Reed College Magazine December 2013 by Reed College

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BRAVO!

Reed celebrates the performing arts.

Euripides and the Simpsons | Dance of the iPAD | REED BAND WOWS CRITICS

YOU x 2 L AT E-NIGHT RES EARC H A GENEROUS THANKS TO OUR INITIAL SPONSORS: Konrad Stephen Alt ’81 & Maureen A. Kennedy Matthew P. Bergman ’86 & Kimberly Bergman Jane Buchan & James Driscoll Daniel B. Greenberg ’62 & Susan Steinhauser Dennis & Jane Henner George Michael James ’77 and Karen Flannery James Jeffrey & Hyunja Kenner Anna Hayes Levin & Peter Levin Linda Hammill Matthews ’67 & E. Curtis Matthews Jr. Sandra Mintz Peter Norton x’65 Roger M. Perlmutter ’73 & Joan Kreiss ‘73 Kenneth E. Rees ’84 and Jeanne Gulner Alice Larkin Steiner ’74 & Kevin K. Steiner ’74 Peter C. Stockman ’77 & Terry Stockman

THE

MILLION DOLLAR M AT C H Double your impact this year. Make a Reed Leadership Circle gift of $1,000 or more and it will be matched, dollar-for-dollar.

Richard H. Wollenberg ’75 & Barbara Wollenberg

Will you accept the challenge? Use the enclosed envelope, visit giving.reed.edu, or call 877/865-1469 to make your gift. REED COLLEGE ANNUAL FUND

The Million Dollar Match applies to all new, renewing, and increased Annual Fund gifts of $1,000 to $24,999 made by alumni.

p h o t o s (T o p ): m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

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leah nash

Adolescent Drama

Bruce Livingston ’65 helps troubled teens harness the power of narrative. By Randall S. Barton

Cosmic Comic

Funnyman James Ashby ’04 brings down the house with Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater

FEATURES 16

By Megan Labrise ’04

13 Questions on Financial Aid Some nuts and bolts about the $21 million Reed spends every year on financial aid.

Total Immersion

Reed band Hausu makes national debut

d t a h performance u c a s e t i r c e

By Miles Bryan ’13

4 Eliot Circular

Taking Off the Gloves

Prof. Kate Bredeson challenges students to make theatre that is both real and unreal. By Randall S. Barton

Theatre of War

By Casey Jarman

Jonathan Wei ’88 helps military veterans tell their stories. By Robyn Ross

Alanna Hoyman-Browe ’14, Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies ’16, Sabrina Appel ’17, Allison Morgan ’14, and Olivia Jensen ’14 cut loose in the Steiner Dance Studio. cover photo by leah nash

News from Campus

Joining the Tribe Summer of a Lifetime Run Silent, Run Deep New Faces Pantheon to be Robed Profs Get Tenure Time Travel Expert Our Brilliant Students Mountaineer leaves Reed $1M CSO Trading Cards

By Mary O’Hara ’12

By Romel Hernandez

Songs for Kukua

3 Letters

Anne Washburn ’91 wows Broadway with a drama that fuses Euripides with The Simpsons.

Reed professor leaps into terpsichorean technology, iPad in hand.

Ghanaian musician Paapa hMensa ’15 records an album in his dorm room.

2 From the Editor

The Electric Mr. Burns

Reed celebrates the performing arts with a brand-new building.

The Dance of the Pixel

Departments

Bravo!

14 Empire of the Griffin

Connecting Reedies Across the Globe

Alumni board nominations ORGY photo Sherlock in London Star Craving

42 Reediana

Books By Reedies

46 Class Notes 56 In Memoriam 64 Apocrypha

Tradition, Myth, Legend

Unpublished manuscript shows another side of Prof. Seth Ulman

december 2013 Reed magazine

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Letter from the editor

A Night at the Opera The sun was setting as I hurried into the Chapel and slung down my book bag on a pew near the back. It was an April evening in 1992, and I had somehow gotten roped into seeing the Reed choir and chamber orchestra perform Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. I didn’t care for opera and knew nothing of Purcell. Having put in an appearance, I was secretly hoping to glide toward the exit after a decent interval. But when the first haunting chords of the overture began to echo t h ro u g h t h e C h a p e l , something came over me. The clock stopped. I sat spellbound as Purcell’s witches plotted the destruction of Carthage, Dido’s downfall, and Aeneas’ cruel farewell. By the time Dido sang her last lament (“When I am laid in earth”) and the choir sounded their final cadence, my eyes were wet with tears. Ever y discipline at Reed has its own kind of power—a power that to untutored eyes sometimes looks like magic. I remember how Prof. Les Squier [psychology 1953–88] once hypnotized an entire psych class and convinced us that there was a phantom fly buzzing around the room. For her first physics lecture of the year, Prof. Mary James [physics 1988–] holds a giant pendulum (made from a bowling ball and some rope) next to her head, releases the ball on its trajectory, and keeps perfectly still as it swings away, then rushes back with seemingly lethal force, relenting just as it reaches her head. Wizardry? No, physics. The performing arts—music, theatre, dance—are no different. They have unrivalled power to astonish the audience, but this has nothing to do with hocus-pocus. Rather, it depends on knowledge, practice, teamwork, and sweat. With the opening of the new 2

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Performing Arts Building, I thought it fitting to celebrate those disciplines—and explore that power—in this issue of Reed. That performance in the Chapel opened up a new world for me. I bought an LP of Dido and Aeneas and listened to it obsessively. That led me to Purcell’s other work, which in turn led

www.reed.edu/reed_magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 92, No. 4 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 graphic design assistant Kim Durkin ’13 alumni news editor Robin Tovey ’97 Valiant Interns Sandesh Adhikary ’15, Lauren Cooper ’16 ADVISORY BOARD Diane Morgan ’77, Matt Giraud ’85, Naomi McCoy ’94, Caitlin Baggott ’99 Reed College Relations vice president, college relations Hugh Porter interim director, public affairs Stacey Kim 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 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.

me as far afield as Handel, Wagner, and Nixon in China. Many years later, I started singing and playing folk music with a group of friends in Portland, and finally understood one of the deeper reasons to pursue the performing arts. Yes, they transform the audience. But they also transform the performers.

—Chris Lydgate ’90

Reed (ISSN 0895-8564) is published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December, 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.

Letters to Reed Write to us! We love getting mail from readers. Letters should be about Reed (and its alumni) or Reed (and its contents) and run no more than 300 words; subsequent replies may run only half the length of their predecessors. Our decision to print a letter does not imply any endorsement. Letters are subject to editing. (Beware the editor’s hatchet.) For contact information, look to your left. Read more letters and commentary at www.reed.edu/reed_magazine.

Whoa! It’s Samoa (Class Notes ’62)

“Western Samoa splits from New Zealand. But what of Eastern Samoa?” There is no Eastern Samoa, but eastern Samoa was and is American Samoa. In 1990, Mr. Bean made his debut on Thames television, but that did not make London the European Capital of Culture for that year. Which city was it? —Mike Taylor ’62 Lakeway, Texas

Last Lectures

I transferred to Reed as a sophomore from another small college, where I had not felt challenged academically in a way that suited my needs. In my first semester I enrolled in the Chinese humanities class, with my section being led by Doug Fix [Asian studies 1990–], and Introduction to British Poetry with Ellen Stauder [English 1983–2013]. As the semester progressed, it was clear I was struggling in both classes and so met individually with each professor. I found it both comforting and daunting to have each of them tell me they were so glad I was in the other’s class, as that respective professor would teach me how to improve my writing skills. While Ellen still called me out on using a U2 song (“Angel of Harlem”) as the subject of my paper on odes, they were right. Both Doug and Ellen created a strong foundation for my writing skills that I have been grateful for since then, including with my thesis and when I returned to graduate school for social work. Both have held a special place for me in my Reed memories as they ushered me in gently while setting me on the path forward with all that Reed had to offer. I wish Ellen the best in her retirement and know that her calm way of sharing her knowledge of English literature will be missed by many students past, present, and future. —Alison Gilman Shepherd ’02 Denver, Colorado

Remembering Michael Parrish ’70

I was saddened to read today of the demise of my friend Michael Parrish ’70. He was my senior year roommate, and our year together represented all that was good about a mature academic experience at Reed. He was older, had been somewhere, seen some stuff. I had inherited tenancy in the upper floor of a Woodstock house a few blocks east of Lutz’s, near enough to the Plaid Pantry for easy access to quart bottles of stainless steel–aged Tavola, and convinced Michael to join me in trying to recreate the apparently successful lifestyle of the previous year’s tenants, Rowan Snyder ’69 and Ian Merwin ’69. Michael was a regular at Lutz’s, felt it was an important element in a writer’s life. He convinced me that his plan to open a bar on the beach in Mexico was a good aspiration. We were both seniors now, he had had the style for a while, and I was a recent grad of social posturing; first and foremost was finishing the thesis. We were both still willing to participate in the important Reed occasions like the Kinks concert and having friends by like

granddaughter Lily. “My father was the most wonderful person I’ve ever known,” Linda wrote. “He loved Reed so much. We miss him terribly.” from the website

Steve Jobs and Reed Like all good Reedies, I knew of the college’s influence on Steve Jobs and Apple’s products. When this obituary was published, though, I was astounded (and more than a bit chagrined) to realize that despite having been the “dorm mommy” for Westport during 1972–73, I had no recollection of Jobs living one flight up from me. My memory was crystal clear, though, of the day I heard the distinctive beep, beep, beep of a touch-tone phone from the hall right outside my door—and realized that it couldn’t be coming from our rotary-dial pay phone! Having read about the legendary “Captain Crunch” who used a cereal whistle to simulate the switching tones for the phone equipment, I knew this had to be an illegal blue box. Nearly 40 years later, I realized this to have been the future Apple’s

He was my senior year roommate, and our year together represented all that was good about a mature academic experience at Reed. Richard (’69) Crandall’s occasional visits for 10-second chess. And that’s the key. We really were interested in the work. And a few classes. We enjoyed talking to each other about that stuff, a different conversation from the years of coffee-shop styling, and different again from conferences. We kept in touch through all these years, and I always hoped I would see him in that palapa on the beach. I see him there now. —Andreas Naumann ’70 Vancouver, BC Remembering Len Kampf ’51 Eva Lamfrom Labby ’51 called to talk about Len Kampf, who had visited her in recent years in her home in Portland. She suggested that we run a picture that would resonate with classmates, such as the one in the 1951 Griffin. “He hardly changed over all the years.” We also heard from his daughter Linda, who provided a more recent picture of Len taken with his great-

first telecommunications device! I confronted the group and told them not to use “that thing” on campus. The previous year, the phone company had threatened to yank all pay phones from the Reed dorms when one (cross-canyon?) had been rigged to return the coins, resulting in an empty coin box when they came collecting. So, I told them I didn’t care what they did off campus as long as they kept Reed out of it. When they were busted a few weeks later, I realized that might not have been the best advice. An international student from Mexico (another Westport freshman) was also arrested, calling home I believe, and I have clear memories of her roommates and I coaching her on conservative clothing and decorum for her U.S. court appearance. As the court was relatively lenient with these first-time offenders, this likely had no long-term impact on her life. I didn’t know until after Jobs’ death that her and Eric [’76] Siegel’s discretion also kept it from derailing Jobs’ and Wozniak’s future. Today’s LA Times review panned the movie, but I’ll no doubt have to see it anyway to relive old memories! —Marcia Yaross ’73 Glendora, California december 2013 Reed magazine

Eliot Circular news from campus

The freshman class, 356 strong, includes 51% women, 14% first-generation students, 32% students of color, and 10% citizens of other nations. It also boasts several fencers; exponents of the banjo, sitar, harp, and erhu; a member of the Future Farmers of America; a

founder of a Skeptics Club; a Unitarian youth chaplain; a debate champion; a Ukrainian folk dancer; a taxidermy collector; a Junior ROTC cadet platoon sergeant; an advocate for transgender youths; and a student who was once attacked by baboons. Welcome to Reed!

photo by leah nash

Joining the Tribe: Class of â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17

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Vanquishing Those Summertime Blues president’s fellowship helps students make more of their summers

Seated: Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies ’15, Sophie Naranjo-Rivera ’14, Maria Frodeman ’15, Sarah Tiffany-Appleton ’14. Standing: Vasishth Srivastava ’14, Jo Stewart ’14, Maria Maita-Keppler ’15, Lukas Ovrom ’14.

Everyone loves those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, but for many students, the three-month break between spring and fall classes represents an unparalleled chance to try something more ambitious. As one of his first major initiatives, President John Kroger—who spent his summers at Yale doing menial minimum-wage jobs—decided to establish a President’s Summer Fellowship as a way of encouraging Reedies to think big over the summer. “My one ambition for this fellowship is that it will help transform talented students’ lives,” says President Kroger. “We’ve got a very formal curriculum, and I wanted to create a way for students to spend a summer following a passion and preparing for their future.” Kroger turned to trustee Dan Greenberg ’62 and his wife, Susan Steinhauser, who generously agreed to fund the program for the next five years. As a result, eight lucky students were awarded $5,000 each to spend the summer on a project that combines intellectual pursuit with imagination. Apocalyptic Treasure Hunt French major Lukas Ovrom ’14 spent the summer in Paris studying a medieval French manuscript for clues to its place of origin— and ultimately its author.

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Lukas focused on the second of 29 texts in a 13th-century manuscript catalogued as BNF Manuscript 375 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Descriptively titled Explication of the Apocalypse, this second text is a glossed version of the New Testament’s “Book of Revelation.” “Written in Old French, L’Explication has been ignored for the most part,” he says. “My goal was to use the dialectical and religious content of the text to figure out where the base manuscript for this particular version was written.” His first hurdle was learning to read medieval calligraphy. He had picked up some Old French in a medieval French literature course he took with Prof. Ann Delehanty [French 2000–] and acquired more during a year abroad year studying in Rennes. Because vellum (made from calfskin) and parchment (made from sheepskin) were expensive, scribes abbreviated common terms like “when.” To further confound comprehension, there was no differentiation between the letters u, v, and n. “Scribes were the ones that actually circulated and copied all of these texts,” Lukas explains, “and they modified them at liberty and used their own dialect. Because of certain linguistic markers, grammar, and spelling it was possible to determine the

manuscript was mostly assembled in a province called Picardy.” At least 21 regionally specific dialects were spoken in France when the manuscript was copied in 1288. Lukas made a breakthrough when he located another copy of L’Explication at the British Royal Library. The two manuscripts showed several key differences. The French manuscript contained a prologue that replaced the first eight verses of the British version. It also contained clues indicating that the opening texts were not a part of the original manuscript. There was a difference in the color of the pages, the style of calligraphy, and dialect. It appeared that the scribe who wrote the first three texts was different from the ones who wrote the rest of the manuscript. Lukas made a tenable connection between the prologue and a prominent 12th-century copyist, Gilbert de la Porrée, bishop of Poitiers. “It was something of a treasure hunt,” he says, “and really exciting. I was daunted for sure, but never bored.” Documenting a revolution In the 1980s her father came to the U.S. from Cuba on the Mariel boatlift. After President Fidel Castro resigned in 2008, sociology major Sophie Naranjo-Rivera ’14 realized that the generation that lived through Cuba’s revolution was aging out. Now that it’s legal for Americans to visit family members in Cuba, Sophie seized the opportunity to reconnect with a long-restricted heritage. “The generation that lived through the Cuban revolution will be gone, taking their stories with them,” she writes on Works & Days, the student blog maintained by the Center for Life Beyond Reed. Sophie traveled to Cuba and documented the stories of Cubans who lived through the revolution in the ’50s. She found a beautiful tropical landscape and an impoverished but egalitarian society. “The country doesn’t have money,” she wrote, “but they have a lot of other things right.” Sophie hopes to make future trips to Cuba to gain more perspective and assemble the information in a book or movie. Making woodprints in Japan Growing up in Eugene, Oregon, art major Maria Maita-Keppler ’14 attended a Japanese immersion school and lived in a

Run Silent, Run Deep home filled with the food, music, and traditions of her Japanese-born mother. Thanks to the President’s Summer Fellowship, she was able to travel to Japan and explore what she has long seen as the apotheosis of the Japanese aesthetic: woodblock printing. She studied with artist Richard Steiner, who has been teaching and making woodblock prints for more than 20 years in a studio near downtown Kyoto. Not only did he agree to take on Maria as a pupil, he also found her an economical place to stay. The experience taught Maria to appreciate the Japanese attention to detail and subtlety in all art forms. “Because Kyoto is such an old city, you have all the contemporary aspects of Japan right on top of these world heritage sites,” she says. “You see the old art juxtaposed against what’s new and flashy. It really made the richness of the old tradition stand out.” Maria plans to teach the art of woodblock printing in Portland public schools. She is grateful not only for the experience that the fellowship provided, but also for the trust it placed in her. “They tell you, ‘The project may not turn out the way you think it will, but that’s okay,’ which takes a lot of pressure off the student,” she says. “You are encouraged to fully immerse yourself in the experience.” Here’s what the other fellows did: Philosophy major Maya Frodeman ’15 worked in a microbiology lab near Paris. Anthropolog y major Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies ’15 explored the work of choreographer William Forsythe at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance. Political science major Vasishth Srivastava ’14 worked in the research department at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C. English major Jo Stewart ’14 did an internship at the Paris Review and edited a journal featuring work by Reed students, faculty, and staff. Studio ar t major Sarah TiffanyAppleton ’14 volunteered with Architecture for Humanity Portland, a nonprofit that empowers communities in need by facilitating sustainable design solutions. —Randall S. Barton

Don’t look now, but the crimson blur streaking out of the corner of your eye might just be a Griffin. In August, Reed fielded a team for the Hood to Coast Relay for the first time ever. In September, Reed held a 5K Odyssey run that drew 197 runners. And last month, Reed notched a record turnout in the Portland Marathon, with no fewer than 57 Reed students, alumni, and staff running—in all likelihood Reed’s strongest showing in an off-campus sporting event in the college’s history. Has Reed caught running fever? “Reedies are very passionate about their schoolwork and their pastimes,” says environmental studies major John Young ’15, who ran the marathon in 3:18:26 and who regularly goes on midday excursions with a campus group known as the Lunchrunners. “And some of these pastimes include serious athletics . . . Rigorous physical discipline is an essential component to rigorous mental discipline.” For many decades, Reed’s attitude towards sports contained a dollop of frost. President William Foster [1910-19] sniffed that football was one of the “three great vices” of college life. (The other two? Fraternities and frivolity.) When the football team of 1957 scored their first touchdown of the season, they were actually booed. But it would be wrong to suggest that Reed was the domain of pusillanimous puffballs—students have long elbowed Foster’s disdain to the side and pursued a staggering range of athletic activity, in keeping with Juvenal’s ideal of a sound mind in a healthy body. Nowhere is this enthusiasm more emphatic than in the field of bipedal locomotion. Last year, Paul Whittredge ’12 ran two miles in 10:21, shattering the old Reed record set by George Barnes ’58 in 1956. Then bio major Ethan Linck ’13 broke the record for the fastest time around Mount Rainier, finishing the 93-mile trail in 27:19:19.

Physics major Will Holdhusen ’16 rounds the St. Johns Bridge on the Portland Marathon.

The idea of making a splash at the Portland Marathon originated with trustee and avid runner John Bergholz ’83. “The marathon is such a great expression of the human spirit, of individual triumph and of community,” John says. “It is a challenge that pushes one’s mental as well as physical endurance. In short, it’s not unlike attending Reed College.” Reed’s fastest marathon runner was econ major Jimmy LaBelle ’15, who blazed across the finish line in 2:59:44. Close on his heels came physics major Will Holdhusen ’16, who clocked an impressive 3:00:14. The fastest half-marathon runner was Mike Brody, dean of students, who posted a nimble 1:41:01 (apparently chasing after students does wonders for one’s stamina). And lest anyone fret that running is somehow incompatible with Reed’s distinctive brand of humor, never fear. Tony Palomino, computer user services director, ran the full marathon—while juggling. —Anna Mann

december 2013 Reed magazine

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New Faces Rebecca LaLonde ’01 joins us as an assistant professor of chemistry. She has worked as an associate scientist at Dow Chemical and as a research associate in medicinal chemistry at Genentech. After receiving her BA in chemistry at Reed, she earned an MS in chemistry from Stanford and a PhD in chemistry from UC Berkeley.

Virginia M. Closs, visiting assistant professor of classics and humanities, holds a PhD in classical studies from the University of Pennsylvania, a masters in philosophy from Cambridge, and a BA in classics from Stanford.

Angélica Osorno comes to Reed as assistant professor of mathematics. Her area of interest is algebraic topology. She holds a PhD in mathematics from MIT and comes to us from the University of Chicago.

Rebecca Doran has been hired as a visiting professor of Chinese and humanities. She comes to Reed from McGill University, where she lectured in Eastern Asian studies, having received her PhD in East Asian languages and civilizations, an AM in classical Chinese literature, and an AB in Asian studies, all from Harvard.

Another Reedie returning to the fold is Nicholas Wilson ’99, who has been hired as an assistant professor of economics. He has been a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley and an assistant professor of economics at Williams. He holds a PhD and an MA in economics from Brown, an MPA in international development from Harvard, and a BA in economics from Reed. His fields of interest include development economics, health economics, and the economics of HIV/AIDS.

Visiting professor David Draper joins the chemistry department for the spring 2014 semester. He is the Vernon K. Krieble Professor of Chemistry at Johns Hopkins, chaired that department in 1994-98, and has contributed to a prodigious list of publications. Draper completed his graduate work in chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Oregon, and did undergraduate work in biochemistry at UC Berkeley and the University of Sussex.

Sameer ud Dowla Khan has been hired as an assistant professor in linguistics. He holds a PhD, an MA, and a BA in linguistics from UCLA. He has taught previously at Brown, UCLA, Cornell, and Pitzer. He taught at Reed last year as a visiting professor.

Visiting assistant professor of statistics Albert Kim c o m e s t o R e e d f ro m Google, where he was a quantitative analyst. He was a predoctoral instructor in statistics at the University of Washington, where he received his PhD; he holds a BS from McGill University.

