back into a toad.

—David James ’68 Honorable Mention The Doyle Owl is a friendly fowl And lives on the campus of Reed College You won’t always agree With what he may decree But at least you’ll admit he’s full of knowledge.

—Lucy Shepard Howard ’37 Mmmm. Smells like white chocolate!

—Vlasta Becvar Barber ’47 Loth to yield yet vanquished As I knelt beside thee All thy long resistance To my kiss succumbed (Sappho, from the poem Damophyla) —Danielle Aquino-Roithmayr ’08 Ready to make your mark? Pick up your pen and try your hand at the photo on the enclosed envelope. (Extra timê if you choose to enclose an Annual Fund gift!)

TREASURES OF THE

Special Collections 2011 CALENDAR

Save The Date It wouldn’t be fall without the arrival of your annual Reed calendar. Prepare to be delighted by the 2011 theme of “Treasures of the Special Collections.” From dog collars to fine art, the range of items held deep within the Hauser Library is sure to surprise and entertain you. Look for the calendar in your mailbox soon.

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Finding Balance How does Reed help students stay healthy and sane on a campus defined by its intensity?

By Chris Lydgate ’90

Swaying like a cobra, eyes glinting, face Reed’s new emphasis on wellbeing has streaked with sweat, the young woman involved extensive planning, hard work, and whirls across the floor and executes a dra- considerable expense, but its goal is suitably matic sweeping double kick, her bare feet ambitious: to help students find balance in a slicing through the air mere inches from world that increasingly seems out of balance. her sparring partner’s head. Her partner, a strapping fellow built like an ox, gracefully Active Learning dodges the vicious blow and pops back up Growing up in Connecticut in the 1970s, on his feet, rocking from side to side in a Michael Lombardo was—how do we say slow-motion dance that defines capoeira, this?—kind of a nerd. Smart, insecure, a martial art developed by Brazilian slaves uncoordinated. This discombobulation was that is part dance, part gymnastics, and all made more awkward by the fact that his intensity. father was a coach at Wesleyan. Everyone Just down the hall, the squash courts wanted the coach’s son to be a star athecho with the relentless retort of crush- lete—except Michael. In his teenage years, ing backhands and the agonized squeak of he spurned sports, ate junk food, stayed up flatfooted sneakers. The weight room pulses late, experimented with drugs, and dropped with the whirr of treadmills and the clank out of college. Then he got a job at a groof dumbbells. In the dance studio, a flock cery co-op and saw—for the first time—the of fencers don black masks and brandish value of nutrition and exercise. “It really wicked-looking foils. turned my life around,” he says.

Yes, Amanda, these are Reed students— Lombardo went back to college, got a and the hustle and bustle in the sports cen- BA in psychology, a master’s in exercise ter is no coincidence. Reed is determined to science, and another master’s in counselhelp students lead healthier, more balanced ing. He worked as a counselor at Reed for a lives, in keeping with Juvenal’s classic ideal, couple of years before becoming director of mens sana in corpore sano, or a sound mind physical education and athletics. He is pasin a sound body. sionate about teaching students the value “We have brilliant and creative students,” of exercise and nutrition. Oh, yeah—he is says Mike Brody, dean of students. “The a former competitive bodybuilder and bicychallenge for Reedies—and really for all cles 100–120 miles a week, rain or shine. of us—is whether we can be intellectually “These are very smart kids, and the acaintense and stay healthy at the same time. demic program is very stressful,” he says.

I believe the answer is ‘Yes.’” “But the data shows that if you can manage To this end, Reed has embarked on a far- stress through physical activity, you perreaching initiative to promote the health form better academically. I tell them that if and welfare of its students, including: you want to succeed here, you need to take • a revitalized fitness program; care of yourself. You have to eat right. You • a new and expanded health & counsel- can’t drink too much caffeine or alcohol—it ing center with more counselors and more will destroy your ability to concentrate and robust services, including acupuncture, recall information. We are chemical creanaturopathy, and a “Mind Spa”; tures—chemical reactions occur in the body.

• a wellness coach, a peer-to-peer counsel- When you exercise, you dump chemicals ing program, and a revamped web site with into your body that counteract the negative online resources for alcohol and drug issues; effects of the stress chemicals.”

• big improvements to commons. “ I k n o w w h at t h e s e s t u d e n t s g o

through—I worked in the counseling center. And I identify with the students. When they come and say to me, ‘I’m weak, I’m awkward,’ I get it—that’s who I was. It’s really fun to expose them to new activities and teach them skills that will help them throughout their whole lives. These are smart, talented people who are going to go out and make a big difference in the world.”

The sports center currently offers 62 courses with 742 students currently enrolled—an increase of 18% over the last five years. Reed now offers six team sports (basketball, rowing, rugby, soccer, squash, and ultimate frisbee). In fact, the number of students participating in team sports has doubled over the last five years, reaching 300.

Reed students do not necessarily regard sports as an antidrug program. But Lombardo says sports are an effective therapy for many of the issues that are associated with drug use, such as anxiety, stress, depression, and sleep problems.

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she says. “It gives me a reason to exercise.

Capoeira is like a kind of challenge. It’s a game as much as an art form. It pushes you to your limits, it pushes you past your limits.

It’s art, combat, music, philosophy, history, ritual—and it’s fun!”

“Sometimes I’m tired and I don’t feel like doing it. But I find that if I go to capoeira, afterwards I feel rejuvenated and revitalized—I feel more able to study.”

Walking out of a yoga session, physics major Adarsh Pyarelal ’11 echoes this sentiment. “At first, I just took the class to satisfy my PE requirement,” he says. “Now I find that I really look forward to it.”

Seeking Harmony A scent of jasmine wafts through the air as you pull off your shoes and shed your backpack. A mellow 12-string guitar plays softly in the background. Heather Clute, Reed’s health and wellness coordinator, helps a science major settle into a giant massage chair

a b o v e p h o t o s b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o • l e f t p h o t o b y e r i c c a b l e

“The single most effective intervention you can make is physical activity,” he says.

This does not mean that Reed is going to field a football team any time soon. It does mean that the college offers an impressive range of choices for students who are natural-born adventurers and thrill seekers.

“You want intensity?” Lombardo asks. “Take a look at the rugby team. Go on a raft trip down the Deschutes River. Go snowboarding up on the mountain. Play squash. Not only do these activities match the intensity of the drug experience, but they’re fun, without the risk and side effects of substance use.

They provide socialization for students who are shy. They help the students cope with stress. They teach kids good lifestyle habits, and help them perform better in class.”

Mopping the sweat from her forehead, Emily Kastrul ’11 , a biology major who is writing her thesis on phytoremediation, says capoeira makes a big difference to her state of mind. “This keeps me grounded,”

MIND OVER MATTER: Michael Lombardo, director of physical education, knows where Reedies are coming from—he worked in the counseling center for two years.

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wellness continued c a p o e i r a p h o t o b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o • c o m m o n s p h o t o b y o r i n z y va n

AIN’T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD? Biology major Emily Kastrul ’11 spars with partner in capoeira, an afro-Brazilian martial art.

that looks like it was just beamed down from the bridge of the USS Enterprise. The most persuasive measure of its comfiness is probably the student’s sigh as she sinks deep into its caress.

Welcome to the Mind Spa—a dedicated space for relaxation where students can come and recharge their psychic batteries. In addition to the massage chair, the spa offers meditation tapes, soothing music, and a biofeedback lab where students can monitor their own heart rhythm and create “physiological coherence.” (We’re not sure what this is, either, but students seem to like it.)

With an infectious smile and the cando spirit of a childbirth coach, Clute, the spa’s den mother, is the kind of person who makes you feel more relaxed just being in the same room. She has a master’s degree in health psychology, but her knowledge of nutrition and wellness stems from personal experience, too. In her 20s, she developed Type I diabetes; to stay healthy, she must constantly monitor her carbohydrate intake and manage her stress level. “I always knew this work was important,” she says of her condition. “But now I know that for some people, this is life and death.”

Clute believes that the impetus for a change in a student’s behavior must come from within. But she can help students explore new techniques for achieving balance in their lives. “I provide information, encouragement, structure, and support,” she says.

She is also developing a peer-counseling program that will recruit upperclassmen to serve both as role models and as resources for students who are seeking ways to enjoy

BREAKING BREAD. A friendlier atmosphere in Commons helps students refresh, recharge, and tackle that age-old nemesis, the New York Times crossword.

Reed’s intensity without burning out on it. The ideal peer counselors, she says, are not goody-two-shoes, but students who have overcome problems and found their own solutions. “We don’t want preachers,” she says. “We don’t want judges. We want people who can serve as resources.”

northwest corner of campus, in a building that formerly housed a doctor’s office.

The center now offers free acupuncture and naturopathy, in addition to primary medical health services, counseling, and psychiatric medication prescription.

Just as students no longer have to saddle themselves with a “problem” in order to see counselors, staff and professors no longer have to wait for problems to develop before they take action.

“Now we don’t wait for a problem,” says Brody. “We look at the overall pattern and if we don’t like the direction we see, we intervene. Our response should be rational. It should be thoughtful. Sometimes it may be no more than sitting down to talk. But even a small response like that can have a big effect.”

Talking it Through For several decades, counselors at Reed and other colleges faced a maddening bureaucratic dilemma. Insurance companies demanded that students be given a psychiatric diagnosis before paying for counseling sessions. “The old model was, you could only see a counselor if you had a diagnosable problem,” Dean Brody says. “The model was predicated on pathology as a prerequisite for getting help. So you couldn’t just come to talk.”

Commons Sense Reed’s system eliminates third-party If you haven’t eaten at commons in a little insurance billing for counseling sessions, while, you may be in for a surprise. On a thereby removing the mandate to patholo- recent afternoon, a hint of fennel mixes gize issues—to the relief of both students with the aroma of Korean barbeque. Stuand counselors, who can concentrate on dents roam the light, airy serving area solving problems as opposed to categoriz- (known as the “servery”) inspecting the ing them. salad bar or tasting soup in little paper cups.

Reed now has 10 FTE counselors for a Fresh fruit, fancy bottled beverages, pizza, student body of approximately 1,400, which sandwiches, a grill, fresh-baked goods— is 10 times the national average for higher there’s plenty to choose from. Given the education. “That ratio allows us to expand friendly, appetizing atmosphere, it’s hard to our focus,” says Brody. “In addition to trying believe that during the academic year, comto fix problems, we can devote substantial mons serves approximately 15,000 meals resources to preventing problems from hap- per week. pening in the first place.”

Debby Bridges, general manager of Bon Counseling sessions, which are strictly Appétit, has worked at Reed for 10 years. confidential, take place in a brand new “Our mission is to create community around health & counseling center, located on the food,” she says, sitting at a table in com-

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Adventuresome Spirits mons overlooking Cerf amphitheater. “We create food that’s healthy, simple, tastes good, and that didn’t have to travel far from its origin. The key to a community is sitting down and breaking bread together. So we try to create a place where the community can come together and share food.”

The cornerstone of this philosophy is making commons feel more like a restaurant than a cafeteria. “In a cafeteria, what you see is institutional,” she says. “The lunch ladies. Food being slopped onto plates. Mystery meat. It’s all sort of robotic. There’s no authenticity. The essence of the food is lost.”

“In a restaurant, you can smell the food being prepared,” she continues. “You see it being prepared. You go there to eat, of course, but you also go to be with people.”

The kitchen is organized like a restaurant,

“ We encourage them to bring their intellectual curiosity to all their endeavors.”

—Dean of Students Mike Brody with an executive chef who writes a menu based on seasonality and availability of local produce. Virtually all the food in commons is prepared from scratch, and served by the people who make it. “There’s a lot of passion behind the creation of this food,” Bridges says. “The chefs take a lot of pride in it.”

Commons also practices “stealth nutrition”—instead of giving students a “healthy” choice and an “unhealthy” one, chefs try to make sure all the options are nutritious.

Rather than slathering a sandwich in mayonnaise, for example, chefs might deploy a chutney instead. And with dietary restrictions increasingly common, Bon Appétit is committed to offering vegetarian and vegan entrées that go beyond the salad bar.

Commons underwent a redesign three years ago that expanded the servery to allow more stations. The redesign reduced the number of tables in the seating area, but that actually produced some benefits— fewer tables mean that diners tend to interact with each other more. “It has helped create a vibrant space,” Bridges says.

Bon Appétit supports local producers whenever possible. On a recent lunch, the tomatoes came from Flamingo Ridge, the squash from Zenger Farms, and the kale from Deep Roots Farm, all close to Portland;

the apples and pears from A&J Orchards in Hood River; and the beef from Oregon Country Beef. For fish, it follows the guidelines from the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tuna, for example, is caught hook-and-line or troll-andpole from a fishery based in Coquille, Oregon.

Variety and freshness are constant challenges. “If you went to the same restaurant three times a day, seven days a week, you’d get tired of it even if it was the best restaurant in the world,” Bridges says. “So we are always striving to keep things fresh and different.” One successful initiative has been the popular Daily Planet, which features the cuisine of a particular nation or geographic area for a whole week. Chefs sit down with students who hail from that part of the world; draw up a menu; prepare the dishes; and serve it together, sometimes wearing traditional costumes. Recent examples include Ghana, Korea, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Italy, France, and Louisiana.

In contrast to years past, commons also serves food on a “declining balance” model— in other words, students deposit money into an account at the beginning of the semester, which is then debited depending on the food items they choose—as opposed to the old model, which was basically free refills of everything. Bon Appétit has found that the declining balance model reduces waste and promotes student autonomy.

Life Lessons Reed’s commitment to help its students find balance in their lives is not just aimed at improving their academic performance— although that’s mostly what students care about—but also at making them well-rounded people.

“Our students are intensely focused on their studies,” says Dean Brody. “Whitewater rafting doesn’t change that—but it helps them explore different parts of themselves.

For many of them, novelty is inherently interesting. They love to experiment. So we provide a wide range of healthy activities for them to experiment with. We encourage them to bring their intellectual curiosity— the intellectual curiosity that makes them Reedies—to all their endeavors.”

FURTHER READING www.reed.edu/health_center www.circleofresponsibility.com/ www.reed.edu/sports_center

Reed employs more than 70 outstanding instructors and coaches to help students push their limits.

Rodney Sofich teaches rock climbing and backcountry navigation and leads students on wilderness expeditions. A professional mountain guide, he made headlines last year for his role in a dramatic rescue in the North Cascades. (See “On the Ledge,” Reed, March 2010.)

