‰ march 2018
Home Away from Home New dorm is designed to create a sense of belonging.
Defining Success in College | Math Prof Closes Loop | the borderline geographer
Kroger Steps down | the philosopher of sawdust | when stars explode
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REED
march 2018
Features 14
The Science Spark
Reed students inspire local gradeschoolers through outreach program. By Romel Hernandez
16
The Philosopher of Sawdust
With chisel and hand plane, master craftsman Gary Rogowski ’72 joins woodwork and literature. By Lily Raff McCaulou 20
Home Away from Home
New dorm is designed to create a sense of belonging.
By Randall S. Barton
Departments 6
Eliot Circular
NEWS FROM CAMPUS
Kroger Steps Down Cosmic Clues in Quantum Debris Got the World on a String (or Four) Unexpected Visitor Vexes SU Never Alone, Except for Now Meet Our New Trustees Teskey to Depart the Carnival
10 Advocates of the Griffin
News of the Alumni Association
Letter from the Alumni Board President Change Your Game with a Career Coach Meet Your Alumni Board
30 Reediana
Books, Films, and Music by Reedies
Zen Odyssey by Steven Zahavi Schwartz ’88 The Glamshack by Paul Cohen ’85 And many more.
34 Class Notes
News from our classmates
39 In Memoriam
Honoring classmates, professors, and friends who have died
Race car designer Rolla Vollstedt ’40 Jungian analyst Thomas B. Kirsch ’57 Intellectual gourmet Jon Rowley ’69
48 Object of Study
What we’re looking at in class
When Stars Explode
march 2018 Reed Magazine
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‰
Letter from the editor
march 2018
Why I Love This Epic Fail by Steve Jobs A Reed College job application from 1973 was recently auctioned off by Bonhams for the astonishing price of $18,750. What’s intriguing about it is not the final bid for the document, but rather how utterly unpromising this candidate—yes, Steve Jobs—looked on paper. Today Steve is hailed as a visionary innovator and one of the most influential figures in the history of technology. But on this job application, he’s an absolute nobody. He gives no phone number and vaguely lists his address as “reed college” (lowercase). He’s an English major but has no idea when he might graduate. Position desired? Blank. Past employment? Zero. Access to transportation? “Possible, but not probable.” Under interests, he lists electronics and design, feebly adding that he is from the Bay Area near Hewlett-Packard, which is misspelled. I’ve read some weak job applications in my time (and written a few myself), but this piece of rubbish was surely destined for the dustbin. This application is more than underwhelming—it is a monument to half-assery, an epic, cosmic, fail. Which is exactly what I love about it. There is no doubt that a résumé doctor could have sat down with Steve and made this a dozen times stronger, firming up the contact information and fleshing out the work history. They are encouraged to find a purpose, to tell a story through their résumé, to impress employers with their skills and their savvy. (Students today can get this kind of support at the Center for Life Beyond Reed.) But in 1973, Steve was barely 18 years old. He didn’t know his purpose yet. The future titan of industry was a restless, barefoot wanderer who was into calligraphy, Dylan, Shakespeare, electronics, and dance. He was reading Buddhism in the library, scrounging in commons, and making little blue boxes to cheat the phone company. These were important, even life-changing experiences, but they didn’t qualify him for a job—and no amount of résumé-polishing could disguise that fact. He was still growing, still exploring, still foolish. Later that year, Steve did get a parttime gig on campus with the psychology 2
Reed Magazine march 2018
www.reed.edu/reed-magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 97, No. 1 MAGAZINE editor
Chris Lydgate ’90 503/777-7596 chris.lydgate@reed.edu interim class notes editor
Joanne Hossack ’82 joanne@reed.edu In Memoriam editor
Randall S. Barton 503/517-5544 bartonr@reed.edu art director
Tom Humphrey tom.humphrey@reed.edu REED COLLEGE RELATIONS vice president, college relations
Hugh Porter director, communications & public affairs
Mandy Heaton Steve Jobs: Brilliant visionary, lousy résumé writer.
department, repairing equipment for experiments with rats and pigeons. Eventually, he would land a job at Atari, travel to India, and then take over his parents’ garage with a harebrained scheme named for an orchard near McMinnville. I wish everyone could taste the excitement, the intensity that lies at the heart of true education, whether it takes place reading Plato’s Republic on the Great Lawn or wrestling with Zen koans on a TriMet bus. I wish everyone could have the time and space to kindle the spark of inspiration into a fire. And when it comes to reading—and writing—job applications, I wish everyone could remember that we, too, are unfinished projects, first drafts, rough cuts, works in progress. The main difference is that some of us have been going at it longer than others.
—CHRIS LYDGATE ’90 Thanks to Alice Harra at the Center for Life Beyond Reed and Alice Larkin Steiner ’74.
Reed College is an institution of higher education in the liberal arts and sciences devoted to the intrinsic value of intellectual pursuit and governed by the highest standards of scholarly practice, critical thought, and creativity. Reed Magazine provides news of interest to the Reed community. Views expressed in the magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent officers, trustees, faculty, alumni, students, administrators, or anyone else at Reed, all of whom are eminently capable of articulating their own beliefs. Reed Magazine (ISSN 0895-8564) is published quarterly by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to Reed Magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland OR 97202-8138
Letters to Reed crossword BY ZOE NEFF ’20 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 ACROSS Write to us! We love getting mail from 1. Capital of Lesotho readers. Letters should be about Reed (and 14 15 7. "Get outta here!" its alumni) or Reed its for contents) 11.(and Slang "that"and 17 18 run no more than 300 words; subsequent 14. Millie Bobby Brown on the "Stranger replies may only run half length of their 20 21 22 Things" predecessors. Our decision to print a letter 15. "Ireland" in Ireland 25 24 does not imply any Letters 16. endorsement. A third of the are subject to editing.psyche, (Beware according the editor’s 29 26 27 28 Freud hatchet.) For contact to information, look to 17. Lost his head as a your left. Read more letters and commentary at 30 31 result of the French www.reed.edu/reed-magazine. Revolution 35 37 38 36 19. Enthusiast 20. Stan with multiple 39 40 42 41 Marvel movie cameos 43 45 44 On The Instrumentality CRES 21. Where youOf might find cookies or After reading the article about the Comparative 47 46 sewing supplies Race and Ethnicity22. Studies major progressing Clique 49 48 toward faculty approval, I had topresident wonder what 24. Former of ReedReed with with a dorm a student, graduating from thatinas 53 54 55 name his/her major, would dohis with the degree. With 26. What Reedies do to so many recent graduates from liberal arts col57 58 59 a bottle of leges with majors in thechampagne “soft science”atcategory, 60 61 62 thesisjobs, parade being unable to find decent what is the 29. The lead guitarist of justification for this new major—other than to Guns N' Roses owns satisfy academic curiosity? How wouldmaking this major something, 9. Seize equip a Reed graduate in the getting a decent job that 53. Keats' "Ode on a thing ______ 10. Multiple dentures Grecian ___" 30. Sierra ______ would provide a salary capable of supporting the 54. Happenstance 11. Licking all the icing Part of Venetian graduate and paying31. off student loans and other 57. Swamp off a cupcake blinds 58. Forearm bone 12. Once more financial obligations? 32. Latin list ending Drink of the gods 13. Pitch 35. AC/DC I remember a fellow student,song when"High I was at 59. 60. Wesley Crusher's 18. Holiday ___ _______" Reed, whom I met when we both were working 23. Supernatural position, abbr. 37. "Look at Me I'm 61. Protagonists of 24. Somebody from a summer job at the American Can Company. Sandra Dee" from George Orwell's Billings I asked him what he was going to do with his Skewed Math Grease, e.g. 25. Method of Animal Farm degree in philosophy39. andMidget he saidbuffalo he had no idea.62. Inuit I read the December issuecommunication with great relish. for 40. Newton's ____ while At that time, I thought that this degree, However, is my math getting rusty is there deaf andorhard of 42. Kidney hormone intellectually stimulating, was most impracti-DOWN an error in Randall Barton’shearing math? Inpeople, his piece 43. Disquiet 1. What a blackbird is abbr. cal. I think the CRES major would fall into the on the incoming class of 2021 he quotes some 45. Poseidon 26. Sea lettuce, called in Scotland 46. Ski lodge look-alike same category. statistics:remedy in particular that the admittance rate 2. Sunburn scientifically on campus John W. Thompson, M.D. ’55 was 35% (shocking in my opinion). If the enter3. Southeast by east, 27. Tint of 80s 48. Old post-pregnancy abbr. sportswear Lake Oswego, Oregon ing class is 414 and total applicant pool was practice 4. Made from Adam's 28. British drawings 49. Word after bird or 5,652 that is nearer 7% admittance rate. 31. Should be more rib swine//what travels Imran Hameed High Flyer 5. Highway pit-stop than salt and ’88 around the Reed 6. Deselect pepper London, England My granddaughter, whocampus is seven,faster listened with than 33. Reed mascot genus rapt attention as I read gossip to her the obituary for 7. Notice 8. Leaflets 34. What banks do 50. Internet Service
The field of college admissions statistics is fraught with peril.
Joann Osterud ’68. (“High Flyer Broke Records— Provider, abbr. and Barriers.”) I recall seeing Joann’s aerobatics above Commencement Bay in Tacoma more than thirty years ago. Hats off to a great lady. John Cushing ’67 Portland
Sharp eyes! But the field of college admissions statistics is fraught with peril. The admit rate of 35% is the ratio of students who are admitted compared to the total number who applied. But some who are admitted (bizarrely) choose not to attend Reed. The ratio of those who enroll out of those admitted is known as “yield” and was 21%. Both stats are in line with recent trends. If you combine them, you will arrive at 7%, but the folks in the admission office mutter darkly about apples and oranges, so we try not to. From the Editor:
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46 Ski lodge look-alike on campus 48 Old post-pregnancy practice
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49 Word after bird or swine// what travels around the Reed campus faster than gossip
19 23
50 Internet Service Provider, abbr. 53 Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian ___” 54 Happenstance
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33
34
57 Swamp 58 Forearm bone 59 Drink of the gods 60 Wesley Crusher’s position, abbr. 61 Protagonists of George Orwell’s Animal Farm 62 Inuit Down
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1
What a blackbird is called in Scotland
2
Sunburn remedy
3
Southeast by east, abbr.
4
Made from Adam’s rib
5
Highway pit-stop
6
Deselect
7
Notice
8
Leaflets
9
Seize
10 36. Sword lily genus 11 Across 38. Introductions to fugues 1 Capital of Lesotho 41. NYSE for a 12 7 “Get outtasymbol here!” 13 red-headed fast 11 Slang for “that” 18 food chain 14 Millie Bobby Brown on 23 Things” for a 44.“Stranger Receptacle hard-boiled 24 15 “Ireland” in Ireland food 25 16 Abreakfast third of the psyche, to Freud 45. according Mixture of sodium 17 Lost his head as of chloride ina result water French Revolution 46. the Famous Romantic 26 27 19 Enthusiast poet 28 20 Stan with multiple Marvel 47. Hydrofluorocarbons movie cameos 31 , in short 21 Where you might find 48. Jiffy ____ cookies or sewing 50. supplies Ancient Incan sun 33 34 god 22 Clique 36 51. Three card monte, 24 Former president of Reed 38 with e.g.a dorm in his name 41 26 What Reedies do to a 52. "But" to Juan bottle of champagne 55. thesis Creator of theat parade 44 album "Illmatic" 29 The lead guitarist of Guns 56.N’Electoral Roses owns something, 45 making the thing Commission of ______ Kenya, abbr. 46 30 Sierra ______
31 Part of Venetian blinds 32 Latin list ending
42 Kidney hormone 43 Disquiet
Once more Pitch Holiday ___ Supernatural Somebody from Billings Method of communication for deaf and hard of hearing people, abbr. Sea lettuce, scientifically Tint of 80s sportswear British drawings Should be more than salt and pepper Reed mascot genus What banks do Sword lily genus Introductions to fugues NYSE symbol for a redheaded fast food chain Receptacle for a hardboiled breakfast food Mixture of sodium chloride in water Famous Romantic poet
47 Hydrofluorocarbons, in short 50 Ancient Incan sun god
37 “Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee” from Grease, e.g. 40 Newton’s ____
Licking all the icing off a cupcake
48 Jiffy ____
35 AC/DC song “High _______”
39 Midget buffalo
Multiple dentures
51 Three card monte, e.g. 52 “But” to Juan 55 Creator of the album “Illmatic” 56 Electoral Commission of Kenya, abbr.
45 Poseidon
march 2018 Reed Magazine
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Eliot Circular news from campus
leah nash
Kroger Steps Down President John R. Kroger announced that he would step down as president of Reed in June. The announcement, which came as Reed Magazine was going to press, capped a six-year term marked by significant achievements. “I have loved my time at Reed, and I am proud of the things we have done together,” Kroger said. “It has been a great privilege to be a part of this vibrant community and to work with extraordinary faculty, dedicated staff, and promising students.” Under Kroger’s leadership, Reed made progress on numerous fronts: • The faculty launched four new majors— computer science, neuroscience, dance, and comparative literature—and has made significant progress toward one in comparative race and ethnicity studies.
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Reed Magazine march 2018
• T he college became significantly more diverse. Students of color increased from 22% to 31% and the number of international students doubled. From 201116, some 60% of tenure-track hires have been either faculty of color or women in STEM fields. • T he college doubled its applicant pool without any reduction in the academic qualifications of matriculants. Average ACT and SAT scores are in the 95th percentile. • Reed completed the new Performing Arts Building, built a childcare center, made major renovations to the cross canyon dorms, the sports center, and Prexy, and embarked on a a new residence hall. • R eed made significant investments in student support, including a rejuvenated Center for Life Beyond Reed
to help students explore careers; the Reed Leadership Academy to help students develop leadership skills; and the President’s Summer Fellowship to help students pursue creative projects outside the classroom. “President Kroger has provided invaluable leadership during his tenure, which has been a period of rapid advancement,” said Roger Perlmutter ’73, chair of the board of trustees. “Throughout this time, Reed has remained a powerful advocate for education in the liberal arts, while maintaining the highest standards of intellectual excellence. We are grateful to President Kroger for his steadfast commitment to Reed, and we look forward to building on his legacy.” “It is always hard to know when to leave a job you love, but I am confident that this is the right time for me, my family, and for Reed,” Kroger added. —ANNA MANN
illustration by kim scafuro
Unexpected Visitor Vexes SU Reed played host to an unexpected guest in November when a wild coyote slunk into the SU ballroom. The canny Canis latrans, presumably hoping to join the annual Daft Ball that was scheduled to take place later that night, hunkered down beneath the catwalk until spotted by several keeneyed students. Growing restless, the beast then attempted to escape through a window but was thwarted by the glass. Dazed and confused, it decided that a better course of action would be to hide behind the curtains. Several attempts were made to extract the creature, but it refused to emerge from its curtained den when tempted with fresh meat pillaged from Commons and was unreceptive to commands from even the highest-ranking CSO. Coyotes have been increasingly spotted roaming the canyon in recent years. The Portland Audubon Society says they are generally “shy and wary” and present “minimal risk” to humans. They are also notoriously hard to trap. When calls to the local wildlife rescue came to naught (closed on weekends), students started to worry— would Daft Ball be cancelled? With disaster looming, an official from Multnomah County Animal Control finally arrived on the scene and used a snare pole to guide the timid beast outside, whereupon the coyote promptly dashed into the canyon. —SOPHIA KONGSHAUG ’20
A WORKFORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH Reedies are skilled synthesizers, critics, analysts, and storytellers in a wide range of fields, making them great interns and employees. Look to Reed when seeking excellent future talent for your institution. Questions? Email Brooke Hunter, Assistant Director of Employer Relations & Strategic Partnerships at hunterb@reed.edu. Post a job or internship: reed.edu/beyond-reed > For Employers.