Zirwat Chowdhury has been hired as a visiting assistant professor of art history and humanities. She received a PhD and an MA in art history from Northwestern and a BA in art history and economics from Hollins University.

Visiting professor of religion and humanities Stephan Kory was a visiting lecturer at Indiana UniversityPurdue University Indianapolis. He holds a PhD in East Asian languages and cultures from Indiana University; an MA in

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Chinese language and literature from the University of Colorado; and a BA in East Asian studies from Washington and Lee. Katherine McKinneyBock, visiting professor of linguistics, received her PhD from the University of Southern California, and holds a BHA in music performance and Hispanic studies from Carnegie Mellon. In 2012, she received an NSF award to research morphological investigations in Formosan languages. Katherine Miller ’01 returns to Reed as a visiting professor in anthropology. She holds both a PhD and an MA in anthropology from UC San Diego, and her research interests include Islam, international development, Isma’ilism, transnational religious communities, and Pakistan. Her Reed thesis was “Speaking of Development: Discourse, Development and Community-Building in the Hunza Valley, North Pakistan.” Visiting assistant professor o f F re n ch Jo n at h a n Repinecz holds a PhD in French from UC Berkeley and comes to Reed as a visiting assistant professor of French. He received his BA in French from Washington University in St. Louis and was a Fulbright Fellow at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. In addition to his interest in French and Francophone literatures and cultures, his research and teaching interests include modern African literatures and cultures. Visiting associate profess o r o f b i o l o g y To d d Schlenke comes to Reed from Emory University. He has a PhD in zoology from the University of Texas. He has completed postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell in molecular biology and genetics and in population biology at UC Davis.

photo by lillian karabaic ’13

Jessica Seldman is a visiting assistant professor of classics and humanities. She received a PhD in classical languages and l i te rat u re s f ro m t h e University of Chicago, where she also earned her MA. With a special interest in Roman poetry of the late Republic/ early Empire, she earned her BA in classics from Brown.

“Pantheon” welcomes freshmen in 2009. Nudity at this year’s event prompted a Title IX investigation.

Dominique Somda, visiting assistant professor of anthropology, comes f ro m t h e Fo n d a t i o n Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris, where she has been a research fellow. She holds both an MS and a PhD in ethnology and comparative sociology from the Université of Paris Ouest Nanterre. In 2011–12 she was a visiting assistant professor in anthropology at the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Visiting assistant professor of music Suzanne Wint comes from the University of Chicago, where she holds a PhD in ethnomusicology and an MA in historical musicolog y. She received a BS in chemistry from Carnegie Mellon and also studied at UC Berkeley and the University of Göttingen. Lal Zimman comes to Reed as a visiting assistant professor of linguistics with a PhD in linguistics from the University of Colorado, where he was also affiliated with programs in the culture, language, and social practice program and the women and gender studies program. He has lectured in the linguistics department at Stanford and holds an MA in English and a BA in philosophy, both from San Francisco State University.

Pantheon to Be Robed, Say Organizers The students who play the part of Greek gods and greet freshmen on their way to their first humanities lecture will keep their robes on next fall, organizers declared at a forum held by the Honor Council in September. “No one will be naked next year,” said environmental studies major Elaine Andersen ’16, one of the HumPlayers, the student group that puts on the performance. Known as the Pantheon, the event has been staged for the last five years, and typically involves students dressing up as Greek divinities on the steps of Vollum College Center and welcoming freshmen to their first Hum 110 lecture. The gods ask for libations, and freshmen respond (if they’ve done their homework) by spilling a few drops of coffee or water on the ground, reenacting an ancient Homeric tradition. “It’s supposed to be fun and silly,” one student explained. This year, however, some members of the Pantheon were naked and engaged in rowdy behavior, demanding libations in loud and insistent tones. A member of the Reed community then filed a Title IX complaint, leading to a campus debate on the propriety of disrobing in public. Several students at the forum voiced unhappiness with the way the Pantheon was conducted. “I was disappointed in this year’s event,” said linguistics major Dean Schmeltz ’14, a former HumPlay director. “And I would

have been disappointed in it with or without clothes.” The spirit of the occasion, he said, was to welcome freshmen and wish them luck on their voyage through the humanities syllabus, not to embarrass or intimidate them. One of the current HumPlayers agreed that this year’s Pantheon was too confrontational. “We were acting more aggressive than we should have,” he told the forum. Other students suggested that it was the combination of nudity and loud, demonstrative behavior that created an intimidating atmosphere, not the nudity itself. Mike Brody, dean of students, emphasized that the Honor Principle and Title IX both require students to consider the impact of their behavior on others. He also said that the judicial machinery associated with the Honor Principle—the Honor Council, the J-Board, and the Sexual Misconduct Board—could help resolve a Title IX complaint. The HumPlayers are now working on a handbook to guide future directors on staging friendlier performances. “The Title IX complaint wasn’t about nudity at Reed in general,” Schmeltz later wrote in a Facebook post. “It was about a particular HumPlay event that was poorly managed. This was a very bad year for a tradition that has gone very well in the past, and there are things that we can and will do to make sure the Pantheon is truly welcoming in the future.” —Chris Lydgate ’90

december 2013 Reed magazine

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Profs Get Tenure Mark Burford [music 2007–] received his PhD in historical musicology from Columbia, where he also earned an MPhil and an MA, and holds a BA in music from UC Santa Barbara. At Reed he has taught Masterpieces of Western Music; Music History I and II; Music of the Caribbean; History and Memory in African American Music; Studying Popular Music; Così fan tutte as Musical Work and Cultural Text; Nineteenth-Century Symphony; The Blues: Forms, Styles, Meanings; Music in the United States during the 1950s; Music and the Black Freedom Struggle; Brahms and the Symphonic Ideal; and Music and Cold War America. Lucas Illing [physics 2007–] worked as a senior research scientist at Duke and a postg ra d u ate re s e a rc h scientist for the Institute for Nonlinear Science at UC San Diego, where he obtained both an MS and a PhD in physics. He obtained his vordiplom degree in physics from Humboldt Universität in Berlin. At Reed he has taught General Physics I and II, Optics, and Advanced Laboratory I and II. Carla Mann ’81 [dance 1995–] holds an MALS in dance and movement from Wesleyan and a B A in music from Reed. She previously taught at Lewis and Clark, the Center for Movement Arts, Conduit Dance, Dance Gatherer, Dancers Workshop, and the Dance USA Annual Conference, all in Portland, as well as the University of Alaska, Duncan Centre in the Czech Republic, and Kunming Youth Art School in China. At Reed she has taught Introduction to Dance: Studio I and II; Contemporary Dance I, II, III and

10 Reed magazine december 2013

IV; Contemporary Performance Ensemble; Improvisation; Special Projects in Choreography; Cultural Studies in Dance; Advanced Technique & Performance; and independent studies. She has collaborated on and choreographed many academic and professional projects. Margot Minardi [history 2007–] holds a PhD and an AM in history and an AB in history and literature, all from Harvard. At Reed she has taught Introduction to Western Humanities; Colonial America; Mapping Colonial America; Sources and Methods in Early African American History; Revolutionary America; American Social Reform from Revolution to Reconstruction; American Abolitionism; Humanity in Perspective; and independent studies. Jonathan Rork [economics 2010–] previously taught at the Institut d’Economia de Barcelona, Georgia S t a t e U n i v e r s i t y, Vassar, Brown, the University of New Hampshire, and Stanford. He holds a PhD in economics from Stanford and an AB in mathematics-economics from Brown. The courses he has taught at Reed include Microeconomic Theory; Game Theory; and Urban Economics. Kjersten Whittington [s o c i o l o g y 2 0 0 7 – ] holds a PhD and MA i n s o c i o l o g y f ro m Stanford and a BA in physics from North Carolina State University. At Reed she has taught Research Methods; Networks and Social Structure; Sociology of Science; Sociology of Gender ; and Intro duct ion to Sociology.

Time-Travel Expert to Give Talk Yesterday Renowned physicist Dr. Kip Thorne will give a lecture at Reed on “The Warped Side of Our Universe: From the Big Bang to Black Holes and Gravitational Waves” on August 27, 2013—which may be tomorrow, today, or yesterday, depending on your frame of reference. Dr. Thorne, a retired professor of theoretical physics at California Institute of Technology, is one of the world’s leading experts on gravitational waves, black holes, and wormholes—hypothetical “shortcuts” in the space-time continuum that give rise to the theoretical possibility of time travel. Dr. Thorne was on campus to receive the 2013 Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology, created as a tribute to the late Howard Vollum ’36, a Reed trustee and a lifelong friend of the college. Thorne described recent predictions about what happens on the warped side of our universe—that is, objects that are made of warped space and warped time, instead of matter. He then discussed plans for testing those predictions by observing gravitational waves and extracting the information they carry. The key instruments for this are gravitational-wave interferometers, including the LIGO interferometer at Hanford, Washington. Thorne is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is the author of Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy and is executive producer of the film Interstellar. And if none of this has happened yet in your timeframe, please don’t xerox any mirrors.

Our Brilliant Students

Psych major wins Fulbright Margaret Balk ’13 has won a Fulbright grant to do research at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. She will collaborate with Prof. Olivier Luminet, examining how emotional competence affects children with type I diabetes. Emotional competence refers to the ability to pay attention to one’s bodily sensations, confront one’s emotions, and communicate them to others. Quality of life can be measured by how much the illness limits activity, the frequency or severity of the physical symptoms, and to what extent the disease causes negative emotions. Luminet’s findings show that type I diabetic children with lower emotional competence have worse glycemic control, which is an objective measure of patients’ management of their diabetes.

Early identification of patients with lower emotional competence would allow physicians and psychologists to teach children and parents the skills necessary to cope with the illness, improving their quality of life and overall health. Margaret herself was diagnosed with type I diabetes when she was nine years old. She didn’t realize how much her parents had helped her cope with the illness until she was a foreign exchange student in France. On her own and forced to confront the nuisances that accompany a chronic illness in a foreign country, she relates, “over those months, my interactions with pharmacists went from me attempting to explain my needs, stuttering and red faced, to being able to discuss the benefits and drawbacks of the French versus the American health

care systems. During that year, I became interested in the emotional strain of living with a chronic illness.” Margaret came to realize that her experiences could benefit patients facing similar challenges. After her Fulbright year, she plans to pursue a PhD in clinical health psychology. Since 1966, some 89 Reedies have won Fulbrights. —Randall S. Barton

from left: linguist Margit Bowler ’11 interviews Warlpiri elder; Quinn Langdon ’11 hunts wild yeasts; Chrissy Porter ’13 makes optical allusions.

Reedies Nab NSF Fellowships Three recent grads all won fellowships from the National Science Foundation this year as part of the NSF’s prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships Program. The program grants each fellow $32,000 a year for three years to pursue a specific research proposal, plus $12,000 a year to the fellow’s institution. Students may apply in their senior year or during their first two years of graduate school. Margit Bowler ’11 will do fieldwork in the language of Warlpiri, spoken by approximately 3,000 indigenous people in central Australia. Her project represents a continuation of the research she began thanks to a Fulbright Scholarship she won in 2011; she is thankful to NSF for the opportunity

to continue her research, as she believes Warlpiri should not be studied without a long-term commitment to its speakers and their communities. She is currently at UCLA researching Warlpiri semantics and syntax, although she occasionally delves into Warlpiri phonology. Quinn Langdon ’11 will investigate the genomics of temperature preference in a wild yeast known as Saccharomyces eubayanus, which was recently discovered inhabiting the beech trees of Patagonia and which is closely linked, genetically speaking, to the yeast used for brewing lager. Quinn suspects that studying S. eubayanus will yield important clues to understanding evolution in wild and agricultural settings and lead—with any luck—to

some great-tasting beer. She is headed to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and says her interest in studying “nonmodel” species was first piqued under the guidance of Prof. Suzy Renn [biology 2006–]. Christina Porter ’13 will be using her grant to investigate novel imaging systems at Princeton this fall as she begins her PhD in electrical engineering. Chrissy wrote her thesis on lightning with Prof. David Griffiths [physics 1978–2009] and graduated with a 4.0 GPA—an outstanding achievement considering the college’s notoriously rigorous academic program. In the last 29 years, only 11 students have graduated with a 4.0 GPA; Chrissy is one of only two physics majors (that we know of) to have achieved this milestone.

december 2013 Reed magazine 11

Eliot Circular

FAvo r i t e c l A s s to t e Ac h Literary theory and CLassiCaL Literature: students reaLLy put themseLves and their beLiefs on the Line. b o o k to k e e p yo U c o m pA n y o n A d e s e r t islAnd pindar’s viCtory odes aLmost everything i’ve done has CirCLed around it or been responsive to it. there is a Lifetime of things to expLore in there.

“Getting in is just the beginning.” —NIGEL NICHOLSON D e a n o f t h e Fa c u l t y a n d Wa l t e r M i n t z P r o f e s s o r o f C l a s s i c s

Your gift to the Annual Fund supports the commitment

to lifelong learning and engagement with the world that defines Reed and its students, professors, and alumni.

Use the enclosed envelope, visit giving.reed.edu, or call 877/865-1469 to make your Annual Fund gift.

Mountaineer Leaves Reed $1M Passionate about mountain climbing and his alma mater, Paul Wiseman ’33 left a bequest that divided his fortune between Reed College and the Olympia branch of the Mountaineers Club, which he helped found. He died in 2011, two days before his 99th birthday. In addition to leaving the college an astonishing $1,089,644, Paul generously supported the college in every way a donor can give. He made a sixfigure lifetime gift and was a loyal donor to the Annual Fund. “Every year on his birthday, June 10, Paul would write his Annual Fund check,” remembers Kathy Saitas, director of planned giving for Reed College. “He was the most meticulous man I ever knew, dapper and clean as a whistle. Every morning, whether he was driving or not, he’d pull his car out and put it in the drive-

for the state government in Olympia as the chief of research and statistics in the employment security department. During World War II he served as an army quartermaster, posted in Europe and the Philippines. Paul, who never married, was an inveterate mountain climber.

Census taker, deckhand, quartermaster, hiker, economist, and benefactor. way. His house was spotless, with every window shade pulled up to exactly the same level.” Paul’s devotion to Reed began in 1929, when he arrived on campus to study math. He lived in House F (now known as Doyle) with roommate Hunter Morrison ’34, who remained a lifelong friend and mountain climbing companion. Two years into the Great Depression, Paul’s parents were no longer able to afford Reed, which cost $800 per year for for tuition, room, and board. Paul dropped out and worked first as a census taker and then as a deckhand for the Grace Line, sailing between Seattle and South America. In 1935, he earned a BA in economics from the University of Washington and went to work

In addition to his involvement with the Mountaineers Club, he was a board member of the Sierra Club northwest chapter and a strong advocate for wilderness conservation. In 1958, he hiked with Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, conservationist Polly Dyer, and others along the Olympic Peninsula to protest a proposed extension of U.S. Highway 101 that would have destroyed a section of Olympic National Park. Into his 80s, he led trips for the Mountaineers, and he drove his Lincoln—with a trunk big enough to hold a set of skis—well into his late 90s. Though Paul had no family, he leaves a legacy to generations of grateful Reedies. —Randall S. Barton

tom humphrey

eliot circular

Collect ’Em All! Beat it, Babe Ruth. Pick up your deck, Pikachu. Move over, Magic: the Gathering. A new set of rectangular exchange objects hit campus this semester— Community Safety Trading Cards. Reed’s community safety officers (CSOs) now carry trading cards as they make their rounds, handing them out to students as a way to build relationships. “As a team, we talked over the summer about what we wanted to accomplish this year, and our first priority is to develop relationships with individual students,” says Gary Granger, director of community safety. “We hit on the cards as a fun way for CSOs to establish a personal connection.” Each CSO’s card includes a photo and fun facts, from hobbies to favorite epic poems to potential superpowers (“atmokinesis” is one). The project borrows from a venerable Reed tradition. In the 1990s, CSOs and scroungers both issued trading cards, and Reed’s nuclear reactor still circulates cards of operators and supervisors. As the semester goes on, Granger envisions giving away goodies—a box of doughnuts, maybe?— to students who have acquired particular cards. But he concedes that he doesn’t know exactly how students will use them.We wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up clothespinned to bicycle spokes—or taped to the sundial above the Sallyport. —ANNA MANN

december 2013 Reed magazine 13

Empire of the Griffin Connecting Reed alumni across the globe

Meet Your Alumni Board Nominees In accordance with the constitution of the Reed College alumni association, and following a call for nominations to all alumni in the May 2013 edition of Reed magazine, the nominating committee of the alumni association hereby gives notice of the following nominations to the alumni board (AB). All terms begin July 1, 2014. These sketches have been edited for space. For longer, more detailed versions, please see www.reed.edu/reed_magazine. President (One-Year Term): Scott Foster ’77 [biology], Gualala, California. District administrator for emergency medical services. At Reed: soccer team goalie, KRRC DJ, feared at billiards. Scott served 26 years as a U.S. naval officer specializing in health care administration. Jazz ensemble performances at Reunions, D.C.chapter representative, 30th class reunion leader, admission volunteer, at-large alumni board member (2009–12). Current AB vice president. Vice President (One-Year Term): Kristen Earl ’05 [English], Portland, Oregon. Development manager for Bradley-Angle, a nonprofit that provides support services for survivors of domestic violence. Reed Oral History Project interviewer and interview coordinator, at-large AB member (2007– 10), AB nominating committee. Kristen also serves as the board secretary for the Willamette Valley Development Officers. Current AB secretary. Secretary (One-Year Term): Richard Roher ’79 [English], Chappaqua, New York. President of Roher Public Relations. Rich transferred to Reed in his junior year. 30th class reunion leader, one-year AB appointment, at-large alumni board member (2011–14), chair of Reunions committee. Rich looks forward to continuing service as an AB officer. At-Large Board Members (3-Yr Term): Bennett Barsk ’82 [physics], Alexandria, Virginia. Math tutor. Currently serves as the D.C. chapter chair. He has organized many alumni gatherings over the years, including Restaurant Club meetings, a private inaugural ball, art and photography exhibition receptions, and a participatory brunch with an alumna cookbook author. His private parties have drawn as many as 30 alumni.

14 Reed magazine december 2013

Serena Golden ’07 [English], Washington, D.C. Associate editor of Inside Higher Ed. At Reed, Serena worked at the sports center and was an admission tour guide. Admission volunteer, Reed Career Network, Working Weekend ’13 panelist, and featured speaker at the D.C. Reed on the Road. She hopes to improve Reed’s relationship with the news media. Constance Putnam ’65 [philosophy], Concord, Massachusetts. Independent scholar working primarily in medical history. Widely published, author and coauthor of four books. Fulbright Senior Scholar in Budapest. Served on the AB following graduation. Admission volunteer, local alumni event organizer, National Advisory Council, Centennial Campaign Committee, Foster Scholz Club’s Distinguished Service Award (2010). Clara Siegel ’09 [mathematics], Seattle, Washington. Senior product manager at Amazon Wine. MBA from Stanford. At Reed, Clara served as student body treasurer and worked on Renn Fayre, Murals, and AOD policy committees. Since then, she has volunteered for Reunions, Start Up Lab, and Working Weekend. Will Swarts ’92 [American studies], Brooklyn, New York. Public relations account executive and book critic. At Reed: social affairs board chair, student caucus, Quest reporter. Worked as a journalist in Oregon, Washington, Hong Kong, Beijing, Berlin, and New York. Helped revive the New York chapter in the early ’00s, chaired the steering committee, and was chapter representative to the AB.

Nominating Committee (1-Year Term): Alea Adigweme ’06 [Russian], Iowa City, Iowa. Writer, artist, educator. MFA nonfiction from University of Iowa (2012). As an at-large AB member (2011–14), worked with the institutional diversity office to facilitate meaningful connections between alumni and students from underrepresented groups and their allies. Assistant dean of admission at Reed in 2007–09. John Bergholz ’83 [international studies], Oak Park, Ilinois. VP of institutional advancement at National Louis University. Chicago chapter steering committee (member, cochair), AB trustee member, board of trustees (2010–14). John helped establish the Class of ‘83 Well-Endowed Scholarship and Reed‘s presence at the 2013 Portland Marathon. He serves on the board for Thresholds, a nonprofit that serves people with severe mental illness. Jonathan Make ’98 [international studies], Washington, D.C. Managing editor of a newsletter company. Jonathan is a member of the D.C. chapter steering committee, where he has served as chair and representative to the AB. He enjoys attending cultural and food-related gatherings with other Reedies and planning alumni events. Alumni Trustee (Four-Year Term): Jay Hubert ’66 [physics], San Rafael, California. Retired from Chevron, manager of analytical sciences. PhD in physics from Texas A&M. Admission volunteer, 40th class reunion gift chair, ROHP interviewer, at-large AB member (2006–09), AB officer (2009–13), alumni fundraising for Reed Steering Committee (2009–present). Jay and his wife funded a major matchinggift initiative for the centennial. Additional nominations for each position may be submitted by petition from the membership. Said petitions must contain the name and a brief biographical sketch of the nominee, the office to be filled, and the signatures of 50 or more members of the association. Petitions must be received in the alumni office on or before February 14, 2014. In all offices for which there is only one nominee on February 14, the nominee shall be considered elected as of that date, except that the board of trustees must approve the alumni trustee nomination.

leah nash

Reed alumni and their excited/nervous/non-plussed Reedie progeny (future alumni!). Top row (left to right): Benjamin Morrison ’17, Juliet de la Huerga ’17 (daughter of Carlos de la Huerga ’73, not pictured), Elizabeth Jerison Terry ’82 and Nico Terry ’17, Alan Bishop ’17 and Dina Kempler ’89. Middle: Chloe Alston ’17 (daughter of Kai Weber ’84, not pictured). Front row: Tyler Morrison ’90 and Rachel Altmann ’88; Mira Kamdar ’80 and Anjali Claes ’17; Brandon Ross ’17 and Molly Ross ’04. (Rachel Cox ’84 and daughter Sara Kelemen ’17 are not pictured here, but view them online, where you can also download a hi-res version of the group photo.)