Miwa McRee ’92 has fenced since 1986, and has been a fencing instructor at the Studio of American Fencing, Portland Parks and Recreation, and Reed College over the last 15 years. Miwa has fenced competitively at both the local and national level in all three weapons, but prefers to fence recreationally. Her teaching approach is to encourage students to have fun, to learn to be more aware and adaptable, and to grow as both individuals and fencers.

Jay Stewart teaches contemplative meditation.

She has a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of California and has practiced meditation regularly for over 30 years. She studies and practices Tibetan Buddhism. She is also a teacher and meditation instructor at the Portland Shambhala Center. At Reed, she takes a secular approach to meditation, focusing on its potential for sharpening concentration and deepening the ability to relax at will.

Val Shaull teaches canoeing and whitewater rafting. A Vietnam veteran and retired firefighter, Val pioneered several descents on Class V drops and is a legend in the local paddling community. He is an active member of Team River Runner, a nonprofit that brings the thrill of whitewater to injured and disabled veterans.

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Growing the Curriculum

The cross-pollination of Reed’s

new environmental studies major

By Geoff Koch

“There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware of or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits.”

—Rachel Carson

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower; Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.”

—William Blake

Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970), the Montreal Protocol banning of ozone-depleting chemicals (1987)—happened before today’s freshmen were born.

But let’s be honest. Reasons to worry about environmental unraveling continue to mount, right along with the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That stood at more than 388 parts per million in August, an increase of about three parts per million from the previous year, according to CO2Now.org, which compiles data from a variety of official sources, most notably the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The number that many leading scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide: 350 parts per million.

Complexity is the hallmark of this problem, and indeed of most environmental issues. Each is a Gordian tangle of the local and global, the scientific and political, the rational and the emotional. Untangling the knots—or cutting through them—requires deep expertise and a meaningful ability to work across disciplines. Reed’s new program provides both, and perhaps surprisingly, one further ingredient: hope.

“I’m an eternal optimist,” says economics professor Noelwah Netusil, when asked about all the bleak news on climate change.

“The scientists will start to get their point across that we really need to fundamentally change our activities. The tide will change.”

Reed’s ES program is the result of years of careful planning. Trustee Jeff Kenner jumpstarted the process with a gift that allowed the college to bring environmental leaders—including marine ecologist Jane Lubchenco—to campus to share ideas on building an effective program. A group of professors then crafted a proposal, which was approved in principle by the faculty in November 2007. Another faculty committee then hammered out specifics. The faculty took pains to maintain Reed’s longstanding

p h o t o b y m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

opposite: Biology majors Ross Young ’11 and Sean Maden ’11 investigate the impact of urban development on frog evolution. Under the direction of Bob Kaplan [biology, 1983+] and Zac Perry [canyon, 2000+] Ross and Sean created an amphibian breeding pond in the canyon. Their research is funded in part by a fellowship honoring conservationist Milt Fischer ’87.

Thirty years ago, Reed biology professor Keith Karoly was an 18-year-old freshman thinking about majoring in environmental studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Instead he picked biology, going on to earn a PhD in the field from the University of Chicago, but he’s never given up on that interest.

Today Karoly is contemplating Reed’s first crop of students in environmental studies (ES), a new program sprouting this fall after years of deliberation. By all indications it should be a bumper harvest four years from now. Of the 373 incoming freshmen this year, 66 said that ES would be among their top three choices as major. That’s impressive, given that the new major wasn’t even approved until March. When most of these incoming students visited campus as prospies, there was nothing in the catalog— just a “rumor,” Karoly says, that the program was in the works.

On a warm August afternoon, the biology building was almost deserted and the hectic beginning of a new academic year seemed far away. Strains of the band Wire echoed down a second floor hallway. Soon enough, the source of the English punk music was revealed: a boom box in Karoly’s lab. There, hunched over a row of tiny pots, Karoly was planting seedlings of Northwest larkspur, an endangered flower, poking the soil with a pencil, then carefully placing thimble-sized seedlings in the holes.

“We have really bright students here at Reed, and if I wanted to burden anyone with the responsibility for trying to tackle some of these very tough environmental issues, it would be Reedies,” says Karoly. “And for me this is a core interest coming full circle.”

At first blush, Reed’s newest major seems almost impossibly late to the save-theplanet party. The nation’s first ES program began 45 years ago at Middlebury College, when Karoly was just a toddler. Many of the signature moments of the environmental movement—the publication of Rachel

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tradition of academic rigor and disciplinary depth. Students majoring in ES will pursue the lion’s share of their coursework in one of five traditional departments—biology, chemistry, economics, history or political science. The balance of their course work will be structured interdisciplinary studies of environmental themes. That means ES majors will have to satisfy virtually all the requirements of a traditional major in addition to their ES course work.

That makes Reed’s program very different from those at many other colleges and universities, which often “just take a sampling of a lot of different subjects,” Netusil said.

“We rejected that approach.”

While the curriculum was being hammered out, the college had to find money to pay for the program. Inspired by the faculty’s ambitious plan, several donors (including trustees John Gray and Randy Labbe and the Mellon Foundation) provided crucial support. Indeed, launching ES is one of the most significant achievements of Reed’s Centennial Campaign so far. (See sidebar.)

Netusil is on sabbatical this year, but that doesn’t mean she’s resting. Instead she is working with researchers from several Pacific Northwest universities on a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant comparing Portland with Vancouver, Washington, its urban neighbor just across the Columbia River. The project examines how different urban planning policies in the two cities have led to different environmental outcomes.

In other words, does it really pay to be green? And if so, how much?

Netusil is exploring questions such as whether the quality of riparian corridors in the region, which has a combined population of more than 2 million people, contribute to differences in property values. Given the stagnant housing market, and its drag on the overall economy, it’s a question relevant beyond obscure academic journals.

Netusil said the research is “just so much fun,” but lamented time away from her students, for whom she reserves most of her energy. Sometimes, in fact, the students have a hard time keeping up. After hosting several of them for dinner at her rural Damascus home in early August, she was disappointed that they left long before the annual Perseid meteor shower’s peak viewing time—1 a.m.

Economics major Kelsey Lucas ’11 was one of the students over for dinner that night.

The senior from Moraga, California, turned out to be tough to schedule for an interview because she was working two summer jobs.

One was at Metro, Portland’s elected regional government, where she was building economic models that value open space. The second was at Grand Canyon Trust, where she was putting a price on the benefits—recharging aquifers, slowing runoff, providing fish nursery ponds, and so on—that would come with the reintroduction of beavers to Utah.

Busy as a beaver herself, it’s no wonder she was too tired to stay for the meteor shower.

Kelsey was an energetic participant, however, in Netusil’s 2009 environmental economics class, which included students majoring in a host of other subjects. The Kelsey Lucas ’11: does it pay to be green? class’s capstone project: an exhaustive 44-page report that assigns a dollar value to the ecosystem services provided by 10 years Though she claims Madison, Wisconsin, of work to restore the beloved Reed canyon, as her permanent home, Claire mostly grew beginning in 1999. (See Further Reading.) up in Nairobi, Kenya, where her parents do “It was a great class, with such a good relief and development work. She came to group of people coming from disciplines— Reed convinced she was going to follow in economics, political science, anthropol- their footsteps, but somewhere along the ogy, chemistry, and biology—that all are way became enthralled by chemistry.

Claire loved the dialogue in Netusil’s so important to dealing with the environment,” she said. “Plus, it was just a really class, but said that during long discussions of various political science and economic fun project.”

The canyon restoration involved tearing perspectives, she would occasionally want out blackberry bushes, removing the 1930s- to blurt out: “No, no. This is what the ozone era concrete swimming pool and installing molecule looks like, this is the way it works, a fish ladder at Reed Lake. All told, these and I think that makes everything clear.” efforts yielded about $15 million in benefits in terms of improved water and air quality, In all likelihood Claire will seek guidance on wildlife habitat and recreation, the students her senior thesis from Julie Fry, an assistant found. That’s a pretty good return on an professor of chemistry and one of the new investment of $1.5 million (provided by faculty members hired for the program.

While Claire was sweating it out at home generous donors, Reed, foundations and for a Wisconsin summer that USA Today government grants).

Chemistry major Claire Remington ’11 reported as being “much warmer than took the same class and worked with Kelsey normal,” Fry shivered through the coldest on the final project, which is perhaps a good night of her life in a red snowcat nearly preview of what’s to come from the new ES 2,000 miles north of Reed. It was one of program. Constrained by time and with no Fry’s more memorable experiences from her budget, much of the students’ work involved work as a visiting researcher in the Juneau reviewing various official reports and pub- Icefield Research Program, which has mainlished research. Claire, however, went to the tained the longest running study of any glacanyon to gather data firsthand. Using a cier in the Western Hemisphere.

Fry was collecting data to help underdetector borrowed from Portland State, she took measurements of various pollutants and stand how pollution travels over long disgreenhouse gases—nitrogen oxides, particu- tances, a fact of life given the increasing lates, and carbon dioxide—and found them all industrialization of developing nations around the world. The work involved so to be lower in proximity to the canyon.

Reed biology professor Keith Karoly conducting controlled crosses with the endangered northwest larkspur, Delphinium leucophaeum.

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environmental studies continued photos courtesy of julie fry

Chemistry major Josh Katz ’12 and chemistry professor Julie Fry investigate glaciers in Alaska in a snowcat dubbed “Reed North.”

much time in the snowcat that she and chemistry student Josh Katz ’12 dubbed the battered vehicle “Reed North.”

Back in her office in the second week of class, Fry was working late preparing for the next day’s chemistry lecture. She turned away from her PowerPoint slides to pour another cup of coffee from her thermos and talk about why she tries to balance research and policy work.

“We all want to change the world; we succeed to greater and lesser degrees, but I think, we need to at least be cognizant of that motivation,” she said, laughing at what she labeled as her own hubris. “I would have loved to have taken a program like what we’re developing with environmental studies at Reed, because I think what we’re trying to do is give students the tools to do just that, to change things for the better.”

It’s a sentiment shared by assistant professor of history Tamara Venit-Shelton, the second new environmental studies faculty member who stresses to students how her field is the study of choices.

“Nothing is predetermined,” she said, reached by phone at a conference of the American Historical Association in the Bay Area. “Human actors have agency and are always able to make changes.”

As an example, Venit-Shelton points to her hometown of Los Angeles. Today known for gridlocked traffic, the city once had a thriving public transportation network. In 1940, more than 7,000 people per

mile boarded streetcars running on the Los Angeles Railway’s busiest route, according to one estimate.

“Eventually someone came along and tore up all those tracks and paved over them and made them into roads,” she said. “But this history, I think, should be very encouraging to people; it means that it could be done again.”

Venit-Shelton, who is teaching a new course on food, is best known among students for her popular class on the environmental history of the American West, which covers topics such as the destruction of the bison, the legacy of mining, and the ongoing political conflict about water.

That conflict continues to this day. In February a historic agreement among fisherman, farmers, environmentalists, and Native American groups was signed to remove four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The agreement, which came after years of wrangling, was hailed by some as the largest salmon and river restoration project in American history.

Two years ago, political science major Adrienne Lane ’11 traveled to the Klamath Basin to interview local residents touched by the conflict, a shoe-leather reporting part of a class in water governance.

Let’s pause here for a fact that is beyond dispute: people in the Klamath Basin will need to use less water if the salmon are to be saved.

But Adrienne learned that what’s clear in a classroom becomes muddled when you

visit a small town and listen to longtime residents talk about what it’s like to have their lives inextricably linked to a dwindling resource—a fate, it’s reasonable to guess, that will be increasingly common in the years ahead.

“You wind up feeling compelled by everyone’s story; it’s not like: ‘This person’s right, this person’s wrong,’” says Adrienne, who grew up in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s complicated, and that’s the problem. When resources are scarce, that creates conflict, and though it’s important to try to mitigate conflict, there never will be a perfect solution.”

Which of course doesn’t mean that Reedies will stop trying. One way is by training ES students in emerging academic fields.

Adrienne spent the summer working on a research project with ES committee member Alexander Montgomery-Amo, assistant professor of political science. She surveyed recent scholarship in international environmental politics, a field that didn’t even have its own academic journal until 2001, when Montgomery-Amo was wrapping up his PhD at Stanford. The results will help shape a class on the subject that MontgomeryAmo will teach this spring, and should lead to an academic publication for Adrienne, who is considering law schools and other graduate programs.

Montgomery-Amo, whose work mostly focuses on nuclear proliferation, is standing in while the college gears up to hire its third new faculty member for the program, an environmental political scientist.

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photo by keith karoly

Jenny Leonard ’09 planted endangered larkspur at various locations around Portland to see if the flower might be reintroduced in an area where it once thrived.

“It means that I have to stay on top of site includes photos of the flower and handthings,” he chuckles, as he looked ahead to drawn pictures made by his children. “So the spring course. Not that Mongtomery- it was kind of an exciting thing that gave Amo, who holds a bachelor’s degree in phys- me optimism that we might be able to find ics from the University of Chicago and a mas- other sites in the Portland area that could ter’s degree in energy and resources from support populations of this species.”

Around the corner in his lab, rows of Berkeley, is cowed by the challenge. “This is one of the benefits of a program like this. seedlings waited next to a CD by a band When students cross disciplines it means named “TV on the Radio.” The title of the CD, Dear Science, seemed to make the scene professors have to cross disciplines, too.” complete.

However, like most stories about the This spring another Reed professor will, in all likelihood, be crossing muddy fields with environment, this one is not finished. Ever his eyes trained on the ground. That’s what the careful researcher, Karoly was quick to Karoly was doing a few months ago when he qualify the field result, pointing out that it was too early to say that this new patch will came across a truly astonishing sight.

Two years ago, one of Karoly’s thesis stu- persist at the site for several generations.

“Still, for now,” he said with some obvious dents, Jenny Leonard ’09, planted endangered larkspur at various locations around satisfaction, “they have survived.”

Portland to see if the flower might be rein- Geoff Koch is a Portland-based science writer. troduced in an area where it once thrived.

The following spring and summer, she went FURTHER READING back into the field and reported that many Watch a video about ES at Reed: reed.edu/reed_magazine of the seedlings had flowered at Canemah Environmental Studies at Reed: academic.reed.edu/es Bluffs, south of Oregon City.

The Canyon: reed.edu/canyon/ Karoly has kept his eye on the site since Bloomquist, Fenollosa, Gustafson, Lane, Lucas, Remington then. This spring he noticed seedlings—the and Workin. “Valuing the Benefits of Ecosystem Services first offspring from Jenny’s initial planting. Generated by the Reed Canyon Restoration Project 1999“It’s the first time anybody has tried to 2009.” Paper for ECON 352. www.reed.edu/canyon/reso/ docs/2010_ecosystem_services/. establish populations of this endangered species in the wild,” said Karoly, whose web

Supporting Reed’s Mission The new Environmental Studies program is a prime example of the farreaching impact of Reed’s Centennial Campaign, launched last year with a goal of raising $200 million by the end of 2012. So far, donors (including many readers of this magazine) have contributed almost $146 million, enabling the college to make some dramatic accomplishments.