Eliot Circular
Physics Prof Sifts Through Quantum Debris for Cosmic Clues Prof. Andrew Larkoski [physics 2016–] has won the 2017 Wu-Ki Tung Award for outstanding contributions by an early-career researcher for his work on quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the study of the mysterious “strong force,” which binds inconceivably tiny particles together into larger particles called hadrons, which include protons and neutrons. Prof. Larkowski won the award for a technique he developed called “soft drop declustering,” which helps scientists sift through
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Reed Magazine march 2018
data produced by the CERN Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world. As its name suggests, The Large Hadron Collider works by smashing hadrons together at extremely high speeds, generating reactions which can answer questions about the fundamental building blocks of our universe. However, as Larkoski explains, not all of these reactions are useful. He compares his work to that of a detective investigating a car crash: when cars collide at high speeds,
they shower debris all around the crash site, and the overabundance of scattered pieces makes it harder for the detective to find vital clues. Likewise, when hadrons collide, the result is a myriad of extraneous reactions, and this “debris” often obscures the interactions that yield useful information. Larkoski’s award-winning technique focuses on the important reactions like a detective’s magnifying glass, sorting out low-energy reactions from high-energy ones, which are more likely to yield experimentally
Disconnected Together
nina Johnson ’99
significant results. Larkoski often teams up with Reed students to conduct research—last year he published a paper with his thesis advisee Kaustuv Datta ’17. When asked about the best part of working with Reedies, Larkoski responded, “their fearlessness.” Physicists naturally acquire a lot of conceptual baggage over their careers, picking up assumptions which can sometimes limit their perspective. Reedies, on the other hand, often come up with interesting ways to approach big problems. —IAN BUCKMAN ’18
How is it that one can be connected to a vast worldwide network of other people and places via digital technologies and yet also be completely alone? Prof. Kris Cohen [art history 2011–] tackles this philosophical question in Never Alone, Except for Now: Networked Life between Populations and Publics by exploring how contemporary technologies are changing group formations and affiliations within social life. Prof. Cohen identifies a new form of collectivity that exists between publics, which are built through conscious acts, and populations, which are automatically constructed through the collection of Big Data. Finding traditional liberal concepts of the public sphere and neoliberal ideas of populations inadequate on their own to examine these new forms of sociality, he places familiar features of the web—such as emoticons, trolling, and search engines— in conversation with artworks by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, William Gibson, Sharon Hayes, and Thomson & Craighead to more precisely articulate the affective and aesthetic experiences of living between publics and populations. This liminal experience—caught between existing as a set of data points and as individuals newly empowered to create their own online communities—explains, he contends, how one is simultaneously alone and connected in ways never before possible.
march 2018 Reed Magazine
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Trustee Profiles
Return to an Intellectual Eden When he was a student at Reed, Ned Hall ’87 was caught up in a web of ideas. “At Reed, you don’t need to find a cadre of people with whom you can feel comfortable and then erect a different persona for the rest of the people,” he says. “It’s okay to be freely interested in exploring ideas for the sake of satisfying your curiosity. That’s palpable on the campus.” In October, Ned was appointed one of two new trustees at Reed. He is the Norman E. Vuilleumier Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, where he serves as department chair and director of graduate admissions. Before joining the faculty at Harvard in 2005, he taught in the department of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a professor, he’s aware of the pressures on today’s students. Ned grew up in what is now Silicon Valley and went to Homestead High School, whose alumni include Steve Jobs ’76 and Steve Wozniak, and always considered himself a math/science nerd destined for Caltech or MIT. But some influential high school
teachers made him realize that ideas that are interesting and worth taking seriously are not confined to math and science. When it came time to pick a college, he decided “Reed is the kind of intellectual Eden that I want to go to.” He found a campus with inspirational professors who guided students in promising directions while letting them discover ideas for themselves. “They set up the conditions for discovery,” he says, and singles out Prof. Robert Knapp [English 1974–]. “He was able to feed the discussion. It was like fire, and if necessary he would nudge a little bit of fuel closer to the fire. It’s the kind of professor I would like to be.” Ned’s research interests focus on metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of
science. He is the author of Philosophy of Science: Metaphysical and Epistemological Foundations and coeditor of Causation and Counterfactuals. “I get very interested in philosophical questions about the most general and important concepts in scientific inquiry,” Ned explains, “about the nature of knowledge gathering in the big picture categories of science— space, time, causation, law of nature, chance, determinism and indeterminism, evidence, hypothesis, confirmation, disconfirmation, knowledge, and opinion.” As a trustee, Ned hopes to bring an insider’s perspective on the pressures on today’s students and the role of the liberal arts in civil society. — RANDALL S. BARTON
A Reedie Forever “Once a Reedie, a Reedie forever,” Julia Adams ’80 proclaimed as she began serving as a new trustee for the college. “Reed is an outstanding model of liberal arts education, and I hope to give back a bit.” A professor of sociology and international and area studies at Yale University, Julia also heads Grace Hopper College, one of Yale’s 14 residential colleges. She codirects the Yale Center for Historical Enquiry and the Social Sciences, and is on the board of the Social Science Research Council, which fosters research, promotes new generations of social scientists, and mobilizes necessary knowledge on important public issues. Her fascination with history began as a child back in Wilton, Connecticut. “Since I was a kid I’ve particularly loved early modern European history circa 1500 to 1800,” she says. As a historical sociologist, she studies large-scale social movements and developments through the processes of transformation and stasis. “If you’re interested in the
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Reed Magazine march 2018
Ned Hall ’87
development of states and empires over time,” she explains, “it’s hard not to be some sort of social science historian.” She transferred to Reed as a sophomore, having studied ancient Greek and philosophy at Bryn Mawr. She had developed an abiding interest in historical sociology and was eager to explore Reed, having been primed by enthusiastic alumni, including Mark Gould ’67, a professor of sociology at Haverford College, then a brother college to Bryn Mawr. Reed proved to be a joyful experience. “There was great academic seriousness, which I really loved,” she says, “but there was also a sense of intellectual play, sometimes even gaiety. The fact that you could have those two things at once, I think for me, was really a revelation.”
Julie Adams ’80
Julia lauds the excellence of the sociology department at Reed, but also takes her hat off to other departments, including anthropology courses with Prof. Gail Kelly ’55 [anthropology 1960–2000]. “I am grateful to Prof. Peter Steinberger [political science 1977–] for inspiring discussions about Hegel and Marx and other light reading,” Julia says. “The pedagogy of the math department still inspires me. Early in high school I’d given up math and took it up again in college with some reticence. What I learned at Reed set me in very good store in graduate school with statistics. But even more than that, it was the absolute joy of building number theory from the ground up that really captured me. It was an amazing imaginative way to teach.” — RANDALL S. BARTON
Evolution of a Candy Man
Got the World on a String (or Four)
Over the course of four sketches, one Wonka evolves from a jaunty fellow with a feather in his cap, dramatic lashes, and prominent nipples to a faceless stick-figure. His cleft chin makes a final appearance in the 15-second sketch as a sharp point, but only the chocolate bar and lollipop in his hands survive to the end. Rose wants her students to realize that “just because a drawing is ‘bad’ it’s not illegible—it’s all about communication.” Hell, Yeah, You Can Draw! isn’t a promise of potential, but an affirmation of fact. —JUAN FLORES ’13
leah nash
History major Henry DeMarais ’18 was honored with the Kahan Fellowship last year. For his project, Henry traveled to Pulaski, New York, to study violin with Dr. David Fulmer, an internationally recognized composer and violinist, to explore ways to bring out the artistry and beauty in works written in modern idioms. Back on campus, Henry thrilled the audience in the Eliot Chapel with vivid renditions of pieces by Matthias Pintscher, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutoslawski, Anton Webern, and Olivier Messiaen. “He is a marvelous student,” says Denise VanLeuven, director of private music instruction. “The performance was really something.” The Jim Kahan Music Performance Summer Fellowship was established by a generous gift from Jim Kahan ’64 in honor of Prof. Virginia Hancock ’62 [music 1990–2016]. It gives students the opportunity to develop or make a major contribution to a music performance, culminating in a presentation to the Reed community that includes a talkback with the audience. —ANNA MANN
It’s a rainy Friday during Paideia and you’ve got a tall assignment: draw a sketch of the fictional confectioner Willy Wonka. In sixty seconds. Welcome to to “Hell, Yeah, You Can Draw!”, a class led by Rose Driver ’19 in January. After the buzzer goes off, Rose challenges her students to draw the sketch again—but in just 30 seconds. Then 15. Then, brutally, in five seconds. The purpose of the exercise, Rose explains, is not to produce great art, but to force students to “give up artistic control and just sort of enjoy the moment of drawing.”
Teskey to Depart the Carnival Mike Teskey, the multifarious, quite gregarious, and often-hilarious ringleader of Reed alumni for the past 17 years, will depart the circus in June for a post at the American International School of Mozambique.
Stay tuned for details of a fitting sendoff at our forthcoming Reunions, slated for June 6–10. Meanwhile, please write a note for Mike at celebrating-mike.fromabirdie. com or alumni@reed.edu or call us at 503/777-7589.
march 2018 Reed Magazine
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Advocates of the Griffin News of the Alumni Association • Connecting Reed alumni across the globe
Letter from the Alumni Board President It is my honor to provide an update on the happenings of the alumni board of directors for the 2017–18 year. We have an amazing group of volunteers working on the board this year. They come with many creative ideas for broadening our reach throughout the alumni community and for fostering the board’s potential for relevance with issues affecting the Reed community. This year, we are embarking upon a major challenge. In January 2016, the past-presidents put forth a detailed proposal to the Reed College Alumni Association to encourage a close look at alumni board structure and operations. The proposal called for the board to reorganize in an effort to “streamline core board executive and directorship structure, increase opportunities for engagement, leadership and participation by non-Directors, and align functionality and support with College staff offices.” With their proposal came recommendations for changes affecting both directors and executive committee membership and roles. Responding to this call for change has been
one of the overarching goals for the alumni board over the course of the last two years. Beginning in 2016, a working group of alumni programs staff and executive committee members began reviewing past processes and protocols, defining what parts of the existing structure and operations were functioning well and which parts had become outdated. Following this extensive review, the executive committee met with college staff for an intensive working weekend resulting in initial thoughts for a proposal to shepherd the process of change that was so thoughtfully put forth by our past-presidents. This year’s board has made great strides in meeting the challenge proposed two years ago, focusing on greater alignment with the goals of the college. Although changes to the constitution and by-laws are forthcoming and will be presented for review by alumni in a later publication, we have already implemented two key structural changes. First, the board is now composed of committees that are expected to change and grow alongside the needs of the college. These committees
are chaired by board directors, each with a dedicated college support staff member, and are open to the larger alumni community for volunteers. Second, to efficiently move these committees toward their goals, board meetings will focus on problem-solving and brainstorming. The first of such meetings occurred in November with great success! For a list of current committees and membership, please see alumni.reed.edu/board_of_ alumni/#news. This year’s exciting committees include the committee for young alumni, the diversity and inclusion committee, the Reed Career Alliance committee, and the Chapters, each populated by a group of dedicated and excellent directors. Please reach out if you are interested in volunteering with us without the commitment of director expectations! This period of change would not be possible without the tireless efforts of the alumni programs staff. Together we are working to serve our alumni community more effectively and transparently. It is an honor to be a part of these efforts. With gratitude, Lisa Saldana ’94 President
Change Your Game with a Career Coach The Alumni Career Coach initiative connects Reed alumni with other Reed alumni to help develop their professional selves. Having a phone chat or sitting down with a fellow Reedie over coffee might be a surprisingly powerful encounter, whether you’re just starting out in your job search, making some midcareer moves, or thinking about a complete 180. Why connect? Let me tell you a story. I’m a practicing attorney in Portland, working to help people recover financial losses caused by investment advisors, trustees, or other fiduciaries. I graduated from law school in 2012, but I graduated from Reed over a decade earlier in 2001. I majored in art history and went straight to a PhD program, which I left after
10 Reed Magazine march 2018
a few years. Before deciding to practice law, I cooked in restaurants and booked events for an art gallery. . . Wanna hear more? Maybe some lessons learned along the way? Our volunteer coaches each have their own stories and desire to help their fellow alumni. We come from various professional backgrounds, graduation years, and experiences navigating career choices after Reed. We have one-on-one conversations with any interested Reedie, and try to help with just about any career-related inquiry. A conversation with a coach might help you: • Brush up on networking skills, like telling your career story (especially useful for those leaving academia or making a significant industry change).
• Brainstorm industries, resources, and contacts in the Reed community and beyond. • Find a new comrade in your ever-expanding professional network. The initiative is part of a larger mission to advance career support for all alumni, headed by the Reed Career Alliance (RCA) committee of the Reed alumni board and Reed alumni programs staff. These efforts are in tandem with the career assistance available to current students and recent graduates at the Center for Life Beyond Reed. We look forward to hearing your story and building our Reed professional communities. Connect with us! Email your inquiry to AlumniCoaches@reed.edu. —DARLENE PASIECZNY ’01
Diversity Committee In September, the alumni board approved a new diversity and inclusion committee in order to better foster connections with Reedies from historically underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds who may be un- or underengaged with the college. Chaired by Alea Adigweme ’06 and Melissa Osborne ’13, this committee is: • spearheading the 25th anniversary celebration of the MRC (see below). • collaborating with the Peer Mentor Program (PMP) alumni advisory board. • recruiting new committee members. • reconceptualizing what productive engagement means for these alumni. • developing initiatives to facilitate meaningful interactions with them.