O.R.G.Y.

Star Craving

New Reedies with alumni parents (or other relatives) qualify as members of a prestigious organization, Offspring of Reed Generations of Yesteryear, fondly referred to as O.R.G.Y. They, along with family members, were invited to join other Reed legacies for a group photo during Orientation in August. Gorgeous weather graced this photo shoot on the Eliot Hall chapel steps, and everyone received an O.R.G.Y button to wear proudly! More news and events for alumni and parents at reed.edu/alumni.

The paparazzi should’ve been out for the Griffith Observatory Star Party on August 17, when SoCal alumni ranging from the classes ’62 through ’13 met up to take in a view of the heavens. Star Parties involve astronomers and stargazers from around Los Angeles, who congregate on the lawn outside the observatory, setting up telescopes directed at various celestial objects. At the beginning of the evening, finding each other proved to be more challenging than one might expect, due to the number of nerdy folks who tend to come together at Griffith, but eventually we all gathered on the observatory lawn, introduced ourselves to one another, and chatted about Olde Reed. Then we proceeded to explore some of the exhibits, taking cheesy photos with the displays, and eventually made our way outside to the telescopes, where we got to enjoy the sight of the moon, Saturn, a double star in the constellation Cygnus, and many other pieces of astronomical eye candy. —Jessica Gerhardt ’11

Clued In: Reedies in London UK Reedies held a September Thirsty Third Thursday at the Sherlock Holmes pub in central London and even had former exchange students in attendance! From left to right: Michelle Hennessy ’02, Georgina Meakin (exchange student 2001–02), Jeff Frank ’72, Juan Brito ’10, Will Greaves (exchange student 2007–08), Tom Gore (exchange student 2007–08). Not show in the picture: Josh Simon ’05 and Dawn Teele ’06.

december 2013 Reed magazine 15

Dept. of Nuts and Bolts

Financial Aid: 13 Questions Fifty-seven thousand, seven hundred and eighty dollars. That’s the price tag for a year of tuition, room, and board at Reed today. Multiply by four years, throw in books and airfare, and you’re looking at a quarter of a million dollars for a Reed education. But only about half of Reed students pay full tuition. The other half receive financial aid—some of it through government grants and loans, but most of it from Reed itself. Were it not for the generosity of donors who have supported Reed over the years— and the college’s long-term commitment to accessibility—roughly half of us could never have afforded to come to Reed. In other words, if it weren’t for financial aid, Reed simply would not be what it is. “Reed is committed to providing educational opportunity,” says Leslie Limper, the college’s director of financial aid. Reed’s approach to financial aid rests on four central ideas: • Meet the full need of every student we admit for eight semesters. • No aid unless a student needs it. • Keep loans and work as low as possible. • Make Reed accessible to outstanding students, regardless of their financial wherewithal, as far we can prudently afford to. Has Reed always offered aid? Yes. The 1920 college catalog notes scholarships as well as loans awarded to “worthy” students back when tuition, room and board totaled $400 a year. By the mid-1950s, Reed instituted needbased aid. The 1953 catalog states that “the scholarship program is designed to assist students of outstanding promise who are not able to afford the advantages of a Reed education. All financial aid is for the exclusive purpose of contributing to an equalization of educational opportunity . . . In no instance should a student expect to receive a scholarship grant as a prize or as a reward for outstanding achievement unless the evidence of need is both clear and demonstrable.”

16 Reed magazine december 2013

How much does Reed spend in aid? More than $21 million a year. The college’s aid budget has grown substantially since 1985, outpacing the rise in tuition several times over. Must a student be “poor” to qualify? Absolutely not. The median family income of a student on aid is $74,000—actually a bit higher than the median family income ($62,527 in 2012, according to the U.S. Census). And that’s just the median. In some cases, the family income may be considerably higher. For example, a family earning $270,000 with a second child in a private college could still be eligible for $10,000 in aid from Reed. Do all colleges follow the same policies on financial aid? No. Different colleges calculate need in different ways. Some offer merit awards that aren’t tied to need. And not all colleges meet 100% of students’ need. In fact, the practice of deliberately leaving students with a gap in their financing is so common in higher education that it has its own jargon—“gapping.” Does Reed practice “gapping”? No. Since 2004, the college has met the full demonstrated financial need of all the students it admits for eight semesters—which need not be consecutive. What’s the average award? Last year, the average package, including grants, loans, and part-time work, totaled more than $40,000, broken down as follows: $33,314 in Reed grants; $4,370 in federal grants and loans; and $5,086 in student self-help (which most students satisfy by working campus jobs). How much debt do students take on? Reed strives to limit student debt. For their freshman year, the recommended loan amount is $2,500, rising to $5,500 for their senior year. The average debt of aid students at graduation stands at about $20,000—lower than the $24,000 average

for Oregon’s public universities and the $27,000 national average. National news stories have reported huge student debts, particularly among graduates of colleges that practice gapping. These are typically incurred by families who opt to take on debt in addition to their federal loans. Some families may choose to do this out of necessity, others because they find it a useful tool for financial management.

Reed is committed to meeting the full need of every student we admit. What happens if Mom or Dad get laid off while the student is going to Reed? Reed is committed to supporting its students through unforeseen loss of income. If a parent loses a job, is stricken by a disabling illness, or otherwise suffers loss of income, Reed will give the family more aid. There’s a flip side to this, however. If a family enjoys better financial circumstances—if a sibling graduates from college, for example—Reed may revise its package downwards in subsequent years. How does financial aid affect admissions? For the strongest applicants, the answer is not at all. But because Reed eschews gapping, we have to limit the number of students who need aid. The admissions office aims to fill about half of the entering class with students whose families can afford full tuition. The corollary is that Reed also enrolls more low-income students—roughly 20%—than many of its peer schools. (This figure is based on the number of students who qualify for Pell grants.) Was Reed ever need-blind? Depends on how you define it. In years past, Reed was far less selective than it is today. Some needy students were given aid; others were given no aid but told that they could “come anyway.” In some cases, students were told that if they could scrape together tuition for their freshman year,

Who Gets It

Catching Up: Financial Aid vs Tuition percentage increase since 1992 90% 80%

Parental Income under $40K: 28%

$100K+ 25%

Average Reed grant has risen 85% since 1992

70% 60%

Independent 4% International 7%

50% $40–70K 19%

$70–100K 17%

40% 30% Tuition has risen 47% since 1992

20%

2012–13

2011–12

2010–11

2009–10

2008–09

2007–08

2006–07

2005–06

2004–05

2003–04

2002–03

2001–02

2000–01

1999–00

1998–99

1997–98

1996–97

1995–96

1994–95

1993–94

Where It Comes From

10%

1992–93

This graph shows the percentage of students receiving aid by parental income. 28% earn less than $40K; but 25% earn more than $100K.

This graph compares the percentage increase in tuition, room, board, and fees since 1992 with the percentage increase in the average Reed grant. Source: Institutional Research. All figures adjusted for inflation using the BLS Inflation Calculator. In 1992, the average Reed grant was 47% of tuition. Today the figure is 58%. Reed: $21,120,389

Federal $5,945,925

Reed Students on Financial Aid 70% 60% 50%

State & Private $875,513

Reed’s share of financial aid far outstrips federal, state, and private sources. Figures include grants, loans, and workstudy earnings.

40% 30%

It’s great that Reed spends so much on aid, but isn’t that offset by tuition hikes? No. Since 1992, the cost of tuition, room, and board has grown (in real terms) by 47%. But Reed’s budget for financial aid has grown (again, real terms) by 85%. In other words, financial aid is growing almost twice as fast as tuition.

20% 10%

1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

the college would give them aid after that. While this could be construed as a form of need-blindness, it was also confusing and unpredictable. It saddled comeanyway students with high levels of debt and favored those with wealthy grandparents, whose income is not reported to colleges. In 2004, President Colin Diver and the board of trustees decided to end this form of gapping and meet the full need of every student Reed admits. Since then, applications have soared. Reed now admits a smaller percentage of applicants and spends more on financial aid.

Source: Reed treasurer’s office.

Why doesn’t Reed spend more on aid instead of the Performing Arts Building? The PAB cost $28 million. Half that amount, $14 million, was contributed by donors for the express purpose of supporting the performing arts. The other half was financed by tax-exempt bonds, which are not available for financial aid. Even so, if you spread the building’s cost over its projected life, it represents a tiny fraction of what Reed spends on aid.

How can I get involved in discussions about the future of financial aid at Reed? We thought you’d never ask. Reed has launched a strategic planning initiative to tackle these sorts of questions. Check out reed.edu/strategicplanning. To support financial aid directly, please see reed.edu/ givingtoreed. GO FURTHER Undermining Pell. How Colleges Compete for Wealthy Students and Leave the Low-Income Behind. New America Foundation, May 2013.

december 2013 Reed magazine 17

Bravo!

Reed celebrates the performing arts with a new building and a new home.

4 3

p theatre r f o r music a dance c e

A Laboratory for Theatre, Dance, and Music

1 A director’s dream, the 180-seat Diver Theatre is the ideal setting for productions from Aeschylus to Zola. 2 99-seat Black Box Theatre gives students a chance to experiment with “pure” theatre. 3 Proximity of classrooms and faculty offices help students translate ideas from conference to the stage. 4 Steiner Dance Studio boasts sprung wooden floor and lattice of windows to take advantage of natural light. 5 Massee Performance Lab is ideal for thesis projects. 6 Performing Arts Resource Center (PARC) bristles with technology. It’s also a multimedia library. 7 An ecoroof and bioswales collect on-site rainwater with zero discharge to city’s storm water system. 8 Rooftop patio and garden offer captivating views of the setting sun. 9 Natural ventilation, radiant heat, and skylights make the atrium a cool place to study, socialize, or hold flashmob rendition of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” 10 Costume and scene shops. 11 Bridge and elevator system improve disabled access to campus from the west. 12 Soundproof practice rooms give students a place to go wild on piano, sax, erhu, or drums—without bugging their roommates.

photo BY CHRISTIAN COLUMBRES

SOCK IT TO ’EM. Prof. Hannah Kosstrin, Prof. Carla Mann ’81, former prez Colin Diver, Joan Diver, and Prof. Minh Tran do the can-can in the Steiner Dance Studio.

photos by leah nash

BRAVO!

t d h a performance a u c t s e r i e c

REV IT UP. Actors belt out tunes from Broadway musical Golden Motors in Diver Theatre.

The performing arts got an 80,000- square-foot, glass-paned, light-filled new home in September, amid pomp, circumstance, shiny red ribbons, and several gargantuan pairs of scissors. The ceremony began with Blast!, a fanfare for two trumpets and live electronics, composed by R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music David Schiff [1980–] and Bruce Bennett ’90. Standing on the grand staircase that graces the atrium, President John R. Kroger welcomed students, faculty, staff, alumni, and guests, giving thanks to the many people who ushered the building into reality. “In my opinion, there is nothing more practical, and nothing that this country is more in need of, than creSENSE OF PERSPECTIVE. Vaulting atrium creates intriguing new opportunities to define a performance. ativity,” Kroger said. “But even if the performing arts had no practical value, we’d still build this building—because life with- chair Joe Sellers led the charge to raise celebration continued on the grand stairout art is not worth living.” over $2 million from Reed parents to name case that inspired the site-specific work K r o g e r ’s p r e d e c e s s o r , C o l i n the studio theatre in honor of Colin and his L’esprit de l’escalier, choreographed by Heidi Diver [president 2002–12], remarked wife, Joan. The PAB also attracted almost Duckler ’74 and performed by her troupe, on the challenges of planning, designing, $1 million from local foundations, nota- which includes Claire Thomforde-Garner and paying for the new building during the bly the Collins Foundation. Trustee Rick ’12 and Simone Wood ’13. worst economic downturn since the Great Wollenberg ’75, a lead donor to the buildThe Diver Theatre was rung in by a readDepression, and called the birth of the edi- ing, joined Colin, Prof. Kathleen Worley ing of the musical Golden Motors, orchesfice “an extraordinary act of creativity.” [theatre 1985–], and Towny Angell, direc- trated by Broadway director Johanna “You will know it as the Performing Arts tor of facilities operations, in the ribbon McKeon ’92. The celebration also feaBuilding,” he said. “I will always think of cutting to represent all the donors who tured chamber music by Reed musicians it as the Miracle Building.” made this long-standing dream a reality. and readings of work by playwrights Lee Part of that miracle was that donors, The remarks included a special on-screen Blessing ’71, Bret Fetzer ’87, Anne led by the board of trustees and the Parent appearance by Reed parent and donor Washburn ’91, Robert Quillen Camp Council, contributed $14 million—half the John Malkovich, who beamed in from ’99, Tina Satter ’04, Kate Tarker ’08, building’s total cost. Former Parent Council Paris to convey his congratulations. The and Dominic Finocchiaro ’11.

20 Reed magazine december 2013

STEPPING UP. The building’s dramatic central staircase inspired L’esprit de l’escalier, choreographed by Heidi Duckler ’74.

dance of the pixel

R eed prof leaps into terpsichorean technology, iPad in hand.

photos by leah nash

p e r f o r m a dance c e

By Romel Hernandez

Like a frolicsome sprite capering through an enchanted forest, the dancer stands on her toes, spins a pirouette, soars through the air with an impressive leap and—oh, wait a second. A few taps on an iPad rewrite and rearrange an intricate sequence of shapes, symbols, and squiggles on screen, indicating how the dancer’s body should move through space and time. Turn right, not left. Point the arm like this. Make it three grands jetés. Invented almost 100 years ago, Labanotation (also known as Laban movement notation) is a language for writing the choreographic equivalent of a musical score. Put the right symbols together, and you might have a ballet choreographed by George Balanchine or a dance piece by Martha Graham, a Scottish Highland fling or the electric slide. Hannah Kosstrin, visiting assistant professor of dance, is bringing Labanotation into the digital age with a new iPad app named KineScribe. “I just thought, ‘How cool would it be to bring the iPad into the dance studio?’” Prof. Kosstrin says. “Creating this app can make dance notation more accessible in

22 Reed magazine december 2013

a way that is engaging and user-friendly.” Funding for the initial work on KineScribe was provided by Reed’s iPad program for faculty, which supports professors who want to bring new technology into the classroom, furthered by additional support from Marty Ringle, Reed’s chief information officer, and buttressed by a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. After last-minute testing and tweaking over the fall, KineScribe is now available to dancers everywhere—at no cost—through the App Store. With so many students bringing tablets

and laptops to the classroom, more professors are discovering creative ways to use the technology to engage and enhance student learning, says Trina Marmarelli, Reed’s director of instructional technology services. Some professors are happy to stick with blackboards and chalk, but the college also wants to support faculty willing to experiment with new approaches. The KineScribe project is a sterling example of how professors can integrate technology into their teaching. “[KineScribe] has such immediacy— there’s almost a sensory connection with

KINETIC ENERGY. Prof. Hannah Kosstrin uses KineScribe to go over dance moves with Jackie Davis ’14.

Labanotation gets you inside the work so you can understand what is going on. It’s like the difference between listening to music and reading the score. the app,” Marmarelli says. “An iPad is so portable, the user can be there right alongside the dancer or the choreographer during a rehearsal or performance.” Kosstrin started dance classes at age four and continued through high school, studying a variety of dance forms and composition at local dance studios and a summer arts program in the Boston area. She attended Goucher College in Maryland, planning to become a dance teacher. Inspired by an overseas program to study dance in London, she shifted her focus from dance education to history. She went on to study dance at the Ohio State University, and also enjoyed time performing with and running a small dance organization between earning her MA and PhD degrees in dance history and dance studies. With her interests firmly entrenched in scholarship, Kosstrin had not performed on stage in years until last summer. As scholar in residence at the

Bates Dance Festival, she performed in the annual faculty improvisational dance performance alongside prominent choreographers and dancers, an experience she found terrifying, then exhilarating. “I’d always enjoyed performing, but I also knew performing was not the end for me,” she says. “There’s something so special about performing, about having this experience that is physical and emotional and intellectual all at the same time. There’s nothing like it.” Kosstrin’s academic interests encompass dance, history, and culture, especially Jewish and gender studies. Since joining Reed in 2010, she has taught classes from introductory to advanced dance, as well as conferences, including “Jewish and Israeli Dance: Social and Concert Dance of Israel and the Jewish Diaspora” and “Queer Dances: Gender, Sexuality, and Identity in Modern and Contemporary Dance.” She is also at work on a book about Anna

Sokolow, the influential American dancer and choreographer noted for her radical politics. Kosstrin also teaches a class in Labanotation, a subject she has pursued throughout her education. Rudolf Laban, a Hungarian dancer and teacher, first introduced his dance notation system in 1928. The system evolved and gained widespread currency until the emergence of film and video made it easier—and cheaper—to document dance performances. Kosstrin contends, however, that “what dance notation does that video can’t do is to get you inside the work so you can understand what is going on. Think of it as the difference between reading a musical score or listening to a recording—it’s just not the same.” To create the app, she reached out to a programmer from Ohio State who had worked on an established software program called LabanWriter. Serendipitously, she discovered the programmer, David Ralley, was working for a tech company and living in Portland. The pair agreed to collaborate on the project, with Kosstrin providing dance expertise and Ralley writing the code. “It’s been a great partnership,” says Ralley, who notes he is not a dancer. “I can’t say enough about Hannah’s energy and her creative input. She has very specific ideas about functionality, so we just try things out and see if they work; if they don’t, we try something else.” Along the way, Kosstrin worked with the Dance Notation Bureau in New York and the extension office at OSU and received approval by senior notators Lucy Venable and Ann Hutchinson Guest to use the notation symbols in the app. “Hannah was really the vision and the driving force,” Marmarelli says. “I have just been so impressed with the incredible amount of energy and time she has put into this project on top of her teaching and research.” Throughout the development of various beta versions, Kosstrin has made sure to test KineScribe with the generation she hopes will eventually embrace Labanotation—her students.

december 2013 Reed magazine 23

Songs for Kukua

performance u s i c

Ghanaian musician finds his voice at Reed. By Casey Jarman

Growing up in Ghana, econ major Paapa hMensa ’15 was a quiet kid. Not shy, mind you—he didn’t lack friends or feel socially awkward—but when he opened his mouth to speak, the words stuck. Lots of children have trouble learning to enunciate, he explains from a picnic table on the north edge of campus, but he had something more serious—a severe stammer. So he kept quiet. “I didn’t want them to laugh,” he says. “I didn’t even want to use energy speaking.” Sundays, though, brought some relief. When he sang with the church choir— comforted by the familiar hymns and the sea of voices swelling around him— his stammer loosened its grip. When he discovered hip-hop at age 10, he found that rapping—and later singing solo—gave him the same super power over his affliction. “Music was what gave me some peace, some serenity,” says Paapa, who speaks quickly and confidently but still occasionally stammers. “It’s how I knew I wasn’t stupid.” By the time he arrived at Reed on an academic scholarship in 2011, he had already begun to make a name for himself in the Ghanaian music scene. His debut album, Solar, was released online just as he was digging into Hum 110, Reed’s notoriously rigorous freshman humanities course. At first, he thought he would hide his music away from his Reed classmates, just as he had hidden his voice years before. “My thing was, I’m just going to be a student when I’m here—I’m just going to be no one,” he explains with a sly smile. “Then I’d go home and be whatever. Like a Superman and Clark Kent type of thing.” But it didn’t take long for word to spread around campus about the student from Ghana who led a secret life as a songwriter, rapper, and producer. Influenced by Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, Solar demonstrates Paapa’s talent for producing everything from graceful synth orchestration to beat-heavy club anthems, but it doesn’t sound particularly

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“African” to Western ears, save for standout track “Pure Water,” which samples the sounds of street vendors and traffic in the bustling Ghanaian capital of Accra. The discussion of what it means to make Ghanaian music is highly charged. U.S. hiphop made a splash in Ghana two decades ago, and was quickly twisted into a funky blend of rap and Afro-pop dubbed “hip life.” These days it’s hard to know where hip-hop ends and hip life begins. “Even [Ghanaians] talk about what makes for Ghanaian music,” Paapa asks. “Is it me singing in [the African language of] Twi? Is it going very traditional? And what does that even mean, because for a long time the slave trade influenced how we sounded.” Paul Nuamah Donkor, who runs the Skillions label Paapa records for and who raps under the name Jayso, says that Ghanaian rappers are finding their voice. “Most Ghanaian hip-hop artists have become

The biggest challenge facing Paapa in coming to Reed was not cultural or musical, but spiritual. very comfortable with themselves and their environment, and the lyrics communicate a lifestyle that is Ghanaian,” he says. “Back in the days, most rappers felt it wasn’t cool to talk about Ghana. Most wanted to be like the Western acts—but now that has changed.” The biggest challenge facing Paapa in coming to Reed was not cultural or musical, but spiritual. Ghana is among the most faithful places on Earth—a full 96% of the country’s citizens consider themselves religious, according to a 2012 WIN-Gallup poll. Christianity is the runaway favorite, but a healthy Muslim population and scores of smaller regional faiths live in relative harmony throughout the country. In that respect, Solar—explicitly Christian and relentlessly positive—is a true product of its environment and a sharp contrast

to a college whose ironic, unofficial motto, “Communism, Atheism, Free Love” would be enough to make most Ghanaians drop to their knees and pray. Even Paapa, who describes his upbringing as middle-class and comfortable, harbored preconceived notions about godless Western college students. “There weren’t any atheists to bump into in Ghana,” he says. “I had never met one before I came to Reed. So you have this perception of ‘the other’ and you have all these stereotypes.” At first, conversations with classmates and lectures that tackled religion from a secular perspective were enough to shake his faith. “I have never been atheist,” he says. “But I was definitely agnostic for a while.” Instead of turning him away from faith, though, Paapa credits his Reed

m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

Paapa hMensa ’15 recorded most of his second album, Songs for Kukua, in his Sullivan dorm room.

education—especially taking Hum 110 with Prof. Peter Steinberger [political science]— for crystallizing his convictions. “The religion I grew up with had a lot of ‘extra’ with it,” he says, explaining that most Ghanaian Christians consider speaking in tongues to be a necessity of the faith. “Coming here and having to go through these interpersonal and intrapersonal dialogues about faith, I’ve learned to let go of the extra. It makes me focus on the core. It has really influenced how I relate to my faith and my life.” This deeper exploration of faith and self is evident throughout his sophomore album, Songs for Kukua, a record dedicated to the Ghanaian people that’s almost entirely devoid of rapping. Instead, Paapa offers up gorgeous, soulful vocals that tackle themes of faith, materialism, and African

self-determination. Some songs, like the vocoder-and-synth-driven “Your Way,” remain explicitly devotional, but they are strewn with a sense of wonder and curiosity. Remarkably, Paapa recorded most of Songs for Kukua in his Sullivan dorm room on equipment he bought with money earned by working campus jobs such as house adviser, peer health advocate, and stage manager. Paapa has a difficult time predicting his path after Reed. He returns to Ghana each summer, where he records at Skillions and serves as the creative director of an organization called Nima Muhinmanchi Art, which pairs older artists with young ones in the slums of Accra; the resulting murals are redefining the reputation of some of the city’s roughest areas. His work with the organization has the potential to evolve into

a career, but with deep interests in everything from music to theology to education, he’s not ready to commit to any one field. “My education used to be all about finding the answers, but now it’s about asking the right questions,” he says. “I am a big believer in questioning. Even the Bible says seek and you shall find.” He owes that curiosity, in part, to Reed. “I came here looking for a challenge in every aspect: physically, spiritually, socially, and of course, intellectually,” he says, a wide grin stretching across his face. “I did get that challenge.” GO FURTHER paapamusic.bandcamp.com/track/far-away Casey Jarman is an Oregon native living in exile in San Francisco, where he serves as managing editor of The Believer magazine.

december 2013 Reed magazine 25

p theatre r f o r m a n c e

Adolescent Drama

Bruce Livingston ’65 helps troubled teens harness the power of narrative.