In keeping with Reed’s tradition of academic excellence, a key goal of the campaign is to add twelve new faculty positions to achieve a 10:1 student-faculty ratio. These positions will strengthen small departments, reduce chronic over-enrollments, and meet curricular needs in environmental studies, computer science, performing arts, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and linguistics. So far, six of these positions have been funded or partially funded, including three in performing arts, two in environmental studies, and one in bioinformatics.

“Because close interactions between faculty and students are essential components of a Reed education, these new faculty positions are crucially important,” says Dean of Faculty Ellen Stauder. “We are deeply appreciative of the contributions that make it possible to hire vibrant, engaged faculty members in positions that strengthen and extend our curricular offerings.”

Since Reed professors are both teachers and scholars, and since Reedies learn best by doing, the campaign also aims to add $15 million to the endowment to support faculty and student research. So far, donors have contributed $11 million towards this end.

The campaign also seeks to achieve many other goals, from more financial aid for needy students to deeper engagement with alumni.

To find out more about how the Centennial Campaign will strengthen Reed and to make a gift, visit campaign.reed.edu.

December 2010 Reed magazine 31

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The Short Unhappy Life of the Great Experiment that Never Was

by Jim Kahan ’64

A good college resists the temptation to dissipate its energies by rambling and unwarranted ventures into university domains.

— William Trufant Foster, 1911

It was a typical September afternoon in 1961, during a typical convocation address, that President Richard Sullivan [1956-67] fired the opening salvo in what was destined to become a furious struggle for the future of Reed.

Speaking on the 50th anniversary of the college’s founding, Sullivan proposed that Reed become a full-fledged university—a development, he argued, that was not as radical as might be perceived. “The first campus master plan included also provision for the graduate school,” he said. “The founders apparently envisaged the college of liberal arts and sciences as the initial step in the eventual development of a university.” 1 This dramatic proposal drew remarkably little attention. The Quest barely mentioned it, and there is no record of any faculty debate in the wake of Sullivan’s speech. Yet within two years, the issue of whether Reed should become a university—“Reed U”—would convulse the campus, polarize the faculty, and constitute a major institutional crisis.

Years later, the episode assumed almost mythic proportions. With Reed facing a financial crisis that threatened its very existence, the story goes, Sullivan hatched a grandiose scheme to drive up revenue through expansion. Students and faculty, fearing that Reed U would destroy everything they loved about the college, banded together to shut it down. Frustrated, Sullivan fled.

At least, that’s the myth. Like many myths, it contains some truth, but one of its central elements is completely backwards.

The real story is both more complex and more intriguing.

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Planting the Flag two years of American college experience. in an ongoing series of Oregon tax revolts President Sullivan arrived at Reed in 1956. Moreover, the 1960s witnessed a surge in that made public funding impractical. The Although his demeanor was not generally postsecondary education, making the bach- consortium of local colleges got cold feet; described as “visionary,” he made major con- elor’s degree less valuable in the job market. by May 1963, it was clear that Reed would tributions, such as affirming that the college Federal support for postsecondary educa- have to go it alone.

For the next year, the graduate school would not be cowed by political pressure, tion was largely through university-level establishing sabbatical leaves for faculty, research, which put liberal arts colleges at a was a defining issue on campus. Sullivan appointed a special committee, with himdoubling the size of the library, and striv- competitive disadvantage.

Sullivan was not blind to the hazards of self as chair, to issue a recommendation. ing to improve the quality of campus life.

However, Sullivan genuinely believed that this proposal. He noted that many faculty Apart from Sullivan, the committee conReed’s future lay in expansion. This belief and students were opposed to a graduate sisted of 9 members of the faculty, and it is was founded on two pillars. First, influenced by the strong opinions of Howard Vollum ’36 (trustee and prominent Portland By 1961, President Sullivan and influential trustees were innovator) and others, he believed that as convinced that expansion was the key to Reed’s future. the largest American city lacking a major university, Portland suffered in its ability to attract innovative commercial ventures. 2, 3 school, and he acknowledged that the move easy to conjecture that its composition was Portland State College had not yet achieved risked “converting what may now be a first- stacked to agree with him. Two served as university status and Oregon State College rate college into a fifth-rate and under- administrators as well as faculty, and four was only about to be promoted. Apart from nourished university.” But overall, Sulli- of the remaining seven hailed from the scithe medical school on Pill Hill, there was van, Vollum, and other trustees remained ences—believed to be most in favor of a no university between Eugene and Seattle. convinced that expansion was the key to graduate school. Hugo Bedau [philosophy, The second pillar was his belief that “the Reed’s future.

1962–66], although not a voting member independent liberal arts college may be close of the committee, served as a paid rapporto its high water mark of significance and STORM CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON teur over the summer. Notably absent were influence.” 4 As he put it in his convocation As Sullivan sought to build momentum influential faculty members who opposed address, “We all, I think, recognize that by for his idea, he approached five other local the idea, such as Marvin Levich [philosophy, joint and productive actions of school and private undergraduate colleges to discuss 1953–94], Richard Jones [history, 1941– college teachers we are now breaking down a possible Portland Center for Graduate 86], Maure Goldschmidt [political science, the traditional dividing line between sec- Study, a proposal that gained support from 1935–81], and Lloyd Reynolds [English and Oregon Governor Mark G. Hatfield; in 1962 art, 1929–69]. ondary school and college.”

This position was not as preposterous as the talks were expanded to include public The committee immediately recogit might seem now. The line dividing school institutions. The public component was nized that any decision it would make and college has long been placed further short-lived, however, because of fears that would be under tremendous uncertainty, along the continuum in Europe, where a Portland center would siphon funds away because there were many unknowns. Such university entrants have the equivalent of from Eugene and Corvallis and by the latest unknowns included the following: 5 December 2010 Reed magazine 33

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Reed University continued Controversy Strikes The committee’s report sent the campus into an uproar. Reed divided into two factions—most students and a majority of the faculty opposed to a graduate school, with a minority in favor.

As the issue neared a crucial faculty vote, both sides dug in their positions. By this time, some opponents believed that President Sullivan and Vice President Frost had begun to adopt an argument of financial justification. Summarizing an interview with Sullivan in the Quest, Alison Publicover ’67, wrote:

duct the required related research, in the liberal arts and sciences, linking such educational and research efforts to, extending, and reinforcing the present programs of Reed College.

Any graduate work in any given field is more likely to attract money from the government and the foundations than undergraduate work alone. Carleton Whitehead, Assistant to the President for Public Services, has succeeded in finding the funds for expansion and improvement, even if the money has sometimes not been at hand when the programs were begun.

He felt that funds will probably be forthcoming for any well thought-out program that meets a real educational need.

The consistent impression from reading the report is that the committee carefully identified each of these issues, and then assumed the best of all possible worlds (in spite of its preamble regarding uncertainty) in order to dismiss their importance.

Hubert E. Chrestenson [mathematics, 1957–90] was the sole dissenter, and his concern was not based on opposition to the idea so much as his belief that the risks and uncertainties had not been adequately addressed.

Levich believes that Sullivan and Vice President Richard T. Frost [political science, 1960–69] pressured the committee not to investigate the deep merits or disadvantages of the program. For example, the committee acknowledged that more support from the Ford Foundation and others was needed for the undergraduate program alone, and that without substantial additional support the graduate program could not succeed.

But it then asserted that this shortfall could be overcome because a university would be better able to capture philanthropic dollars and that its greater visibility would actually drive support for the undergraduate program. These assertions were made without any evidence—they were, more or less, so much whistling in the dark.

The question was called in a faculty vote conducted on January 23, 1964. Eightyfour faculty cast ballots in an election supervised by Bedau. Of the 10 proposals put to the vote, the fifth, supporting the establishment of PhD degree programs in the arts and sciences, was the critical one for Reed U. Faculty could vote yes, no, or neutral. Blank ballots for that question were lumped with the neutral votes. The results were: • 32 in favor; • 41 opposed; • 11 blank or neutral.

At first glance, the results seem to suggest that the faculty opposed the idea. However, when the time came to transmit the results to the trustees, Bedau reached a different conclusion. He argued that the neutral votes should be counted as “not opposed” and added to the votes in favor, yielding a tally of: • 43 in favor or not opposed; • 41 opposed.

Thus he contended that the vote showed a nearly even split.

The day after the faculty vote, the trustees gathered to consider a graduate program. On the eve of their meeting, they agreed to hear a delegation of student leaders, who presented six principles aimed at ensuring the qual-

FURROWED BROW: President Sullivan did not anticipate the opposition that his proposal would trigger.

• Where would the money come from? The faculty were adamant that not one dollar be shifted from undergraduate to graduate education. Committee member Marsh Cronyn ’40 [chemistry, 1952–89], who at the time was in favor of Reed U, recalled that the proposed funding sources were hopelessly inadequate. He said that a graduate program would cost “really, hundreds of millions just to get started, minimal.

You know what they [were] talking about?

Twelve to fifteen million. Peanuts, I mean just peanuts.” 6 • Would it detract from Reed’s undergraduate program? “It was obvious to many of the older faculty that would be outrageous,” Cronyn said. “Every time that has happened, the undergraduate program gets what’s left over after the graduate program.”

• Would it attract top students? Levich7 says that he was astonished that any professor would consider establishing a graduate program to which they could not recommend their own best students.

• Who would be in charge? Reed faculty prided themselves on the critical role they enjoyed running the college; this might recede with the complexity of the graduate school.

Nonetheless, by a vote of 8–1 (with one abstention), the committee finally concluded 8 that it be: RESOLVED that the Reed Institute, through its faculty, administration, and board of trustees, should establish graduate programs, and con34 Reed magazine December 2010

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ity of undergraduate education and providing a student voice in implementing the program.

The Quest reported that the trustees replied with interest and enthusiasm. However, the next day, the trustees voted to approve four points that Sullivan had put forth: • Creation of a multidisciplinary Center for Research Studies attached to Reed College.

• Selective introduction of MA degree programs in the arts and sciences.

• Continued efforts to strengthen the preparation of secondary school teachers through the bachelor of arts and master of arts in teaching.

• Continued efforts to strengthen the undergraduate program.

Had it ended there, the vote might have been mildly received. However, the trustees barely acknowledged the existence of the students’ six principles, agreeing that “would be taken into account in further deliberations by the board” and then went beyond Sullivan’s recommendations to state: A majority of the Board predicts that the newly-approved plans will eventuate in Ph.D. degree programs and also prefers that positive steps be taken in that direction as soon as is feasible. [emphasis added] The Board recognizes, however, that an important division of opinion on this issue exists within the faculty, and that further study and review are clearly preferable to any immediate adoption of a policy position.

The trustees, it seemed, had finally given Sullivan what he wanted—a university.

BACKLASH The student reaction was outrage. The February 5, 1964 issue of the Quest was emblazoned REED UNIVERSITY QUEST, with a front-page editorial by Mark Loeb ’67 stating, “It is indeed regrettable that the Board of Trustees only paid lip service to the Reed Faculty and Student Body.” Around campus, signs appeared quoting Reed’s first president, William Trufant Foster, “[Reed] is a College that mistakes not bigness for greatness.”

During Canyon Day 1964, Kathia Naumann Emery ’67 and I were part of a group that painted “REED U” on the newly paved Botsford Drive. For all the outrage, though, there was a sense of fait accompli; it seemed unlikely that the trustees would ever reverse course on such an important issue.

One might expect that the next few years

The hell with U: The trustees were skewered in the February 3, 1964 edition of the Reed University Quest.

would be dedicated to establishing the new tions ahead for the college” after his forthprogram. But that did not happen. Instead, coming resignation: the initiative faded into nonexistence. CombUniversity or College: The large, unresolved quesing through the archives, one is struck by the tion involves the important dialogue between scarcity of references to it. In the spring of those who visualize the Reed of the future as basi1964, the community senate formed a comcally a small, undergraduate college, with each mittee on graduate education, but its activiadded program or activity being scrutinized with ties, if any, remain undocumented. Occasiongreat caution, and those who see it as desirably al Quest articles made glancing references more open-ended, perhaps eventually taking on to the issue—on April 6, 1964, for example, more the characteristics of a small university. ... I the newspaper reported that the trustees am really talking about a basic set of attitudes and, had finally agreed to uphold the students’ six to oversimplify, these can be thought of as homoprinciples. But for the most part, the silence geneity or pluralism, centrality or range. is deafening. There is scant mention of the graduate program in trustee minutes.

What happened? The answer to this the Test of Time conundrum can be found in President Sulli- As related in the beginning of this tale, Sulvan’s convocation address of September 1965. livan’s concept of Reed University rested on In a complete turnabout from the optimism two pillars: the dearth of major universityhe had expressed two years earlier, Sullivan level research in the Portland area, and the revealed that the college had overextended belief that the liberal arts college as a viable itself and was in danger of closing. Drastic institution was in decline. After 50 years, measures were called for: he proposed tri- neither pillar has withstood the test of time. pling the size of the student body.

Portland has a flourishing technological In response, faculty and students formed community in spite of the fact that there is the so-called Committee of 42 and formu- still no upper-tier university to feed it basic lated a short-term plan for 1966-67 to keep research or graduates. As for the inevitable the college alive and set in motion longer- demise of the liberal arts college, reports term planning to see whether Reed was sus- of its death have been greatly exaggerated. tainable. With the college confronting the Sullivan argued that the graduate proquestion of survival, the grand plans for Reed gram was a natural progression for the Reed University went into permanent deep freeze. Institute. According to this argument, Reed, One last, almost plaintive, note was after demonstrating success as a liberal arts sounded by Sullivan in a letter to the trust- college, should not be afraid to take the bold ees on June 15, 1966 regarding “major ques- step of becoming a university. After all, in December 2010 Reed magazine 35

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Reed University continued 1911, who would have thought that a little college on the far side of nowhere could compete against the establishment east of the Mississippi?

The reply to this argument is that the original Reed College attracted young, dynamic innovators such as Foster and the talented faculty who were willing to bet on a radical idea. By contrast, the 1960s effort at a graduate program lacked the spirit of innovation— it was instead an attempt to clamber aboard a bandwagon; Sullivan was in many ways (both for better and for worse) the antithesis of Foster. Thus, Reed U was unlikely to attract the revolutionaries who could make it succeed.