Peer Mentor Advisory Board The Peer Mentor Program (PMP) alumni advisory board was formed in 2016 by 10 alumni who were engaged with the MRC and PMP as students. The board continues to make significant progress in supporting current students from historically underrepresented and marginalized backgrounds. For the second year in a row, the board collaborated with the office for inclusive community, the Center for Life Beyond Reed, and alumni programs to bring seven young alumni to campus to interact with students during Paideia. These alumni volunteer their time and share their experiences to help with the often-challenging transition from student to graduate to beyond Reed.
Celebrate MRC’s 25th Birthday Reed will celebrate the Multicultural Resource Center’s 25th anniversary with a multigenerational alumni panel and a gathering at Reunions on Friday, June 8. Reedies of all backgrounds are encouraged to join in honoring the MRC and learning more about the history of diverse experiences at Reed. The marking of this momentous occasion occurs with full recognition of both the current and historical complexities of racial climates on campus. The continued commitment to racial justice and equity is fueled by the work of those who believe in and have fought for the principles of the MRC. Stay tuned for more details!
Chicago Reedies volunteered at the Greater Chicago Food Depository in November.
Nominations for Alumni Board The nominating committee of the Alumni Board proposes the following nominees to serve terms beginning July 1, 2018: Alumni Trustee Nominee: Darlene Pasieczny ’01 President: Lisa Saldana ’94 Vice President: Jinyoung Park ’11 Secretary Nominee: Melissa Osborne ’13 At-Large Director Nominees: Dave Baxter ’87, Peter Mostow ’87, Molly Case ’12, Kelly Reed ’13, Emma Mclean-Riggs ’14 Find more details about the board at alumni.reed.edu
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Meet Your Alumni Board The alumni board (officially the Board of Directors of the Reed College Alumni Association) works in partnership with the college and is charged with the sacred duty of directing the association’s goals, programs, and services. Directors represent the alumni in the broader Reed community and are all volunteers. In earlier editions of Reed Magazine, we introduced you to the executive committee, the alumni trustees, and the chapter chairs. Comes now the pageantry of the at-large members.
Ben Rankin ’87 English | SEATTLE ben.rankin@columbiaopsco.com My field: Project development (theater, heavy industry, real estate) Campus spot: Dorm room fireplace in Kerr You should watch: Brazil Desired superpower: Rocket palms for leaping, forging, and grilling Actual superpower: Reaching things on high shelves without a ladder Comfort food: Roasted hazelnuts Pet peeve: Lane stealers Fave villain: Mr. Smallweed in BBC production of Bleak House - Oh my bones! Within arm’s reach: Unitek portable speaker
David Hardy ’71 History | NEW YORK dhardy@osler.com My field: Tax law Campus spot: The thesis tower. You should watch: Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends Desired superpower: The Elder Wand Actual superpower: Dictation Comfort food: Trail mix Pet peeve: Using “like” Fave villain: Snidely Whiplash from Dudley Doright Within arm’s reach: A picture of me delivering the sermon from Moby Dick at the Whaling Church in Martha’s Vineyard
Margaret Anderson ’05 Political Science/Russian | SILVER SPRINGS, MD anderson.margaret@gmail.com My field: International Development Campus spot: Third floor of the Hauser by the Slavic fiction. You should watch: The Wire Desired superpower: Time travel Actual superpower: Sleeping in airplanes Comfort food: Ramen noodles Pet peeve: People who flake Fave villain: Baba Yaga—Russian folklore Within arm’s reach: Sunglasses
alea adigweme ’06
Melissa Osborne ’13
Sebastian Pastore ’88
Russian Lit | IOWA CITY alea@alumni.reed.edu
Sociology | CHICAGO mosborne4812@gmail.com
Psychology | PORTLAND sebastian.pastore@gmail.com
My field: Artist-scholar Campus spot: Women’s restroom on the second floor of Eliot You should watch: Get Out Desired superpower: Omnilingualism Actual superpower: Discourse Comfort food: Rainbow cookies Pet peeve: Misogynoir Fave villain: Alice Morgan from Luther Within arm’s reach: LaCroix! Always!
My field: Academic Campus spot: The MRC and Student Activities Office You should watch: Mindhunter Desired superpower: Eidetic memory (such a nerd, right?) Actual superpower: Time management Comfort food: Cake. And then more cake. Pet peeve: The Patriarchy Fave villain: Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove (Why do we even have that lever?!?!) Within arm’s reach: 20-lb. cat named Durkheim
My field: Food and beverage manufacturing Campus spot: The student union You should watch: Curb Your Enthusiasm Desired superpower: Invisibility Actual superpower: Patience Comfort food: Ben and Jerry’s Pet peeve: Lack of precision Fave villain: Bill from Tarantino’s Kill Bill Within arm’s reach: My Sansevieria Zeylanica
Michael McGreevey ’03
Shimon Prohow ’02
Rebecca Ok ’09
Anthropology | OAKLAND mhmcgreevey@gmail.com
HistorY | ARLINGTON, VA prohow@alumni.reed.edu
Philosophy | PORTLAND rebecca.j.ok@gmail.com
My field: International conservation and development Campus spot: The secret corner of the canyon You should watch: Een Schitterend Ongeluk Desired superpower: X-ray vision into the president’s last 10 years of financial transactions. Actual superpower: I make pretty good pizza Comfort food: See above Pet peeve: Apathy Fave villain: I wish more nonfictional villains were fictional Within arm’s reach: Library shelves
My field: International public health Campus spot: Thesis tower You should watch: Bojack Horseman Desired superpower: Ability to conjure energy without coffee Actual superpower: Excel Comfort food: Burritos Pet peeve: Less vs fewer. (less sand, fewer ants) Fave villain: Mugatu from Zoolander Within arm’s reach: Plush doll of the giardia microbe (we have been friends for a long time)
Comfort food: Cheese plate Pet peeve: People who take themselves too seriously Fave villain: Emily Gilmore from Gilmore Girls Within arm’s reach: My cat
Darlene Pasieczny ’01 (Pah-shetch-nee)
Andrei Stephens ’08
Eira Long May ’08 English | PORTLAND eiralong@gmail.com My field: Lecture agent Campus spot: The Great Lawn in the sun You should watch: Jurassic Park Desired superpower: Flight Actual superpower: Parallel parking Comfort food: Mac and cheese Pet peeve: Anti-Stratfordians Fave villains: Humbert Humbert. Severus Snape. Within arm’s reach: A framed photo of all the Reedies at my wedding, including my husband, my brother, and my sister-in-law
Art History | PORTLAND DarleneP@SamuelsLaw.com
My field: Attorney— securities and fiduciary litigation Campus spot: The walk across the Great Lawn to Eliot Hall You should watch: 12 Angry Men (both 1957 Sidney Lumet and 2015 Amy Schumer) Desired superpower: Flying! Actual superpower: Suing fraudsters Comfort food: Mug of miso soup Pet peeve: Nothing seems to bother my pet Fave villain: Dark Helmet from Spaceballs Within arm’s reach: 10-foot fiddle-leaf fig!
My field: Law Campus spot: Das Pool Hall You should watch: Bob’s Burgers Desired superpower: Living well Actual superpower: TCOBing
Economics | DETROIT, MI andrei@integral.io My field: Software Campus spot: Pool hall You should watch: The Good Place Desired superpower: Telepathy Actual superpower: I get things really fast Comfort food: Vegetarian burrito Pet peeve: Whataboutism. We can deal with multiple things simultaneously. We don’t have to neglect an issue because something else is also important. Fave villain: Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. Within arm’s reach: Pen and paper. Sometimes you have to write stuff down to work through it.
march 2018 Reed Magazine 13
THE SCIENCE SPARK
Reed science majors inspire local gradeschoolers through outreach program BY ROMEL HERNANDEZ
“Are we going swimming?” Ms. Liao’s fourth- grade class from Grout Elementary traipse behind the Reed student team leading them down a rocky embankment to the Willamette River on a brisk, bright fall day. The 21 Grout students have come out to the river to conduct experiments under the watchful eyes of the Reedies. Their findings should help them decide whether to release the chinook salmon fry they have been raising in classroom tanks since the fish were tiny orange-red eggs. Their field trip marks the culmination of the fall term for Reed’s Science Outreach program. Launched more than 20 years ago, the program dispatches Reed students to deliver hands-on science lessons to public elementary and middle schools in Portland. “We try to get the kids to think like scientists,” says Jamie Lindner ’20, a biology major in her first year with the program. “We teach them about the scientific method—how even when they’re describing the color of something, they’re making a valid scientific observation.” She adds, “I don’t feel I’m that far from 4th grade. I relate to them, and they’re awesome.” The Science Outreach program brings science inspiration to some 500 students at seven schools every semester, most of them at schools with high numbers of lowincome children. At Grout, for example, more than 40% of students are considered economically disadvantaged. The children get to do science, but the experience can be just as meaningful for the Reedies. “This program has definitely diverted Reed students into teaching careers,” says Presence O’Neal, Reed’s outreach program manager and an experienced educator herself. “We’re able to give something to the community, and at the same time provide a wellthought-out service learning opportunity for undergraduates to share their knowledge and
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passion for science.” Like the salmon, the outreach program has grown considerably since it was spawned back in 1996 by Prof. Bob Kaplan [biology 1983–2015]. At first the program served as a way to fulfill community outreach requirements for science research grants. But Kaplan was a tireless advocate for the program, which is now directly funded by the college. Reed students run through a rigorous application process to be selected to work in the program. Last year the office reviewed 90 applicants for 20 spots. Once hired, the students undergo extensive training on curriculum, instructional techniques, and behavior management. First-year student Mayou Roffe ’21 is one of those Reedies inspired to consider a career in teaching after working in the program. She is part of a team assigned to Pioneer Special School, a public alternative school for students with serious emotional and social challenges. “These kids are brilliant, and with them not everything has to be perfect and precious and every edge doesn’t have to be straight,” says Roffe, adding she was previously “staunchly against” becoming a teacher, but now is open to the notion. “There’s just something about seeing a kid who is quiet and shy at first get that spark—almost like they’re coming to life.” • The outreach program’s curriculum, covering a cross-disciplinary array of subjects, is designed with faculty input and based on national academic standards. The fall unit, for example, focuses on salmon as students learn about life cycles and habitats while raising salmon in their classrooms. Other units cover topics in biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science. The theme that ties everything together is discovery. The lessons are built around interactive class activities and experiments. The goal is to make science fun, whether the students are mixing chemicals in test tubes or observing an earthquake simulator in action. Prof. Kara Cerveny [biology 2012–] has
been the program’s faculty advisor since 2014, when she was tapped by Kaplan before his retirement. A middle and high school teacher before earning her doctorate, she says the program meets a need in science education. In a world of “alternative facts,” she adds, scientists have a duty to educate the next generation. “Today’s elementary school teachers are expected to do a lot just teaching students how to read and write and build math skills, and science sometimes gets short shrift,” Cerveny says. “Young children are natural scientists, but along the way they come to think that science is about memorizing facts. What we are trying to do with the outreach program is harness their curiosity and inquisitiveness to get them excited about actually doing science.” A visitor to the program’s office can see
nicole hill
OPENING MINDS. Biology faculty administrative coordinator Kristy Gonyer ’10 talks to local gradeschoolers about the enduring mysteries of the fire-bellied toad.
evidence of that childish curiosity on the colored slips of paper, submitted by the students in their classroom question boxes, that decorate the hallway: How many eggs do salmon lay? Why is space black? Why are trees green? What was before the universe, and what was before the thing that was before the universe? “The kids’ questions can be very unexpected, and they ask them in ways that show the way they’re thinking,” says Mary Snook ’19, an environmental studies/biology major and the lead of the Grout team. “They ask very smart questions in ways college students would never ask.” Back at the Willamette River, the Grout students are getting excited. With the guidance of the Reed students, they have conducted tests on river conditions, determining that the water pH level (7) and temperature
(45˚) are suitably safe and cold for the salmon. They have carefully worked through the steps of the scientific method: making observations, asking questions, forming hypotheses, conducting experiments, analyzing the data, and developing conclusions. “The Reed students do a great job of exposing the kids to new ideas,” says their teacher, Karen Liao. “My greatest hope is that they see science as cool and see themselves as scientists.” Finally the moment the children have been working toward for several months has arrived. Presence O’Neal claps her hands to get everyone’s attention: “So do we release the salmon?” A girl in an elf hat raises her hand to speak. “I don’t want to. I want to keep them longer.” The class answers some more questions about riparian zones and the relationship
between water temperature and oxygenation before everyone agrees that, yes, this is the right time and place to release their salmon. Biology major Aurora Solla ’19 opens three plastic bags to release a couple hundred tiny, wriggling fry no more than a half centimeter in length. Solla explains that the biggest chinook on record measured 5 feet and more than 100 pounds, adding, “If we’re really lucky, some of these fish might get that big.” The children stand silently at the water’s edge, watching their fry bob in the gentle ebb and flow of the tide. Finally one of them calls out what many may be thinking: “Goodbye! We love you!” GET INVOLVED Find out more about Science Outreach at www.reed.edu/ biology/outreach.
march 2018 Reed Magazine 15
THE PHILOSOPHER OF SAWDUST
With chisel and hand plane, master craftsman Gary Rogowski ’72 joins woodwork and literature. BY LILY RAFF MCCAULOU
The bench plane is what drew gasps from the audience. Gary Rogowski ’72 held the tool in two hands—one on a stout knob at the front, the other on a near-vertical handle in the back—and swiped it across a piece of wood gripped tightly in a vise. The motion peeled off a thin curl of wood, exposing a surface so smooth it glistened under the fluorescent lights. A dozen hobbyist woodworkers had gathered around his workbench during a weeklong class last summer. They met in a Southeast Portland warehouse that he converted into a woodshop and woodworking school. Half the students had traveled from out of state to train with him. The group oohed and aahed as they passed around the shiny board and the scroll that had been detached from it. “No sanding at all?” one man muttered as he touched the board, then tilted it to admire its gleam. “Incredible.” Gary explained that the ideal wood shaving is two-thousandths of an inch thick— about half the thickness of a dollar bill. “It doesn’t depend on your technique so much as it depends on your ability to sharpen,” he added. “So if you want to make an analogy there, it’s the preparation that has to happen to lead to success.” Welcome to Gary’s workshop: where practical instruction on the use of the hand plane dovetails with literature and philosophy. Gary has become something of a legend in the woodworking community. His furniture has made its way into living rooms,
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galleries, festivals, and museums around the country. He has been a contributing editor of Fine Woodworking magazine for 14 years and has authored several books, including the bestselling Complete Illustrated Guide to Joinery and Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction, published by Linden Publishing in December. Gary grew up in the Chicago area and transferred to Reed in 1970 for two reasons. First, the small liberal arts school seemed the polar opposite of where he’d spent his first two college years, the massive University of Illinois. And second, it was as far away as he could get. In a Victorian literature class taught by iconoclastic Prof. Jim Webb [English 1965–71], he unwittingly dismissed his future career path. “Webb was very enigmatic and he wore mostly black and looked like a gaunt smoker, like a hipster, or I guess a prehipster. He was cool,” Gary said of the teacher who was nicknamed “Spider God.” Class was usually held in Prof. Webb’s home, where the walls were painted black and drapes hung to block out daylight. In a conversation about writers such as William Morris and John Ruskin, who were also skilled members of the era’s Arts and Crafts movement, Webb urged his students to use his porch to set up lathes and turn blocks of wood into bowls. He argued passionately in favor of the Victorian philosophy of melding literature and craft, mind and body. Gary scoffed. “I imagined myself as a thinker, a writer—not a bowl turner,” he said.