By Randall S. Barton

Sixty years old and tired of selling on the road, Willy Loman asks his boss for a desk job. Instead, he gets the boot. “I’ve put 34 years into this firm,” Willy remonstrates. “You can’t eat the orange and throw the peel away—a man is not a piece of fruit.” The brutal scene from Death of a Salesman has electrified audiences since it opened in 1949. It’s often hailed as a work of art. But for Bruce Livingston ’65, it is also a form of therapy. He shows the scene to students in his PlayWrite program and asks them to deconstruct the scene. What’s going on? What does Willy really want? “He doesn’t want to be on the road,” one offers. “He’s really tired,” suggests another. “Sooner or later,” says Bruce, “some kid will say, ‘He wants respect.’ You get goose bumps when you hear that.” Ten years ago, Bruce founded PlayWrite to give “youth at the edge” a chance to find their voices in the process of creating plays. The program is aimed at teens who suffer from neglect, inadequate parenting, or physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. Approximately 10% have experienced pregnancy and parenthood. Bruce puts this in context: “As author Barry Lopez says, ‘We are all wounded animals.’ Every one of us falls on a continuum of trauma experience. I don’t want the kids to feel that people think of them as ‘abused kids.’ They want to be seen for themselves, just as they are.” The program has proven results. A study by researchers from the University of Oregon and Oregon Health & Science University found that troubled teens who took part in the workshop showed less anxiety, depression, restlessness, and distraction than those who didn’t. They demonstrated greater abilities to experience happiness and regulate anger. The program pairs students with coaches for seminars that typically run over two weeks. They learn to work collaboratively,

26 Reed magazine december 2013

build trust, and bring closure to emotional experiences. The idea is that students have the answers and it’s the coach’s job to bring them forth. “The work we do may have therapeutic consequences,” Bruce allows, “but we are not therapists.” He believes PlayWrite’s program can effectively rewire the brain. “The brain is plastic; it can change,” he says. “If you activate kids on something, then calm things down, bring it up and then calm things down, you allow the time and neurological space to put things together unconsciously.”

Never one for planning his life, Bruce kept his antennae attuned for enlightening exploits and “things popped up.” Growing up in Portland, he thrilled to stories about the deeds of his great grandfather, C.E.S. Wood, who served alongside General O.O. Howard and is credited with jotting down Chief Joseph’s famous “I will fight no more” speech. Later he was fascinated with places like India, Egypt, and Cameroon. By the time he started at Reed, anthropology seemed the obvious major. “I’ve always sought adventure, loving the edges—physically at first,” says Bruce, “and Reed turned on the intellectual afterburner. What stuck was the challenge and excitement of finding a problem and opening every door that might lead to a connection.” For the next three decades, he resolutely opened doors. He did anthropological fieldwork with the Chilcotin tribe in British Columbia. Made a living as a hippie carpenter on the Metolius River in Oregon. Got an MA in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Oversaw a construction project in Iran. As the Islamic Revolution began to unfold, he moved to Paris and apprenticed with chef Claude LeGras at Chez Provost, and then he returned to Oregon and opened La Cigale, an award-winning restaurant in Redmond. In 1996 he met actress Gretchen Corbett, founder of the Haven Project, which connected underserved youth with

theatre professionals. She asked him to collaborate with a nine-year-old girl in writing a two-character drama. “Sitting with this skinny, little African American girl, sharing each other’s stories, was an extraordinary experience,” Bruce recalls. He was amazed at the dramatic improvement among the kids who took part in the program. After serving as managing director of the Haven Project for three years, Bruce started PlayWrite in 2003.

PlayWrite draws participants from specialneeds schools around Portland, including Alliance High School at Benson, Mt. Scott Learning Center, Rosemont School, the Rosemary Anderson High School (East Campus), Youth Progress, the White Shield Center, and Bienestar. Many of the students have not seen live theatre and don’t realize that dramatic action requires conflict. “If there’s no conflict, it’s boring—and the worst crime in playwriting is boring your audience. We know your parents and teachers are always advocating that you avoid conflict. But for the next two weeks, we say, ‘Go for it.’ Dig into that conflict and find out what the roots are. Bring it to life.” Participants watch famous theatrical scenes, including Hamlet’s soliloquy. Once a coach objected, “We can’t have this speech about whether to kill oneself or not. Most of these girls are cutters; most have attempted suicide.” The school’s program director replied that since nearly all the girls had either attempted suicide or thought about it, there was no reason to avoid the topic. A lot of students see that Hamlet is toying with suicide, says Bruce. “But a number will say, ‘Yes, and he’s also struggling with action versus inaction. Do I actually do something? Or do I just wait and see what happens?’” Before writing their plays, the kids each create three nonhuman characters: an animal, an inanimate object, and a manmade object. Drawing upon their life experiences to build a play is safer in a nonhuman world.

DIGGING DEEP. Bruce Livingston ’65 talks about pain, art, and Death of a Salesman with a tenth-grader from an alternative school.

www.playwriteinc.org

m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

“If you let people, especially young people, write about human characters, nearly 100% of the time those characters will already exist in their head as someone either from their life, or that they’ve been told about,” Bruce says. With coaches jotting down their ideas, the kids begin searching for conflict. Is there a devastating secret one character must keep from the world? Does one character have something the other needs? Towards the end of the second week, students are asked to wrap up their dramas, and not necessarily with a pretty bow. Conflict isn’t always resolved and plays needn’t end happily ever after. Next students work with actors to stage their plays. In addition to making decisions about how their characters should speak and move, the kids earn recognition from professionals and are treated like real playwrights. “When they see their play performed in front of an audience, there’s no failure,” says Bruce. “Everybody succeeds.” Maxwell Faulk is one of those success stories. Struggling with the chaos and dysfunction of his teenage years, at PlayWrite he experienced the power of having a coach and mentor. He realized that writing could be more than an academic enterprise or hobby; it could be a profession. The experience of creating A Rock and a Hard Place, a play featuring Hugo the manatee and a boulder named Roland, proved cathartic. Faulk’s coaches helped him transfer his experiences and pathology to fictitious characters in a healthy, productive way. “The theatre professionals at PlayWrite wouldn’t accept anything but the truth, which I had spent a lot of time covering up out of a need for survival,” says Faulk, now a junior at Lewis & Clark. “In my eyes, Bruce is saintly. Unlike so many relationships where when the job is done they kind of wash their hands of you, he’s stayed in touch. One of Bruce’s few flaws is that there’s not more of him.” GO FURTHER

p theatre r f (s o rt o f ) r m a n c e

Cosmic Comic

Funnyman James Ashby â&#x20AC;&#x2122;04 brings down the house on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater

images courtesy of james ashby

By Megan Labrise ’04

It’s not uncommon to find James Ashby nearly nude and painted red or green. He was illegally elected president. He had to stage his own intervention. Buddha and Jesus punched him in the face. But don’t feel too sorry for him: it’s all in the job description, and he’s self-employed. Ashby, is seemingly not unlike our mascot: a mythical creature—a theatre major who acts, writes, produces, and directs full time. His online comedy sketch show, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater (smbc-theater.com), has more than 69,000 subscribers on YouTube. SMBC Theater was briefly the most-funded web series on Kickstarter, raising over $100,000 from fans to support a feature-length space opera, STARPOCALYPSE, slated for release later this year. James and comedy partner Jon Brence were recently chosen as members of the elite inaugural class of Space LA, YouTube’s new digital entertainment production hangar in Los Angeles. SMBC Theater is one of 25 channels, out of 100 selected to apply, with the opportunity to use YouTube’s space and state-of-the-art equipment for free during a three-month residency. Ashby in action is big and brash, with piercing blue eyes and a propensity for self-exposure. His comedy skewers everyone from hackers to a fictional women’s magazine editorial staff, D&Ders, Satan, emotional vampires, writers, and Greek philosophers. (Jamesicles is sentenced to death by hemlock for selling the youth opium, among other corrupting offenses.) He plays an insecure mugger in a Communism, Atheism, Free Love T-shirt. “Give me the tacit self-assurance of a life well lived!” he orders a victim at gunpoint. “Convince me my internet girlfriend loves me!” The video, like many on the channel, has over 100,000 views. Is it hard to be consistently funny? “No,” said Ashby. Time spent in the Black Box Theatre, culminating in the fall 2003 production of his thesis play, Gross Generalizations advised by Prof. Craig Clinton [theatre 1978–2010] and Prof. Pancho Savery [English 1995–], helped him hone his craft. “At Reed I was given the latitude in the theatre department to kind of do the

Hand to Mouth, a cooking show dedicated to teaching broke, young people how to cook easy, cheap meals, is written by Marque Franklin-Williams (left) and produced by James Ashby ’04 (right).

Is it hard to be consistently funny? No, says Ashby. more experimental stuff and the weirder stuff and the stuff that didn’t necessarily have a lot of financial backing,” said Ashby. He went on to earn an MFA in screenwriting at Carnegie Mellon, winning the Sloan Screenplay Competition for Boltzmann’s Demon, a biopic of Ludwig Boltzmann, the father of theoretical physics, who fought Ernst Mach and the scientific traditionalists. After relocating to Los Angeles, Ashby launched SMBC Theater in 2009 with best friend Zach Weiner, author of the popular Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic. Their sketches specialize in moral incongruities. In “Mad Scientist,” Ashby passionately presses a button that would kill thousands instead of himself, and in “Orientation,” he bargains with a comingout son: “You can be ‘weregay’—you know, usually straight, but occasionally overcome by an overwhelming force of gayness,” he says. “Your mother was weregay all through college, and I still turn gay under the light of a full moon.” “When we started SMBC Theater, lack of money or lack of traditional resources didn’t seem to be the greatest impediment to me,” said Ashby. “I think that ethos came from Reed: do it yourself. You don’t need a special system to support you in order to go out and make art. It’s good for this new media world, where you kind of have to stake out your own space.” That’s not to say 21st-century funny doesn’t pay: 823 backers more than doubled the $7,000 goal for their new

YouTube channel, Broke Eats, which will support Hand to Mouth, a comedy cooking show with Ashby and Marque Franklin-Williams. Ashby also worked his crowd-funding magic for GaymerConnect (formerly Gaymercon), a LGBTQ-friendly video game convention to be held in San Francisco, executive producing, writing, and starring in a campaign that raised $91,000. But money isn’t everything. “The thing that I have learned in the last year is that money is not a cure-all. Money would be great—I love money—but at the same time money is only as useful as what you can spend it on, and when it comes to making film or theatre or any kind of performance art your real limitation will always be the skill sets of the other people you are working with,” said Ashby. Laura Birek ’03 costarred in some early SMBC sketches. “Laura and I knew each other from the theatre program, and she’s been great to work with,” said Ashby. “When you reach out to Reedies, they tend to be very, very generous and supportive of weird ideas.” Consequently, he is open to offering a helping hand to Reedies looking to make their mark in online comedy. ‘The hard part is making something that anybody else wants to watch,” he says. “That’s the part nobody can tell you how to do. That’s got to come from you.” go further Read more about funny Reed alumni at www.reed.edu /reed_magazine.

december 2013 Reed magazine 29

performance u s i c

Total Immersion

Reed band Hausu makes national debut. By Miles Bryan ’13

One of the most entertaining aspects of a Hausu concert is watching what the band does to its audience. During a Portland show last year, a middle-aged man in wingtips began fist pumping so hard it looked like he was menacing the heavens. After a gig at a grimy downtown dive bar, a famously jaded bartender came backstage to give the band a hug. Countless knots of hipsters have begun a Hausu performance with their arms crossed, backs stiff, resolved to hold out against the twitching in their legs. They are all dancing by the end. But the best place to hear Hausu play has got to be the student union. At first the atmosphere is comfortable. After all, when Carl Hedman ’13, Ben FriarsFunkhouser ’14, Alex Maguire ’14, and Santiago Leyba ’14 aren’t Hausu, they are Reedies—they’ve shared classes in art history and economics with half the audience. But when Ben and Alex begin to arpeggiate their dueling guitar lines, when Carl’s bass line rolls in like distant thunder, when Santi crashes down on the cymbals, and Ben’s baritone voice booms, something special happens. Reedies dance, cheer, and pump their fists in triumph. They know— like no other audience—how hard Hausu has worked to craft their intricate brand of rock music. And they are proud that, with the release of Hausu’s debut album Total, all that hard work is finally paying off.

Released in June by Hardly Art records (a subsidiary of the infamous Sub Pop label), Total has met with critical acclaim. Portland Mercury called it “one of the finest debut records in recent memory.” The website Allmusic described the album as

30 Reed magazine december 2013

FABULOUS FOUR. Hausu gathers for a rare moment of silence before going onstage at Portland’s MusicFest NW.

“infectious,” and wrote that its single, the album closer, is built around a gui“Leaning Mess,” felt like a “distant classic.” tar riff so muscular and anthemic that, Over the summer, Hausu went on a six- when it comes on in the car, you can’t help but pull over and bob your head vioweek, cross-country tour from Portland lently until it ends. to New York City to Los Angeles and back. Total is an unlikely album. Then again, The band defies easy classification. The Hausu is an unlikely band—brought term “postpunk” gets thrown around together because of a serendipitous meetoften. So do comparisons to ’90s alt-rock ing in 2010. Ben was a prospective stuicons Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. On dent visiting campus and ran into Santi, their website, the band itself pokes fun at efforts to categorize them, labeling them- who had started playing the drums earliselves a “Rock Music Performance Group.” er that year. Ben’s high school band, Herr Still, Hausu’s music is puzzlingly diverse, Jazz, was turning heads in the indie-rock world at the time and the two hit it off. stretching the time-tested formula of two When Ben arrived at Reed that fall they guitars, a singer, bass, and drums from gorgeous harmonies to penetrating disso- started playing together, enlisting Alex, also a freshman, to play bass. Their first nance, often in the same song. Album lead show together was at a Reed house in the “Chrysanthemum” moves from dream-pop Sellwood neighbourhood, lush, all hush vocals and nicknamed “Suburbia” for muted, softly plucked guiits brown shag car pettars, to a shockingly upbeat ing and yellow wallpaper. power-pop refrain, while Carl lived in Suburbia, and on “Tetsuo,” the drums and bass drop away and only a they borrowed his bass for sparse guitar line frames the show. Soon they had Ben’s drone vocals. “What’s recruited Carl, too, with next?” he sings, elongating Alex moving to guitar. The the phrase out and repeatlineup was complete, but Hausu’s album, Total, was ing it over and over until it they were still experimentreleased in June by Hardly Art, a collapses into itself. “Bleak,” subsidiary of Sub Pop Records. ing, trying new sounds out

photos by leah nash

Clockwise from top left: Alex Maguire ’14 on guitar, Carl Hedman ’13 on bass, Ben Friars-Funkhouser on guitar and vocals, Santi Leyba ’14 on drums.

on and with each other. The four boys weren’t a band yet. “There was no pressure to do anything,” Alex said. “We were freshmen, we had a lot of time on our hands, what’s a better way to fill time than by playing music?” The band’s name stems from an incident that took place on Elk Rock, an island park in Milwaukie, Oregon. The bandmates had brought a generator out to the rocky island and were attempting to pirate a Wi-Fi signal in order to play an online game called Civilization VI. “After moving about, we were able to tap into a signal named ‘Construct Alpha: The Abyss,’ and quickly began playing,” Santi says. “One hour later, the signal shut off and our screens went black. Looking up at one another, startled by the deep darkness, we felt an intense connection. Then, the number series ‘639078’ appeared on each computer.” The students packed up their gear, headed back to Portland, and plugged the numbers into a friend’s cryptographic analysis spreadsheet. The word “Hausu” came out. “It seemed appropriate that such an event would lead us to our band’s name,” Santi continues. “After a quick Google search, we discovered that Hausu roughly corresponds to the

pronunciation of the Japanese word ハウス, or ‘House’ in English.” In some ways, it was the rigor of Reed’s curriculum that motivated them to buckle down. As Carl [economics], Santi [studio art], Alex [anthropology], and Ben [art history] delved deeper into their respective studies, they also got more serious about Hausu. It wasn’t easy. Ben often wrote his lyrics while brainstorming paper ideas, and band practices often had to be pushed deep into the night, when their classes and shifts at the Paradox Café were finally over. But the pressure of being both a student and a musician gave a new level of purpose to both. “Working as hard as I did on our music helped me figure out what I wanted out of my classes,” Santi said, “And success in the classroom gave me confidence as a musician.” Reed also helped insulate Hausu from the uneven tides of contemporary popular music. In an era dominated by blog reviews and YouTube hits, promising young bands are often discovered and discarded in only a few months, before they work out their identity as a group. Hausu honed the songs on Total for almost three years, working through dozens of incarnations until they had exactly the sound they wanted.

Total was recorded last winter, at Yale Union center for contemporary art in southeast Portland. It was particularly difficult for the band members to make time for the recording—Carl was in the midst of the midwinter thesis rush, while Alex, Santi, and Ben were dealing with their junior quals—but they didn’t have much choice: Hausu had signed a contract with Hardly Art, and the label wanted to release their record by summer. The title Total is partly meant to symbolize the complicated relationship between the group members’ different identities. Total, the band’s artist statement reads, “serves to document the evolution of our experience, to be understood in spite of and indebted to our time in school.” Hausu played Portland’s MusicfestNW in September and toured the East Coast in October, introducing new audiences to their music. When they get back, they can look forward to playing another gig in the SU to an audience that recognizes how hard they have worked as musicians—and as students. GO FURTHER Find more about Hausu at hardlyart.com Total is also available on cassette from bridgetownrecords.bandcamp.com

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The Electric Mr. Burns

Playwright Anne Washburn ’91 wows Broadway with a drama that fuses Euripides with The Simpsons. By Mary Emily O’Hara ’12

Anne Washburn still talks like a Reedie. From the moment she walks into the Mexican restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, where we’ve decided to meet, there’s a spark of intellectual intensity in the air. We haven’t known each other for more than five minutes when the discussion turns to class disparity, the role of the arts in society, and ways to score cheap theatre tickets in a city not known for its forgiving economy. Washburn should know. She’s been a working playwright in New York City—not an easy path to riches by anyone’s book— ever since her days at Reed. A fixture of the downtown theatre scene, she’s cofounded a theatre company (the Civilians), participated in a playwright collective that radically transformed the way plays are produced (13P), and watched as her plays went up at downtown institutions like Soho Rep and Dixon Place. But she’s gained national attention with the production of her Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, which debuted on 42nd Street in August and has garnered rave reviews from Time magazine and the New York Times, which called it “downright brilliant” and “so smart it made your head spin.” Many of the reviews revel in the play’s fusion of conceptual brilliance and weirdness, its theme rotating around a single episode of The Simpsons (“Cape Feare”), and the way the longest-running animated television show transforms in meaning and use after an apocalyptic grid breakdown throws the world into chaos. Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play begins with a small group of battered survivors consoling themselves in the darkness with memories of television—but by the third act, what started as literally a campfire tale has been transformed into the founding

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“EX-CELLENT...” Post-apocalyptic survivors reenact a Simpsons episode that revolves around cartoon villain Montgomery Burns, played by Sam Breslin Wright.

mythology of a newly reborn culture. The experiences of the original survivors are absorbed by ensuing generations (who continue to live in a dark, postelectric world) in a sort of posttraumatic game of telephone that was partially inspired by the stories of Holocaust survivors: “It wasn’t until the 1970s that people finally started to talk about the Holocaust,” Washburn says. “It was the descendants of the survivors who wanted to talk, wanted to know . . . . Art Spiegelman (author of Maus) had to tell the story through mice. The emotions are too strong to deal with directly or realistically.” Similarly, in Mr. Burns, the final act uses the barely remembered Simpsons episode

as a framing for the actual apocalypse: “In the third act, it’s still really fresh for people so it gets told through these allegorical stories.” By the end of the play, the retelling of the Simpsons episode has become ancient and formal—presented as a Greek tragedy. The audience leaves the theatre with a firsthand understanding of how cultural mythologies are born and developed. It’s no wonder critics are impressed. The acclaim is a far cry from her early days working hated temp jobs and trying to figure out ways to write full time. She considered screenwriting for a time, attending a program at New York University that ultimately drove her deeper into a love of theatre. Now, she can look

joan marcus

“ W hat would happen to a piece of pop culture if you pushed it after the apocalypse and kept pushing?” —Anne Washburn ’91

back and realize that while making a living in theatre is hard, it’s not impossible: “The common wisdom about playwriting is that eventually you have to become a screenwriter or a teacher . . . because what you can do in your 20s in terms of living precariously, you can’t do it in your 40s. I mean, you can . . . but those people have a lot of stamina for insecurity.” She has found that commitment and a certain artistic self-esteem lend a lot of staying power. “I really do believe that if everyone started in their 20s and kept and it and worked hard, they could [be successful artists],” she says. “What separates people is confidence—people say ‘I’m not good enough.’”