With the passage of time, most of the former proponents of Reed U have rethought their positions. Marsh Cronyn ultimately concluded that the proposal was fundamentally flawed, as did Hugo Bedau, who is glad now that the graduate program did not happen.

But while reasonable people may disagree on the merits of the idea, it’s hard not to conclude that in the end, we got lucky. Had the trustees actually implemented their decision in 1964, Reed would quite likely have overextended its mission beyond what von Clausewitz calls its “center of gravity”—and when the financial crisis hit, it surely would have toppled.

Author’s Note: I wish to profusely thank Mark Kuestner, Reed library special collections assistant, for identifying and providing me with the documentation essential for this tale. Mark also read the still-confidential minutes of the trustee and community senate meetings of the period, telling me about relevant portions and—more importantly—confirming the absence of potentially disconfirmatory materials. Thanks are also due to Hugo Bedau, Marvin Levich, Toinette Menashe, and William Wiest for informative interviews, plus many others with whom I had shorter, but still interesting, conversations about Reed University.

1 Richard H. Sullivan, “The Historic and Future Reed,” Address at the Reed College Fiftieth Anniversary Convocation, September 30, 1961.

2 Hugo A. Bedau, “Graduate Education and Research In a Liberal Arts College: A Report on The Reed Institute, May 1963–January 1964.” Monograph prepared for the College in January, 1964.

3 Marshall W. Cronyn, Oral History narration taken November 16, 2005.

4 Richard H. Sullivan, Speech to the City Club of Portland on 13 May 1963; quoted in Bedau (1964). I am probably not the first person to find it ironic that when Sullivan left Reed, it was to head the Association of American Colleges.

5 Bedau (1964).

6 Cronyn (2005).

7 Interviewed on May 6, 2010.

Professor Carol Creedon [psychology 1957–91] was a key force in Reed’s MAT program.

Yes, There Are Master’s Programs At Reed Although almost exclusively a BA-granting institution, Reed has had four different master’s degree programs in its history. From the outset, there was a Master of Arts degree, available only to recent graduates of Reed who were employed by the college—largely as teaching assistants. Only seven degrees were awarded between 1911 and 1934, and the program faded away.

The next program was a Master of Arts in Education, in response to the fact that more early Reed graduates became secondary school teachers than any other profession. This program generally took two years to complete and was transformed into a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree in 1959. The difference was that the program now also prepared its students for Oregon teacher credentialing, requiring an internship as well as coursework. The MAT proved highly successful and benefited from foundation support and close cooperation with the Portland public school system. Graduates were highly sought after, according to Carol Creedon [psychology 1957–91], one of the program’s key faculty members. Unfortunately, the MAT’s success could not be sustained for various reasons. Creedon said that the state imposed increasing credentialing requirements not really germane to pedagogy (e.g., running a movie projector), until students had to take a third of their coursework at Portland State. Toinette Menashe MALS ’71 [special programs, 1973–95] noted that the Portland Public Schools pulled financial support because of budgetary constraints. These two factors, plus tension with the state accreditation board, led to the program’s termination in 1979.

The current master’s program, the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS), started in 1966. Originally MALS was conceived as an extension program for teachers, but after the demise of the MAT it evolved to take on a life of its own. MALS now draws a diverse range of students who wish to pursue interdisciplinary graduate work in a program that is both flexible and rigorous. Most students are part-time, balancing the demands of the Reed curriculum with careers, family, and community involvement. MALS courses are offered in the evenings and summers, and students have the additional option of taking upperlevel undergraduate courses. Most MALS students enter the program primarily as a way to engage with the life of the mind. Some graduates use the program as a stepping stone to consider new careers and directions; others pursue PhDs. For more about MALS, see www.reed.edu/MALS.

8 Special Committee on Graduate Education, “Report to the Faculty,” September 6, 1963; see also Bedau (1964).

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Reediana Books by Reedies

HUBBUB, Volume XXVI, Special Vern Rutsala Issue “While the poetry written over the second half of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st has been rich and various, there are few other writers who have produced as sustained and consistent a body of rewarding work as Vern Rutsala ’56.” So write the editors of the latest issue of Hubbub, which includes several of Vern’s marvelous poems along with essays by writers Carlos Reyes, Mark Jarman, Charles Baxter, and Maura Stanton, who demonstrate how Vern has proved an inspiration to several generations of poets. The issue has a strong Reed connection, with submissions from former instructor Maxine Scates [English, 1989–2006], and from writers featured in the Visiting Writers series, including Paulann Petersen, Christopher Howell, and Dorianne Laux.

Vern’s career as a writer included 43 years of teaching at Lewis & Clark College and 17 published books. Acknowledged as a master of the prose poem, Vern has published work in numerous journals and garnered a respectable list of awards, including recognition of The Moment’s Equation as a 2005 National Book Award finalist.

His poem “Living” begins thus: No one tells you how it’s done— you are expected to know— to say, be able to get up every day at an hour when rising is like pulling gauze from a wounded eye, and then laugh, scratch, greedily eat eggs without ever mentioning those sad lakes, the yolks.

Worse, it’s assumed you know who you are right away and have a name printed on the tip of your tongue, ready.

For a look at Vern’s career, see “Writing Life,” in Reed, Winter 2006. He and his wife, Joan Colby Rutsala ’55, have three children, including writer Matthew R. Rutsala ’89.

Hubbub was founded in 1983 by poets Lisa M. Steinman (Kenan Professor of English & Humanities at Reed), Jim Shugrue (former trade book buyer for the Reed bookstore), and Carlos Reyes. The journal is an independent, self-funded publication, relying on subscriptions—a bargain at $7 per year. Some information is available at www.reed.edu/ hubbub, but, as Lisa maintains, Hubbub is “a stubbornly print-oriented journal.”

Craig Clinton Professor of theatre emeritus Cora Urquhart Potter: The Victorian Actress as Provocateur (McFarland, 2010) The unlacing of Victorian morality is often seen as the product of irresistible historical forces such as the rise of the middle class and the advent of the moving picture. But social values are also shaped by singular individuals who, by force of their writing, their art, or their personality, can melt hearts—or harden them.

One such provocateur was the actress Cora Urquhart Potter (1857–1936), whose life is a virtual mirror of the changing role of women. Born to a wealthy family in New Orleans, she married a prominent New York businessman in 1876; social convention dictated that she devote herself to home and family. But Mrs. Potter rebelled. Unwilling to play the dull, dutiful wife, she took to the stage and became a professional actress, scandalizing New York society. At a time when upper-class women were practically forbidden to work, she declared, “Labor is sacred. It is prayer . . . . Work puts a woman beyond the necessity of asking favors—work makes her independent.”

This free spirit, combined with raw talent and sex appeal, made Potter a surefire draw at the box office. It also made her a magnet for spluttering indignation. Indeed, one of the great pleasures of this book is sampling the vitriolic theatrical reviews of the era. Take, for example, this savage take-down: “When passion and power were required of the Queen it was almost painful to see how clearly Mrs. Potter realized the necessity and how feebly she obeyed it . . . . It was like watching a mute conveying his thoughts by means of signs.”

Or this: “She threw her attenuated frame at the breast of [the protagonist] with a precision and force that almost staggered him, although he prepared himself with great determination to receive the onslaught; she wound herself about his knees with serpentine grace and fondly toyed with his ambrosial locks, and she finally perched upon his knee, and from that eminence looked lovingly down upon him as he nestled in the recesses of a stage settee.”

Or my favorite: “She coiled herself about her lover and panted like a locomotive on the upgrade.”

Despite the brickbats, Potter hung on, seeking provocative roles and costumes that drove her critics to outrage verging on the apoplectic. Eventually, however, she won many of them over, redefining the boundaries of what was acceptable on stage. When she died, one newspaper wrote that she “probably accomplished more for the cause of feminism than the efforts of all the equal rights organizations of her day.”

With lively narration and meticulous research, Clinton delivers a compelling biography of a pioneer who defied convention and reaped the consequences. Like the prophet, the provocateur is seldom recognized in her own time.

—Chris Lydgate ’90

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Barbara Ehrenreich ’63 Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America (Henry Holt, 2009) If you’ve ever been told to smile—for no particular reason—you’ll appreciate this mordant dissection of the cult of optimism in American life, as exemplified by motivational coaches, prosperity ministries, pop psychology, and the credit crisis of 2007.

Barbara traces today’s positive thinking to the “New Thought” of the late 19th century, itself a reaction to Calvinism’s dour insistence on our inescapable depravity. New Thought envisioned a fundamentally benevolent universal spirit, promising health and abundance for those who believe.

Embraced in various forms by transcendentalists, Christian Scientists, and pioneering psychologist William James, New Thought was a direct precursor to the Depression-era best seller Think and Grow Rich. From there, Barbara charts a direct line to Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking (still in print) and Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, which posits a “law of attraction” with supposed roots in quantum physics.

Bright-Sided is very good on the burden that the cult of optimism places on the already vulnerable—something the author experienced firsthand during her bout with breast cancer. The health care community’s pink-ribboned insistence on treating cancer as an opportunity for personal growth drove her to her keyboard in sheer self-defense. Paraphrasing Nietszche, she was astonished to learn that, among the cheerleaders for cancer survival, “What does not destroy you . . . makes you a spunkier, more evolved sort of person.”

She colorfully documents the replacement of rational business management with mystical shamanic journeys for top-floor executives, who embrace positive thinking as a way of deflecting responsibility for downsizing away from themselves and onto the workers they have displaced.

Where Bright-Sided seems to overreach is in suggesting that the Iraq war can be traced to a surfeit of positive thinking and that the mortgage meltdown stems directly from the same blinkered optimism. One could equally well pin both disasters on ambition, greed, and hubris. The book lacks the immediacy of Nickel and Dimed, Barbara’s classic account of life as a minimum-wage worker. But it bluntly and bracingly argues a sensible notion: that for nations and individuals alike, it takes more than a positive attitude to create sustained success; it takes clear analysis and appropriate action. Sometimes it even takes anger. —Angie Jabine ’79

Lauri Ramey ’74 Slave Songs and the Birth of African American Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) “Oh when the saints, when the saints go marching in.”

We hear the words that African American slaves sang on Southern plantations long ago and we’re inclined, usually, to imagine a simpler time—and simpler souls entrapped in an earthly hell, yearning for freedom in the next life. The yearning can manifest as happy pandemonium (think “Go Tell it on the Mountain”) or as wistful longing (“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”). But we seldom read slave song as complex, layered, or subversive.

In this groundbreaking book, Lauri Ramey ’74 seeks to restore to the songs’ anonymous authors “a complete human identity.” She argues that slave songs constitute “some of our finest and earliest American poems,” and takes a fresh look at them as potent political statements rich with nuance and otherworldly metaphor.

When slaves sang “spirituals,” extolling a sweet afterlife, Lauri suggests they were also covertly dreaming of an earthly escape—to New England, say, or Canada. She notes that the song “Steal Away” begins with an exhortation: “Steal away, steal away, steal away,” before adding, in deference to white overseers, the words “to Jesus.”

Black poet Paul Dunbar remarked on this guile in 1896, writing, “We wear the mask/With torn and bleeding hearts, we smile,” and Lauri works her best scholarly magic when she demonstrates how Americans have systematically blinded themselves to such cunning. She shows how the slaves’ Yankee advocates were invested in painting blacks as “Christ-like” and playing up their churchgoing piety. Guided by such a goody-two-shoes notion of Negro spirituals, musicologists typically steered away from the incendiary when composing anthologies. We rarely hear about “Many Thousands Gone,” with its explicit protest: “No more driver’s lash for me.”

Nineteenth-century racists dismissed the songs as degenerate imitations of white hymns. But in fact, Lauri writes, “two-thirds of slave songs are in the structure of call-andresponse whereas there are no examples of white spirituals using this form.” Slave songs are also distinctly African in their metaphysics. They take place in material reality, but are exempt “from the laws of motion and optics.” For example: “I’ve got a home in-a dat Rock, don’t you see/Between de earth an’ sky.” The world of the ancestors—and of ancient Biblical figures—is somehow immediate, present: “I’m goin’ away to see good ol’ Daniel/I’m goin’ away to see my Lord.”

You can’t help wishing this book came with a CD—these songs were meant to be sung, not simply read. But maybe the music can shake our bones a little more now that Lauri, a literature professor at California State University–Los Angeles, has illuminated the hidden depths of this uniquely American art form. —Bill Donahue

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Reediana

continued

Elizabeth Drumm, professor of Spanish and humanities. Painting on Stage: Visual Art in TwentiethCentury Spanish Theater (Bucknell University Press, 2010). Libby’s book is the first full-length study of image-text relations in 20th-century Spanish theater, which she examines through a series of dramas expressing the theatrical tension between images and verbal language through their interrogation of the visual arts. Libby came to Reed in 1995 and teaches courses on Don Quixote, Spanish literature, Spanish language, and humanities. Her research interests include performance theory, transgeneric conceptions of theater, and the role of cultural memory in contemporary theater. Painting on Stage has been nominated for the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.

Tamara Metz, assistant professor of political science and humanities.

Untying the Knot: Marriage, the State, and the Case for their Divorce (Princeton University Press, 2010). Tamara explores the history of liberal treatment of the relationship between marriage and the state, and concludes that marriage should be disestablished. Tamara has taught at Reed since 2006; her interests include the history of political thought, liberalism and its critics, feminist and postmodern theory, political theory and law, American political thought, and theories of freedom.

Robert Caper ’64.

Building out into the Dark: Theory and Observation in Science and Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2008).

Robert examines the claim by psychoanalysts that their discipline is a science.

He investigates the relationship of theory to observation in both philosophy and the experimental sciences and explores how these observations differ from those made in psychoanalytic interpretation. The book covers topics such as the origins of psychoanalysis in the art of medicine, the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis, the archaic superego, and psychoanalysis with the individual and groups, and what makes psychoanalytic work unique.

(See Class Notes.)

Marlaine Lockheed ’64 has published “School Improvement Plans and Student Learning in Jamaica,” in the International Journal of Educational Development, and “Measuring Progress with Tests of Learning: Pros and Cons for Progress-Based Aid in Education,” Center for Global Development Working Paper 147. (See Class Notes.)

Catherine Collier ’68 published two books about diverse learners through Corwin Publishing this year: RTI for Diverse Learners: More Than 200 Instructional Interventions and Seven Steps to Separating Difference From Disability. Response to Intervention (RTI) is a multitiered model that helps educators determine students’ educational needs. When using RTI with culturally and linguistically diverse students, however, educators must look beyond students’ performance in reading and math to address complex learning and behavior issues. (See Class Notes.)