He majored in English literature and planned to earn a PhD. But upon graduating from Reed, he instead spent several years looking for work that was more immediately fulfilling. He worked at an auto mechanic’s shop. He worked construction jobs. He enjoyed working with his hands but found neither pursuit to be mentally challenging enough. One day, wandering in the overgrown backyard behind a house he was renting near Johnson Creek, he discovered two items that would redirect his life: an unusual type of
hand plane, called a transition plane, and a big hunk of wood that someone had partially sculpted. Looking back on this moment, he isn’t entirely sure what sparked his curiosity. The unexpectedness of suddenly finding evidence of an undertaking apparently abandoned midstream? The simplicity of the humble hand tool? Whatever the reason, the new interest took root. He sought out woodworking books. He accumulated tools and set up a bench in his basement, where he spent
hours teaching himself the craft through trial and error. Eventually, he began designing and selling furniture, at craft markets and by commission. In 1997, he founded the Northwest Woodworking School as a way to diversify his income. Portland was becoming more expensive and it was a struggle to sell enough custom furniture, which costs thousands of dollars for one meticulously designed and constructed piece, to stay financially comfortable. And he saw an opportunity for his school—something
between a finicky art school and crude vocational training. Two decades later, he laughs at the thought that launching and running a woodworking school would be less work than making furniture. But he embraces the challenge and satisfaction of teaching. A few years ago, he founded a nonprofit, Woodworking Ideas Northwest, to teach the craft to high school students. And his woodworking school now trains 300 aspiring woodworkers each year. One of them, Jamie Zartler ’88, first enrolled about seven years
march 2018 Reed Magazine 17
THE PHILOSOPHER OF SAWDUST ago to escape the stress of his job teaching high school and being in a leadership role with the teachers’ union. The night before his first woodworking class, Jamie felt anxiety bubbling inside him as he climbed into bed. Woodworking was a foreign undertaking, and “I like to do things well,” he said. To calm down, he reasoned with himself: “It’s not like he’s going to ask me to cut a dovetail on the first day,” he thought before drifting off. “On the first day, we finished the introductions and then Gary was like, ‘Okay, let’s cut a dovetail,’” Jamie said with a laugh. The goal of this exercise—Gary asks his students to begin each woodworking session with what he calls “The Five-Minute Dovetail”—is not to produce a precise joint. Rather, it’s a quick and crude warm-up exercise that helps a woodworker clear the head and focus on the bench. To Gary, the challenge of woodworking is as mental as it is physical. There’s the creative challenge of designing a piece of furniture—a step in the woodworking process that he addresses thoroughly in his instruction. Then there are all the little problem-solving challenges along the way—arranging the steps in the most logical and efficient order, selecting the proper tools for each cut, maximizing the strength and longevity of a finished piece. There are emotional demands, too—summoning patience when the current approach isn’t working and a project needs to be started over, or forgiveness when the chisel slips and splits a tenon that has already been painstakingly fitted to a particular mortise. “Before the third day of class I had an epiphany: being in my body and having concrete thoughts was really grounding and satisfying,” Jamie said. “My thoughts tend to specialize in the abstract and the academic. As a teacher and a union leader who was more of a specialist in concepts and protocols, to have a physical connection to the world through what I was doing was very different for me.” Gary is an intense, exacting mentor. He doesn’t hold back his strong opinions on everything from the design of a side table
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SPIDER GOD. Prof. Jim Webb [English 1965–71] urged students to explore the Victorian philosophy of melding literature and craft, mind and body.
to the flavor of one’s tea. He disparages cell phones, which he calls “a symbol of reliance.” After decades of penning how-to articles and books, Gary recently published his first memoir. Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction is an eclectic mix of anecdotes about woodworking and mountain climbing. He breaks into poetry. He meanders into lessons he learned from the life of jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. He lists an entire page of ways to say no to someone asking to borrow a cherished tool. The book reflects the philosophical exploration he encourages in his studio. At least once a year, he hosts a salon, in which artists and thinkers are invited to join a panel discussion on broad topics such as creativity or quality. The cover of Gary’s new book features praise from Nick Offerman, a woodworker, author, and actor known for playing self-reliant, antigovernment curmudgeon Ron Swanson on the NBC show Parks and Recreation. In his 2015 book, Gumption: Relighting the Torch of Freedom with America’s Gutsiest Troublemakers, Offerman credited Gary with teaching him the meaning of the word that titled his tome. (“A person with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things,” Gary told him. “He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness.”) Gary credits Reed with “teaching me how to think,” and said that although it took a long time to learn the lesson, Prof. Webb was right all those years ago when he urged
students to pick up tools and work with their hands. Gary’s studio sells T-shirts featuring a quote by Ruskin: “When we build, let us think that we build for ever.” Jamie Zartler absorbed that lesson; he recently switched from teaching social studies to teaching woodworking at Portland’s Grant High School. His overarching message to students is the same in both subjects: that a person who is educated and dedicated can “make the world the way they want it to be.” “When you make a piece of furniture you’ve got a concrete physical demonstration of your efficacy in the world,” he said. Webb died in 2001, a few years after Gary bumped into him at a Reed reunion. He recounts in his memoir how he found the former professor sitting on a blanket under a tree, “selling beads and things from his New Mexico hideaway where he raised goats and who knows what else, peyote probably…” Gary walked up and reintroduced himself. He wrote: “‘[W]hen you said you wanted to put lathes on the porch so we could turn bowls, I thought it was the most f—d up idea I had ever heard…’ I paused. He was quiet. He looked up at me. ‘I’m a woodworker now.’ He jumped up into the air off his blanket and held up his arms and yelled, ‘Education works!’” Lily Raff McCaulou is a freelance writer and author of Call of the Mild: Learning to Hunt My Own Dinner.”She lives in Bend.
GIVE A
KEEP THE
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Charitable Gift Annuity: a simple gift that benefits you and Reed Imagine giving Reed a mature apple tree: Reed continues to care for the tree and gives you a bushel of apples each harvest for your entire life. When you die, the tree and its fruit continue to nourish Reed. Whether you need apples or preserves, a charitable gift annuity could be good for you and good for Reed. Could you benefit from • a charitable deduction in this new tax environment; • reduced capital gains tax on highly appreciated stock; • immediate or deferred payments, guaranteed for life; • partially tax-free payments during your retirement years? If tax reform is raising questions for you, a charitable gift annuity may be your simple answer.
To learn more, contact Audrey Anderson | 503/517-7937 | giftplanning@reed.edu reed.edu/LifeIncomeGifts
Gift annuities are not available in some states.
Home Away from Home New dorm is designed to create a sense of belonging. BY RANDALL S. BARTON
20 Reed Magazine  march 2018
Dusk steals over the new dorm on a typical September evening in 2019. This rendering from the architectural firm ZGF shows how the west side of the building might look at sunset. It is populated with imaginary people—known in designer jargon as “render people”—to illustrate how students will hang out in the dorm. We have a feeling real Reed students will come up with some more creative ways.
march 2018 Reed Magazine 21
Home Away from Home
In March, Reed will break ground on the largest residence hall in its history, transforming the north end of campus. Costing approximately $27 million, the three-story, 60,000-square-foot building will be home to 180 students, and every square foot has been designed to create a sense of community and belonging. The new dorm will also fill a long-standing gap. With just 946 beds available for a student population of roughly 1,425, Reed currently provides on-campus housing for only 68% of its students. For many years, this was not a problem because students could easily find affordable housing within a mile of campus. In the past decade, however, local rents have escalated dramatically; Portland is now the 15th most expensive rental market in the nation. The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is now about $1,500 a month—assuming you can find a vacancy. In addition, enhanced cocurricular programs and resources continue to
attract more students. As a result, students are clamoring to live on campus. Currently Reed guarantees on-campus housing for all first-year students, but the housing shortage has forced the college to use a lottery system for the others. The new residence hall will boost Reed’s housing capacity to nearly 80% of the student body. With its completion by the fall of 2019, the college expects to be able to guarantee housing for both freshmen and sophomores, says Mike Brody, vice president for student services. “That will be a huge relief,” he says. “We heard from so many families when our wait list started to grow. Current freshmen were telling their parents, ‘I don’t know where I’m going to live my sophomore year, because I’m in this lottery and I don’t know if I’m going to get a space.’ Parents called saying, ‘They’ve never looked for a place to live before and Portland rents are crazy. What are they going to do?’”
A multipurpose area that can be used as a classroom is on the ground level, at right, in this view of the western face of the building. Behind it will a room for students’ bicycles.
22 Reed Magazine march 2018
Kitchens and Pinwheels
Like a giant triskelion, the new dorm will feature 3 wings radiating from a central hub. It will be located just north of the Canyon, next to the Grove dorms, which were built in 2008.
Rethinking the Assumptions In 2016, Brody and other college leaders began to explore ideas for building—and paying for—a new dorm. That fall, a committee of faculty, staff, and students held regular meetings to define the mission for the building. Reed sent requests for proposals to two local firms that had worked previously with the college, ZGF Architects and Opsis Architecture. “We didn’t want the architects to design the building before the program had been designed outlining our needs,” says Vice President & Treasurer Lorraine Arvin. “The proposals really involved the process for how the firms would work with us not only through the planning, but through the actual execution of design and construction.” The planning committee ultimately decided that the ideal location for the new hall is cross canyon, between the Grove and Naito/ Sullivan dorms. (This location will foster
community on the north end of campus, but unfortunately means displacing the basketball and tennis courts. College staff will continue to evaluate options, perhaps for an alternative location or a different recreational resource.) ZGF won the bid and began working with the committee. Student focus groups and input from house advisers helped shape ideas about the way spaces should look, how they might lead to more student engagement and, most importantly, to a greater sense of community. ZGF partner Braulio Baptista led members of the committee on virtual tours and field trips to other residence halls the firm had designed to establish a wish list: How many people do you want to live here? What size of room is acceptable? How many singles? How many doubles? Should there be kitchens?
Baptista’s design distributes the building’s mass into an innovative pinwheel, with three residential wings fanning off from the center. At the ground level, only two wings will ever be visible, which keeps the building from overpowering the surrounding environment. The concrete building will be faced with a multicolored brick in a rich blend of sterling gray with reddish tonal accents. Copper accents around windows are a nod to the adjacent Grove. Each wing contains three floors of rooms, housing 20 students per floor. The mix includes single rooms, traditional doubles, divided doubles, and a number of rooms specifically designed to be ADA accessible, including some with kitchenettes to accommodate students with severe food allergies. In addition, each floor includes a lounge for social gatherings and a kitchen. “In the student focus groups, one thing we heard most often was that they wanted kitchens,” says Amy Schuckman, assistant dean of students for residence life. “Having a kitchen for every 20 students will help promote community within each wing. We also included more study spaces, and niches where students can sit near a window and read. Larger study areas can be used for meetings or study groups.” A light-filled, two-story atrium on the ground floor will be furnished with soft chairs and comfy built-in benches with plenty of outlets, allowing residents to relax as they burrow into their laptops. A third-floor balcony and a large lounge with soft furnishings and a big-screen TV are venues for communal recreation, and students will share a large laundry on the first floor. The ground floor will also include a large classroom, something that faculty in particular were looking for. The classroom can be configured to accommodate classes breaking into discussion groups, or be used as a multipurpose room, with furniture stored on site. “After hours, the classroom can be used for things like tutoring,” Schuckman says. “Cross-canyon students perceive the DoJo as being very far away from where they live.
march 2018 Reed Magazine 23
Home Away from Home
In this rendering of the eastern face of the building (above), two residential wings fan out from the center atrium (pictured below).
We’re hoping to use both the classroom and the residence hall in general to lower the barriers for accessing academic support designed specifically for first- and secondyear students.” Outside the main entrance to the building, a tiered area will serve as a venue for outdoor classes, presentations, or concerts. Designed to meet LEED Platinum standards, the building will feature a highperformance envelope, lower-flow taps, energy-efficient appliances, and a design that reduces the urban heat effect. Reed is currently evaluating proposals to put solar panels on the roof. From the get-go, the committee favored pursuing a more modern aesthetic than the Gothic architecture used for campus structures through most of the 20 th century. “President Kroger cares a great deal about the environment in which people live and work,” Brody says. “He loves architecture and felt strongly that we needed, in the words of Braulio, ‘to expand the architectural vocabulary of the college.’” Another reason for the modern look was more practical. “If you take the scale of a building that can house 180 students and then add pointed Gothic roofs, it makes the building even more massive, and you can’t do solar panels,” Arvin explains. “Things like that helped inform the design. It comes back to defining the program for the building first.
24 Reed Magazine march 2018
What was most important to us? Designing optimal student communities and sustainability informed the design.” ZGF’s previous work on campus includes the chemistry building, Kaul Auditorium, the 1997 renovation of Commons, the Educational Technology Center, Cooley Art Gallery, both library additions (1989 and 2002), both cross-canyon bridges, Bragdon Hall, and the Grove.