Her own confidence comes from her days as a theatre-literature major at Reed. She recalls the independence thrust upon students in her program with awe: “As an undergrad, to be able to direct your own work is huge.” Professors like Kathleen Worley [theatre 1985–] and Craig Clinton [theatre 1978–2010] fostered a sense of community, without which she may never have stuck around. “I wasn’t going to major in theatre in college,” she recalls. “I had done acting in high school, but didn’t want to be an actress.” It was a student production that changed everything. “My friend Bret Fetzer ’87 was doing this crazy thesis production called The Three Policemen,” she remembers. “And I auditioned and was in it. It really blew me away.” She had not been exposed to influences like Pinter or Beckett before then, and the performance affected her so deeply that she wrote a sort of parodical tribute of her own for a student-run event called Midnight Theater. Soon enough, “I found I was spending all of my time being in plays . . . I knew I could write plays and should be a theatre major.” She credits Prof. Wally Englert [classics 1981–] for the influence of Orestes, the postmatricidal play written by Euripides, on her current production: “If I had read it on my own, I don’t think I would have understood it. I would have approached it with the wrong kind of reverence and it would have seemed just peculiar.” Recalling Englert’s classical drama class, she says: “He did a great

job of making the awesomeness of the Greek drama clear . . . In terms of tonal shifts, the leavening of irony and sincerity and tragedy and crazy goofy humor, Orestes is more sophisticated than anything done since.” Her own play demonstrates what happens when a Reedie’s fascination with ancient history aligns with an artist’s drive to mark the future. “What would happen to a piece of pop culture if you pushed it after the apocalypse and kept pushing?” she asks. “The stories we tell come out of one need now, but how would those stories change along with the need to tell them?” Despite the buzz about Mr. Burns, Ann remains a champion of independent theatre. “Since I left Reed I’ve always been a part of small theatre,” she says, “There’s really a sense of community with downtown, scrappy productions. I think it’s easier to be independent-minded if you aren’t depending on these vast machines to create you.” She has found her footing in the New York theatre scene, where she still works alongside old Reed buddies like Fetzer, Gordon Dahlquist ’83, Johanna McKeon ’92, and Ephraim Rosenbaum ’92. For now, this independent mind is dazzlingly preoccupied with historical themes and a Reedie’s eternal drive to question everything: “You don’t write about things you understand, you write about things you don’t understand or else it would be very boring.”

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Taking off the Gloves

Prof. Kate Bredeson challenges students to make theatre that is both real and unreal. By Randall S. Barton photos by leah nash

In the first moments of class, assistant professor Kate Bredeson [theatre 2009–] succinctly nails her subject matter: “We are here to discover how the world shapes theatre and how theatre shapes the world.” Theatre History I is sometimes referred to as the Hum 110 of theatre. As a means of introducing themselves, students are invited to recount a theatrical production that shook them to their core. One student recalls a grade-school production of To Kill a Mockingbird where the issue of race was abstracted by the wearing of gloves. “But why is that important?” presses Bredeson. “Sometimes we have to make a case for why theatre is necessary.” “The use of gloves stripped away the conviction that judgment values put on race are somehow inherent,” the student replies. “It shows that the judgment values and all of the consequences are social constructions. We’ve constructed these values onto people because of something they have no control over, like who gets to wear the glove and who doesn’t.” There may be debate in the workaday world about whether theatre is still relevant. There is no debate at Reed. Theatre is a discipline that demands both intellectual rigor and practical know-how—both thought and action. Students read 18th-century French plays for insight into the social problems and moral dilemmas of the time. They also learn tips for warding off stage fright. Some will make a career in the theatre; others will take what they have learned into domains that have little to do with the smell of the greasepaint or the roar of the crowd.

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DRAMATIC PAUSE. Assistant professor Kate Bredeson (right) takes stock of a rehearsal of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town in the brand new Diver Theatre in the Performing Arts Building. Sitting next to her are stage manager Jenn Lindell ’14 and assistant director Alan Cline ’14.

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taking off the gloves “Reed is a liberal arts school,” says Bredeson, “not a conservatory. In the theatre department we teach how to be a leader and make things work with very few resources. Learning how to collaborate and communicate are skills that will benefit any student.” Indeed, experiments show that learning and problem-solving skills are greatly improved the longer individuals have been involved in theatre. “Theatre teaches you to work with people and collaborate in a way that I’ve never experienced in anything else,” explains one of Bredeson’s students. “You have to learn how to work with all types of people, and that teaches you a lot about yourself along the way. Not only do you learn what types of personalities you mesh with—or should learn to work with better—you learn about your own type of personality, how you work with other people, and how you relate to them. These are skills that you can apply in pretty much any other aspect of your life.” It’s an exciting time in the theatre department. Building on a strong foundational program established by Prof. Kathleen Worley [theatre 1985–] and Prof. Craig Clinton [theatre 1978–2010], the department has added three new colleagues in the last few years: assistant professor Kate Duffly, stage designer Peter Ksander, and theatre designer Melissa Schlachtmeyer. And then there’s the new Performing Arts Building. “This building is a laboratory for making experiments, and these are experiences in community and, frankly, of the heart,” Bredeson says. “We all did fabulous work in Kaul Auditorium, the gym, and in the old theatre building. This is going to kick it up a notch.”

Bredeson is quick to note she is a director and dramaturg, not an actor. One suspects she was born with her commanding presence, but apart from being an avowed Francophile by the age of eight, she claims not to have been particularly theatrical as a child. He r fo r m e r s t u d e n t D o m i n i c Finocchiaro ’11, who has gone on to produce plays in New York and who presented his play complex at Portland’s Just Add Water festival in July, said he would

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cast Katharine Hepburn to play Bredeson onstage. “Katharine Hepburn in her prime would best represent Kate’s fierce intellectualism and mixture of class, sass, wit, and fashion,” he says. Growing up in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Bredeson was treated to performances at the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis. Though she occasionally took part in gradeschool productions, she was passed over for the title role in “Snow White,” and ended up playing a tree. At Macalester College she planned to major in French and studio art. Her life changed when—thinking it would be an easy credit—she signed up for an acting class. Theatre opened a window on the world of politics, history, social roles, and gender. Recruited as a props assistant on a college production, Bredeson experienced the power of collaboration and realized she’d found a home in the theatre, though perhaps not as an actor. “I was never able to get out of my head enough to just feel and be onstage in the moment,” she says. Instead, she found herself thinking about the historical and cultural conditions surrounding the plays, and how theatre worked. Her mentor, Prof. Beth Cleary, suggested she try directing and helped her secure a one-year internship in dramaturgy at the Guthrie Theater. She went on to get her MFA and PhD at Yale School of Drama, and to win a Fulbright in Paris, where she lived for almost three years. As part of a Killam postdoctorate fellowship at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bredeson taught for two years in the theatre department there. Before coming to Reed, she lectured in the theatre and performance studies program at the University of Chicago and was resident dramaturg in their professional on-campus Court Theatre. “There is no one-sentence answer to what dramaturgy is,” says Bredeson. “If someone wants one, I’ll say it’s the art of collaboration.” The collaboration can be with either the playwright or director, and the job is not to say what should happen, but figure out what the play wants to be. A stand-in for the audience and advocate for the play, the dramaturg brings to the enterprise a vast knowledge of theatre history and how theatre works as an industry.

Bredeson keeps a hand in both academic and professional theatre circles. She was the dramaturg for the recent Portland Playhouse productions of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Detroit. In addition, she regularly presents scholarly work as a theatre historian and contributes to various publications, including chapters in four different books, one about the Living Theatre and the Bread and Puppet Theater for a book about avantgarde theatre of the ’60s; another about French women stage directors for the book International Women Stage Directors; a chapter on French dramaturgy for a book on dramaturgy; and one on the occupation of the Odéon theatre and the revolutionary culture of the French stage for a collection rethinking the events of May ‘68. A specialist in French theatre, Bredeson confesses that she feels more at home in

“Every act of theatre envisions another world,” says Prof. Bredeson, a specialist in French drama, standing at the West entrance of the new Performing Arts Building.

Paris than anywhere else in the world. She is at work on a book, tentatively titled Occupying the Stage: Theatre of May ’68, about the student revolt in France when eight million workers went out on a strike that nearly toppled the government. “One of the significant things about May ’68 is its scale,” she says. “A mass of people effectively shut down large parts of the country for up to six weeks in some spirit of resistance. It was a theatrical action; it was enormous. And it also ties into theatre because it becomes about community and collective work.”

Theatre majors are required to take Bredeson’s two-semester theatre history class, which begins in ancient Greece and proceeds to the present. In addition, she teaches playwriting, dramaturgy, a course

on gender and performance, and directs one production a year. In November she directed Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the first production to be staged in Reed’s new Diver Theatre. Wilder’s stage directions call for “no scenery,” which brilliantly showcased the new space. While students benefit from Bredeson’s connections in the theatre community, more than anything else they appreciate her passion and infectious enthusiasm. “Whenever I think of Kate teaching,” says Cora Walters ’13, “I always see her smiling. She seemed to really believe in what she was doing and be excited by it. All of the professors at Reed are very intelligent, of course. But it’s not clear sometimes that they really love what they do—and that is always very visible with Kate.” Finocchiaro lauds Bredeson for constantly challenging her students to

consider how they can apply what they have learned, or move forward in their art form upon graduation. “Her advice has been key to my ability to succeed in the theatrical world outside of a classroom or academic setting.” Bredeson enjoys the conference model of teaching and fosters collaboration both in the classroom and in the rehearsal room because “being able to work collaboratively is the thing that gives back most in the world.” Asked why theatre is relevant, she doesn’t miss a beat. “Every act of theatre envisions another world,” she says, “and if you’re putting a different world onstage, by definition you believe in the possibility of other worlds.” Kate Bredeson believes in other worlds, and is in the enterprise of creating them, one student at a time.

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john anderson

Theatre of War

Jonathan Wei ’88 helps military veterans tell their stories. p

theatre r f o r m a n c e

By Robyn Ross

As an army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Steve Metze wasn’t supposed to show emotion in front of other service members. He definitely wasn’t supposed to cry. But standing on stage in his final performance in “Telling: Austin,” Metze broke the code. He delivered his closing lines—about his belief that everyone should serve in the military—then paused. A sense of impending loss, a feeling he’d kept at bay throughout the performance, overcame him. He’d spent months preparing for the show with his 12 fellow cast and crew members. This was the last night they would be together. More importantly, in his 24-year military career, these were the first people he’d talked to about his experiences. Even his wife hadn’t heard these stories. So Metze went off script—totally off script— and began to tell each member of the troupe what he admired most about them. “None of it was planned,” he said later. “There were tears for most of the people there. But I was glad I said those things, because those other seven people and those five crew members were the only people I’d ever really talked to about those things, and the only people I felt really wanted to listen.” Metze’s catharsis was a surprise to his fellow performers, but less so to Jonathan Wei ’88. For the past six years, Wei has staged the Telling Project in 15 cities, including Portland, Baltimore, and Des Moines. The project is a theatrical performance drawn from the real stories of local veterans and their families. It’s presented to a local audience with the intention of closing the gap between those with and without military experience. “People in the show will talk about things they don’t talk about otherwise,” Wei says. “I’ve seen spontaneous stories told during the show that people have never told, but on stage, in that sacred space, they can do it. The format and ritual of theatre allows people to speak, and audiences to listen.”

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Jonathan Wei at a rehearsal for “Telling: Austin”

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theatre of war They do more than listen. The response to Telling has been over whelming. Audiences laugh, weep, and give standing ovations. Critics write about feeling simultaneously enlightened by and grateful for the performance. “The stories are raw and funny and moving,” the Washington Post’s Michael Rosenwald said of a 2012 Baltimore performance. “Go see this play.” “This is a brave, powerful undertaking,” wrote Diana Nollen in the Cedar Rapids Gazette about a Telling performance in

4 hours (the longest went for 12). He then invites anyone who’s interviewed to perform. Local cowriters help him shape excerpts from the interviews into a script, and a local director coaches the cast in basic performance technique to help everyone feel more comfortable onstage. Steve Metze graduated from West Point in 1989. A lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army National Guard, he served in the Gulf War, Bosnia, and Iraq, and now works as a manager in the semiconductor industry in Austin. Unlike most of the cast, he had a bit of performance

The response to the Telling Project has been overwhelming. Audiences laugh, weep, and give standing ovations. Iowa City. “If I hadn’t been so busy writing, observing and evaluating, I would have been crying, like so many others around me.” The project has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution. It’s been featured on NPR, Fox News, and CNN. Both Michelle Obama and Jill Biden have seen it. The acclaim is even more impressive when you consider that the performers are not actors, but veterans—most of whom have never been onstage before.

Telling was born in Eugene, where Wei was working as a student adviser at the University of Oregon while his wife was in graduate school. One of his responsibilities was advising a veterans’ student organization that held outreach events but wasn’t attracting its intended audience: people with strong opinions about the military and war but with little exposure to either. A writer by trade, Wei woke up one morning with an epiphany: he’d write a play that would allow veterans to tell their stories onstage. Working with a cowriter, a director, and performers from the student group, he created a play that was performed nine months later in Eugene. In each Telling city, Wei works with local veterans’ organizations to recruit participants and then gathers their stories via interviews usually lasting between 2 and

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experience from a season doing improv at a Renaissance festival. This background is most evident when it combines with Metze’s dry sense of humor in act one, relating to the cast’s misadventures before and during basic training. “You’ve got me trying to get in shape by running around in dress shoes,” he says, explaining that he trained by jogging around his hometown in shorts and black oxfords. He’d seen a photo of West Point cadets in a similar ensemble and thought that’s what was worn for physical training. “You’ve got me continuing to look at the cadet who was yelling at me not to look at him; me demonstrating ways to screw up at the dinner table at West Point.” But in act two, the tone shifts. The cast goes into details about their deployments and the more difficult situations they faced. Metze speaks about the stress his deployments put on his relationships and about moments of violence in Iraq. One haunting image was the ring finger of an Iraqi insurgent who had blown himself up in Tikrit. When Metze investigated the scene, he saw the dead man’s finger lying in an unnatural—and unforgettable—way, bent back against his hand. In act three, Metze talks about his experiences coming back home. How he had recurrent nightmares about being attacked by zombies (apparently not uncommon among combat veterans). And about one nightmare in particular where “the lead zombie in front only had one arm—and it was that guy.”

Telling is a conversation starter meant to bridge the gap between civilians and military. Only 1% of the U.S. population has ever served in the armed forces. “So that means 99% gets all their information about the military from television or the movies,” Metze says. “This show is a way for the audience to hear stories and points of view that they will never hear anywhere else.” Of course civilians can easily find statistics and news stories about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, PTSD, the VA, and emotional and psychological trauma. But Wei is quick to point out the deficiencies of such a theoretical approach to understanding the military. “We have a ton of access to information and opinion about the military, but very little actual access to how that’s impacting us directly and how it’s touching our communities. What we see are these ideas and historical events, and not these individuals who actually live with us. [The show] is a way of listening to the world and feeling our own integration with it, rather than picking up a newspaper.” One current issue that has taken a human face in Telling is military sexual trauma, or MST. The Austin show closed days before the Pentagon’s release of a survey estimating that 26,000 people in the armed forces were sexually assaulted in 2012. The Austin production included two accounts of MST: the stories of Lance Corporal Regina Vasquez, who had been raped by two of her fellow Marines at motor transport school, and Senior Airman Jenn Hassin, who had been harassed and groped by her instructor at basic training. Hassin, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, had reported the instructor once she finished basic training. He was court-martialed and sentenced to prison. Vasquez, on the other hand, had been threatened with death if she reported the rapes. She’d kept them a secret throughout her deployment to Okinawa, where she’d endured further discrimination and harassment. Only in 2010—after more than 11 years of silence —did she begin to talk about the assaults and process the experience through art, writing, a documentary, and advocating for changes to prevent and improve response to sexual assault in the military. But repeating the story night after night, in front of

a live audience, took a different kind of courage than being interviewed for the documentary. “It’s very therapeutic to be able to come out and educate the community on behalf of what we experienced,” Vasquez said after the show. “It’s therapeutic for everybody, including whoever watches the show, because in one form or another they’re all connected, audience and cast.” That sense of connection is what drives Wei’s work. Too often, he says, returning service members are expected to process their experiences on their own, or in therapy—settings that shield the public from knowledge of what they endured. Like it or not, all Americans are implicated in the work the military does overseas; the least we can do, Wei says, is listen. “When we ask [the military] to do something for us, we should absorb that, because it’s our experience as well as theirs,” he says. “It allows a community to adapt and to expand its understanding of what we’ve asked these people to do.” Forums for that conversation are limited. Many civilians are curious about what it’s like to serve in the military, but have no idea of how to ask. Veterans, on the other hand, are wary of opening themselves up to misdirected criticism of military policies. The resulting silence is partly a product of Americans’ tendency to self-segregate based on political orientation. “Neither the typical leftward-leaning or rightward-leaning response to the war has anything to do with war,” Wei says. “You’re either antiwar, which is a tiny response to a massive situation, or you’re prowar, which is the same. Neither of those deals with the complexity of the situation.”

The tension between military and civilian life is as old as war itself. Through “Telling: Austin,” Wei met University of Texas classics professor Paul Woodruff, a Vietnam veteran, who organizes readings of ancient Greek texts dealing with war and soldiers’ transition back to civilian life. Hearing the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Oresteia at Woodruff’s Memorial Day reading for veterans transported Wei back to Humanities 110 at Reed. “It was really fascinating to go back to those texts after working with Telling these last six years,” Wei says. “As a Reed student, I’d read them in historical and

literary contexts, but they’re really experiential. The passages we were reading talked about the experiences of these soldiers coming back, in a really visceral way.” Wei grew up in Northfield, Minnesota, where his father worked at Carleton College. An uninspired student in high school, he took a year off before applying to Reed. He quickly grew to love Reed’s combination of intellectual and social life that centered on the library, where most nights he’d settle in to study in the smoking lounge for five or six hours.

writer. Yet to explain that conclusion, he still uses the language of an English major. “I’ve been working with veterans for eight years—six years on this project—because I feel like this is the most important story that’s happening in our country right now. We are at war, and I don’t see another thing that’s going to have an impact on our soul as a nation in the same way.” The infinite shades of that story were what resonated with Metze and what led to his closing-night catharsis. “The biggest thing I learned was how varied the

Senior Airman Jenn Hassin and Lt. Col. Steve Metze shared their military experiences on stage at Telling: Austin.

Professors like Dieter Paetzold [German 1963–86] and Ellen Keck Stauder [English 1983–2012] made a lasting impression. “They’re smart and deeply read, but most of all they were just patient,” he says. “There are plenty of brilliant people out there who don’t have time for other people—and these folks devoted their lives to having time for other people. It’s an amazing thing.” After graduating from Reed with a degree in English, Wei—along with classmate Whit Draper ’87—played guitar and bass with the band Back Porch Blues, which opened for the likes of B.B. King and John Lee Hooker. He dabbled in photography and painting before deciding to commit to writing and an MFA at Sarah Lawrence. The fiction-writing years were fruitful: he won the Glimmer Train Fiction Open in 2002 and has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes. His work has been published in the North American Review and the Iowa Review, among others. For now, Wei has concluded he’s better suited to the work of the Telling Project than the comparatively solitary life of a fiction

experiences in the military are,” he says. “I’ve been in the army 24 years, and I’ve done three deployments, and none of those seven people’s stories were stories I’d expected to hear or had heard before. I was really shocked about how much I did not know about the military.” The collective curiosity of both cast and audience is the force that powers Telling. That desire to know will bring the project to five more cities, including New York and Washington, D.C., this fall. It’s a desire that Wei can trace in his own life, all the way back to his undergraduate years. “At Reed you learn to follow your curiosity, and you learn that the more passion you put into that, the more reward you receive in return,” he says. “I fell into Reed, and I fell into this Telling thing. It was by accident that I started working with veterans at the University of Oregon. But having discovered this kind of kernel of my own ignorance—and curiosity—I was going to follow it. Of course I was going to follow it! That’s what I learned how to do at Reed.” Robyn Ross is a freelance writer in Austin. This is her first article for Reed.