Ann Parker LittleDan Burstein ’73. wood ’68. Did Not Secrets of the Lost Survive (Poisoned Symbol: The UnauPen Press, 2010). thorized Guide to the Ann has set another Mysteries Behind task before zookeepThe Da Vinci Code er Iris Oakley, who Sequel (HarperColfinds her boss gravelins, 2009). An ly injured in an elephant stall and award-winning journalist, Dan has suspects something more sinister written 13 books about global ecothan a rogue pachyderm. She must nomics, technology, and popular figure out what happened to her culture and is the founder of Millenboss, how a tiger managed to disapnium Technology Ventures, a venture pear, and what to do about the anicapital firm. This book also includes mal rights activists picketing the zoo. two essays by Glenn Erickson ’72, This is the second novel Ann has “The Ancient Mysteries and The Lost written about the fictitious Finley Symbol” and “A Quick Guide to the Memorial Zoo. Current plans include Philosophers in The Lost Symbol.” two more books for this series. Ann Day Williams ’76. worked at the Oregon Zoo for 12 We the People (Days years, became a technical writer and Rays, 2010). This analyst, and then fulfilled a childcollection of historic hood dream to write fiction by pubAmerican documents lishing her first book, Night Kill. See ranges from the annlittlewood.com.

Mayflower Compact of 1620 to Ronald Jeff Goldsmith ’70.

Reagan’s “Tear Down This Wall” The Sorcerer’s speech in Berlin in 1987. The texts are Apprentice: How presented along with inspiring and Medical Imaging Is thought-provoking quotations from Reshaping Health George Washington to Barack Obama.

Care (Oxford University Press, 2010). “This is a fundamental compendium of American law and lore, principles and The book, coauthored by Bruce Hillpractice.” Day practices law and is a man, describes two parallel stories: candidate for supervisor in Carson the emergence of modern medical imaging and the rise of the discipline City, Nevada. This is his fifth book. of radiology, which developed the technology. Imaging has become a $170 billion business and, until recently, was the fastest-growing medical expense. As the title suggests, society has struggled to make effective use of this powerful new tool. The book explains not only how these technologies work but also their limitations. It also looks at the economic consequences of successful innovation and what can be done to make imaging more useful and more affordable. (See Class Notes.)

Julie O’Toole ’71. Give Food a Chance: A New View on Childhood Eating Disorders (PSI Press, 2010). This guide to the treatment of eating disorders in children was compiled from more than a decade of experience by Julie and the multidisciplinary team— which includes son Morgan O’TooleSmith ’94 and husband Steven Nemirow ’71—at the Kartini Clinic in Portland. A botanist, gardener, and writer, Julie recently published Botboy, My Botboy, which was reviewed in the September 2010 issue of Reed.

Diane LevKoy Morgan ’77. Gifts Cooks Love: Recipes for Giving (Sur La Table, 2010) covers an array of recipes—sweet, savory, smoked, baked, and beverages—along with tips and techniques. She has also written Skinny Dips: 60 Recipes for Dips, Spreads, Chips, and Salsas on the Lighter Side of Delicious (Chronicle Books, 2010), in which she liberates the premeal or anytime snack by lightening up calories.

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Katrin Talbot ’80. St. Cecilia’s Daze (Parallel Press, 2010).

Katrina’s new chapbook includes an homage to the patron saint of music: As I’m currently living in the comfort zone where Bach wrote his Preludes and Fugues, where life still makes sense in these keys, I think I’ll sneak in a slow trill for a few months before I decide on a direction because I’m in no hurry to modulate.

Katrin has written poetry since she was six, “pounding away on an Olivetti under an almond tree in Australia.”

Her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2009. (See Class Notes.)

Margarete Myers Feinstein ’83. Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Stranded in Germany after World War II, 300,000 Holocaust survivors began to rebuild their lives while awaiting emigration. Brought together by their shared persecution, they forged a vibrant community, redefining their identity after Auschwitz. Asserting their dignity as Jews, they practiced Jewish rituals, created new families, embraced Zionism, agitated against British policies in Palestine, and tried to force Germans to acknowledge responsibility for wartime crimes.

Margarete uses survivor memoirs and interviews and focuses on the personal aspects of the transition to normalcy. Her study emphasizes Jewish identity and cultural life after the war. Margarete first began research into the topic for her Reed thesis. (See Class Notes.)

John Culbert ’85.

Paralysis: Literature, Travel, and Ethnography in French Modernity (University of Nebraska Press, 2011).

Modernity has long been equated with motion, travel, and change, but John argues that the key texts of modernity and postmodernity may be approached through figures and narratives of paralysis. Motion, John contends, is no more defining of modern travel than fixations, resistance, and impasse; concepts and figures of travel must be rethought in this more static light. Focusing on the French and Francophone context, in which paralyzed travel is a persistent motif, he also offers new insights into French critical theory and its often-paradoxical figures of mobility. John teaches at Scripps College and has published articles in numerous journals, including October, Postmodern Culture, Qui Parle, and L’Esprit Créateur.

Andy Couturier ’86. A Different Kind of Luxury: Wisdom for Living the Good Life from the Mountains of Japan (Stonebridge Press, 2009). This book profiles 11 individuals Andy encountered while teaching English in Japan.

All had experienced the pressures of Japan’s urban, industrial society, and chose a more self-sustaining and fulfilling lifestyle. Now, as artists, philosophers, and farmers, residing in the mountains of rural Japan, they are surrounded by nature, art, contemplation, delicious food, and an abundance of time. By presenting the journeys of these ordinary—yet exceptional—people, Andy hopes to show how others can live simply, and with respect for community and natural resources. Andy is also the author of Writing Open the Mind: Tapping the Subconscious to Free the Writing and the Writer. (See Class Notes.)

Doug Sackman ’90, Ed. A Companion to American Environmental History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Doug edited this book, in which scholars plumb the depths and ascend the heights of the fairly new formation of the historiographic landscape of environmental history. A professor of history at the University of Puget Sound, Doug also wrote the chapter on food and coauthored the one on gender. We noted the publication of his book Wild Men in the June issue of Reed.

Deepak Sarma ’91, Ed. Authority and Its Challenges in Hindu Texts, Translations, and Transnational Communities (Deepak Heritage Books, 2009). We will not attempt to summarize this book, except to note this remarkable quote from Deepak about his days at Reed: “I am indebted to all of those sages of the magic grove who encouraged me to wonder if this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago on days when the sky was yellow and the sun was blue.” Deepak has written and edited an astonishing list of titles, including An Introduction to Madhva Vedanta; Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Inquiry: Doctrine in Madhva Vedant); and Hinduism: A Reader. (See Class Notes.)

Greg Barnhisel ’92, Ed. Pressing the Fight: Print, Propaganda, and the Cold War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010). In this volume, a dozen scholars from a variety of disciplines look at different manifestations of print as propaganda, from textbooks and cookbooks to art catalogs, newspaper comics, and travel guides. The book evaluates not only the content of printed matter but also the circumstances of its production, the people and institutions that disseminated it, and the audiences that consumed it. Greg is associate professor of English at Duquesne University.

His previous publications include James Laughlin, New Directions, and the Remaking of Ezra Pound.

“Settling,” an essay

by Rachel Shaw ’92, is included in Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-based Writing (University of Utah Press, 2010). (See Class Notes.)

Nicole Walker ’93. This Noisy Egg (Barrow Street Press, 2010). “Nature, seen with a desperate, urban eye, shapes this work. The kind of nature that informs these poems is nature under attack. These poems open a door between the domestic and the wild, and, sometimes violently, between the interior of the body and the natural world. In this manuscript, the poems move quickly, as if the world is disappearing faster than Walker can write it.” An assistant professor of poetry and creative nonfiction at Northern Arizona University, Nicole writes: “I thank Reedie poets like Leslie Scalapino ’66 and Gary Snyder ’51 for paving the way.” (See Class Notes.)

Jeremy Faludi ’95 teaches green product design at Stanford, and contributed to four books that came out in the past year: Packaging Sustainability, by Wendy Jedlicka; Sustainable Graphic Design, by Wendy Jedlicka; Green Graphic Design, by Brian Dougherty; and Eco-labels: Concerns and Experiences, by Asha B. Joshi.

Thomas Reale MALS ’08. Six Gems of Geometry (PSI Press, 2010). This delightful exploration of the teachings of Euclid includes a fictional story inspired by William Blake’s painting Newton the Measurer.

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In Memoriam Audrey Angelique Lockhart Gregg ’30

March 28, in Portland.

Audrey was a member of the Multnomah Presbyterian Church. We are sorry we have no further information.

George D. Graham ’32

February 1, 1988, in Portland.

George was married to Bonna Palena ’35. We are sorry we have no further information.

Alfred John Heldfond ’33

January 19, in Los Angeles, California.

Al spent three years at Reed; our archives are mute regarding his academic interests, but we do know that he was an avid soccer player, qualifying as a “master” of the sport, and was a member of Reed’s Lettermen club.

After Reed, he earned an MD from the University of Oregon, and trained at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland, Los Angeles County Maternity Hospital, and Los Angeles General Hospital. During World War II, Al served as a flight surgeon in the Pacific, and then returned to Los Angeles, where he became a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Southern California medical school and a staff physician at Cedars of Lebanon and Cedars-Sinai Hospital. In 1982, he retired from USC and went into private practice, founding the Heldfond Medical Group. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Los Angeles Obstetrical and Gynecological Society in 2000.

Al and Ann M. Taylor were married for 55 years; they had two sons and a daughter. One son predeceased him. In his public obituary we read: “Please do a mitzvah of your choice to honor his lifetime of kindness.”

Albert Ott ’34

July 16, in Portland.

Albert grew up on his family’s farm in Sunnyside, a couple of miles southeast of Portland. He was a day-dodger at Reed, commuting, as he put it, in “two- or four-wheeled vehicles.” He majored in economics and wrote his thesis on banking legislation. Long after graduation, he said: “My only claim to distinction during my undergraduate years was in handball, which I was encouraged to pursue by everyone’s friend, coach Charles Botsford [1912–52].”

Albert joined the workforce in the depths of Phronsie Ruth Kellmer the Great Depression, and got several short-term McFarling ’38 jobs through the New Deal. He also lent a hand at January 5, in Portland. his family’s farm. Later, he became senior statistiPhronsie grew up in cian for the Oregon Department of Employment Cleveland, Ohio, but and was a manpower economist for the Portland moved to Portland at metro area for 15 years; he retired in 1976. “The the time she entered efforts of my distinguished mentors, Dr. Clement high school. The transition was difficult, but Akerman [1920–43], Dr. Blair Stewart [1925–49], she persevered, and and Dr. F.L. Griffin [1911–56], provided splendid went on to Reed, earnbackground in economics, mathematics, and staing a BA in psychology; tistics, which were basic to my position.” Albert and her thesis focused on Lorene Hinkley were married for 62 years. They raised two children, and enjoyed travel, dancing, strategies for teaching remedial reading to elegolfing, and camping. They operated the Ott family mentary school students. After graduation, she farm, selling off the last acres in 1981, and, there- attended Oregon Normal School in Ashland and after, assisted family and friends who had filbert taught for a year in a one-room schoolhouse in and blueberry crops. Albert was an active mem- Myrtle Creek, Oregon. At a neighborhood picnic ber of the Beaverton Elks Lodge and held the dis- in Mt. Tabor Park in 1939, she met (William) tinction of being their oldest living member. He is Kenneth McFarling; they married a year later.

Kenneth was a civil engineer for Southern Pacifsurvived by a daughter and son. ic Railroad, and Phronsie devoted her time to making a home and raising a family. In an interWilliam Steiwer Connell ’37 April 16, in Portland. view in 2006, Phronsie quipped: “I didn’t make L o o k i n g b a c k , B i l l use of the psychology, except for trying it out on remarked that 1937 was our four sons!” The couple lived in the same house a special year for three in southeast Portland for 67 years. reasons: he earned a BA from Reed in mathe- Gilbert Prentiss Lee ’39 matics, he married Eliz- June 19, in Portland, from age-related abeth Labbé a few days complications. after graduation, and, Prentiss grew up in Eastshortly thereafter, the ern Oregon and graduatcouple drove to Newark, ed from high school in New Jersey, where he began his actuarial career Baker City, a little town as a trainee with the Prudential Insurance Comnear the Wallowa Mounpany. Bill’s career included a position as vice tains. He majored in president and actuary at Great American biology, wrote his thesis Reserve Insurance Company in Dallas, Texas, on fish runs at the (then and he also served on the company’s board of brand new) Bonneville directors. He was hired as vice president of C.V. Dam and was elected Starr & Company in New York in 1966, and class president. He followed classmate Ned Mcretired from actuarial work three years later. In Krill ’38 to medical school at Tufts University, retirement, Bill and Elizabeth lived in Durham, hitchhiking and riding freight cars from Portland New Hampshire. With an MS in mathematics, to Boston. While awaiting admission to Tufts, he which he earned in 1973 at the University of bicycled through Europe; when the German army New Hampshire, Bill taught statistics at Nasson invaded Poland, he wisely boarded a ship back to College in Maine. The couple traveled in the U.S. the U.S. Prentiss spent two years at Tufts and and abroad, and Bill, who enjoyed hiking, served then transferred to the University of Oregon. as New Hampshire chairman of the Nature Con- After earning an MD, he trained at the U.S. Naval servancy. He also enjoyed classical music. Fol- Hospital in Seattle, Washington, and served as a lowing his wife’s death in 1996, he moved to medical officer in the South Pacific. Back in PortPortland to be closer to family. Survivors include land, he did a surgical residency at the Veterans a daughter, two granddaughters, and two great- Hospital and met Patricia A. Brownell ’43—who grandsons. Bill’s first cousin was alumna was head of physical education at Reed—at a folkdance event at the college. They married, and Florence Walls Lehman ’41.

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spent two years in Helena, Montana, before returning to Portland, where they raised three sons and created a spectacular landscape on their two-acre property. Prentiss was a surgeon and partner at the Valley Medical Center in Southwest Portland and was on the staff at Good Samaritan and St. Vincent hospitals. Prentiss was a member of the Portland Surgical Society, president of the Multnomah County Medical Society, director of the Parkview Nursing Home for 25 years, a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery, and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. He enjoyed skiing and hiking, and he wrote an autobiography, Reflections, which includes an account of his years at Reed. Survivors include Patricia, two sons, six grandchildren, one greatgrandchild, and his nephew. A son, Gary, died in a mountain-climbing accident in 2008.