Scaffolding for Success One feature of the new building may come as a surprise: it will offer more double rooms than most Reed dorms. The reason is simple. After studying reams of data, Brody has found compelling evidence linking graduation rates with where a student lives. “The data is correlational,” he says. “We can’t claim a direct causal relationship —but in a student’s sophomore year, living in a double room correlates with
a much better graduation rate than either living in a single room or off campus.” The graduation rate for students who live in a language house during their sophomore year is particularly striking—more than 90% graduate in four years, significantly higher than the rate of less than 70% for all students. (The six-year rate now stands at around 80%.) It may be that there is something about students who choose to live in a language house that predisposes them to higher graduation rates. Or it may be that they benefit from living with others who share interests, cook together, and form a distinct community with each other. Either way, the design and programs in the new residence hall will be designed to enhance student success. Another example of this guiding principle: the committee also spent a lot of time thinking about the ideal size for a residential community. “With a group of 20, you have the capacity to introduce students from diverse backgrounds, and we know that diversity of life experience, race, ethnicity, belief systems, and aspirations enriches the living and learning experience for everyone,” Brody says. “And you can also help students explore shared interests, to help foster community. It’s not a magic number, but it sort of works when we think about how we want to structure the environment as well as the peer and professional support. We really do want to create a sense of home for our students.” House advisers—mostly juniors and seniors—will continue to provide leadership in each pod of the new residence hall. “We don’t want to move away from that model,” Brody says, “But we want to enhance that model with peer mentor programs, peer health advisers, peer career advisers, and peer tutors. We have this army of students that we train and supervise who then go out and serve as capable and trusted resources for students.” Reed will finance the new residence hall the same way it has financed many buildings in the last 20 years, with tax-exempt bonds issued through the Oregon Facilities Authority. These bonds represent the college’s lowest cost of funds for financing, and are attractive to investors because profits are exempt from federal income taxes.
Reusing old concrete means eliminating the environmental costs associated with mining new concrete.
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The Housing Gap REED STUDENTS VS. DORM CAPACITY 1911—2020 Reed was originally designed as a residential college, but dorm capacity has always lagged behind enrollment. The high-water mark came in 1920 with the construction of Anna Mann, which brought capacity to 69%. As the college grew, this ratio dropped steadily; by 1939 it was down to 32%. The shortage eased during WWII, when students went off to fight in the war, but came back with a vengeance in the postwar years; in 1947 capacity was a mere 22%. A spate of construction in the 1950s and 60s gave Reed vital breathing room, but capacity remained below 50% until 1997 and the advent of Naito, Sullivan, and Bragdon Halls. The construction of the new dorm is projected to raise capacity from 66% today to 78% in 2019.
1000 1000
1500 1500
FOSTER-SCHOLZ, 1955
OLD DORM BLOCK, 1912
750 750
WOODSTOCK HOUSES, built 1920
ANNA MANN, 1920
Woodstock Houses*
500 500
Griffin, McKinley, Woodbridge
Coleman, Chittick, Ackerman, Sisson
Foster-Scholz
MacNaughton
250 250
Anna Mann
*T he Woodstock Houses were built in 1920 as faculty housing. They were converted to student housing in 1965 and today are known as the Language Houses.
Old Dorm Block
STUDENTS BEDS
1911 1911
1920 1920
26 Reed Magazine  march 2018
1930 1930
1940 1940
1950 1950
1960 1960
1500 1500
SULLIVAN, 1997
THE GROVE, 2008
1250 1250
New Dorm
CHITTICK, 1959
1000 1000 The Grove
Farm House Birchwood
750 750
Bragdon
Naito, Sullivan
Canyon House, Reed College Apartments
Garden House
500 500
250 250
1970 1970
1980 1980
1990 1990
2000 2000
2010 2010
2020 2020 march 2018  Reed Magazine 27
That Old Gang of Mine
Dorm life has long played an outsized role in building Reed’s community.
Roused and Doused
The dogs of war were turned loose in December and the fray immediately thickened to a heavy curd. Night became a time of hideous outcry and uproarious disturbance, and many deeds of violence difficult to recount found commission beneath its cover. Sponsors for the affair are the inhabitants of House F [Doyle] and House H [Winch], who began by pursuing each other’s detached members over the campus. Puddles, trenches, and dirt mounds furnished hazards for long-distance obstacle races... A sally followed a short term of quiet, the inhabitants of House H venturing forth with a great deal of assurance. Manfully standing by to repel boarders, the fire brigade in House F brought forth their three-inch “sally discourager” [a fire hose], and quenched an accumulation of ardor with a welldirected stream of Bull Run [water]. Homecomings were in some cases cheerless for beds in House H exposed to attack were reached via the roof and scattered to the winds. Plots and counterplots hatched in great secrecy await bringing forth, and elaborate schemes for defense and possibly for offense have been constructed. —From “Tong War Furnishes Excitement,” the Quest, Jan 13, 1913.
Old Dorm Bloc
1962-3 was the year that four of us (plus our “dorm daddy”) occupied the smallest dorm ever to grace the Old Dorm Block—Davis. We served as informal campus base to a substantial but shifting group of perhaps up to 40 students, many but not all of whom lived off campus. We proclaimed our form of internal governance to be an idiosyncracy, under the absolute rule of an Idiosyncrat (selected monthly by random draw). Davis was in later years deemed to be a Moral Hazard, and was eliminated… To my mind, collective living was one of the most appealing features of the college. I probably achieved far more personal growth due to my living circumstances and the interactions thus facilitated than I ever did from any aspect of the curriculum or the faculty. —JD Eveland ’64
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Cross-Canyon Crew
Living in Chittick as a freshman circa 1982 was the best possible way to start Reed. I would doubtless have spent time in the Canyon anyway, but the fact that I had to cross over it or around it in order to get to classes kept that swath of wet Oregon wilderness ever in my mind. My roommate (David Dahl ’86) and I, who came from very different backgrounds, became great friends in part due to our love of being in the woods. We convinced the powers that be to let us fulfill our P.E. requirements with independent tree climbing. We kept a log. The mid-century lines of the buildings and the open, climbable common rooms made for cool playgrounds. We chimneyed up the walls in the hallways so as to hang out near the ceiling. Every dorm had its own character, but for me, CrossCanyon was home. —Sean Wiley ’87
Good Chemistry
My freshman dorm was the surprisingly-swanky Bragdon “ski lodge” (circa 2000). One of the highlights from our hall came when our dorm mom ran away and got married to an international student from the next hall. They had just met that year and weren’t even dating at the time! They swapped their singles for a divided double and created an awesome bedroom/living room setup where we could hang out with “Bunny and Piggie” — their pet rabbit and guinea pig (who also featured prominently in our new dorm dad’s running whiteboard comic). Other favorite memories include watching an escalating series of experimental CO2-fueled explosions on the Bragdon lawn and participating in friends’ first forays into dorm-room brewing. Lessons learned: leave the windows open, even in January, and watch out not to accidentally double up on the sugar, or you might end up with your bottles exploding spectacularly, embedding glass in the ceiling. Thankfully, occupants were unscathed! — Slayde Dappen ’04
Reed College Hauser Library Special Collections and Archives
BREAKING BREAD. Students rub elbows in the Winch dining hall in 1913.
Sounds of Westport
There is so much to tell about my freshman year in Westport. It was noisy—I heard weary Reedies coming and going at all hours of the day, and I stayed up listening to classmates howl with laughter and perform freestyle rap during 40s nights. The dorm was, of course, old. The pipes made spooky, dragging sounds; every footstep and shuffle creaked and moaned. I made it my roommate’s reluctant duty to evict centipedes while I stood terrified on my bed (sorry, Mari). But things were never boring: there were repeated trash fires in the upstairs common room, which on three occasions forced me to leave the shower and stand outside wet in my bathrobe while we waited for the all-clear. I met some incredible people that year. I remember sitting in the common room in our pajamas taking turns reading our Hum books out loud just to get through them. My dormies and I have supported each other through countless triumphs and tragedies since graduating—standing at each other’s weddings, patiently reviewing résumés,
mourning the loss of loved ones, celebrating accolades, and most recently, welcoming the first baby of our little ragtag group into the world. It has been a wonderful journey, and it all started right there in Westport. —Carlie Stolz ’13
Foster Kids
I remember my freshman dorm (Foster 2, 1985) so vividly: the exposed brick wall, sweet Gary Carlson and his roommate, who always had tea and chocolate ready at 4 pm. The dorm advisers who seemed so grown up at 20. Surfer Jeff who papered his walls in black and loved Joy Division. The wild woman from Arizona who wore cut-off gloves and laughed in that whiskey voice. Her amazing roommate Miyuki. My dear brilliant roommate Sam, whose entire wardrobe smelled faintly of salmon hatchery for weeks. The phenomenal Rothrock and Po King roommate duo, the transfer student from Malaysia who gave me the sarong I wore all year, and the rest of the Foster 2 crew. —Dina Kempler ’89
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Reediana Books. Music. Film. Send us your work!
EDITED BY JOANNE HOSSACK ’82 Email joanne@reed.edu
Zen Odyssey: The Story of Sokei-An, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, and the Birth of Zen in America By Janica Anderson and Steven Zahavi Schwartz ’88 In 1956, five years after graduating from Reed, Gary Snyder ’51 boarded a freighter in San Francisco bound for Japan. With a scholarship in hand, he was on his way to work in Kyoto at the First Zen Institute of America, a small outpost of American scholars struggling to feed America’s surging interest in Zen by translating crucial Buddhist texts into English. For Snyder, who would one day himself become synonymous with Zen’s postwar transmission to the West, it was an opportunity to work with one of the early pivotal figures in that transmission, Ruth Fuller Sasaki. A wealthy Chicago socialite with a penchant for rigorous order, Ruth had first ventured to Japan in the early 1930s to practice with a teacher at a Zen monastery before discovering Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki teaching in a small apartment in New York City. A wandering Zen monk with an errant streak, Sokei-an had left monastic training to traverse
The Glamshack By Paul Cohen ’85
backdrop of family challenges, social taboos, war, racism, sexism, class systems, internment camps, and the politics of Zen credentialing. After forming a romantic bond in the late 1930s, the two established the First Zen Institute of America in New York, opening it the day before Pearl Harbor. Shortly thereafter, Sokei-an was interned by the federal government. Following his eventual release, he married Ruth, but then died of a heart attack within a year of the ceremony. Ruth subsequently moved to Japan, where she continued to break cultural taboos, becoming the first westerner and first woman to be ordained in a Rinzai Zen temple. She opened a branch of the First American Zen Institute of America in Kyoto, which soon became a crossroads for D.T. Suzuki, Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, and Alan Watts. Shortly before her death in 1967, Gary Snyder returned to Kyoto to interview Ruth for nine hours on tape. Fifty years later, those tapes have become the basis of this delightful book. —JOHN SHEEHY ’82
(7.13 Books, 2017)
If American publishing is a conversation at a house party, Paul Cohen ’85 has been hanging around the edges for quite some time, waiting for a chance to speak up, honing his voice, biding his time. Now, with his debut novel, The Glamshack, it’s time we listen: he’s got more to say than just “The keg’s tapped.” Paul majored in history at Reed and then studied at the esteemed Iowa Writers’ Workshop with luminaries like James Salter. He writes like he’s been inside that keg all this time, shaking himself up: his sentences burst, his words bubble, his syntax fizzes and pops. On the surface, The Glamshack tells the story of Henry, a beautiful, professionally limited pool house dweller who, with all the intensity of a spooked horse, falls in 30 Reed Magazine march 2018
the Pacific Northwest on foot, writing about America for Japanese newspapers and working odd jobs to pay his way. He eventually settled among the bohemians in Greenwich Village, blossoming as a poet, sculptor, exuberant raconteur, and eventually a transmitted Rinzai Zen master. Zen Odyssey weaves together the independent journeys of these two cultural iconoclasts in an engaging tale of East-meets-West, offering a well-researched and often lyrical account of their common desire to break through the veil, overcome their preconceptions, and step into a world of profound immediacy through the arduous Zen practice—an experience they then devoted their lives to sharing with others. Despite Zen’s sometimes paradoxical nature, Zen Odyssey wears its Buddhism lightly and accessibly, thanks in large part to the flesh-and-bones depiction it makes of Ruth and Sokei-an as they venture forth against a
(wisdom publications, 2018)
love with an alluring Her and worries over how to saddle the Love he feels certain they share. But the novel is less about his life and more about what goes on in his mind. And his mind is a lyrical vat of allegory, theme, and unbridled grandeur. There, we weave in and out of his sweaty liaison with Her, read along as he conflates his life with Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star, an account of Custer’s infamous last stand, and listen as he recounts a (literal? metaphorical?) childhood battle against a Demon in the Dark Woods. It’s heady stuff. But it avoids self-seriousness as much as it avoids the contemporary trappings of social realism. Says Henry, recounting his childhood brush in the Dark Woods:
I’m lost, lost in the woods but my stride is a lope, and I can feel my shoulders muscle every time my arms pump and I realize I’ve been running lost ever since I lost my mother’s smell and climbed out the window with my stitches and my desire and my fear and went into the woods searching for the madman and my breath is now piston-driven and I’m so tall my mind touches . . . madness.
The Glamshack was nominated by Little, Brown editor Josh Kendall for the Pushcart Press Editors’ Book Award—which is to say, Literary was there to chat, but Marketing was passed out drunk on the basement couch. Let’s not make this metaphor more than it is: Cohen has written a novel for those tired of chatting about the weather and thirsty to get drunk on prose. —JOEY RUBIN ’04
Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century Illustrated and edited by Robbin Légère Henderson ’63 (ILR Press, 2017) Matilda Rabinowitz (1887–1963) immigrated to the United States from Ukraine at the age of 13. Radicalized by her experience in sweatshops, she became an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World from 1912 to 1917 before choosing single motherhood in 1918. In Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman, Rabinowitz describes the ways in which she and her contemporaries rejected the intellectual and social restrictions imposed on women as they sought political and economic equality in the first half of the 20th century. IWW cofounder “Big Bill” Haywood once wrote, “A book could be written about Matilda,” but her memoir was intended as a private story for her grandchildren, Robbin among them. Robbin employed old family photographs and published images to develop the powerful black-and-white scratchboard drawings that illustrate her grandmother’s life in the Pale of Settlement, the journey to America, political awakening and work as an organizer for the IWW, a turbulent romance, and struggle to support herself and her child. Robbin has been a practicing artist for 30 years, and has also worked as executive director or curator of community art centers, presenting art to the public and negotiating the interaction of the individual artist with a widely diverse audience.
Metaphorical Stories in Discourse David Ritchie ’65 (Cambridge University Press, 2017)
When Hillary Clinton conceded in 2008 that she didn’t quite “shatter the glass ceiling,” and when Rick Perry in 2012 called Mitt Romney a “vulture capitalist,” they used abbreviated metaphorical stories. David’s textbook examines a wide range of metaphorical stories, beginning with literary genres such as allegories and fables, then focusing on metaphorical stories in ordinary conversations, political speeches,
editorial cartoons, and other communication. The book develops a theory of metaphorical stories and illustrates the theory by applying it to actual discourse. David is a professor of communication at Portland State, where he has taught since 1990.