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Reediana Books by Reedies

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time Adrian Bardon ’92 (Oxford University Press, 2013) Roger Waters said he was inspired to write the classic Pink Floyd track Time (“Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day . . . ”) when he realized that he was no longer preparing to do anything in life, but was simply in the middle of it. Many readers would agree with Waters’ sentiment, but it’s surprisingly hard to pin down exactly what he means. Is time a tangible substance with us in the middle? Does time have a direction? If so, where is it going, and when will it stop? This line of questioning is more the purview of philosophy than rock music. In fact, as Adrian Bardon points out in this absorbing book, the problem of time—of what it is and how to think about it—has been one of philosophy’s central questions for almost three thousand years. Bardon breaks down philosophical understandings of time into three main categories: idealism, which denies the objective reality of temporal change; realism, which sees time as a real underlying matrix for events;

and relationism, a kind of middle path that sees time as an abstract tool we use to interpret change. The Greek philosophers Zeno (who first posed the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise) and Parmenides introduce idealism, arguing that “time talk” is logically incoherent because to speak of the past and future is to speak of what is not. St. Augustine picks up on this line of thinking to address the theological problems that time presents for Christianity. Questions about what God may have been doing before creating the universe are null if time is a human invention. Relationism is a product of Aristotle’s physics. Relationism differs from idealism in that it does not deny the reality of change, but still remains skeptical about any kind of objective temporality. Isaac Newton changed everything. Newtonian physics suggest a realist, “absolute time,” an objective temporality that

exists outside human perception. In the 20th century, Albert Einstein augmented Newton’s absolute time with the notion of “space-time”—the idea that the universe exists in all times and at all places in a sort of four-dimensional grid, an ether that encompasses all that has been, is, and will be. This is where things get a bit tricky—for lay readers, at least. Buttressing his arguments with evidence from quantum physics and evolutionary psychology, Bardon, an associate professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, argues that time is static. The sensation that time is flowing, he claims, is an evolutionary adaptation that allows us to make sense of the world, similar to our perception of color or texture. The final third of the book explores the possibilities of time travel, how a static universe affects free will, and the temporal boundaries of the universe. Fascinating questions, worth spending many hours on—especially if you figure out how to get them back. —Miles Bryan ’13

Byrd Kerry McCarthy ’97 (Oxford University Press, 2013) The foiled Catholic Gunpowder Plot of 1605 sought to blast decades of Protestant domination in England by detonating 36 barrels of gunpowder in the House of Lords. It was at this historical time that an unfortunate wayfarer enjoying a draught in an English pub was arrested for the possession of books of sacred music written by William Byrd. The wayfarer was tossed into the notorious Newgate Prison. William Byrd, however, was not. The volatile turn of the 17th centur y, riled by the deepening schism between Catholics and Protestants, is the setting for Kerry McCarthy’s magisterial biography of the master musician William Byrd, hailed as the phoenix of his generation, and one of the most beloved composers of Elizabethan England. It was an age of contradictions: a 42 Reed magazine december 2013

time when Shakespeare wrote Othello, Lear, and Macbeth, when Puritan fervor built new communities in a new land, when possessing a pamphlet of sacred music might condemn you to death. McCarthy provides a vivid account of the dynamics and changing mores of the era, illustrated by the life of one musician whose extraordinary talent was balanced by a profoundly workaday life. He struggled to pay his bills, quarreled with neighbors, tried to get ahead. He followed politics, and made both sacrifices and compromises around his own Catholicism. As McCarthy portrays the moment, it was a time of exploration, upheaval, and extremism. One could “attend an open scholarly debate and see dissenters burned at the stake, sometimes on the same day.”

McCarthy comes to Byrd as a musician first, and offers the reader thoughtful analyses of the composer’s music, from his earliest popular motets to his secret and sometimes illegal final works. The book includes extensive analysis of the music—a delight for any musician looking for a close reading of Byrd’s masterful scores. However, McCarthy’s approach invites students of history, literature, and culture to the table, even if the reader has little background in musicology. This is fitting. Byrd’s career was a balance of his unquenchable enthusiasm for the music, and the necessity of navigating a complex and changing world. William Byrd’s life spanned a period of religious and political volatility. His talent earned leniency that few other subjects might have won at the time. He was lucky he wasn’t condemned for treason—and so are we. —Caitlin Baggott ’99

The Problem with God: Why Atheists, True Believers, and Even Agnostics Must All Be Wrong Prof. Peter Steinberger [political science 1973– ] (Columbia University Press, 2013) What if your opinionated uncle—the one who can only tolerate the blowhards at the Thanksgiving table as long as it takes for the gravy to congeal—wrote a book about God? And what if this uncle was a brilliant and funny academic who’d been thinking outside his discipline for 30 years and decided to commit his thoughts to writing? Then your uncle would be Prof. Peter Steinberger, the book would be The Problem with God, and your Thanksgivings would be infinitely more interesting than mine. The premise of the book is that the question of the existence of God is what Steinberger calls a “non-question”—impossible to answer because it’s nonsensical to ask. To seek proof of God is like asking what pi smells like, or whether the internal angles of love have more degrees than the internal angles of a triangle. The word “God,” he

argues, is a word void of a concept. In the second chapter, Steinberger assures his readers that they are not reading a theological treatise, but rather a book that opens the door for all of us to think of ourselves as philosophers in the age-old dilemma of God. It’s written for a broad audience without ever pandering or conceding an inch to those who will surely call him a heretic. This book is not recommended for anyone who believes in the Loch Ness Monster, Sasquatch, or Santa (whose existence he debunks— spoiler alert!—in chapter three). With respect to God, writes Steinberger, he is neither theist, atheist, nor agnostic, but rather aproleptic—a term he coined that means “without concept,” and he describes himself as “a committed, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying aproleptic” at that.

The book is as funny as it is thought provoking. If you’ve ever seen Steinberger in the lecture hall, it’s impossible not to hear his voice and feel the rhythm of his cadence as you admire the precision of his arguments. As much as anything, the book rails against “mumbo-jumbo,” which he describes as gibberish dressed in its Sunday best, posing as a profound truth. Steinberger says he wrote the book out of gut-wrenching frustration with the mumbo-jumbo that is increasingly used to justify laws, wars, and presidential candidates. —Kevin Myers [Editor’s Note: It took a herculean effort to convince Prof. Steinberger to let us review this book. We’re glad he finally acquiesced, if for no other reason than to provide us some ammunition with which to defend ourselves against dogmatic atheists, believers, and agnostics at our holiday table.]

Morals and Markets: the Dangerous Balance Daniel Friedman ’68 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) What does the violence between the Serbs and Croats, Hutu and Tutsi, Catholic and Protestant Irish, Sunnis and Shiites have in common with the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the Great Recession in America? The answer, Daniel Friedman suggests, can be traced back to the “savannah code” rooted in ancient Africa. A well-known economist and evolutionar y game theorist, Friedman majored in math at Reed, got a PhD in math from UC Santa Cruz, did a stint in the private sector, and returned as a professor of economics at UC Santa Cruz. He has long grappled with the dynamics between ethics and economics. Is it right to bail out careless high risk takers like AIG, the insurance giant rescued by the Federal Reserve at a cost of $85 billion? Should the Germans be forced to bail out the Greeks who lied about their financial situation to enter the EU? And, most worrying of all, is the global economic system rigged? Friedman and coauthor Daniel McNeil take a comprehensive intellectual and

historical view of these issues, starting from about 2.5 million years ago, when the first member of the human genus, Homo habilis, appeared shortly after the retreating Ice Age created a drier Africa. What allowed these prehistoric tribes to cooperate with each other and survive was the concept of kinship. Humans have been wired to rationalize behavior in terms of “us versus them”; morals can essentially be defined as shared understandings among a group to control selfishness and smooth cooperation within the tribe itself. The point that Friedman emphasizes is that this moral code, developed over millennia of human existence, can also help understand the working of markets, most recently the debt crisis in Europe. He traces how in the face of looming defaults from Greece, Ireland, and Spain, other members of the EU, such as France and Germany, thought it unfair for them to foot the bill for deeds they played no role in. This is a cautionary tale in moral hazard—one that can be corrected by regulation based on sound morals. A similar

situation ensued in the U.S., where the fear mainly was that there would be a tide of defaults as the housing market crashed and many homeowners went underwater. Yet, curiously, most homeowners chose not to bail, but to stay put instead, and recent research suggests that the reasons were largely moral. Friedman argues that it was the code of the savannah—of not abandoning one’s neighbors in times of trouble— which averted even greater damage to the economy. The book does a fascinating job of connecting the dots through a vast array of topics such as Latino prison gangs, the green movement, the Al Qaeda network, the Chinese sprint to wealth, and the collapse of the cod industry, although one wonders along the way about certain examples—for instance, whether the modern world’s greatest defense against terrorism and gangs really is the market system itself. Nonetheless, in its depth and scope, the book demonstrates the key role played by the market in the modern world and how badly we need a moral infrastructure to balance it. —Nisma Elias ’12 december 2013 Reed magazine 43

reediana The Mason Gaffney Reader: Resolving “Unsolvable” Economic Problems, by Mason Gaffney ’48 (Henry George Institute, 2013). Such dismal dilemmas economists pose for us, these days. We’re told that to attract business we must lower taxes, shut the libraries, and starve the schools; to prevent inflation we must have millions of people unemployed; to make jobs we must chew up land and pollute the world; to motivate workers we must have unequal wealth; to raise productivity we must fire people. Mason has devoted his career to demonstrating the viability of reconciliation and synthesis in economic policy. In these 21 wide-ranging essays, he shows how we can find “win-win-win” solutions to many of society’s seemingly “unsolvable” problems. Economist James Galbraith describes the book as a “crisp cocktail of geography, history and economics, chilled by crackling-clear prose.” (See Class Notes.) Songs and Dances of the Oregon Trail and Early Pioneer Communities by Phil Williams ’58 and Vivian Tomlinson Williams ’59 (Voyager Recordings & Publications, 2012). Most journals and accounts of the pioneers who traveled on the Oregon Trail dwell on the hardships of the long journey through the wilderness to new homes in the West. However, there was a happier side to this adventure that some pioneers wrote about—the songs they sang around evening campfires and the dances they had on the open prairie, accompanied by fiddle and banjo. The book includes 60 songs and dance tunes and instructions for 17 dances and play parties—all well researched for historical accuracy—making this a valuable asset for teachers and anyone else interested in performing Oregon Trail music and dance. Written and edited by Phil and Vivian, the book is typeset in the SCORE music-engraving program. (See Class Notes.) Edward, by Graham Seibert ’64 (eBook, Amazon, 2013). In his book, Graham describes a plan to home-school his son, Edward, in his mother’s homeland, Ukraine. Character is key: if he is honest and dependable, Edward will be a success. Pride and respect for himself and his ancestors are essential inspirations to be a good husband, father, and provider. Graham’s experience as a parent, private school trustee, teacher, and student led to the conviction that, in educating a second family, he had to take control of the

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Rug Woogie V, 2011, performance on guitar with yarn, by Jamie Isenstein ’98 from Will Return, edited by Stephanie Snyder ’91.

process. This book describes why and how. The key insight is that knowledge is built by the child himself. A teacher can only encourage the process. One must sustain the child’s own motivation, totally evident in a two-year-old, yet stifled in the average ten-year-old. Success comes when the student feels interested and in control . . . in his studies and all his life. (See Class Notes.) Pride and Prejudice and Kitties: A Cat-Lover’s Romp Through Jane Austen’s Classic, by Debbie Guyol ’68 (Skyhorse Publishing, 2013). Deborah teamed up with children’s author Pamela Jane and served as photographer for this rendition of a novel she has loved since her teen years and has now committed to memory. The book is described as “a unique, cleverly written, and utterly hysterical retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Presented with reverence to the classic novel.” Says Debbie, “I am putting my Reed education to excellent use!” (See Class Notes.) Stem Cells: An Insider’s Guide, by Paul Knoepfler ’89 (World Scientific Publishing Company, 2013). Stem cells are catalyzing a revolution in medicine. International stem cell expert Paul takes readers inside the world of stem cells and serves as their guide in his new book. He also tackles the exciting and hotly debated area of stem cell treatments that are capturing the public’s imagination. In the future, stem cells may transform how we age and reproduce. However, there are serious risks and ethical challenges, too. The

book answers the most common questions that people have about stem cells. A number of ethical issues related to stem cells that spark debates are discussed, including risky treatments, cloning, and embryonic stem cells. Paul breaks new ground in a number of ways, such as by suggesting reforms to the FDA, providing a new theory of aging based on stem cells, and including a revolutionary Stem Cell Patient Bill of Rights. More generally, the book is a guide to where the stem cell field will be in the near future as well as a thoughtful perspective on how stem cell therapies will ultimately change our lives and our world. (See Class Notes.) 7 Days and Nights in the Desert (Tracing the Origin), by Sabrina Dalla Valle ’90 (Kelsey Street Press, 2013). Composed in a hybrid form that braids personal narrative with philosophical reflections, Sabrina’s book ponders the complexities of human communication and perception. The book received the 2012 Kelsey Street Press prize for best first book, judged in a blind contest by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge ’69. (See Class Notes.) Communicating Popular Science: From Deficit to Democracy, by Sarah Perrault ’91 (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). In this scholarly book on science popularization, Sarah explains how science writing works and argues that it can do better at promoting public discussions about science-related issues. To support these arguments, it situates science popularization in its historical and

cultural context; provides a conceptual framework for analyzing popular science texts; and examines the rhetorical effects of common strategies used in popular science writing. Sarah is assistant professor of rhetoric and writing in the University Writing Program at University of California, Davis. Jamie Isenstein: Will Return, Stephanie Sakellaris Snyder ’91, editor (Cooley Art Gallery, 2013). Stephanie, director of the Cooley Gallery, served as curator of the gallery’s exhibition Jamie Isenstein: Will Return, which featured the work of artist Jamie Isenstein ’98 in the fall. Stephanie also edited a full color, 130-page exhibition catalog, with the objects, drawings, mixed-media sculptures, and installations that engage the artist’s body as an artistic medium—“a subject of humor, theatricality, and historical representation,” Stephanie says. “There aren’t many works of art that compel you to laugh out loud or break into a smile, but Isenstein’s do. They delight, amuse, and titillate.” The catalog contains splendid reproduction of Jamie’s work. Also included in the catalog are Jamie and Stephanie “In Conversation”; an essay by Graham Jones ’97, MIT anthropologist and an expert on the subculture of entertainment magic; and notes by David Velasco ’00, editor of Artforum.

drives them to seek shelter at his favorite hangout—a one-of-a-kind indoor playland for grown-ups called the Imaginarium. When the place is attacked by urban looters, she becomes an unwilling “defender of imagination.” Raised within the confines of Tanglewood, a workshopresidence formed from the awakening of a grove of silver birch, Ozanne fled her family’s unrelenting expectations for a life of frivolity and vanity at Court. Upon the passing of a Wave that obstructs all but personal Glamour, she races back with her brother to protect it from the Foe, though certain she has little to offer. Why then does he persist in looking to her to protect them? Defense Mechanisms is a contemporary fairy tale of finding realistic, modern-day happy endings when the ways we learn to protect ourselves from other people’s emotional sore spots, like ignorance and hate, keep us from being who we really are and finding our place in life. (See Class Notes.)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, by Adrian Bardon ’92, coeditor (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Adrian coedited this compilation of 32 articles, contributed by distinguished and rising scholars in the field. The book is the most comprehensive reference work on the philosophy of time to date and is the first collection to tackle the historical development of the philosophy of time, in addition to covering contemporary work. Further, it provides a tripartite approach in its organization, covering history of the philosophy of time, time as a feature of the physical world, and time as a feature of experience.

The Mastery of Innovation: A Field Guide to Lean Product Development, by Katherine Anderson Radeka ’92 (Productivity Press, 2012). Katherine’s awardwinning book describes the experiences of 19 companies that have achieved significant results from lean product development, a set of principles, practices, and tools to help companies maximize value and minimize waste in their product development processes. Ford completely reinvented its global product development system and put decades of knowledge about automotive design at its engineers’ fingertips. DJO Global, a medical device company, more than tripled the number of products it released to the market and cut development time by 60%, and Playworld Systems cut time to market in half–twice. The case studies in this book range from very small product development organizations (three engineers) to very large (more than 10,000). Some of the industries represented include automotive, medical devices, industrial products, consumer electronics, pharmaceuticals, scientific instruments, and aerospace. (See Class Notes.)

Defense Mechanisms, by Amber Michelle Cook ’92 (CreateSpace, 2013). What if your déjà vu was really flashes of a life running parallel to your own? An imaginative child, Janey left childhood far behind as soon as older children and adults began to tease her for it, much to the disappointment of her younger brother. On her 30th birthday, the first Pulse hits and

Masks of Anarchy: The Story of a Radical Poem, from Percy Shelley to the Triangle Factory Fire, by Michael Demson ’96 (Verso, 2013). Working with illustrator Summer McClinton, Michael has created a graphic history of a poem that has had a far-reaching influence on nonviolent resistance. “The Masque of Anarchy,” written by Shelley in response to news of the Peterloo

Massacre in 1819 and published a decade after his death, is an invective against violence. It proved to be an inspiration for individuals such as Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, and for Pauline Newman, an immigrant worker in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York, who became a leading organizer of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union. The book puts the two tales together “with spectacular panache,” writes one reviewer. The Los Angeles Times calls it a fascinating book, with its examination of the antipathy facing immigrants in America even today, and praises Michael’s attention to narrative. “Moving back and forth from Shelley to Newman, he creates a delicate weave, playing one story off the other, searching out the commonalities they share.” Bikenomics: How Bicycling Can Save the Economy, by Elly Blue ’05 (Microcosm Publishing, 2013). Elly provides a surprising and compelling new perspective on the way we get around and on how we spend our money, as families and as a society. She begins with a look at the real transportation costs of families and individuals, and moves on to examine the current civic costs of our transportation system, relating stories of people, businesses, organizations, and cities that are investing in two-wheeled transportation. The multifaceted North American bicycle movement is revealed, with its contradictions, challenges, successes, and visions. Absence & Presence, by Lisa M. Steinman, Kenan Professor of English & Humanities [1976–] (University of Tampa Press, 2013). In her sixth volume of poetry, Lisa considers mortality and memory, the seen and unseen, and “meditatively engages the ironies of being,” says Maxine Scates [English, 1989–2006]. Author Alice Fulton remarks that Lisa’s poetry in Absence & Presence “confronts the most unsparing aspects of existence with an intelligence that is nothing short of revelatory.” In addition to her collections of poetry, Lisa has also written three books about poetry. Her work has received recognition from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities and an Individual Artist Fellowship award from the Oregon Arts Commission. With her husband, Jim Shugrue, former visiting writer and tradebook buyer at Reed, she coedits the poetry magazine Hubbub, now in its 30th year.

december 2013 Reed magazine 45

In Memoriam Eleanor Thurston Dyke ’34 March 5, 2013, in Salem, Oregon.

Eleanor came to Reed from the University of Oregon in the fall of her junior year and earned a BA in biology. She devoted many years to raising a family and also made a significant contribution to wilderness recreation trail development and conservation. In addition, she did graduate studies and taught high school. Eleanor was widowed twice. She and her first husband had two daughters and a son, Eric T. Schoenfeld ’66. She later married dentist John A. Dyke and retired in Salem, Oregon. Eleanor volunteered with the Girl Scouts for a decade and for decades more was a member of the Mazamas and Chemeketans. “To give many hours of hard work in situations where I could make use of abilities to analyze, administrate, and persuade has been very satisfying. Reed gave me the confidence to speak out.” In 1978, Robert Bergland, U.S. agriculture secretary, named Eleanor to the national advisory committee for the Pacific Crest Trail. Her cousin, Arlien G. Johnson ’17, also graduated from Reed.

James Bradley Stamps ’42 April 9, 2013, in Westminster, California.

The day after graduating from Reed with a BA in economics, Jim joined Jeanne Goodman Smith ’42 and Doug Smith ’42 on a leisurely journey to Washington, D.C., in a 1930 Ford Model A. “Shortly after arrival, I received a telegram from the navy telling me to report for duty in Portland in seven days. It was a hairy trip back.” He was commissioned in the navy air corps in 1943, and that same year married Ann B. Rogers ’45. Following his active duty in the South Pacific, Jim and Ann moved to Laconia, New Hampshire, where he was employed at the AllenRogers Corporation, Ann’s father’s woodturning factory. The couple had two sons and a daughter and parted ways in the mid-’60s, after which Jim entered the Peace Corps and lived in India for two years, working in the Aid to Small Industries program. “Leaving India, I took a boat to Kenya, bought a motorcycle and toured East Africa, then Israel, Greece, and so on, up to England, where I put the motorcycle on a plane and flew back to the U.S.” He taught methods analysis at Dartmouth and led executive training programs before returning to England. There he bought a 56 Reed magazine december 2013

31-foot cruising boat and sailed for 10 years and nearly 85,000 miles, successfully circumnavigating the globe. Jim and Joan Smith married in 1983. They sailed together and also traveled widely in a recreation vehicle, with a home base in Seal Beach, California. They skied, bicycled, hiked, attended college, and wrote novels. Jim stated that the Reed education proved superior to many other academic programs. “I speak not so much of the academic, as of the more subtle abilities to analyze a problem in a constructive manner. I am grateful.”

Robert Kiefer Bedell AMP ’44

April 5, 2011, in Brooklyn, New York.

Robert attended Stanford for a semester before he was drafted into the army for service in World War II. He came to Reed for the premeteorology program and then served two years of stateside duty. “Reed was a wonderful and important experience for me. It was far more than just a wartime training program.” He earned a BS in engineering in 1947 from Stanford and spent the early years of his career as an engineer with Union Carbide. He worked in Europe, and took classes at the University of Grenoble, Sorbonne, and the Institut d’Études Politiques. He and writer Madelon Berns, who was working for Time magazine in Paris, were married in 1950. Back in the U.S., Robert worked for Westinghouse Electric International. In 1953, he accepted a full-time instructor position at Cooper Union School of Engineering, specializing in thermodynamics and heat transfer. The political protests he had participated in in the late ’40s came back to haunt him during the McCarthy era. He was fired from Cooper Union in 1958, turned to self-employment as an engineering consultant, and took part-time teaching assignments at the Columbia School of Architecture and the Pratt Institute. He created Robert K. Bedell, Engineers in 1969 and designed residential, institutional, and commercial projects. He was technical director of the Energy Task Force and installed one of the country’s first urban solar energy systems and wind generators. He developed a unique honeycomb-type solar collector and collaborated on several nationally regarded studies, ranging from the city’s overall energy needs to the disposal of municipal solid wastes. He was a peace activist, a humanist, and an atheist. He did blacksmithing and maple sugaring and enjoyed reading the New York Times. Madelon died in 1986. Survivors include two sons and a daughter and six grandchildren. “Robert’s presence had the gravity of the sun, and the warmth.”

Eldo G. Mentzer AMP ’44 February 7, 2013, in California.

Eldo was an officer in the air force during World War II and studied at Reed in the premeteorology program. He served in the air force reserves, was called into active duty during the Korean War, and did aerospace research in association with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

Charles Harding Noll AMP ’44 October 20, 2012, in Bogart, Georgia.