1953, he joined the Ford Foundation in New York City, working in an overseas development program. From there, he represented the Bank of America in the Middle East, Africa, and Rome. He then worked for the Mellon International Finance Corporation as a Middle East representative, retiring in 1987. Paul lived in numerous locations, including England, Lebanon, Greece, and Canada. In his marriage to Willa L. Crowder ’42, he was father to four children, including three Reedies: Douglas A. Parker ’67, Catherine L. Parker ’77, Anthony S. Parker ’80, and Gary Reed Parker. He later married Laurice Haddad.

David McDonald Dibrell ’41

Following a stint as copyboy at the Oregonian, Eugene enrolled at Reed, where he thrived in his role as editor of the Griffin and wrote a political science thesis on the press and the presidential election of 1940. He left Reed intent on a career in writing, but the attack on Pearl Harbor altered his plans. He served three years in the U.S. Navy as a communications officer. After the war, he studied French at Laval University in Quebec, then moved to New York City to write for Business Week. He returned to academia to earn advanced degrees in economics from UC Berkeley and Oxford University, and taught economics at the University of British Columbia, Linfield College, and Portland State University. While lunching in Portland’s north park blocks one day, he discovered a plaque dedicated to the “great plank road.” Curiosity drove him to investigate.

Subsequent research during evenings and weekends over the course of three years led him to write Early Portland: Stump-Town Triumphant, the first of more than a dozen books on Oregon history. Eugene also wrote about his travels in Mexico and Europe and about art—that of his mother, whose work he curated, and that of his uncle, artist Jefferson Tester. He also ventured into detective and mystery writing—a nod to his “childhood friend” Sherlock Holmes. For two years he successfully ran The News Critic: Oregon’s Fortnightly Review of Art, Science, and Political Economy—a “David,” he said, to Portland’s newspaper “Goliaths.” His creativity knew no bounds—he once designed and constructed a mountaineering board game, titled “Peak.” Eugene was an accomplished illustrator, photographer, and artist whose creativity and scholarly work served as companions to the end of his life.

July 13, at home in Punahou, Hawaii.

David grew up in Ketchikan, Alaska, and attended high school in Seattle. He spent five years at Reed, earning a BA in chemistry, and went to work for Longview Fibre Company in WashingBeulah Joan Caviness Hand ’40 September 23, 2009, in Milwaukie, Oregon. ton. In 1943, he joined the navy, serving aboard Following her first year the troop carrier USS General T.H. Bliss during at Reed, Beulah married WWII. He was stationed on the oiler USS SabiFloyd Hand. They moved ne while he earned an MS in meteorology from to Nevada, where he the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, completed an under- California, then was promoted to navigator of graduate degree. During the heavy cruisers Quincy and St. Paul. David was World War II, Beulah an instructor and committee chairman for navworked in the Oregon igation at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annaposhipyards in Portland, lis, Maryland. In 1959, he became executive offiwhile Floyd served as a cer on the attack transport Montrose and later navy engineering officer in the South Pacific. She served as commanding officer of the destroyer treasured the 200 letters he wrote to her during Twining. In 1964, he assumed the rather vague that time. After the war, they moved to Milwaukie title of “Director of Pacific Oceanography”; in fact, and built a solar home. In the ’50s, Beulah entered this was military cover for his real job of hunting politics with the Democratic Party. She rose from Russian submarines. He received the Navy Comprecinct committee person to chairman of the mendation Medal for his “resourcefulness and state Democratic Party and was elected to the organizational ability” in this role. After retiring Oregon legislature as state representative (1956– from the navy, he took up a second career teach- William Bard Layton ’42 66). She was involved in initiatives to establish ing mathematics and science at Punahou School. July 24, in Los Angeles, California. public utility districts in Oregon and was one of David enjoyed music, theatre, and travel. He was Bill spent two years at Reed, withdrawing in the first to campaign against nuclear power in the married to the late Helene White; they had one order to enter military service. He served under Pacific Northwest. She was an officer in the son. In gratitude for the academic foundation he General Eisenhower in the army during World National Association of Retired Federal Employ- received at Reed, David was a longtime generous War II. His career included work for the Fedees and grew roses and prize-winning kiwis. Floyd, (and anonymous) supporter of the college. He erated Department Stores. In his public obitwho was a chemical engineer at Bonneville Power established the Walter Crockett Dibrell Scholar- uary, we read that he had a zest for life, and Administration, died in 2002. Beulah remarked, ship in honor of his father. enjoyed traveling, reading, walking, and listen“Reed’s program, in the only year I attended, was ing to symphonic and classical music. “Bill will a guiding philosophy for my entire life.” be remembered by those he touched for his Eugene Edmund Snyder ’41 July 15, in Portland. sense of humor and compassion. He will be cherPaul C. Parker ’40 Only child of Edmund I. ished by his family and friends for the fatherApril 29, 2009, in Toa Alta, Puerto Rico.

Snyder and renowned ly advice, caring demeanor, and willingness to artist Amanda Tester always lend a helping hand.” Survivors include Paul earned a BA from Snyder, Eugene grew up three daughters, eight grandchildren, and three Reed in political science in Portland, surrounded great-grandchildren. a n d at te n d e d g ra d by books and art. Over school at Harvard Unithe years, his fascination Barbara Bates Nelson ’43 versity. During World with language and pic- June 10, 1999, in Olympia, Washington.

War II, he served aboard turesque phraseology We are sorry we have no further information. the aircraft carrier USS led to a distinctive writSavo Island in the Pacific.

He then worked for the ing style that was precise, eloquent, and funny. Clayton C. Rushlight ’43 U.S. Treasury in Wash- He edited the newspaper at Washington High November 19, 2000, in San Francisco, ington, D.C., and headed the department’s inter- School and was the school correspondent for the California. national finance section for the Middle East. In Oregon Journal—which paid him $3 a week. Clayton earned a BA from Reed in general literature.

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In Memoriam

continued

James E. Boyle AMP ’44

July 15, 2008, in St. Maries, Idaho.

Jim attended Reed in the premeteorology program, and served in the military during World War II and the Korean War. He went to Washington State University on a football scholarship, and had a number of occupations during his lifetime, including consulting in geology and mining.

He had a passion for mountain recreation, which began in childhood when he joined the Seattle Mountaineers. Jim also was a father to two sons and a daughter.

Kathryn Loraine Newschwander Webb ’44

August 8, in Tacoma, Washington.

Kathryn attended Reed for two years, returning home to Tacoma because of a sports injury. She later earned a BA and MA in education from the University of Puget Sound. In 1943, she married V. Edward Webb; they raised two daughters, and both enjoyed boating, sports, and fishing. Kathryn taught in Tacoma public schools for over 20 years—most as a fifth grade teacher at Lowell Elementary School. Survivors include her daughters, seven grandchildren, and one great-grandson. Her husband died in 1968.

Franklin Robert Scott ’47

May 10, in Walnut Creek, California.

Robert earned a BA from Reed and an MA and a PhD from Indiana University in physics. He worked as a program manager for the Electric Power Research Institute and as a private consultant, retiring in 1994.

He and his wife, Christine, had two daughters and a son.

Erica Brunquist ’50

June 25, in Poulsbo, Washington.

Erica studied at Reed for two years. She married in 1950, and raised two daughters. Later, at the University of Denver, she earned an MSW with a focus on children’s services, and worked as a social agency consultant. Most recently, she lived in Port Townsend, Washington, where she was a volunteer and facilitator with the Poetic Justice Theatre Ensemble. She enjoyed hiking on the beaches and in the forests of the Olympia Peninsula.

Betty Ann Cardwell Elliott ’50 and Robert Sydney Elliott ’49

December 11, 2009, and March 14, 2008, respectively, in Chico, California.

Betty and Robert met at Reed, where Robert earned a BA in history. The couple lived

in Tucson, Arizona; records show that Robert was the western regional representative for the American Social Hygiene Association. Survivors include a daughter.

Carl A. Johnson ’50

June 20, 2004, in Port Ludlow, Washington.

Carl earned a BA from Reed in chemistry. He was married to Bette Jo Raudebaugh ’50 and was a manager at the Owens Illinois Glass Company.

Ralph William Kavanagh ’50

Cornell University. Most of his working career was spent with Blue Cross Blue Shield; he retired as director of internal auditing in 1989. Homer is survived by Marjorie, his sons, six grandchildren, a sister, and a nephew.

Janet Marie Erb Clithero ’51

March 24, in Longview, Washington.

Janet began playing violin when she was five years old, and studied music at Reed for two years. She met Harold Freiberg ’49 at the college; they married in 1948, and raised a family of four. Janet was a charter member of the Southwest Washington Symphony, and performed with the symphony for 35 years, holding the positions of assistant concertmaster and concertmaster. She also established the Evergreen String Quartet, taught music to children and adults, and was a teacher’s aide for middle and high school orchestras. In her public obituary, we read: “The key to her teaching success was her seemingly infinite positive spirit and patience, as well as her genuine love for her students.” In 1970, she became the library technician for the Longview Public Library, and later for Lower Columbia College Library. After retiring in 1995, Janet enjoyed growing and tending to 75-plus rosebushes. Survivors include her husband of 33 years, Raymond L. Clithero; two sons and two daughters; two stepchildren; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

August 16, in Pasadena, California.

Ralph served in the U.S. Navy before coming to Reed and earning a BA in physics. He did advanced studies at the University of Oregon, and received a PhD from Caltech in 1956. His career at Caltech began as a research fellow and led to his becoming full professor in 1970.

Ralph was an expert in nuclear physics, primarily focusing on nuclear energy generation within the sun. As a member of Caltech’s Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, he performed experiments looking at the fundamental interactions of light nuclei and tested some of the first models of evolving stars, which were based on his measurements of the nuclear reactions that take place in the core of the sun. Ralph was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science; he was also a classical pianist, outdoorsman, sailor, and Ping-Pong player who could solve a Lawrence D. Gruner ’51 crossword puzzle in his head. Ralph was mar- March 16, 2002, in St. Louis, Missouri. ried to Joyce Eberhart Kavanagh ’50; they had Lawrence earned a BA in mathematics from Reed. four daughters and a son; eight grandchildren; He was married to Helen McSheffrey; they had and one great-grandson. Among his many fine four daughters, one son, and four grandchildren. attributes, Ralph is remembered for his sharp wit and wry sense of humor, and for his com- Colin Alastair MacLachlan ’52 July 30, in Cockeysville, Maryland, passion toward others. from liver failure related to Parkinson’s disease.

Homer Leroy Owen ’50 August 2, in St. George, Utah.

Colin spent two years at Hamilton College before Homer enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force in 1942 transferring to Reed. While at Reed, he took and flew 50 missions out of Italy as a radio opera- leads in dramatic productions, was on the staff tor and ball-turret gunner in B-17 bombers. Dur- of the Quest, and “stopped an occasional grounding one raid on oil fields in Ploesti, Romania, four er” on the baseball diamond. After earning a BA of the seven planes in Homer’s squadron were in general literature, he was drafted into the shot down. Homer’s plane returned to the air- army. Afterwards he studied at Johns Hopkins field with more than 100 flak holes, to the frustra- and worked at WMAR-TV in Baltimore, Marytion of the ground crew who had to repair them. land, before becoming a reporter for the BaltiAfter the war, he came to Reed and earned a BA more Evening Sun. He was given the key to the in history. He and Marjorie Emery ’49 were mar- city of Baltimore in 1958 for outstanding politried in 1947; they had two sons. In 1954, Homer ical reporting. Colin also worked as news ediand Marjorie were both called before the House tor for the Long Islander, a newspaper owned Un-American Activities Committee for its hear- and edited by his father. For the next 20 years, ings in Portland. Homer testified about his activ- he was a public relations executive in New York ities in the Communist Party; according to histo- City, working in firms that serviced electric and rian Mike Munk ’56, Homer also named names, gas utility companies, accounting firms, and the reporting 21 former classmates to the commit- motion picture industry. He retired to Naples, tee as having been affiliated with the party. Some Florida, from where, he wrote, he managed to classmates lost their jobs or suffered other conse- escape periodically for golf and fishing throughquences as a result of this exposure. After Reed, out the world. Colin was a member of the New he earned an MA in industrial relations from York Board of Trade, director of the American

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Scottish Foundation, and board member of the Naples Habitat for Humanity. He also enjoyed photography. He married Helen D. Heaton ’54; they had two sons and a daughter—Claudia MacLachlan ’75—and a granddaughter. He was also married to Mary Lehman. Claudia, who informed the college of her father’s death, wrote: “I will miss his humor, wit, and New Deal politics. We were always wildly outraged by the same political stunts, and he was a Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow fan to the end.” Colin contributed generously to Reed throughout his life and created the MacLachlan Family Scholarship.

Robert Marshall Redding ’53

December 19, 2009, in Coronado, California.

Robert attended Reed for two years, and received a bachelor’s degree from Willamette University.

In 1949, he enlisted in the naval reserve, and entered active service in Korea aboard the USS Los Angeles. After the war, he returned to Willamette and earned a JD. In 1957, he accepted a position as special assistant to the attorney general of the territory of Alaska, but returned to Oregon to private practice two years later.

He was active in all fields of military law, and became a legal officer and judge in Guam; California; Washington, D.C.; and Italy. During his career, he was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Navy Achievement Medal. Robert retired in 1982, and worked as a tax consultant and professional magician. (Allied professions, surely.—Ed) He was married to Marjorie Elvington; they had three sons.

Robert Ian Scott ’53 July 23, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, of complications from Parkinson’s disease.

A native of Berkeley, California, Rob earned a BA from Reed in literature and served as editor of the literary magazine Janus. In his senior year, he applied for a Fulbright grant to study in Australia. Notice of acceptance came after he completed an MA in English at Claremont McKenna College. By then, Rob and Karen V. Lund ’55 were married, and their first child—Dana G. Scott ’79—had been born. The three spent two years in Australia, first in Canberra, where Rob studied with Australia’s leading advocate for the inclusion of Australian literature as an academic study and with Australia’s leading male poet, A.D. Hope, and then in Perth, where Rob was a lecturer at the free University of Western Australia. Rob hoped to enter the PhD program at UC Berkeley upon his return to the U.S., but arrived one day too late to be accepted. Instead, he completed a doctorate at the University of Buffalo [SUNY] in New York, where he taught full time for nine years. His personal opposition to the Vietnam War prevented his advancement in academia, however, so Rob and Karen and their two young sons moved to Saskatoon,

Rob Scott ’53, right, sits in the old coffee shop in 1953, with fellow Janus editors D. Marcus Beach ’54 and Marly (Isabella Mary) Scholte ’54.