Chasing Rhinos with The Swami (Volume 1) Shyamasundar Das ’65 (self-published, 2016) A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad changed the world. When he came to America from India in 1965, few Westerners knew the deep spiritual truths behind ancient Vedic culture and civilization. Within a decade most humans on the planet had heard the Hare Krishna mantra. Shyamasundar Das, who attended Reed in the body of Sam Speerstra, met the Swami in January 1967 in San Francisco and became one of his earliest disciples. In three volumes, Chasing Rhinos with the Swami describes in loving detail the seven years Shyamasundar spent at the side of the Perfect Person. Volume 1 follows the Swami and his followers from 1967 to 1970 as they bring Krishna Consciousness to the Western world, from the Haight-Ashbury hippie scene in San Francisco (where Allan Ginsberg and Jerry Garcia make appearances) to Swinging London (where they befriend the Beatles). The last page of the volume finds Shyamasundar off with a group of devotees to rejoin the Swami in India, where Volume 2 will begin.
The Owl on the Road to Medford: Stories of Birds, BlackTails, and a Broken Heart
and Literature by Women. Ann has abandoned a number of careers, among them zookeeper at the Oregon Zoo and publication manager in a health care information technology department. Currently she writes fiction (sometimes “awardwinning”) and has published a mystery series, the Iris Oakley “zoo-dunnits” from Poisoned Pen Press.
Handmade: Creative Focus in the Age of Distraction Gary Rogowski ’72 (Linden Publishing, 2017) In an era when there are countless competing claims on one’s attention, how does one find the internal focus to be creative? For Gary, a master furniture craftsman, the answer is in the act of creative work itself: the discipline of working with one’s hands to create unnecessarily beautiful things shapes the builder into a more complete human being. In the tradition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Shop Class as Soulcraft, Gary’s book is a profound meditation on the eternal value of manual work, creativity, human fallibility, and the stubborn pursuit of quality work. Part autobiography, part guide to creativity, and part guide to living, Handmade is a book for craftspeople, artists, and anyone who seeks clarity, purpose, and creativity in their work—and it’s the perfect antidote to a modern world that thinks human labor is obsolete. (See “The Philosopher of Sawdust” on page 16.)
(independently published, 2017)
Managing Applied Social Research: Tools, Strategies, and Insights
In this genre-blending novella, a small wildlife rehabilitation center in Oregon is the setting for seven connected short stories that reveal the ways human and animal needs conflict and intertwine. The narrator is passionate about the orphaned and injured wildlife under his care, but his own heart needs mending as well. Screech owls and fawns, a weasel and a friendly crow—all have lessons for the people they encounter. The title story received the Oregon Writers Colony 2014 first prize for short stories and was published in CALYX, A Journal of Art
Written by Laura and three other nationally known researchers, Managing Applied Social Research covers the systematic management of applied social research studies from “soup to nuts,” providing researchers with the tools and templates for improving the quality, ethical conduct, and usefulness of the final products. The authors merge expertise in project management with their decades of experience in using established research methodologies and practices, offering readers practical examples and insights gleaned from major research houses such as Rand, the Urban Institute, Mathematica, and the American Institutes for Research.
Ann Littlewood ’68
Coauthored by Laura Leviton ’73 (Wiley, 2017)
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Reediana Generalizing about Public Health Interventions: A Mixed-Methods Approach to External Validity
American Nuremberg: The U.S. Officials Who Should Stand Trial for Post-9/11 War Crimes
Tools for Applying Medical Knowledge
Laura Leviton ’73 (2017)
Rebecca Gordon ’75 (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016)
Public health researchers and practitioners are calling for greater focus on external validity, the ability to generalize findings of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) beyond the limited number of studies testing effectiveness. For public health, the goal is applicability: to translate, disseminate, and implement EBIs for an impact on population health. Laura’s article in Annual Review of Public Health (volume 38, pp. 271–291) is a review of methods and how they might be combined to better assess external validity.
The United States helped establish the international principles guiding the prosecution of war crimes, starting with the Nuremberg tribunal following World War II, when Nazi officials were held accountable for their crimes against humanity. Yet the American government and legal system have consistently refused to apply these same principles to American officials, particularly with regard to the extreme and controversial measures—torture, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations, secret detention centers (or “black sites”), massive surveillance of citizens—that the U.S. government has taken in the name of national security since 9/11. While the press or Congressional investigators occasionally draw attention to the human rights abuses committed by U.S. intelligence agencies and armed forces, no high U.S. official has been prosecuted for these violations—which many legal observers around the world consider war crimes. After describing the original Nuremberg trials, Rebecca’s book details the crimes committed and the international laws violated by these U.S. officials, making the case for an “American Nuremberg” at which they will be held to account.
Kjell’s chapter in Clinical Approaches to Hospital Medicine discusses philosophy and how it applies to everyday clinical situations. Along with a review of the main modalities of medical knowledge and the philosophy of science that undergirds them, the chapter addresses the existential moment of hospitalization and highlights the ethical issues surrounding providing care.
Trademark and Unfair Competition Law: Cases and Materials Coauthored by Jessica Litman ’74 (Carolina Academic Press, 2017)
The sixth edition of this leading casebook covers recent developments, such as the controversy over registration of disparaging marks (the Slants and Redskins litigations), expressive uses of trademarks, protection of famous foreign trademarks, and trademarks on the internet. The “Dilution” chapter has been substantially reorganized. Provocative questions and problems are provided throughout the chapters to stimulate classroom discussion.
Digital Copyright Jessica Litman ’74 (Maize Books, 2017) Digital Copyright was originally published in 2000, two years after enactment of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Jessica writes in the Author’s Note that “although this book is ancient in Internet time, people seem to have continued to read it.” After the book went out of print, Jessica reclaimed the rights to it and has made it freely available online at maizebooks. org under a Creative Commons license (a print copy may be purchased through Amazon). Along with Jessica’s original examination of modern copyright laws and their implications for consumers, the new edition includes a 2006 afterword that addresses peer-to-peer file sharing and a 2017 postscript looking at what, if anything, we might have learned in the 19 years since enactment of the DMCA.
Get on an Ice Floe Simon Glickman ’86 (Ice Floe Recordings, 2017) The EP by Simon’s band, the Ex Teens, is available on Spotify, Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon, and other digital-service providers. The songs (influenced by the likes of David Bowie, Elvis Costello, X, and Graham Parker) include “Empire in Decline,” which likens a romantic collapse to the fall of kings; “Sunday Band,” about the rigors—and joys—of making noise at a certain age; “Shy People Need Alcohol,” an anthem for wallflowers; and “The New Victorians,” which turns a jaundiced eye on the present kleptocracy. The band plays semiregularly in LA and can be found at facebook.com/TheExTeens.
Kjell Benson ’91 (Springer 2017)
3D Printing and Its Environmental Implications Jeremy Faludi ’95 (OECD 2017) Jeremy’s chapter in The Next Production Revolution: Implications for Governments and Business, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is about how to make 3D printing greener. The chapter examines the potential environmental sustainability implications of 3D printing as it replaces other manufacturing technologies, and lists top priorities for policy interventions to improve sustainability.
Ghazal Cosmopolitan: The Culture & Craft of the Ghazal Shadab Zeest Hashmi ’95 (Jacar Press 2017) The Middle Eastern poetic form known as the ghazal may be unfamiliar to Western readers, but it is “cosmopolitan” in the sense of “being free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.” In this brief yet thorough book, Shadab elucidates the form, background, and purposes of the ghazal (and the earlier poetic form it grew out of, the qasida) with, in the words of poet Marilyn Hacker, “a marvelous interweaving of poetry, scholarship, literary criticism, and memoir.” The book includes many of Shadab’s own ghazals and qasidas, as well as some from other authors. Shadab is the recipient of the San Diego Book Award, the Nazim Hikmet Prize, and multiple Pushcart nominations. Her previous works include Kohl and Chalk, Baker of Tarifa, and numerous poetry and prose journal publications; she was profiled in the June 2013 issue of Reed Magazine.
Between the Bullet and the Lie: Essays on Orwell Kristian Williams ’96 (AK Press, 2017) Old debates about democracy vs. socialism vs. fascism are back. Missing from today’s versions are the voices of moral clarity, those that challenge us to be our best selves in difficult times. Kristian has mined
32 Reed Magazine march 2018
the intellect of a man who, 67 years after his death, still has much to offer readers. Between the Bullet and the Lie highlights the relationship George Orwell saw between aesthetics, ethics, and politics; the difference between honesty and integrity; the corruption of language; the importance of observation and evidence; and the many failures of the Left. The result is not a study of sacred decrees from Orwell, but an application of his thought to political and literary questions that trouble us today.
Global and World Art in the Practice of the University Museum Coedited by Jane Chin Davidson ’01 (Routledge, 2017)
This book provides new thinking on exhibitions of global art and world art in relation to university museums. Taking the Fowler Museum at UCLA as its central subject, it traces how university museum practices have expanded the understanding of the “art object” in recent years. It argues that the meaning of cultural objects infused with the heritage and identity of “global culture” has been developed substantially through the innovative approaches of university scholars, museum curators, and administrators. Through exploring the ways in which universities and their museums have overseen changes in the global context for art, the book initiates a larger dialogue and inquiry into the value and contribution of the empirical model. Jane is associate professor and curator of contemporary art, art history, and Asian art at California State University, San Bernardino.
Teaching U.S. History Thematically: Document-Based Lessons for the Secondary Classroom Rosalie Metro ’01 (Teachers College Press, 2017) Teaching U.S. History Thematically offers teachers tools for an innovative approach to teaching history that develops literacy and higher-order thinking skills, connects the past to students’ lives today, and meets Common Core State Standards. Over 60 primary sources are organized into seven thematic units, each structured around an essential question from U.S. history, such as “What Is American
Democracy, and What Should It Be?” and “What Do We Mean When We Say ‘We’?” As students analyze carefully excerpted documents, speeches by presidents and protesters, Supreme Court cases, and political cartoons, they build an understanding of how diverse historical figures have approached key issues; they also learn to participate in civic debates and develop their own views on what it means to be a 21st-century American.
Have Fun in Burma Rosalie Metro ’01 (Northern Illinois University Press, 2018)
Adela wants to “do something” with her life—starting with the summer between high school and college. After having a seemingly prescient dream and befriending a Burmese refugee who works in the sushi bar at her prep school, she decides to spend this time volunteering in Burma. Assigned to a Buddhist monastery, she teaches English to monks, survives “not the bad kind” of dysentery, and completes a several-day silent meditation retreat. She tries to understand Burma, both through talking with the monastery’s residents—including Thiha, a former political prisoner who becomes her secret lover—and through reading books and online news. And she records her experiences and insights in her blog. But Adela becomes increasingly troubled by the violence against Burma’s Muslim minority and by some of her students’ support of the violence— and she takes what what she believes will be a simple, positive action . . . The novel, though not autobiographical, is grounded in Rosalie’s years of research in Burma and weaves critiques of “voluntourism” and humanitarian intervention into Adela’s quest for connection across cultural boundaries.
Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore Elizabeth Rush ’06 (Milkweed Editions, 2018) Harvey. Maria. Irma. Sandy. Katrina. We live in a time of unprecedented hurricanes and catastrophic weather events, a time when it is increasingly clear that climate change is neither imagined nor distant—and that rising seas are transforming the
coastline of the United States in irrevocable ways. Rising guides readers through some of the places where this change has been most dramatic, from the Gulf Coast to Miami and from New York City to the Bay Area. For many of the plants, animals, and humans in these places, the options are stark: retreat or perish in place. Weaving firsthand accounts from those facing this choice—a Staten Islander who lost her father during Sandy, the remaining holdouts of a Native American community on a drowning Isle de Jean Charles, a neighborhood in Pensacola settled by escaped slaves hundreds of years ago—with profiles of wildlife biologists, activists, and other members of the communities both currently at risk and already displaced, Rising privileges the voices of those usually kept at the margins.
Noah the Narwhal: A Tale of Downs and Ups Illustrated by Sarah Gould ’09 (Dancing Mantis Press, 2017)
In their debut picture book, Sarah and author Judith Klausner follow the ups and downs of a week in the life of Noah the Narwhal, a friendly undersea mammal who deals with chronic migraines and the uncertainties this condition brings. Noah has good days, when he is productive and social, and pain days, when he needs to rest. His friends and family can find it difficult to handle the unpredictability, but in the end, they realize that having Noah in their lives is absolutely worth it! Readers note that Noah offers both a way of understanding invisible disabilities and a warm story of friendship (and that the illustrations are delightful). (See Class Notes.)
The Museum of Us Tara Wilson Redd ’09 (Random House/Wendy Lamb Books, 2018)
Sadie loves her rocker boyfriend Henry and her running partner and best friend Lucie, but no one can measure up to her truest love and hero, the dazzling and passionate George. George, her secret. When something goes wrong and Sadie is taken to the hospital calling out for George, her hidden life may be exposed. Now she must confront the truth of the past, and protect a world she is terrified to lose. Tara was known at Reed as Tara Barnett; this is her first published novel.
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In Memoriam Dean Rutz
The Fish Missionary Jon Rowley ’69
October 3, 2017, in Vashon Island, Washington, from kidney failure.