Charles enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps and studied in the premeteorology program at Reed. Following service in World War II, he worked as an industrial engineer for Johns Manville in Illinois, completed a degree in political science at Northwestern University, and later moved to the company’s plant in Georgia. Twice a widower, Charles is survived by his longtime companion Peggy Wall, three daughters and a son, eight grandchildren, and a sister and brother. One son predeceased him.

Dorothy Schumann Stearns ’45 July 21, 2013, in Portland.

Dorothy grew up in a German-speaking family in Sellwood and attended Lincoln High School, where she met many students who went on to study with her at Reed, including her good friend Aileen Young Yip ’45. “I felt right at home in the humanities and I also had absolutely no problem with math,” Dorothy said in an interview in 2004. “Dr. Griffin [F.L., mathematics 1911– 56] used to make little poems. I just loved that math class.” She suffered from amblyopia, which proved challenging when studying long hours or earning P.E. credit in conventional ways. Evelyn R. Hasenmayer [physical education 1930–46] allowed her to fulfill the P.E. requirement with daily walks home. Dorothy enjoyed classes with Victor Chittick [English 1921–48] and loved his modern literature course. “I did not enjoy writing the thesis but, of course, I got it done in record time. It was not long. It was done on exactly the day it was due. On that day the death of Hitler was announced. And I was coming to Reed from the bus stop and Madame C.L.M. Pouteau [French 1934–49] was walking across the campus. She was quite a ways away from me and she was swinging a paper and I was the only person in sight, and she yells at me, ‘Hitler is dead. The war is over!’ It was just an unforgettable memory.” Dorothy and Aileen were Lloyd Reynolds’ [English & art 1929–69] first calligraphy students and they worked with Reynolds informally. “He hadn’t started a class yet, so we’d meet with him

many conversations became part of her family’s lore. In 1996, Dorothy and Gerry returned to Portland and reestablished relationships in the community. Dorothy delighted in actively participating in Reed alumni dinners, lectures, and other social events, and in volunteering at the Portland Art Museum. Dorothy became a grandmother in 2001 and experienced the joy of imparting stories and love to her grandson. Survivors include Gerry, Charles, daughter-inlaw Ellen, and grandson Max, who remember her as a forceful, playful, and caring individual who could be relied on to drink a single glass of wine and hold forth on the effect Goethe had on the work of Thomas Mann.

Irwin Carl Landerholm ’46 June 19, 2013, in Vancouver, Washington.

after school.” Dorothy also worked in the Hauser Library during her four years at Reed, including the first summer. By the second summer, she had taken Reynolds’ drafting class—she was the only woman in the class—and was hired in the drafting department at the Kaiser Shipyards in Vancouver, Washington. “At the end of the summer my father said, ‘You quit now and you go back to Reed. You’ll regret it all your life if you don’t.’ He was absolutely right.” Dorothy earned a BA in German and then went on to earn a certificate in business administration from HarvardRadcliffe in 1949. She was later acknowledged as an alumna of the Harvard Business School and she remained friends with her peers in the program. She also earned an MSW at the University of Southern California in 1953 and did field work at the Los Angeles County Hospital polio ward. Another student in the master’s program was Gerry Stearns, who was attending school on the GI Bill. They married in Portland in 1954. Dorothy was a professional public servant for the state of Oregon in the ’50s. Her skill and drive enabled rapid progression through a variety of positions, including frontline caseworker, compliance investigator, and senior-level administrator. Dorothy and Gerry then moved to Berkeley for other positions in social services—Dorothy supervised first-year social work students at UC Berkeley, established new social service organizations and programs, and was a fair hearing officer for federal aid programs. They welcomed a son, Charles. In the ’80s, Dorothy worked as an arbitrator for human resources grievances at the UCB and volunteered as an arbitrator for the Better Business Bureau. Her skill and savvy earned her the bureau’s National Arbitrator of the Year award. Dorothy loved to travel, spearheading multiple trips to Europe. With her background in German and French, she never shied away from conversations with those she met;

Irwin studied at Reed for a year and half before enlisting in the air force in World War II. He returned to the college for a semester after the war and completed his undergraduate degree at Washington State University. He then attended the University of Oregon Law School, where he met Dovy, also a law student, whom he married in 1951. They raised two sons and two daughters. Irwin practiced as an attorney in Vancouver for 50 years and was a devoted member of the Vancouver First United Methodist Church. He volunteered as a Rotarian, assisted school children with reading, and helped form the Vancouver Counseling Center. He was a board member of both the Southwest Washington Community Foundation and the library. He worked on the Citizen Steering Committee, supporting efforts to bring a four-year university to Vancouver. In addition, he kept a daily diary and enjoyed reciting poetry, reading, singing, studying history, and learning new things. He played tennis, did bird watching and yard work, and also made time for his friends and for outdoor recreation and travel. Survivors include his wife and children, 13 grandchildren, and 5 great-grandchildren.

Zulus, My Mother Puts Up Pickles; and Silently You Taught Me Much: and Other Poems. She and Louis were cofounders of Temple Beth Am in Los Altos Hills and Congregation Kol Emeth in Palo Alto. Stella was a choir member at Kol Emeth and also sang in the West Bay Opera. Survivors include two sons and a daughter, nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

H. Elizabeth Zollinger ’48 June 17, 2013, in Portland.

The daughter of Clifford E. Zollinger ’21 and Helen E. Watt Zollinger ’21, niece of Marian Zollinger ’26, and sister of Janet R. Zollinger Edwards ’46, Betty was well prepared to undertake the rigors of a Reed education. She earned a BA from the college and an MA from the University of Oregon in biology and then taught biology to chiropractic students in Portland before moving to New York, where she worked at Columbia University as a tutor. Her passion was music. She performed in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas at Reed. After moving to New York, she found success as a singer, appearing in concerts; in operas such as Carmen, Aida, and Madama Butterfly; in theatre and musical productions; and in radio and television. She performed throughout the U.S., and in Germany, England, and Italy. “I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said that show business was the simplest job in the world,” she said in an interview. “Still, it has been wonderful for me.” International Beaux Arts selected her as singer of the year in 1982. On her visits to Portland, she stayed with friends Wayne E. Kuhn ’25 and Agnes Lakie Kuhn ’27 and attended events on campus. Eva Lamfrom Labby ’51, who notified the college of Betty’s death, first met Betty at Grant High School in Portland. They performed together in operettas at Reed and maintained a friendship through the years. “She had the gift of a lovely mezzo soprano voice,” says

Stella M. Savage Zamvil ’47

May 11, 2013, in Palo Alto, California.

Born in New York to Orthodox Jewish parents who had emigrated from Russia, Stella graduated from high school at the age of 15 and enrolled at Brooklyn College. In 1944, she married physician Louis Zamvil. His wartime military assignment to the Oregon Medical School (Oregon Health & Science University) brought Stella to Portland, where she studied English and Latin at Reed. She then completed a BA in English and creative writing at San Jose State and earned an MA in creative writing at San Francisco State. Stella taught Latin and poetry to middle and high school students and taught creative writing and film at several area junior colleges and senior centers. She published collections of short stories and poetry, including In the Time of the Russias; My Father Hunts

Betty Zollinger ’48 in the role of Bizet’s Carmen

december 2013 Reed magazine 57

in memoriam Eva. “When she returned to Portland in 2006, in declining health, I accepted the position of having her power of attorney and spending time with her as often as I could. Alzheimer’s took away her memory bit by bit. She had retained her good attitude, graciousness, and especially good, loyal memories of her years at Reed, particularly talking about her Reed classmate Phiz Mezey ’48.”

Dolores Christine Groves Berard ’49 May 11, 2013, in Portland.

Dolores moved to Oregon from Nebraska in 1939, graduated from Franklin High School in Portland at age 16, and earned a one-year scholarship to Reed. In 1950, she married Jess Willard Berard; they raised seven children. Dolores later completed a degree in early childhood education and taught in a preschool. She was a lifelong member of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Portland and was active in the Montavilla Neighborhood Association for many years. Survivors include her children, 10 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a brother.

Roger William James ’49 July 18, 2013, in Kennewick, Washington.

Roger came to Reed after serving in the U.S. Army. He earned a BA from Reed and an MS from Oregon State College (University) in chemistry and made a career as a chemist at the Hanford nuclear facility in Washington. He never missed a day of work in his career there. He lived simply, in a Richland alphabet house he purchased in the 1950s. He was devoted to caring for animals and contributed to their charitable support, such as providing resources to establish the Roger James Animal Adoption Center in Kennewick.

Albert Yoshio Ouchi MA ’49 May 2, 2013, in Portland.

Al was enrolled at the University of Washington in 1942 when the federal government ordered him to report to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho. During World War II, he enlisted with the 442nd Army Regimental Combat Team and went to Italy, Germany, and France, earning a Purple Heart and, he remarked, a hearing disorder. In 1946, he married Yoshie Terayama, whom he had met in Minidoka. Al completed his bachelor’s degree at Whitman College and taught high school social studies in Portland; he was greatly revered by his students. He also was the economic education coordinator for the school district and helped develop programs and textbooks 58 Reed magazine december 2013

for elementary students. Al was a resourceful individual, who supported his family and provided for his children’s education by taking on many additional positions, such as driving Gray Line buses on weekends. (Highlights of his work with Gray Line included teaching his passengers about the geology of the Columbia Gorge and transporting the Beatles.) Al worked for the U.S. interior department in Washington, D.C., and the Bureau of Land Management, specializing in training, evaluation, and compliance. He developed education programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and was superintendent at the Chemawa Indian School in Salem. In addition to completing an MA at Reed, he also did graduate work at Purdue. Al and Yoshi settled in Portland in retirement and enjoyed golfing, fishing, and traveling. Yoshie died in 2007. “Al led a long and full life with many twists and turns, but always with his own sense of direction and his own brand of humor.” Survivors include a daughter and son, two grandchildren, and a great-grandson.

James Lewis Haseltine ’50 June 12, 2013, in Bandon, Oregon.

Following graduation from Grant High School in Portland, Jim entered World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in Europe. He then studied at Reed for more than a year and also studied at the Museum Art School (Pacific Northwest College of Art), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Brooklyn Museum School. He did painting and drawing and worked for his family’s industrial supply firm, J.E. Haseltine & Company. Jim became a trustee of the Portland Art Museum and a founding member of the Portland Arts Commission. He served on the National Endowment for the Arts and as national director of the Artists Equity Association. In the early ’60s, he was the director of the Salt Lake City Center for the Arts, during which time he published the book 100 Years of Utah Painting. In 1967, he returned to the Pacific Northwest as executive director of the Washington State Arts Commission. Jim’s art appeared in exhibitions around the U.S. and received numerous awards. His paintings and etchings are part of the permanent collections of the Portland Art Museum, the Oakland Art Museum, and the Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. Jim had two children during his first marriage. He later married artist Margaret A. (Maury) Wilson Janney ’46, adopted Maury’s children, and welcomed a fifth child. Jim and Maury were married for 44 years. They traveled around the world, and Jim built on his knowledge of birds, butterflies, and mushrooms through discoveries made on their journeys. In retirement, he served as a consultant for the arts and for artists and supported his daughter’s nonprofit endeavor, Washed Ashore: Art to Save the Sea. Survivors include his children, four grandchildren, and his brother and sister. Maury died in 1998.

Maury Wilson Haseltine ’46 and Jim Haseltine ’50 at an art opening in the ’70s

Joyce Eberhart Kavanagh ’50 April 6, 2013, in Pasadena, California.

Joyce studied at Reed for two years, leaving to marry Ralph W. Kavanagh ’50 and to begin raising their family of four daughters and one son. Ralph did graduate work and made a career teaching physics at Caltech. Joyce completed a BA in history from California State University, Los Angeles, in 1975, and then earned a teaching credential. She taught American history and ESL to adults and secondary school students for 20 years and served on the boards of the Democratic Women’s Club and the AAUW. Joyce helped launch the AAUW annual Girls’ Science Day for middle school students, now in its 15th year in Pasadena. Survivors include her daughters, eight grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by Ralph and her son.

Martin Louis Murie ’50

January 28, 2012, in Xenia, Ohio, after a brief illness.

Martin was born in Alaska, the son of environmental conservationists Mardy Thomas Murie ’23 and Olaus Murie, and grew up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with his sister, Joanne Murie Miller ’49, and brother Donald. Adept at skiing and wilderness survival, Martin joined the 10th Mountain Division, fighting in Italy during World War II. He was badly wounded in combat and lost an eye. He received the Purple Heart and the Silver Star Medal. After being hospitalized for a time, he made his way back to Wyoming, and then worked in the mountains before enrolling at Reed. He earned a BA in philosophy and literature. “Reed showed us that reading, reasoning, and argument were all okay.” At the college, he met Alison E. Gass ’53 (see memorial below) and the two married in 1952. Next, at the University of California, Berkeley, Martin received a PhD in zoology and initially turned down a teaching position there as a protest to the state’s loyalty oath requirement. He later taught at Berkeley and at Santa Barbara, and

and Alison moved to Xenia when their wilderness home demanded more of them than they could give. At the time of his death, Martin’s survivors included Alison, their three daughters and five grandchildren, and his sister and brother.

Virginia Ruth Weeks ’51, MAT ’65 June 19, 2011, in Portland.

“Varmentalist” Martin Murie ’50 left teaching to live with Alison Gass Murie ’53 in the wilderness of the Adirondacks.

then joined the faculty in biology at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1961. More than a decade later, Martin and other college employees and students protested Antioch’s decision to end financial support for working class and black students in the New Directions program. Their strike closed the campus, and Martin, among others, was fired. A reinstatement of his position kept him at Antioch for two additional years, but his desire to write inspired an early retirement. An equal motivation, he said, was to live “with minimal impact on the land.” Martin and Alison purchased property at the northern edge of New York’s Adirondacks, where they built a cabin and stewarded the land. “This was the penultimate chapter of his life,” wrote Gilles d’Aymery, publisher of Swans.com, where Martin published some of his work. “His writing was about friendship, nature, and transience—the simplicity of life and the love we all want to give and receive.” Describing himself as a “varmentalist,” Martin advocated for nature and wilderness and opposed corporate domination. In addition to an extensive list of published essays, reviews, and “rants,” as he called them, Martin self-published seven books, including Losing Solitude, Windswept, and Red Tree Mouse Chronicles. He also illustrated his work. “He wrote rants as openers, urging others to bring forth opposing views and join in the shared work of discussing ideas, always a great pleasure for him,” noted the Yellow Springs News obituary for Martin. “His appreciation of the detail, his strength for holding the big picture, gave him the perspective of poet and philosopher . . . He was always pleased to meet you, also pleased to notice and note every kind of moth, spider, mammal, meadowlark, bush, cactus, or big tree in a valley.” The psychological pain he incurred in the war never abated and led to his work with Veterans for Peace and to participation in weekly antiwar protests. “War is not the answer,” he said. “We just can’t go on with it.” Martin traveled back to the West many times while living in New York, and he

Virginia attended Reed for a year in 1949–50 and returned in 1953 for a summer session. In 1957, she completed a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and science education from Portland State University; she earned a master’s in teaching from Reed in mathematics. She was an instructor in mathematics at Portland Community College. During her marriage to James V. Rogers ’51, she had one daughter.

John Edwin Norbeck ’52

July 13, 2013, in Coralville, Iowa, from a heart attack.

“Although I was a chemistry major at Reed,” Ed wrote in 1992, “I took many physics and math courses. My specialty was in radiochemistry with a secret interest in the chemistry of explosives. The radioactivity in the radiochemistry focused my interest on the nucleus of the atom, which is usually studied by physicists.” During the summers of 1951 and 1952, Ed carried both of his special interests “to the extreme,” he said, by working in Hanford, Washington, where the explosive materials were made for nuclear and hydrogen bombs. “This was great fun, but at the end of the summer in 1952, I put the weapons work behind me and went to the University of Chicago for a PhD in nuclear physics (1956).” (During his work at Hanford, Ed provided Arthur Scott [chemistry 1923–79] with an illustration for a small nuclear reactor, which he believed may have inspired Scott to build Reed’s research reactor.) Ed taught at the University of Minnesota before joining the faculty in physics and astronomy at the University of Iowa; he was made full professor in 1967. For a number of years, he did research in Europe. “Most of my funding for nuclear-physics research has been in French francs, deutche marks, and rubles. Fortunately, I had studied German and Russian at Reed, and then French and more Russian at the University of Chicago. I now have research funding in dollars, but I am grateful for the interlude in Europe, which provided a fascinating addendum to my liberal arts education.” His research consisted of colliding the nuclei with heavy atoms, including uranium, at energies high enough to break up both nuclei into a number of smaller nuclei. “Obtaining suitable beams of the heavy nuclei requires huge accelerators,

of which only a few exist, all in the U.S. and Europe.” He designed and utilized a computerized data acquisition system to record events in collisions between accelerator beam particles and target nuclei, and was the first recipient of an award established by the Computer Applications in Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Technical Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The award, which was presented to him in 1987, honored his pioneering work in building the first computerized data acquisition system based on a general-purpose computer. Ed joined the University of Iowa’s high-energy physics group in 2000 and was engaged in experimental work with the Compact Muon Solenoid collaboration at CERN. He retired as professor emeritus in 2002. Reporting Ed’s death, the University of Iowa astronomy department stated: “Our Iowa group will greatly miss his advice and expertise.” Ed was a member of the Coralville Methodist Church, the Iowa City Community Band, and IEEE, and a fellow of the American Physical Society. He married Betty A. Samuelson in 1956, and they had three daughters and a son. Survivors include his wife Janet Branson, whom he married in 1984, two daughters, a son, two stepdaughters, two stepsons, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his sister.

John Robert Moses ’53 April 16, 2013, in Portland.

Following service in the army during World War II and the Korean War, John earned a BA in history from Reed. He worked as a longshoreman, in maintenance, and as a Job Corps instructor. He had a deep love and respect for the outdoors and for playing piano, and was interested in the history of “just about everything.” He enjoyed debating historical or political points of view, was well read, and was a witty, kind, and generous individual.

Alison Estabrook Gass Murie ’53 May 29, 2013, in Xenia, Ohio.

Growing up in a home with parents who were writers—and her father, a university professor in English—Alison loved language, spoken and written, and the meanings of words. She attended Reed for a year and also studied at the University of Washington. Alison and Martin E. Murie ’50 (see memorial above) were married in 1952; they had three daughters and moved to Yellow Springs, Ohio, in 1961, when Martin joined the faculty in biology at Antioch College. Martin wrote of Alison’s presence in the college town: “She contributed, as always, to literacy, the nurture of human communication. And december 2013 Reed magazine 59

leah nash

in memoriam again, as always, she stood fast for the complete liberation of women.” In 1975, Alison and Martin moved to an old dairy farm in North Bangor, New York. “There they took up a life of conscious simplicity, one they could reconcile with their strong belief in leaving a light footprint on the earth.” They gardened, raised animals, repaired walls and buildings, and made new friends. “Alison’s ingenuity, frugality, and creative hands were employed everywhere, inventing household tools and improvements.” She taught herself to weave and decorated their home and created clothing using her textiles. “Alison will be best remembered for her lifelong commitment to social activism and her staunch belief in human rights and the equality of all.” Survivors include three daughters; five grandchildren; a great-grandson; and her brother, Geoffrey A. Gass ’52.

Theodore Emanuel Reich ’51 July 16, 2013, from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Olympia, Washington.

Classic car enthusiast, sailor, mountaineer, investor, and philanthropist, Ted was one of the world’s foremost authorities on RollsRoyce and Bentley motorcars. His fascination with automobiles began in early childhood. His father, a surgeon in Cleveland, Ohio, taught Ted to appreciate the design and details of fine motorcars, and Ted was enthralled when his cousin from England arrived at the Reich home in a Bentley. “By the time I was four, I could tell a Duesenberg from a Cadillac.” Ted came to Portland to attend Reed, where he earned a BA in psychology. “I viewed my years at Reed as positive in virtually all respects,” he said later. A competitive athlete in high school, Ted loved mountain climbing and skiing in the Pacific Northwest. He hiked to the summits of the Cascade Range and climbed Mount Hood seven times. On his 21st birthday, he climbed the Matterhorn in Switzerland. At Reed, he joined the Boar’s Head Ensemble and faithfully sang at the annual holiday party for 65 years. A year after his graduation, Ted married Gloria C. Erickson ’54 in the Eliot Hall chapel. He worked in insurance sales, and the couple lived in Cleveland and Philadelphia before moving back to Portland, where Ted worked in Reed’s development office (1960–65). In 1966, he joined Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker, advancing to the position of vice president before his retirement in 1991. Ted joined Reed’s board of trustees in 1982 and served until 1997, when he retired as trustee emeritus. He also served as director of the alumni association in the ’60s and volunteered for the alumni career network. In addition to Reed, his philanthropic activities included Friends of the Gallery, Northwest Loaves and Fishes, the City Club of Portland, Temple 60 Reed magazine december 2013

Ted Reich ’51 received the distinguished service award at the Foster-Scholz annual recognition luncheon in June 2013.

Beth Israel, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. In 2013, he received the Foster-Scholz Distinguished Service Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to Reed and to the Portland community. Ted and Gloria were members of the Portland Yacht Club and spent many happy hours sailing and racing their sloop on the Columbia River. In 1973, Ted proudly raced with several friends in Nimble in the Transpac race from Los Angeles to Hawaii. In addition to yachting, Ted was fascinated by the preservation of classic cars; he restored and drove many classics and especially enjoyed researching the history of each car. “These cars are really living entities. We’re just the custodians.” Ted and Gloria were intrigued by Rolls-Royces and participated in tours, shows, meets, and rallies around the world. In 2007, they raced one of their cars in the Mille Miglia Storica 1000mile rally in Italy. Ted served on the board of directors of the Rolls-Royce Owners’ Club and the regional board of the Classic Car Club of America and was president of the Historical Automobile Club of Oregon. Throughout his life, Ted enjoyed sharing the things he loved with his family and friends, to whom he was devoted. Survivors include Gloria, son David and daughter Evelyn, four grandchildren, and a brother.