Saskatchewan, to pursue what he hoped would be a less politically compromised career. The provincial government of Saskatchewan pioneered universal health care in 1962—a social benefit that proved to be of special value in his family’s life, and especially so for Rob, whose health began to fail by the time he retired from the University of Saskatchewan in 1997. Skilled in English, linguistics, and semantics, Rob helped write The Writer’s Self Starter: A Transformational Rhetoric, the basis for Saskatchewan’s curriculum program for grades 7–9. He used his own innovative text for three of his courses: The Specific Writer, for tersely organized English; Words and the World, for semantics; and The Experimental Linguist, for English structural linguistics as an experimental science with practical applications. “Rob’s interests were varied and many of them were nurtured while a student at Reed, not only by the proximity of mountainous country and fellow astronomy enthusiasts, but also by the encouragement Reed offered to independent young minds,” Karen wrote. Rob also demonstrated his breadth of interest in his published work, such as “Entropy vs. Ecology in The Great Gatsby” and a series of poems patterned on Christian Morgenstern’s Galgenlieder (Gallows Songs), which Rob dubbed The Mangliad. Said Karen: “He was always grateful for the Reed experience and stayed in touch with classmates Sydney Shoemaker ’53, his first roommate; Robert Lockhart ’53 and his wife, Ruthie Beadle Lockhart ’54; Dan Fletcher ’52; Charles

Fosterling ’53 and Jesalee Keffeler Fosterling ’53; Gary Snyder ’51; and William Dickey ’51.

Many others were fondly remembered.” He is survived by Karen and two sons. His second son, Ian, predeceased him. “Rob was a kind and decent man who will be lovingly remembered by those whose lives he touched.” We are greatly indebted to Karen for all that she shared for this in memoriam.

Ladis K.D. Kristof ’55

June 15, at his home in Yamhill, Oregon.

He was 91.

Author, professor, logger, aristocrat, prisoner, refugee, and everything in between, Kris lived a life worthy of an adventure novel, packed with hairraising escapades no novelist could hope to match.

Born Vladislav Krzysztofowicz in 1918, Kris was raised on a vast family estate near Bukovina, then part of Austria-Hungary. He grew up speaking seven languages (French, German, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, and Ukrainian), and studied forestry at the University of Poznan. During World War II, his family was imprisoned by the Nazi regime for spying for the Free Poland government. Kris and his father bribed their way out of prison, but other family members perished in Auschwitz and in Soviet labor camps. After the war, the family estate was seized by the Red Army. Kris fled on horseback and rode to the Danube River. He swam across the river on a moonless night, clinging to an inner tube; unfortunately, the tube developed December 2010 Reed magazine 59

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Photo by Michael Wilhelm

Ian Malcolm Dunbar, Keele exchange student at Reed, 1957–58

Nine Lives: Kris Kristof ’55 survived Nazis, the Red Army, prison, exile, and poverty to become a leading political scholar.

In Memoriam

continued

a leak and he was captured on the Yugoslavian shore. Kris was sent to a concentration camp, then to an asbestos mine, and finally to a logging camp from which he managed to escape.

He made his way across the border to Italy and wound up in Paris, where he found work cleaning hotel rooms and selling wine. There he met an American expatriate from Portland, who helped him emigrate to the U.S. The first thing he did after arriving stateside was to buy a copy of the New York Times—where his son would later become a famous columnist—to teach himself English. Kris took a train to Portland and got a job at the Valsetz logging camp in Polk County. Then a chance meeting with another European refugee, Reed professor Frank Munk [political science, 1939–65], altered the course of his life. Kris entered Reed a year later, at the age of 37, with little English and even less money. He rented a room off campus, for which he bartered painting and other handyman work; his budget for food was $1 a day.

Although he spent only two years on campus, the experience left an indelible mark and launched him on a distinguished academic career. Mentored by Munk and by professor Maure Goldschmidt ’30 [political science, 1935– 81], Kris wrote his thesis on Ukrainian nationalism and the Soviet Union. After Reed, he applied to the University of Chicago for graduate study, but was turned down. Shocked, Goldschmidt wrote to the admission office at Chicago and told them they had made a colossal error; the decision was reversed. At Chicago, Kris earned a PhD and met Jane McWilliams; they married in 1956. His career included positions at Temple University, the University of Santa Clara, the University of Waterloo, and Stanford University.

He joined the faculty at Portland State University in 1971, drawn back to Oregon partly for the outdoor lifestyle it supported, but also for its resemblance to the landscape of his native home.

Kris and Jane—who is professor emerita of art history at Portland State—had one son, Nicholas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. They purchased a 73-acre farm in Yamhill, harvested cherries and timber, and lined the shelves of their home with their collection of 30,000 books.

Kris was a political scientist of international renown; a Fulbright Scholar to Romania; and a visiting professor at universities in India, Moldova, Poland, and Romania. He retired from Portland State in 1989 but continued to teach, lecture, and hunt elk well into his 80s. He wrote and edited books on an astonishing range of topics, including The Nature of Frontiers and Boundaries, The Origins and Evolution of Geopolitics, and The Russian Image of Russia. He helped found the Portland chapter of Amnesty International and was active in the World Affairs Council of Oregon, the Western Slavic Association, and the American-Romanian Academy of Arts.

His entry in Who’s Who serves as a testimonial to his remarkable life: “War, want, and concentration camps, exile from home and homeland, these have made me hate strife among men, but they have not made me lose faith in the future of mankind. Personal experience . . . has taught me to beware of man’s capacity for plain stupid, irrational, as well as consciously evil behavior, but it also has taught me that man has an even greater capacity for recovery from lapses.”

Kris is survived by his wife, his son and daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. “He really loved Reed,” Jane told us. “Those were very happy years, and he was grateful for that education for the rest of his life.”

May 21, in Somerset, England, from an undiagnosed degenerative disease.

A penal reformer who rose through the ranks of Britain’s prison service to become one of its most prominent leaders—and critics—Ian was the first exchange student to Reed from Keele University (University College of North Staffordshire, Keele) in England. He came to Reed for his junior year and arrived in Portland on a Greyhound bus, overcome by the spectacular beauty he had witnessed in the journey through the Columbia Gorge. Memories from that year were strengthened by the friendships he made at the college. “He was an instant celebrity on campus,” wrote Caroline Miller ’59, MAT ’65. “Everyone loved him. He was ebullient, full of good humor, and the best representative for England anyone could have wished for. Also, he was handsome and much admired by the ladies on campus.” In an oral history with Scott Benowitz ’96, Ian recalled assisting in commons and recording books and papers for Arthur Leigh [economics, 1945–88], whom he had met when Arthur was at Keele on sabbatical. “I was very, very fond of Art Leigh. I admired his intellect. He was such a nice person and he helped me tremendously.” Ian recalled a debate with West Point students that he won with his lifelong friend Dick Stevenson ’58.

Dick sent us Ian’s lengthy obituary from the Times of London, as did Ian Ellison, Keele exchange student to Reed in 1963–64, who wrote: “He certainly became an important man back in Britain in a vocation which is a little unusual. The respect in which he was held can be measured by the mere fact that the Times chose to obituarise him, gave him the lead position on the day, and then wrote at such length.” After Reed, Ian returned to England by way of Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Martin Luther King Jr.; the experience left a lasting impression on him. Ian earned an honors degree from Keele in politics and economics and a diploma in social studies. He later received a diploma in applied social studies from the London School of Economics.

As a young man, Ian had felt drawn to the ministry, but turned instead to the Prison Service, which he joined in 1959. He served in various capacities at assistant, deputy, or full governor at five very different prisons (Leyhill, Long Lartin, Usk, Wakefield, and the infamous Wormwood Scrubs). He became director of inmate administration for the Prison Service, responsible for safeguarding and promoting prisoners’ rights, and lectured frequently on penal issues in England, Canada, and the United States. The Times obituary described Ian as cheerful, enthusiastic, and energetic. “Throughout his career he was keenly committed to the rehabilitation of prisoners.

His remarkable empathy with others gained the trust of many prisoners and staff, enabling him to make improvements despite the inertia of penal institutions.” Said Ian: “I know enough about

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Nasi and Merle (’59) Greenstein: a knack for innovation.

Ian Dunbar ’58 became a prominent prison reformer in the United Kingdom.

alienation to know that unless we treat people positively then they will become more alienated and a worse threat to society. The key is meaningful activity and we need much more of it.”

Conditions at Wormwood Scrubs were so bad that prisoners staged a riot in 1979; after the previous governor departed, Ian was put in charge.

He immediately instituted a series of reforms, which he described in A Sense of Direction (1985).

Written following visits to penal systems in Canada, Sweden, and the U.S., the work proposed clarifying the Prison Service’s aims and tasks; encouraging positive, active regimes; and introducing the proper monitoring of performance. Further, Ian developed the concept of dynamic security: close involvement of staff with prisoners in high-security regime reduced the risks of escapes.

These ideas were implemented in the years that followed. In 1993, Ian was made a Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath in recognition of his work. In retirement, he and Sally, his wife of 44 years, enjoyed traveling, beekeeping, and charity work. That the year at Reed had a significant effect on his life, he acknowledged in the oral history interview with Scott: “I think it was the intellectual rigor, combined with a sense of fairness. That prejudice and knee-jerk reactions in life are not helpful at all. And the important thing is, in terms of any difficult situation is to get as near to uncovering and unraveling the facts as possible. And to treat people with a degree of fairness and humanity . . . There are other features, obviously, in my background, in my life, which led me to this. But it was always the intellectual rigor that I have found in very, very difficult situations to be extremely helpful.”

Caroline Miller remembered visiting Ian at one of his prisons and being introduced to two very pleasant inmates. “After they walked away, I asked what they’d done to land in prison. Ian answered

with a twinkle in his eye. ‘They killed someone.’ I looked askance and drew in my breath—just the reaction he looked for. Ian smiled as if to console me. ‘No need to worry, Carrie. They’re no longer dangerous. Unlike the rest of us, they have solved their problem.’” Survivors include his wife, daughter, and two sons.

Philip David Roos ’58

August 6, in Jefferson City, Missouri, from complications of cardiovascular disease.

family business, Acme Trading and Supply, a scrap metal recycling company. Merle had a knack for the work, for innovation, and for creating business relationships. By the time he retired in 1991, Acme Trading and Supply had evolved into the Manufacturing Management Group. His work in metal exporting, particularly to China, garnered the Export Award from President Nixon in 1970.

Merle was a philanthropist, humanist, and social activist, with an encyclopedic mind and photographic recall. He is remembered for his lack of bias and his respect for others, as well as for his humor. He led fundraising drives for two projects, “Anne Frank in the World” and “Anne Frank: A History for Today,” and served as chair of fundraising for the Oregon Holocaust Memorial. He also served on the boards of directors for the YMCA, the Portland Opera, the Oregon-Fujian Chinese Sister State Association, the Alzheimer Development Committee, the Waverly Children’s Home, Metropolitan Family Service, and the American Jewish Committee Oregon Chapter. In 2008, the American Jewish Committee recognized Merle’s 55 years of community service, presenting him with the Maurice D. Sussman Award. Merle and his wife, Nasi, were cofounders of Komak, a Portland nonprofit that provides financial assistance to cancer patients and their families. Survivors include his wife; three sons and two daughters; four grandchildren; and his sister. Merle’s mother, Tillie Germaine Schnitzer Greenstein ’32, also attended Reed.

Philip was born in Holland and emigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was three. He studied at Reed, and earned an AB, an MA, and a PhD from UC Berkeley in sociology. He was an electronics technician with the naval reserves for eight years and was called to active duty aboard a destroyer escort that went to Vietnam in 1961.

In the ’60s, he was active in the student movement at Berkeley, and started the SLATE supplement to the University of California general catalog, which critiqued university professors and courses. He also founded the Berkeley Free Jackson Conley ’60 Press. During the ’70s he worked on the Pine June 6, in Hayward, California, from a Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Later severe infection. he became a statistician with the Missouri Divi- In Jackson’s public obituary, we read that he began sion of Mental Health, retiring in 1999. A long- his real education at the New York Public Library term interest in mushroom hunting spurred him while serving with the Military Sea Transport Serto found the Missouri Mycological Society. Sur- vice, after which he saw combat in Korea with the vivors include his wife, Erika, and a daughter, U.S. Army. Jackson attended Reed, the College of grandson, and brother.

San Mateo, UC Berkeley, and San Francisco State University. He taught English at Chabot College for 23 years, and, as a wordsmith and bookworm, Merle Edward Greenstein ’59 July 1, in Portland, from complications he enjoyed working with aspiring writers. He was related to prostate cancer. also skilled at home building, woodworking, and Merle earned a BA in economics at Reed, gradu- cooking. Survivors include his wife of 36 years, ating with honors, and entered the University of Gail; two daughters; a stepson; three grandsons; Chicago law school on a scholarship. Illness forced and his sister. him to leave school and return to Portland and his

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continued

Eugene Poluianov ’60

February 5, 2005, in Barstow, California.

Eugene earned a BA from Reed in mathematics.

Gertrude Theresa Benson Carter mat ’61

dissertation was published in Italy in 1994 as Il Tramonto di un’Instituzione, L’armata austrio-ungarica in Italia (1918). Ronald worked as registrar of vital statistics for the city of Houston for 23 years, retiring in 2001.

Photo by gary jenkins

In Memoriam

Duane M. Taylor mat ’70

December 19, 2006.

June 4, in Portland.

Duane entered the mat program at Reed with a Gertrude was a graduate of the University of BA from Stanford.

Washington in Seattle. She married Russell L. Bean and moved to Portland, where she obtained Jeffrey Fulton Beatty ’72 a master’s degree at Reed and taught high school December 20, 2009, in Boston, business and English for 23 years in Portland pub- Massachusetts, from leukemia. lic schools. Survivors include her son, daughter, Jeffrey attended Reed for a year and graduatgranddaughter and grandson, and brother. Her ed from Sarah Lawrence College. He was a truly husband and one son predeceased her. remarkable individual whose passions were well supported by his versatility as an artist and scholar. He was a dancer, a lawyer, a teacher, Lloyd F. Ryan Jr. ’62 May 8, in Merriam, Kansas. and a playwright, as well as a devoted husband Lloyd attended Reed for four years. His reminis- and father. Jeffrey began dancing at Sarah Lawcences included Sound Experiments, professor rence College and performed with the Sandra John Hancock [chemistry, 1955–89], and crick- Neels Dance Company and the Connecticut Balet on the lawn. “I was a ‘Reed football player,’” he let. While dancing professionally, he met Annawrote. “Of course we never won!” Lloyd earned a bel King Winston; they married in 1982, and JD from Northwestern College of Law and prac- raised two daughters in a creative and loving ticed law in Portland before moving to Virgin- home. While his wife pursued a dancing career, ia and joining the U.S. Securities and Exchange Jeffrey completed a JD at Boston University. He Commission. He also served on the special inves- worked 10 years with Greater Boston Legal Sertigative staff for the Department of Labor. Lloyd vices, and practiced law with the firm of Kotin, was married at one time to Sharon Johnson Crabtree, and Strong. In 1988, he joined the facHeisel ’63, who notified us of his death, and is ulty of the Boston University School of Mansurvived by his widow, Karen Connell Ryan. His agement, where he developed the school’s busiparents, Lloyd E. Ryan Sr. ’33 and Margaret Hick- ness law concentration and coauthored a series of textbooks, Business Law and the Legal Enviey Ryan ’35, graduated from Reed. ronment. Boston University twice awarded him the Beckwith Prize, the highest undergraduate Anthony James Pattison ’63 August 22, 2009, in St. Louis, Missouri, teaching award, and he was the recipient of the from complications related to 2007 Metcalf Cup and Prize for Excellence in Parkinson’s disease.