Jon Rowley’s governing passion was a matter of taste. He awakened America’s gastronomical pleasures by championing fresh presentations of Copper River salmon and Puget Sound oysters. Though he was never a household name, his insights were celebrated by fishermen, growers, food purveyors, and writers. Saveur magazine deemed him “The Disciple of Flavor.” Julia Child called him “The Fish Missionary.” (For his wedding, she sent him a bunch of perfect bananas.) Another writer described Jon as a food astronaut who went where no one had gone before in a quest to make the commonplace extraordinary. Born in Astoria, Oregon, Jon was raised in Valdez, Alaska, and Warrenton, Oregon. He possessed an epicurean sense of taste—even as a child he could detect notes of briar in his grandmother’s fresh-picked berry juice. His parents were both alcoholic, and to escape the boozy dramas of the family home, as a boy Jon began taking long walks and camping next to the ocean. He would take along a skillet and some butter, salt, and pepper, and forage in the jetties and tide pools to make meals of the fruits de mer (fruits of the sea). Enchanted by Mark Twain’s accounts of Huck Finn’s Mississippi River adventures, he dreamed of being a fisherman and drank in the stories of the fishermen that populated the docks near his home. Through his high school years, he made money working as a deckhand aboard Columbia River charter boats and with a fish-cleaning concession on the docks, gutting fish for a quarter apiece. After high school, he headed to Europe and began assimilating the names of French oysters and the numbering system by which they’re sized. He traveled through Europe to see how their fisheries worked and then, and after spending time in New England fishing communities, he started at Reed. By then a confirmed Francophile, he majored in French for his three years on campus. Prof. Samuel Danon [French 1962–2000] remembered that Jon sought and saw perfection in all things. Years after their time together at Reed, Jon called him from Seattle to say he had bought a boat. “What kind of a boat?” Danon asked, and Jon answered, “It’s a fishing boat, made out of
wood, of course. Who could love a boat made of plastic?” In the late ’60s, Jon visited Paris, and Prof. Danon treated him to lunch at Le Dôme, a restaurant renowned for fish and seafood. Jon maintained that his interest in and appreciation of oysters started on that day. “When you saw Jon hold a piece of fruit, with so much respect and admiration, you had the impression that he was holding the Holy Grail,” Danon said. “He was a most kind and faithful friend, and professionally, as a pioneer, full of respect for the gifts of earth and sea.” After dropping out of Reed, Jon bought a small troller boat and headed to Alaska, where for 10 years he fished, taking winters off to travel through Europe. He was consumed by why food in Europe tasted so much better than the food back in the United States. He returned to Seattle in 1979 with a mission: using everything he had learned to purvey quality seafood. If one individual is responsible for the reputation of Copper River king as the ne plus ultra of salmon, it is Jon. But prior to his reinvention of it in the early ’80s, few had ever tasted other than the canned variety. After fishing for two or three days, fishermen would offload their catch to tenders, who took it to coastal canneries. Jon met some fishermen from Alaska’s Copper River at the 1983 Fish Expo and convinced them to properly handle the fish on the boat—bleeding, cleaning, and icing the fish in its pristine state.
Jon had 300 pounds of Copper River king, harvested as he had suggested, flown to Seattle and sold them to restaurants he had schmoozed. Customers couldn’t get enough. For his next act, he took on Olympia oysters, the only oyster native to the Pacific Northwest. Like Copper River salmon, for years Olympia oysters had all ended up in jars, but Jon proved that they were a delicacy on the half shell. He served up more than 1,200 fresh Washington oysters for Reed’s 2006 reunion, and shucked dozens of Totten Inlet oysters for the 2012 Working Weekend. In addition to the line-caught fish, Jon began selling crab, abalone, and prawns directly to restaurants. But the lag between paying the fishermen in cash and receiving payment from the restaurants sank the venture. Retooling, he became a consultant. In addition to being a James Beard Award winner, he received Food Arts Silver Spoon Award and Seattle Weekly’s Angelo Pellegrini Award. In a profile for Pacific NW, the Seattle Times’ Sunday magazine, Peter Lewis wrote: “You’re eating better fish because of Rowley, plumper oysters, riper fruit. And beyond the quality of foodstuffs, coastal estuaries, particularly in the Northwest, are cleaner as a result of his efforts.” Jon is survived by his daughters, Megan and Caitlin; his brother, Gary Raymond; and admirers who will think of him every time they slurp an oyster. march 2018 Reed Magazine 39
In Memoriam
The Spirit of Reed
Go West, Jung Man
READ about classmates and professors who have died at www.reed. edu/reed-magazine/in-memoriam.
Thomas B. Kirsch ’57
October 22, 2017, in Palo Alto, California.
When Tom was born, his parents, the renowned analysts Hilde and James Kirsch, received a congratulatory note from Carl Jung. It was a prophetic omen, for Tom went on to become a prominent exponent of Jungian psychology. When Tom was four years old, the Kirsch family moved from London to Los Angeles, where his parents became founding members of the C.G. Jung Institute. As a child, he witnessed the comings and goings of moviestar patients and analysts. Both parents were German Jews, and Tom inherited from them not only the Jungian tradition of psychoanalysis, but also the complicated history of Jung and the Jewish people. With great integrity, he carried the burden of being an interpreter of that history to Jungians and Freudians throughout his life. He joked that he was born into “the family business” and in fact, he did work as a Jungian analyst all of his adult life, as a bridge between the first generation of Jungians and those who followed. Tom’s parents immersed him in a rich cultural history, but he developed his own connection to being an American. He loved sports and was a devoted fan of the San Francisco Giants, an avid tennis player (at Reed he played tennis with President Duncan Ballantine [1952–54]), and he loved to swim. When it came time to consider a college, Tom was accepted to Harvard, but felt it was too far away. He was torn between Berkeley and Reed,
Rolla Vollstedt ’40
October 22, 2017, in Portland, Oregon.
Rolla Vollstedt, widely considered one of the most influential race car designers of the 20th century, died in Portland at the age of 99. He pioneered the concept of putting the engine in the rear of the car—now a standard design element—and helped develop aerodynamic wings used to improve traction on open-wheeled cars. He also made history by hiring the first woman racing driver to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Rolla later said that having Janet Guthrie drive his car was probably the high point of his career. Rolla was born in Hutton, Alberta, Canada, and moved with his family to Portland. He graduated from Benson High School and started at Reed, intending to become a doctor. “Reed and my experiences there will always have a high spot in my life and mind,” he said. He attended 40 Reed Magazine march 2018
EDITED BY RANDALL S. BARTON
and his mother consulted the I Ching to help him make the choice. He started at Reed when he was 17 years old, and initially had difficulty adjusting to the academics. Tom constantly checked his standing in the class because he wanted to be a doctor and at the time there was a quota for Jews accepted into medical school. But by the time he was a sophomore, the quota was lifted and he could relax. He majored in chemistry and wrote his thesis with Prof. Marsh Cronyn ’40 [chemistry 1952–89]. He always credited Reed, and especially the thesis, for giving him the skills and discipline for long-term writing projects. After Reed, he went on to Yale Medical School and then took a psychiatric residency at Stanford, where he earned an MD in psychiatry. Along the way, he was warned that pursuing training as a Jungian analyst would be a kind of professional suicide, as the Jungian tradition was then small and poorly understood. But that did not stop him from completing his training at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in 1968. Tom joined the executive committee of
the International Association of Analytical Psychology, serving as its president from 1989 to 1995. While at IAAP, he furthered the development of a consistent attention to professional ethics, including the formulation of a code of ethics. He traveled the world tirelessly as an elder statesman of analytical psychology, which flourished under his leadership with the formation and development of Jungian organizations in Taiwan, China, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Russia, and elsewhere. He maintained an active clinical practice, which was the foundation of his professional life. In addition to writing many articles on dreams, Jung, and the analytic process, Tom wrote several books, including The Jungians, a history of the worldwide development of the Jungian tradition, and his intimate autobiography, A Jungian Life. He is survived by his wife, Dr. Jean Kirsch, who is also a Jungian analyst; a sister, Ruth Kirsch Walsh; his son, David; and his daughter, Susannah Kirsch-Kutz.
Joe Young / Indianapolis News
Hell on Wheels
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Reed for three years while working for the Frank Costanzo Speed Shop, honing his skills with hot rods and performance cars. With America’s entry into World War II, he was drafted into the army. As an infantry staff sergeant and squad leader, he took part in the D-Day assault on Omaha Beach in Normandy on June 6, 1944. His division went through France to Germany, and on two separate occasions in one month he was wounded; he was awarded two Purple Hearts. After the war, he joined the coast guard and worked in the lumber industry. Rolla’s interest in cars led him to begin racing hot rods on the old Portland Speedway oval track in North Portland. His legendary career as a race car designer began in 1948, when he used the shell of a 1925 Ford roadster and bored out the cylinder block to make room for aluminum heads, a custom manifold, and a converted ignition from a Lincoln Zephyr. He won the Pacific Northwest championship that year and the next. He began building cars and teamed with local driver Len Sutton to build a reputation as the region’s top race car designer. From 1947 to 1955, the two teamed up to dominate the roadster and sprint-car circuits in the Pacific Northwest. “We made some great cars, and I’m really proud of the work that we did,” Rolla said. In 1963, defying decades of dominance by front-engine cars, he built a car with an Offenhauser engine mounted behind the driver. Critics scoffed—until Rolla’s car clocked 152 mph. His car did not win the Indy 500, but it proved that the concept was sound. The rear engine is now a standard Formula I design element. In 1977, Rolla called Janet Guthrie, an aerospace engineer turned racing driver who was building her own engines, to ask if she would test a car he had designed for the Indy 500. “I had no house, only a used-up race car, no money, no jewelry, no husband,” she said. “Then the phone rings and a man I had never heard of asks me if I want to take a test in an Indy car.” Considered a distraction, women weren’t even allowed in the Indy garage area until 1971. “Racing needed a woman at Indy,” Rolla said, “and I needed a driver. That’s one of the reasons I went after a woman who would call attention to the team.” Together, they made history. Passionate, articulate, and outspoken, he was a high-profile member of the board of directors for the United States Auto Club, the sanctioning body for the Indianapolis 500 race, and aficionados came from around the globe to ogle the engines he was putting together in his garage. Rolla won many awards participating in the Indianapolis 500 races, and as he once said, “I probably am the only exReed student to be inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame.” Rolla’s wife of 66 years, Irene, died in 2010. He is survived by his sons, Kurt and Bruce.
Alberta Vaillancourt Ruecker ’38
Frank D. Vincent ’43
When Alberta was 13, her family moved from Roanoke, Virginia, to Portland. She graduated from Grant High School, attended Saint Helen’s Hall Junior College (now Oregon Episcopal School), and then attended Reed for one year. In 1942, she married Leonard Ruecker and the couple made their home in Seattle until moving to Aberdeen in 1955. They bought the Marshall Wells store, which later became Coast to Coast– Sunset Hardware & Appliance. Alberta taught Sunday school at the Calvary Lutheran Church, where she directed many Christmas programs and served as directress of the Altar Guild. She is survived by her son, Robert Ruecker, and daughter, Beverly Wick.
Born in Portland, Frank learned to work hard and share with others during the Great Depression. After graduating from Lincoln High School, he started at Reed, where he was junior class president, competed on the varsity crew team, and graduated with a BA in psychology. During World War II, he was a lieutenant in the naval reserve, serving as captain of an air-sea rescue vessel. After hostilities ended, he was the navy’s officer in charge of the secret and confidential mail room in the Pentagon. Frank moved to Sacramento after the war and married Marilyn McDufee, who died in 1998. They had two sons, Stephen and Roger. A gifted businessman, Frank worked for California Western Life prior to founding an employee benefit consultant and brokerage firm. He also worked as president of Vincent Boies, as vice president and benefits advisor with Jenkins Athens Insurance, and as president of both the Sacramento Children’s Home and the Washington Neighborhood Center. In 1999, he married Carla Goodman. Throughout his life, he asked himself each day how he could contribute to others, and was generous with his time. He volunteered for Reed’s National Advisory Council, the Sacramento Children’s Home, the Washington Neighborhood Center, the Rotary Club, and the UC Davis Mini Medical School. He is survived by his wife, Carla; his sons, Stephen and Roger; and his sister, Beatrice Dick ’46.
August 6, 2006, in Aberdeen, Washington.
Hope Duveneck Williams ’38
August 17, 2017, in Monterey, California.
Hope was one of four Duveneck siblings, known as the Big Four, who regaled family and friends with tales of their adventures and antics, and purchased an old fishing cabin at Fallen Leaf Lake in California. In 1924, their parents purchased Hidden Villa Ranch in Los Altos Hills, California, and developed it into a youth hostel and summer camp with the mission of land preservation, social justice, and environmental education. After graduating from Palo Alto High School, Hope attended Bennington College and Reed before completing graduate studies at UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California with a degree in occupational therapy. Hope had a special gift for engaging with youth with disabilities and worked as an occupational therapist for the army during World War II and then for the Cerebral Palsy Foundation. She was a talented potter, and her sense of humor imbued the flying pigs and other creations she sold at Peninsula Potters in Pacific Grove, California, of which she was a charter member. Hope married Dr. Russell Williams, and during their long life together they hosted friends, family, artists, and writers who needed a place to stay in California. She was a charter member of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and contributed generously to sustaining Hidden Villa Ranch. In an act of profound generosity, the Duveneck children gave up their considerable land inheritance when their parents passed away and donated it to the nonprofit trust that their parents had established in 1960 to carry on Hidden Villa’s ambitious mission. Eventually, Hidden Villa encompassed 2,500 acres, 900 of which were later donated to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, leaving 1,600 acres under a nonprofit trust to support the environmental and educational retreat in perpetuity. Hope supported organizations focused on the environment, nonviolence, women’s rights, and social justice. The last of the four siblings, she is survived by her three stepchildren and her beloved dog, Clairie.
July 22, 2017, in Carmichael, California.
George Knipe ’44
November 10, 2017, in Fruitland, Idaho.
Born in Boise, George was raised in Sweet and Nampa, Idaho. He graduated from Nampa High School and started at the College of Idaho in the fall of 1942. After enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, he attended Reed, studied math and physics for the military, and then transferred to the field of communications. At Yale, he attended military-sponsored courses in communications equipment and became a commissioned second lieutenant. He went on to attend Harvard/MIT Radar School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study electronics, and graduated as an electronics officer. In 1945, he completed a military course in advanced airborne radar sets and became a radar maintenance and repair officer. After being discharged, he returned to the College of Idaho and completed a bachelor’s degree in math. During the Korean War, he entered the U.S. Air Force as a communications officer and march 2018 Reed Magazine 41
In Memoriam taught air force officers the theory and operations of radio transmitters, receivers, and antennas. When his air force career ended in 1953, he went to work at Consolidated Electrodynamics Corporation, a subsidiary of Bell & Howell. In 1965, he moved back to Nampa to help tend the family farm, raising beef cattle until he retired in 1998. He moved to Parma, Idaho, to be with his sister, Margaret Gough. Both he and his sister entered Edgewood Spring Creek, where they lived out the final months of their lives. George was an amateur radio enthusiast and a member of the American Radio Relay League. He spent 30 years devising new circuit arrangements, mostly applicable to high frequency radio communications, and building them to see if they worked as expected. “One might conclude that I lived the life of the idle rich,” he once said, “not because I had great financial resources, but rather that I had a considerable quantity of time to devote to activities that were of great interest to me. I didn’t plan life to be this way; it just happened, I suppose subtly directed by subconscious propensities.” George is survived by his sister, Myrna Tarleton.
Virginia Johnson Havel ’47 July 28, 2017, in San Rafael, California.