Alice V. Hanson Senter ’55 March 27, 2012, in Seattle, Washington.

Alice was married to Vance E. Senter, a medical officer in the navy, who was at Reed for a semester in 1955–56 as part of the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project. Music was her passion, and she studied theory at Reed with Herb Gladstone [music 1946–80] and

trombone performance with John Trudeau at Lewis & Clark. In addition to caring for her home and raising three sons and four daughters, she was manager for the Rainy Daze Jazz Band and performed trombone in the band, as well as in the Shoreline Community College Concert Band and the Ballard Sedentary Sousa Band—a senior dance orchestra. Vance played trumpet in the bands. Alice also was a published poet.

Donald Leroy Foster ’57 May 5, 2013, in Wichita, Kansas.

Don earned a BA in physics, completing his degree with adviser Ken Davis [physics 1948– 80]. He earned a PhD from the University of Kansas and served on the faculty of Wichita State University for 39 years. An interest in boating led to membership in the Ninnescah Yacht Club, and Don also enjoyed making pottery, brewing beer, printing, reading, cooking, gardening, and traveling. Survivors include his wife, Deanna, two sons, a stepson and two stepdaughters, 12 grandchildren, one great-grandchild, and a sister.

David L. Thomas ’58 February 4, 2013, in California.

David attended Reed for two years and completed a BS in mathematics at Florida State University. He then earned a PhD in sociology at the University of Iowa and decades later earned an MBA from City University. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, and taught at Western Washington State College (University). He worked in insurance sales and as a janitor, and he was very involved in his volunteer work in third world community development. David was married with two sons.

Charles Leonard Kibby ’59

Thomas W. Chamberlin ’64

Chuck earned a BA in chemistry from Reed, which provided him with a “solid foundation” for his further work in the field, he later wrote. “The environment allows teachers and students to do their best.” He went on to earn a PhD in chemistry at Purdue University, was awarded fellowships from the National Science Foundation, and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard. He was a research associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, and a member of the research staff at Gulf Science & Technology Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He became a staff scientist for Chevron Research Company in Richmond, California. Chuck and criminologist Diana L. Morrison were married in 1970; they had one son, Kenneth.

Tom was at Reed for two years and earned a BA in geology at the University of California, Berkeley. He worked in science, fish and wildlife management, and native land claim negotiations for 30 years. He retired in 1997 and then returned to work at a local college in 2002. “Thanks to Hum 11, I’m actually enjoying being an English (Canadian?) instructor.” He also did consulting, was a mediation specialist, and learned to play his granddad’s fiddle. Jim Kahan ’64 forwarded the notice of Tom’s death that came from the Bulkley Valley Research Centre in Smithers, British Columbia, where Tom had been a facilitator for recreational access management. “Tom’s energy will be greatly missed in our office and throughout the Bulkley Valley.” Survivors include a daughter and stepson.

May 16, 2013, in Benicia, California.

William Stephen Corrie ’62 June 8, 2013, in Midlothian, Virginia.

Steve, who was a mathematics major at Reed, earned an MD from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he helped to develop epilepsy surgery and seizure monitoring and was a founding member of the medical honorary society Alpha Omega Alpha. He did a residency in neurology and was a researcher and clinician for Emory University, the Medical College of Ohio, and the National Institutes of Health. He joined the Medical College of Virginia in 1987 and served as founding director of the epilepsy seizure monitoring unit and associate professor of neurology. Steve and Joan M. Michel were married in 1969 and had two daughters. The family particularly enjoyed swimming and boating vacations on Cedar Lake in Minnesota. Steve also was a tenor choir member of the Mt. Pisgah United Methodist Church and read mystery novels. Survivors include his wife, daughters, and two granddaughters.

June 11, 2013, in Telkwa, British Columbia.

Robert Braunwart III ’70 October 14, 2007, in Los Angeles, California.

Vern Lindblad ’67 recently informed the college of Robert’s death from a rare form of melanoma. A Washington state native, Robert attended Reed as a National Merit Scholar, studying at the college for two years before transferring to the University of Washington. Vern says, “I first met Bob at Reed in 1966, after I heard rumors of another student at Reed from Moses Lake, Washington, and tracked him down. I was a senior, and it turned out that he was a fast and meticulous typist, so I ended up employing him to type my thesis. At my thesis defense, my committee commented about the lack of typos—we ended up quibbling about one comma, whose presence I defended. Back in those days before desktop computers, it may have been rare for them to see a typed manuscript without numerous erasures and white-out corrections.” When Vern moved to Seattle in 1982 to attend graduate school in linguistics at the University of Washington, Robert was living with his wife Glenda L. Gartman in the University District, “where there were many potential clients for his typing entrepreneurship.” Vern reconnected with him, and over the next several years Robert typed many papers for him, including an MA thesis on Uyghur phonology. Robert was an administrative assistant, an editor, a small business owner, and an online mathematics tutor. His major interests and activities focused on politics and projects ranging from the Professional Football Researchers Association he cofounded to serving as a contributor to hundreds of articles to Wikipedia, primarily on the viceroys of New Spain. On his Wikipedia page, Rbraunwa, we read that Robert encouraged others to gain intellectual development and political awareness. “He urged people to become informed and involved and to keep up the fight for a better,

more just world.” He spent 20 years compiling a database of world history dates, including birth and death dates of famous people, dates of historical events, scientific and artistic events, and popular culture events, which contains more than 500,000 entries. He lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, for 15 years prior to returning to the U.S. in 2006 for medical treatment, which was thwarted by HMO physicians, who refused to authorize treatment by a specialist. In Oaxaca, Robert supported the education of children by providing friendship, encouragement, tutoring, and financial assistance. Robert was predeceased by his first wife Carol Anne Bays, who attended Reed in 1967–68 and died in Anchorage in April 1997, and by their son, Kevin Robert Braunwart, who died in Portland in June 1997. His mother, Dorothy, died in 2012. Survivors include Glenda, his adopted daughter Monica, and three brothers. Says Vern, “I had only sporadic contact with Bob and Glenda after they moved to Oaxaca, and it was a real shock to learn that Bob had died. His memorial service at the University of Washington’s Burke Museum was a special opportunity not only to remember him, but also to meet family members and friends of his, many of whom I had never met before. I understand that his health insurance refused to pay for a required procedure. It’s not clear to me that the latest partial reforms of health care laws would have helped him—unfortunately for all of us.”

Patricia Anastasia Honchar ’70

April 25, 2013, in Atlanta, Georgia, following a long illness.

Pat earned a BA in anthropology from Reed and began her career as an epidemiologist after completing an MS at Columbia University School of Public Health. She worked for the U.S. Public Health Service in Europe, Ohio, december 2013 Reed magazine 61

in memoriam

Texas, and Georgia. Pat and physician Richard Rothenberg were married in 1988 and they had a son and daughter. In 2000, they made a second home near Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they spent summers, and Pat devoted time to being a mother, writing, and her work as an epidemiologist consultant. She studied and collected Inuit art and was a dog fancier. Survivors include her husband, children, and stepson. “She will always be missed!”

Barbara P. Johnson(Muller) Wint ’70

April 3, 2013, in DeKalb, Illinois, from a MRSA infection, contracted while hospitalized for cancer treatment.

Barbara came to Reed on a college scholarship and also received financial support from the Society of Friends she worshipped with in Pennsylvania. Though she remembered the years at Reed for academic preparation, she took pleasure in recalling other aspects of the time, including eating wild berries for breakfast and hiking in the Cascades with other students (in particular, managing to cross a precarious mountain passage). She earned a BA in biology from Reed and then went on to Michigan State University, where she received a PhD, and met David, a fellow student whom she married in 1978. They created a new surname, honoring one pioneer from each family who had lived an 62 Reed magazine december 2013

outstanding life. Barbara’s keen investigative skills were at play when she and David discovered a shallow woodland pond in a heavily wooded area near the Michigan campus, which proved to be an ideal habitat for the blue-spotted salamander. The couple then went to Massachusetts, where Barbara did postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and where she taught until 1987. Specializing in cellular biology, she worked with Dr. Jerome Gross at Massachusetts General Hospital and there began a career focus on collagen research. She joined the faculty in biological sciences at Northern Illinois University, where she received tenure and taught and conducted research. She was a tremendous advocate for her students, says David, and initiated two courses at the university. Recognizing that students were disadvantaged in their career pursuits without the knowledge of how to use advanced research equipment, Barbara created a course in bioinstrumentation. One student’s gratitude for the class, and her employer’s appreciation for her experience, led to the employer’s providing a generous gift of equipment and supplies for the university, coming at a time when resources for research materials were quite limited. A second course was in gravitational and space biology. She also supported the establishment of a program to recognize undergraduates in research, which became an annual event during which students present their findings to the public. Barbara had a substantial presence in her field—one student was accepted to a PhD program on her recommendation alone—and NASA’s need for measuring gravitational effects in cell cultures led to her selection for two highly competitive faculty research fellowships at the Ames Research Center. (Ever vigilant to secure opportunities for undergraduates, she also shared the NASA experience with two of her students during a summer session.) Barbara maintained the connection to NASA throughout her career and was working with them on her final research, using infrared as a tool for measurement—either directed to or emitted by a cell in the growing process. A moon rock, which she personally escorted from NASA to the university, was the focal point of a moon mission exhibition that she arranged with colleagues. On their car trips from the university to Ames, Barbara navigated and David drove, accompanied by their pets, two poodles and two Japanese quail. Back in Illinois, she took delight in raising Shubunkin fish in a pond and gardening with David—their 12-foot-tall heritage tomato vines wowed visitors and the fruit filled their pantry. A great observer, Barbara noted the arrival one day of a hummingbird that took nectar from the feeder by the kitchen window and its companion, a honeybee (that did not take nectar). The two flew off together to a nearby apple tree and returned often to the

feeder. Barbara was a highly motivated individual, says David. “Whatever she committed to, she approached full bore. Barbara would consider things carefully, and when she made up her mind, things happened.”

Christopher Johannes Namtze ’75 May 10, 2013, in South Bend, Indiana, following an extended illness.

Chris earned a BA from Reed in political science and an MA in sociology from Brandeis University. He made a career in finance, working in Boston and in New York City. Chris was a member of Reed’s National Advisory Counsel and a generous supporter of the college and of education for students who were financially disadvantaged. “I think that the person who most inspired and challenged me was John Pock [sociology 1955–98]. It was in his sociological theory class that I learned intellectual accountability. Not just critical thinking, but accountability. This has helped me in my work today probably more than in school. I give the college credit for teaching me how to think.” Survivors include his mother and sister.

Robert Lothian ’82

May 19, 2013, in Portland, from cancer.

Bob began his college years at the University of Oregon in 1967–70 and completed a BA from Reed in political science. He also earned an MS in journalism from Columbia University in 1992. Bob worked as a welder, mechanic, firefighter, and wilderness ranger before beginning a career as a freelance journalist for the Oregonian, the Portland Observer, and the Catholic Sentinel. He also worked as a reporter and photographer for the Bandon Western World, the Ashland Daily Tidings, and the Ashland Democrat Herald. Bob later worked for Multnomah County Aging and Disability Services as a case manager and hearings representative. He was a member of the Mazamas and summited 11 of the major Pacific Northwest peaks, including Mount Rainier, Mount Olympus, and Glacier Peak. He served on the Mazamas conservation committee and as a board member for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Multnomah County. Survivors include a son and three brothers.

Edward Bethel Adams ’84 May 27, 2013, at home, in Portland, Oregon.

“With a dog named Homer, hair halfway down his back, and a huge, booming laugh, Ed arrived on campus in August 1980 already a consummate Reedie,” writes Leigh Hancock ’84, who provided the details for this memorial. Ed was a passionate outdoorsman who wasted no time in exploring the bounty of the Pacific Northwest. He joined other first-year students on a backpacking trip in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness during Orientation, and returned to

the wilderness during the year, spending breaks and long weekends supported by a backpack, a sleeping bag, and a few bagels. “Ed loved everything about Reed, from the fierce intellectual battles in Hum 110 to more casual discussions on the SU porch—and of course, the sunny-day kegs. He was a passionate student, an inveterate adventurer, and a fiercely loyal friend.” After the first year, Ed took a year off, but he stayed connected to his Reed friends through “voluminous, rollicking letters” written from his home in Loomis, California. “Many of us made more than one pilgrimage to Loomis to play in Ed’s woods and lure him away to Grateful Dead concerts.” His greatest desire was to return to Reed, Leigh says, but in spring 1981 a drunk driver hit Ed’s VW van head-on, and Ed suffered a severe aneurysm, followed by 10 hours of brain surgery and 6 months of rehab in a San Francisco hospital. “During this time, even as he struggled to learn to speak, walk, and manage his loss of memory, he remained the avid, life-loving person who’d danced all night in the SU.” Ed lived at home in Loomis for a few years, moved to Davis, and then bought a house in Portland, close to Reed. “He continued to love the outdoors, big words, big dogs, good books, writing letters, and sharing a beer with friends. Ed was living alone when he fell inside his house this past May. He was 51.” Survivors include his mother, Beryl, and sister, Susie.

Christopher Bering Grey Tarnstrom ’95

July 11, 2013, in Seattle, Washington, from a heart attack.

Tiffer was born in Utrecht, The Netherlands, and moved to Concord, New Hampshire, when he was four. He attended schools in Concord and in Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, and spent a year in Germany before enrolling at Reed. During his two-plus years at Reed, Tiffer was part of—and for a while led—the Reed Brewers Society. “At that time I hoped to gather the business skills so I could contribute to launching a brewery.” (The skills he acquired led to the opening of the Flying Bike Cooperative Brewery in Seattle in 2012.) He received degrees in computer science and accounting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and followed a professional path that included risk management and consulting, and helping small businesses and nonprofits. He lived in Vermont and California before settling in Seattle. With interests as varied as music and mushrooming, he gardened and sailed and enjoyed a variety of intellectual pursuits. His Reed friends offered many remembrances of Tiffer, including this one from Molly Todd ’96: “Things that I will remember most about Tiffer are his quirky fascination with drinking beer, growing peppers, foraging morels, and prospecting for gold; his dedication to family and friends; his gregarious laugh; his ability to wax poetic about anything and everything; his willingness to challenge perspectives

ashes in the canyon, a place Laurie loved, as she did her years at Reed. “She thrived there,” wrote her father, “and I continue to be impressed by the educational philosophy and accomplishment of Reed’s graduates.” Survivors include her mother; her father and his wife, Marge; her brother, Tim; a loving extended family; and her special friends, Bill and Sam. In responding to the news of Laurie’s death, Jay Dickson [English 1996– 99, 2001–] wrote, “She was one of the bravest and toughest people I’ve ever met.”

Staff, Faculty, and Friends on anything and everything; his ability to find humor in anything and everything; and the positive energy he exuded, even in the midst of troubling times.” Survivors include his parents, three sisters, and his girlfriend, Emma Levitt.

Laurie Suzanne McGill ’02

August 22, 2013, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, following a 20-year struggle with lupus.

Born in Bangor, Maine, Laurie graduated from Bangor High School with honors. At the encouragement of her father, John R. McGill, she enrolled at Reed. “The smartest and most talented young lady in my high school class, Suzette Gautier [’67], went to Reed, and I never forgot that fact. I thought that Reed would be a nice match for my Laurie.” Despite losing a year of study due to illness, Laurie completed the requirements for a BA in English, and wrote her thesis, “Reading Ophelia: Paradigms and Phenomenology in Hamlet,” with adviser Michael Faletra [English 2001–04, 2007–09, 2010–]. For a year following graduation, she pursued a career in English and then turned to nursing, completing prerequisites for degree work at the University of Maine and earning a BS in nursing from Columbia University. She did additional study in psychiatric nursing and returned to Portland, where she worked until complications from lupus required her move to Charleston, South Carolina, to be cared for by her mother, Lynda R. McGill. In the last year of her life—though challenged by disabilities stemming from and immersed in medical treatment for lupus—Laurie continued to experience enjoyment with cooking and gardening. Recalling how Laurie had looked forward to the beginning of each academic year at Reed, Lynda came to the college in September to scatter some of Laurie’s

Herbert L. Newmark

August 25, 2013.

Herb Newmark was born in New York City and grew up with his sister, Florence, in San Diego. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He completed flight school and basic training and served in the Pacific during World War II. Returning from the war, he completed studies at San Diego State College and Balboa University Law School before being called up from the naval reserves for active duty in the Korean War. His service in the war earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal, and the Gold Star. Herb and Jeanne Mittleman were married in 1952 and lived in Portland, where Herb worked in property management with Jeanne’s father. He later purchased Newtronics, an electronics distribution company, which he operated successfully, and then joined Norris, Beggs & Simpson as a commercial real estate broker. Herb opened a real estate brokerage firm, Newmark & Associates, which he operated for more than 50 years. He and Jeanne raised a family of five, including Richard Newmark ’76, and enjoyed ski vacations throughout the Pacific Northwest and trips to Europe and to their vacation home in Mexico. Herb served on the boards of the Mittleman Jewish Community Center, Temple Beth Israel, the Oregon Realtors Association, and the Vida del Mar condominium association. A generous benefactor and community supporter, his gift to the Portland Center for Performing Arts was recognized with the naming of the Newmark Theatre. At Reed, he established the Herbert L. and Jeanne L. Newmark Scholarship in support of students in biology, chemistry, and physics. Herb enjoyed woodworking, sculpting, bridge, and reading. Survivors include Jeanne, two daughters, three sons, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

PENDING

Gorham Babson ’33, Carroll Hendrickson ’42, Edward Watson ’43, John Moore ’40, Eileen Pease Kuhns ’45, Robert Twigg ’46, Patricia Ball ’47, Henry Wyld ’49, Reeve Erickson ’50, Robert Maxwell ’50, John Fiedler ’51, Leroy Caspersen ’52, Lynne Sherley ’53, David Lowe ’54, Waldo Rasmussen ’54, Ruth Volkmann ’54, Richard Gale ’60, Linda Cudlin ’63, Kathryne Risberg MAT ’64, G. Kemp Schlesinger ’69, Mark Jacobsen ’72, David Browne ’74, David Coddington ’01, and Samuel McCracken, faculty.

december 2013 Reed magazine 63

apocrypha t r a d i t i o n • m y t h • l e g e n d

The Prison of Memory Unpublished manuscript shows another side of Prof. Seth Ulman. by Laurie Lindquist

Beggars, many of them children, pulled at our clothes as we marched through, rubbing their stomachs and thrusting their fingers into empty mouths to pantomime their hunger . . . Naples was a premonitory mirage— a stage setting for a drama that had yet to begin. Here, as prelude, was a vision of the aftermath of war. The thing itself lay coiled and waiting somewhere on the road ahead. With these words, Prof. Seth Ulman [English & theatre 1959–73] sends forth a crew of greenhorn army medics into the battleground of Italy in Prisoners of War, a fictionalized memoir that he completed in 1986 but never published. Prisoners of War begins in 1942, a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, when a cadre of “misfits”—lacking the survival instincts essential to a soldier on the front line—arrive in camp for basic training. Each of the men, “the most heterogeneous collection of inexperience and innocence that anyone could well imagine,” are mad for distraction and some sense of normalcy amid the chaos of war. On the face of one man, F_, with its youthful uncertainty, Ulman sees “something tense and untested.” It is a symptom of the time, he says, and it becomes an “unfinished question” that he refers to many times in Prisoners. Ulman leads his medics away from the dusty plains of Oklahoma to the rain-soaked, bombedout rubble of Naples, scraped down to the bone and resembling “some evil hallucination.” He sends them onward through towns and mountain passes, facing want and danger, to the Battle of Monte Cassino, where they tend wounded soldiers who arrive for aid on a steady stream of litters. What he confronts in Prisoners is the way in which war steals a soldier’s life, long before death takes it—but also how one may break free of the weight of grief, for a time at

64 Reed magazine december 2013

least, by making a conscious choice to do so. Ulman graduated summa cum laude in English from UC Berkeley in 1942 and joined the U.S. Army. He was with his platoon in Rome on June 4, 1944, when the city was liberated from the Nazis. “I remember the gates opening, streams of soldiers coming through. I saw German snipers in the windows of apartment buildings and frantic women throwing themselves on top of my Jeep, men ripping rose bushes out of the ground and hurling the flowers in the air.” Following the war, he returned to Berkeley, where he completed a PhD and

more, thought more, about the text than Mr. Ulman. He knew many languages, and would refer back to the original to get the nuance of the playwright’s meaning.” Ulman survived dysentery, terror, and artillery fire, he tells his reader in Prisoners, by willing himself to live. After Reed, he retired to Monterey, California, and died in 2000, following an extended struggle with cancer.

Ulman’s portrait of war inspired several champions, including Prof. Sam Danon [1962–2000], Prof. Nick Wheeler ’55

War steals a soldier’s life long before death takes it. taught English and dramatic arts before attending a two-year Fulbright fellowship in Japan. During his tenure at Reed, Ulman served as head of the theatre department, directing semester and summer productions and lecturing in the community. “Seth’s one-person theatre department was a very active one,” says Prof. Tom Dunne [chemistry 1963– 95]. “Wonderful productions were followed, in some cases, by captivation toward outstanding careers in theatre.” Storyteller Cricket Parmalee ’67, who received the Class of ’21 Award for her work in theatre, says: “I never met anyone who cared

[physics, 1963–2010], archivist Gay Walker ’69, and Prof. Gary Miranda [creative writing 1979–87]. But for one reason or another, the manuscript was never published and remains in the Hauser Library among the Seth Ulman Papers, presented to the college by his daughter Alison in 2004. The papers fill 16 boxes and contain everything from correspondence to production notes and playbills—some bearing singe marks from the fire that burned down the Reed theatre in 1969.The papers are part of 40 manuscript collections—find a complete list at library.reed.edu/services/collections /manuscripts.html.

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MIND OVER MATTER. Maya Kimura ’17 defies gravity (with a little help from compressed air) to the delight of classmates Luis Valenzuela ’17 and Anant Kothari ’17.