Teaching, the university’s highest honor. His Anthony earned his BA from Reed in mathemat- plays, performed in England and in the U.S., ics, and then earned a JD from the University of included A Change in the Moon (1985), ConvicIdaho. He was a cartographer for the Aeronauti- tions (1990), The Funhouse Mirror (1999), and cal Chart and Information Center and a comput- Scam (2000). From his public obituary, we read er programmer at the Defense Mapping Agency that the breadths of his talents, achievements, in St. Louis. Anthony was a generous support- and wit were unparalleled. He went out of his er of the college throughout his life. His partner, way for his students and his colleagues, and was articulate, kind, and charismatic in the most Myrna Smith, notified us of his death. genuine way. Survivors include his family, his sister, and two brothers.

Ronald Wayne Hanks ’64 June 27, in Salem, Oregon.

Ronald graduated from Reed with a BA in his- Walter B. Barker ’75 tory, and married Dorothy I. Milford. He con- July 12, at home in Scappoose, Oregon. tinued his studies in history at the University Walt grew up in Portland and developed a love of Pittsburgh and at Rice University, where he of the outdoors that remained integral to his life. earned a PhD. For his dissertation, “The End of an He attended Reed, and received a BA in geoloInstitution: The Austro-Hungarian Army in Italy, gy from Portland State University in 1981, and 1918,” he received the John W. Gardner Award an MS in geology from the University of Arizo(for the most original doctoral dissertation) and na in 1986. During his college years, he travelled the Captain Charles Septimus Longcope Award extensively in the American Southwest. After (for the best overall dissertation) in humanities college, he spent more than a decade teaching in and social sciences. He also was awarded the Japan, where he developed an appreciation for Southern Historical Association prize for best Japanese culture and met his wife, Hideno “Non” graduate research paper in European history. His Sugai. After the couple returned to the U.S., Walt

Rest in peace, Walter Barker ’75.

studied nursing at the University of Portland.

Most recently, he did renovation projects for the couple’s home, designed and planted an extensive Japanese-style garden, and edited scientific manuscripts for Japanese researchers. In his public obituary, we read that he was an accomplished photographer, whose work was exhibited in galleries. He was also a writer, a philosopher by nature, a teacher, and a gifted conversationalist. “Walt was exceptionally energetic, bright, and gregarious, and could carry on in-depth conversations on a broad range of topics with just about anyone.” Survivors include his wife and mother, nieces and nephews, and a large circle of friends from several countries. “He will be sorely missed.”

Patrick T. Pruyne ’83

July 28, in Springfield, Massachusetts, following a long illness.

Pat grew up in Texas, Massachusetts, and Morocco, adored for his sunny disposition. Throughout his life, he made friendships on the strength of his humor, kindness, and intelligence. “The first time I saw Pat Pruyne he was wearing a big velvet hat,” classmate Anne Lauer Schwab ’83 wrote.

“He looked like a Renaissance prince, the one in the fresco who has turned away from the procession and is measuredly gazing out at you. Of course I was drawn to him. He seemed to manufacture his own gravitational force” (see Letters).

Pat’s interest in genetics, which earned him a BA from Reed, led to his positions as a flower hybridizer for Oregon Bulb Farms near Sandy, Oregon;

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John Arum ’84

Pat Pruyne ’83 seemed to create his own graviational force.

a research associate and member of AIDS vaccine development team for Chiron Corporation in Emeryville, California; and an associate scientist with Xoma Corporation in Berkeley. In 1992, he and his newly wed wife, Jeannette Tokarz, moved to Ithaca, New York, where Pat did graduate studies in pomology, researching sustainable orchard practice in the agricultural science department at Cornell. Later, Pat and Jeannette moved with their two sons to Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts. Jeannette worked as a pediatrician, and Pat became a stay-at-home father and an enthusiastic volunteer for his sons’ activities.

“I ran into him years after college and we talked about pomology and the history of gardens, and he was clearly crazy in love with his children,” Anne remarked. Pat coached soccer and served on the board of directors for the Common School in Amherst. He also pursued interests in woodworking, stone walls, and web design, and was a volunteer with the Montague Fire Station. Pat was regional coordinator and an interviewer in New England for Reed’s Oral History Project. He served on the college’s alumni board for nine years, and was president of the alumni association in 2002. In his address at the inauguration of President Colin S. Diver, he remarked: “We’re driven by an unusual passion: it’s a gratitude for our time here, when we learned to reject any sense of limits to our abilities and to accept excellence as the only worthy standard.” Survivors include his sons, father, grandfather, and two sisters, and his former wife, Jeannette.

August 28, from a climbing accident on storm king mountain.

Colleagues remember John as a brilliant lawyer and one of the state’s premier environmental and tribal advocates, who fashioned creative solutions that met the diverse and sometimes opposing interests of the people involved. He played a significant role in preserving the Loomis Forest in eastern Washington in 1999 and represented the Makah Nation in its effort to regain the traditional right to hunt gray whales.

John came to Reed from New York, earning a BA in political science and then a JD from the University of Washington, where he was associate editor of the law review. He practiced Indian and environmental law with the Seattle firm Ziontz, Chestnut, Varnell, Berley and Slonim, and was on the board of the Washington Environmental Council, which honored John as an environmental hero in 1999. He also served on the board at the Center for Environmental Law & Policy, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting Washington’s water, and on the board of the VashonMaury Island Audubon Society. John also represented Maury Island residents fighting a controversial gravel mine. The Washington Environmental Council noted his deep understanding of the issues, his keen legal mind, and his willingness to keep working until a solution was found.

“His loss will be felt across the entire environmental community.”

Classmate Matthew Bergman ’84 read a moving tribute at John’s memorial, which we briefly excerpt here. “We were on opposite sides at Reed, as we would be for much of the next 30 years,” Matthew said. “You liked the Sandistinas; I liked the Contras . . . Yet even then your passion was tempered with perspective; your ideology mollified with good-humor. You were always easy to negotiate with because, despite your passion, you never took yourself too seriously. While your politics at the time were decidedly New Left, for you, the personal was never political . . .

“Fast forward 10 years. The Berlin Wall has fallen; the Sandistinas are gone. I represent the Muckleshoot Tribe; you represent the Makah. We both live on Vashon Island and commute to work on the passenger ferry. I am working at a white-shoes mega-firm; you are working for a small environmental shop, and we are both working too hard.

In representing the Makah tribe, you found your calling as a lawyer. True, you were never going to get rich. Yet you found a richness of purpose and a wealth of conviction. You took on difficult and unpopular issues, parting ways with your friends in the environmental movement to champion the Makahs’ right to harvest whales . . .

“You received many accolades over your lifetime for your environmental advocacy and legal prowess, but the only one that you ever cared about was when you were inducted into the tribe as an honorary member, given a Makah name and an adopted Makah family. It was the only

Environmental and tribal advocate John Arum ’84.

accomplishment I ever heard you brag about . . .

“I will miss your self-satisfied smile, your twinkling eyes, and your intellectual firepower. I will miss arguing with you on the passenger ferry. I will miss your friendship and the example you set.

As we say in Yiddish, ‘may your memory be for a blessing.’” [See our website for more.]

John set a goal of climbing Washington’s highest 100 peaks, and was embarked on a solo ascent of the 8,500-foot Storm King Mountain in the North Cascades when he fell to his death. He and his wife, Susan Hormann, were married for 11 years. “John died doing one of the things he loved most,” Susan told the Beachcomber of VashonMaury Island. “Climbing a beautiful mountain in solitude, where he felt completely at home and nourished.” Survivors include Susan, his parents, a brother and sister.

George Bartholomew ’86

June 18, in California.

George spent three years at Reed in economics and completed a degree at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, in 1993, where he studied music composition and technology.

After that, he went to Redmond, Washington, for an internship at Triad Studios, and established his own company, Bartholomew Music Productions. He worked for Triad in audio engineering and production and was a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He later moved his company to Grass Valley, California. Survivors include two sisters.

Pending: As Reed went to press, we learned of the deaths

of the following individuals; please contact us if you have memories of them that you wish to share.

Virginia Simmons Wolf ’36, Ruth Spoerli-Herman ’38, Barbara Besson Martin ’41, Inez Haskell ’44, Robert Ragsdale ’49, Gordon Means ’50, Kalman Cohen ’51, Phyllis Graham Anderson ’53, Edmond Miksch ’54, Colleen Lamont Smith ’54, Arthur Washburn ’57, Fay Halpern Lande ’59, Thomas Shepard ’60, Ann Hiltner ’63, Michael Mallin ’64, David Borst ’69, David Friedlander ’73, Fred Caldwell ’76, Hugh Dornan ’94, and Miranda Breger ’95.

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Apocrypha

t r adi t ion m y t h lege nd

The boar’s head is the focal point of Reed’s venerable holiday tradition.

Hog Wild

Aristotle, Arragon, and Boris, the boar’s head. my tenure in the alumni office, we’ve rented a couple of noble creatures from Barbur Rentals, including “Boris,” christened by my colleague Mela Kunitz ’87. Sad to say, Boris met an unfortunate fate in 2004 when some students borrowed him in the wee hours and Reed dogs gnawed off one of his ears. Luckily, the proprietor of Barbur Rentals has been gracious enough to lend us another beast, dubbed Boris Jr., who comes directly from a permanent perch above his own mantel. We suspect that he lends us the prized trophy more out of appreciation for (amusement at?) our unusual ritual than monetary gain.

Songs in honor of the boar’s head are recorded from as early as the 14th century; our version of the carol originated with an arrangement published in the 1930s, that was passed down from generation to generation. In 1991, Virginia Oglesby Hancock ’62 [music, 1991+] assumed leadership of the ensemble and reconstructed a harmonization from memory, incorporating the verse two countermelody and adjusting the parts for mixed voices. This current arrangement recalls the bass line that John Hancock [chemistry, 1955–89] and others sang for many years. (For a history of the carol and a video of the procession, see www.reed.edu/ alumni/holidayparty/.)

Virginia still leads the ensemble today, with alumni singers of all ages and even a student or two, as they carry the boar aloft on his pallet—er, litter. It is said that an orange

or a lemon in the boar’s mouth symbolizes the volume that saved the student’s life; the boar in our procession holds a plush Reed griffin in his mouth, feet up but kicking all the way. Whether you celebrate the 12 days of Christmas, the 8 nights of Chanukah, or another solstice-season ritual, we hope that you’ll be able to join us for this festive and stirring occasion. —Robin M. Tovey ’97

photo by orin zyvan

A frosty winter’s night. The somber notes of a bagpiper cut through the smoky haze of the student union, heralding an otherworldly procession. Hooded figures in black robes wind through the crowd, singing a cappella, brandishing flaming torches, and bearing on their shoulders the head of a boar!

This mesmerizing scene is a beloved feature of the annual alumni holiday party and was imported to Reed in the 1920s, when Professor Rex Arragon [history, 1923–74] brought the tradition from Queen’s College, Oxford.

The ultimate origins of the procession are older, of course. According to William Henry Husk, librarian to the Sacred Harmonic Society, the custom dates to the 15th century, when a valorous student encountered a wild boar during a walk in the Shotover Forest on Christmas Day. The boar charged; the student defended himself with the only weapon at his disposal—a copy of Aristotle, which he thrust into the boar’s open mouth, exclaiming “Græcum est!”* This daring maneuver stopped the beast in its tracks. The victorious student retrieved his (dog-eared?) manuscript and brought the boar’s head back to Oxford, where it was duly roasted and eaten. (It remains unclear whether the boar was felled by the force of Aristotle’s logic or simply found his arguments impossible to digest.)

Over the years, Reed has honored the spirit of this beast with taxidermy, papier-mâché, and even ice-sculpture incarnations. During

Thanks to Laurie Lindquist and Virginia Oglesby Hancock ’62 for their help with this article. * “It’s Greek to me.”

Join us: Alumni Holiday Party Saturday, December 18, 6 p.m. For details and registration, see www.reed.edu/alumni/holidayparty/

The Boar’s Head Carol The boar’s head in hand bear I, Bedecked with bays and rosemary; And I pray you my masters, be merry, Quot estis in convivio. (As many as are in the feast.)

Caput apri defero Reddens laudes domino.

(The boar’s head I offer, giving praises to the Lord) The boar’s head as I understand, Is the rarest dish in all the land, Which thus bedecked with a gay garland, Let us servire cantico. (serve with a song.)

Our steward hath provided this, In honour of the King of bliss, Which on this day to be served is, In Reginensi atrio. (In the Queen’s hall.)

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Lookin’ good at 100!

too good to miss.

Help us party like it’s 1999, or 1959, or 2009 (you get the idea)!

Get your brass back to reed June 6–12, 2011

Join us as we launch Reed’s centennial year with the biggest alumni gathering ever:

centennial reunions 2011—an all-alumni occasion.

Get the scoop at http://blogs.reed.edu/the_riffin_griffin/.

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Reed College

3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard Portland, Oregon 97202-8199

‰

Periodicals Postage Paid Portland, Oregon

December 2010

Growing the Curriculum

The cross-pollination of Reed’s

new environmental studies major

photo by eric cable

Prakher Bajpai ’14 of Kathmandu hangs the Nepalese flag at a brunch welcoming international students. Prakher is one of 112 international students from 46 countries, and the Nepalese flag is the only national banner that is not rectangular. Can someone furnish a plausible geometric or vexillological name for its unusual shape? Beam thoughts to puzzled@reed.edu.

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MY LIFE AS A MICROBE Page 18 WHO KILLED REED U? Page 32 OBAMA’S GAY MENTOR Page 43 10/29/10 1:23 PM