Born with a love for the outdoors, Gini was an early proponent of land preservation efforts in Mar in County, California. She met the love of her life at Reed, and became an educator, artist, and mother to four children. She was born in Portland, where her father was a medical doctor and taught at the University of Oregon. Her mother maintained their home in the scenic neighborhood of Council Crest in the hills above the city. Her father introduced her to tennis at an early age; Gini played the sport into her 80s and was a fierce competitor on the tennis court. While studying biology at Reed, Gini completed a project on why crayfish blood is blue and spent a year in Mexico studying Spanish and art. She wrote her thesis, “A Study of the Specific Action of Adrenalin and of the Role of the Sinus Gland in the Production of Hyperglycemia in the Crayfish,” with Prof. Lewis Kleinholz [biology 1946–80] advising. While at Reed, Gini met Dick Havel ’46 at a local pool. The friend who was supposed to give them a ride home left them behind and Dick walked Gini home. It was love at first sight. 42 Reed Magazine march 2018
They married in 1945, and after Reed pursued graduate degrees. Dick earned a medical degree and a master’s in chemistry from the University of Oregon, and Gini earned a master’s in physiology from the University of Portland. They moved to New York so Dick could complete his residency at Cornell University’s medical center. In New York, Gini gave birth to her first sons, Chris and Tim. The family moved to California in 1956. Dick joined the faculty at the University of San Francisco, and Gini gave birth to Peter and Julianne. In 1962, Dick took a sabbatical at the Caroline Institute in Stockholm. When the family returned to Ross, California, Gini attended Dominican University in San Rafael to earn a teaching credential. She went on to teach biology, botany, physiology, anatomy, and nature studies at the College of Marin. In 1966, she and four other women holding graduate degrees in biology founded Natural Science Education Resources, which provided nature education for students in Marin County elementary schools. The idea was to teach ecology in the out-of-doors, “where it’s at.” “Our message,” said Gini, “is that for man to survive, he must learn to live in balance within the ecosystem. Ecology is everybody’s concern; the need to teach it is becoming recognized in wider and wider circles.” She was an ardent birder, gardener, tennis player, and photographer, and had a special love for cats. An avid mushroom hunter, she kept secret her favorite spots for gathering chanterelles, boletes, and oyster mushrooms. Gini and Dick traveled the world, particularly enjoying places with a rich natural history of flora and fauna, which Gini documented with beautiful photographs and carefully curated albums. A pioneer of Marin’s early land preservation efforts, she served on the board and as a teacher at the Environmental Forum and was a member of the California Native Plant Society, the Sierra Club, the Inverness Garden Club, Master Gardeners, and the Audubon Society. Gini wrote articles on gardening and native plants for many of these groups and for Marin County newspapers. As an artist, Gini worked in ceramics, printmaking, and collage. Having studied ceramics at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, she had a pottery wheel and a kiln in her art studio at the Havels’ second home in Inverness near Point Reyes, where friends were frequently invited to help create ceramics, prints, and collages. After Dick passed away in the spring of 2016, Gini moved to Drake Terrace in San Rafael. She lived with her beloved cat Katya and would join her neighbors in museum visits. She is survived by her four children, Chris, Timothy ’75, Peter, and Julianne.
Marcia Grein Pennington ’49
September 10, 2015, in Spokane, Washington.
Marcia was born in San Pedro, California, and spent her early years in Rapid City, South Dakota, and Portland, Oregon. She met Frank Pennington ’48 of Seattle, Washington, while attending Reed, and they remained together until Frank’s death in 2001. Marcia graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in psychology. As a university wife, she followed Frank to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he taught chemistry at Coe College, and later to Chico, California, where he was a professor at California State University. While in Chico, Marcia obtained her graduate degree in English from CSU and taught English there until her retirement. Marcia’s strong belief in the importance of education impelled her to start the Frank Pennington Memorial Scholarship in the CSU College of Natural Sciences. Marcia and Frank were avid photographers; after retirement they traveled and photographed scenery around the world. She is survived by her son, David Pennington; her daughter, Adriane Pennington Borgias ’79; and her son-in-law Brandan Borgias ’79. Her granddaughter, Gaia Borgias Brown ’08, became the third generation in the family to attend Reed.
James S. Bennett ’52 January 05, 2017, in Portland.
Among other things, Jim will be remembered for his love of music, playing his trumpet, and an affection for puns. After two years of serving in the marines, he returned to Portland, and began at Reed, where he met and married his wife, Leile Olson ’52. He wrote his thesis, “The Effects of Fluoride on the Soft Tissues of the Hamster,” with Prof. Frank P. Hungate [biology 1946–52] advising. Jim then served for two years in Korea, after which he and Lee were reunited in Portland. By 1958, Jim had received his DMD from the University of Oregon Dental School, and in 1961 he received an MS degree in oral pathology. He was on the faculty of the school, which was renamed Oregon Health and Science University, from 1961 to 1989. Lee, his wife of 66 years, survives him as do his children, Terrea, Annie, Leslie, Carol, James, and Bonny, and his brothers, Lawton, John, and Lynn.
Fred’s life, but he was a man of diverse interests who had an enduring curiosity about all things. Passionate about the outdoors, he spent eight college summers as a forest service fire lookout in the mountains around Bend. Five of those summers were spent on Mt. Ireland, for which he felt a spiritual attachment. Other interests included an enthusiasm for photography, flying small airplanes, and reading. He loved animals and considered his dogs, cats, and horses important family members. Fred is survived by his wife, Linda; his son, Michael; and his sisters, Patricia Carmony and Janis Taylor.
began designing electrical transformers with GE, first in Shreveport, Louisiana, and then in Hickory, North Carolina. He retired from GE in 1992 and was especially proud of the patents he developed at the company related to transformers and amorphous metals. After retiring, he was involved in many civic activities in Hickory, North Carolina, and held several elected positions. In 2008, he and Susan moved to the Carolina Preserve neighborhood in Cary. He was involved with the Kiwanis Club and met many new friends through his participation in activities such as table tennis and mahjong. Al is survived by his wife and his children, Lorraine Lee, Tina Lee, and Stephanie DeArmey.
Jean Saliman ’53
December 4, 2017, in Tucson, Arizona.
Jean was born in Denver, Colorado, and attended Reed before graduating from Washington University in St. Louis. A loving mother, she was also a devoted teacher of the hearing impaired and a champion for her students, both in and out of the classroom. Her Jewish faith was important to her, and she had a passion for social justice for those who are vulnerable and voiceless. Jean was a founding member of the National Organization for Women chapter in Tucson and was active in the sanctuary movement. She had an intense interest in the world, loved nature and gardening, and was avidly interested in politics. She was also a longtime member of an Alzheimer’s caregivers group. Jean is survived by her children, Shanna, Sarra, Joshua, and Aaron.
Fred E. Palmer ’52
March, 6, 2017, in Baker City, Oregon, of complications from prostate cancer and advancing age.
Born in Portland to Lowell (Elt) and Eugenia Palmer, Fred grew up in Sandy, Oregon, where his father taught at the two-room Cottrell School. In 1936, the family, including Fred’s two younger sisters, Patricia and Janis, moved to Baker City, where Elt taught in the high school and coached wrestling. It was the Great Depression, times were tough, and Fred long remembered enduring cold winters without adequate clothing. He graduated from Baker High School and joined the navy for two years with an eye on attending college on the G.I. Bill. At Reed, he majored in sociology and wrote his thesis, “Family Solidarity as an Index of Social Disorganization,” with Prof. Howard Jolly [sociology 1949–70] advising. Fred married his first wife, Ruth (Betty) Belsey, in 1950 and after graduation, moved to Tulare County, California, where both were social services caseworkers. Two years of this proved to be all they could tolerate, and after extensive shoestring travel in Europe, Fred entered Oregon State University as a microbiology major. He went on to earn a master’s in marine microbiology from Scripps Institute of Oceanography. In 1960, he left Scripps for a research position at the University of Washington, where he met his current wife, Linda Graves. Both were working at the university and they became friends while participating in many anti-Vietnam War protests. They married in 1976, became parents to their son Michael in 1983, and moved to Baker City in 1984. Fred considered this the happiest period of his life: raising a young son, building a log home with his wife, and living a rural life. He farmed alfalfa in the summers and did fieldwork for the University of Washington as a research scientist in the winter. Family was the most important thing in
James A. Wood ’53 October 15, 2017, in Portland.
Albert Chong Lee ’53 September 7, 2017, in Cary, North Carolina, of pancreatic cancer.
Albert was proud of his Chinese-American heritage. He was born in Portland and moved to China in 1930, where he attended elementary school. War broke out in China when he was 14, and Al and his older brother, Kay Fong Lee, returned on their own to the United States. Without parental support, Al worked jobs to support himself while attending high school. His academic success led to a dual-degree program at Reed and MIT. Graduating with degrees in physics and electrical engineering, Al began a successful career as an electrical engineer. He started with General Electric in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, but his interests eventually led him across the country to Los Angeles, where he began working for America’s burgeoning space program. During his time in Los Angeles, he met and married his wife, Susan. After becoming an expert in solar cell arrays, Al moved to Houston to support the Apollo program. Al
Dr. James Wood was a member of the team that perfected the surgical techniques needed for the artificial heart valve. Bor n in New ton, Missouri, he was the youngest child of Alfred and Lulu Wood. When he was nine years old, Jim told his father that he wanted to be a jockey. Alfred remarked that Jim might be better suited to be a doctor, which inspired Jim to pursue medicine. Many lives were changed because of this prescient comment. When he was 12, Jim’s father died, and he moved to Oregon with his mother to live with an older sister. In 1943, with WWII raging, he joined the Marine Corps on his 17th birthday. When his service was complete, he returned to Oregon and graduated from Union High School in Hillsboro. He attended college at Vanport and often spoke of the devastation from the 1948 Vanport flood and its effect on the community. march 2018 Reed Magazine 43
In Memoriam In 1950, Jim married Joann Thordoson. He transferred to Reed and majored in biology, writing a thesis on accelerated calcification of trichinella spiralis cysts with Prof. Ralph Macy [biology 1942–55]. After Reed, he studied medicine at the University of Oregon Medical School (now OHSU) while Joann supported their growing family. During his residency there, Jim became interested in cardiac surgery. OHSU surgeon Dr. Albert Starr and engineer Lowell Edwards were developing a radical technique to repair a diseased heart valve by replacing it with a mechanical valve. Jim joined the team and became a significant contributor to the pioneering days of heart valve surgery. Their first successful surgery took place in 1960; the patient survived another 9 years. Meanwhile, Jim and his colleagues refined and perfected the surgical techniques needed for the valve to be successful in human patients. Jim and Dr. Starr established the open-heart surgery program at St. Vincent’s Hospital in 1964, and subsequently established the StarrWood Cardiac Group. Jim loved his horses and dogs, and enjoyed fishing, hunting, and spending time at his ranch in central Oregon. He was an accomplished polo player, playing well into his 60s. He was a curious, intelligent man who travelled the world sharing his professional knowledge and talent. He lived by his philosophy to “leave the world a better place than you found it.” Predeceased by Joann, his wife of 60 years, Jim is survived by his four children, Diane Stief, James Wood Jr., Jeff Wood, and Carol Wood.
Robert Wayne Ditzler ’54
June 29, 2017, in Seattle, Washington, of a stroke.
Bob was born in Grinnell, Iowa, and was a 60-year resident of Washington state. Immediately after graduating from high school, he went into the navy, where he was an electronics technician/ radar operator. After his discharge, he began working at Boeing but soon became bored. He went for career counseling with George Mantor, who became a lifelong friend. Mantor suggested that if Bob wanted something new, he should try going to college— a first for his family. This led him first to Reed College, on to UC Berkeley, to Edinburgh, Scotland, and finally to a master’s degree in history from the University of Washington. At UW, Bob was invited to go to Alaska with scientists doing research at a station on the floating ice; his electronic skills were needed. Throughout his time at UW, Bob supported himself doing 44 Reed Magazine march 2018
remodeling jobs and discovered he loved the work. He began a more than 50-year career as a self-employed builder designing beautiful, useful spaces for clients. Much in demand, Bob was thankful to have found a career he loved. In 1987, he moved into Sharingwood, a cohousing community in Snohomish County that he helped found. He built many of the houses in the community and designed plans for the common house. He married Stephana Ames and they shared many interests, including the Woodinville Unitarian Universalist Church, where Bob was one of the founding members. He dedicated two years of his life to the construction of the congregation’s new church. Bob’s zest for life included reading, gardening, sailing, baroque music, and the construction and flying of model hot-air balloons. He is survived by Stephana; his stepchildren Karen LeCompte and David Ames; his first wife, Jane Ditzler, mother of his three adopted children, Peach Jack, Mark Ditzler, and J.C. Ditzler; and his sisters, Mary Duryee, Marjorie Hillmann, and Charlotte Smith.
Michael Meriwether ’55
September 8, 2017 in Hillsboro, Oregon.
Born in Portland, Mike was 16 years old when he graduated from high school and entered Reed, where he met Joan Ross ’54 of Seattle. They married in 1955, moved to Hawaii, and had three children. Mike attended graduate school at the University of Chicago to pursue doctoral studies in political science. He returned to Hawaii and was appointed to serve on the committee for designing and developing Hawaii’s statehood. He wrote legislation to maintain the territorial and cultural rights of the local and indigenous peoples, fair labor practices, affordable health care, and higher education. Joan died in 1979. Mike continued to work in Hawaii’s government, raising his children, and enjoying scuba diving, mountain climbing, and Hawaiian music and culture. In 1987, he returned to Oregon and quickly engaged in state politics by becoming campaign manager for three successive candidates for state representative, all of whom were elected. In 1988, he met and married the Rev. Penny Christianson in Bay City, Oregon, where she was pastor of the United Methodist Church. Mike continued to work in the political arena, becoming legislative aide to Senator Bill McCoy, and helping him to draft legislation to end hunger in the state. In 1994, Mike joined Intel as a lab manager, tasked with designing a validation laboratory to test a new computer chip. He retired in 2003. Mike had a passion for Northwest art,
theatre, and a wide variety of music. A man of deep conviction, he lived his values of personal loyalty, ethical integrity, moral conviction, and commitment to social justice. He wrote poetry for his wife and family, and was an active member in all six churches that his wife served as pastor, wholeheartedly supporting her ministry. His survivors include his wife, Penny Christianson, three children. and two stepchildren.
Betty Brown Bruner ’56 October 19, 2017, in Klamath Falls, Oregon.
Betty was born in Portland to Cecil and Louise Brown, who owned a neighborhood store on Southeast Clinton Street. Her family moved to Klamath Falls in 1942, where her father worked as an engineer for Southern Pacific Railroad. Betty graduated from Klamath Union High School and studied English at the University of Oregon and Reed College. She returned to Klamath Falls and married the love of her life, Wayne J. Bruner, in 1955. Betty taught kindergarten classes in Klamath Falls, and for many years volunteered as a 4-H leader, as a community coordinator, and as a food judge at the Klamath County Fair. She also served as a hardworking and conscientious precinct worker in the Klamath County Elections Department. In addition to managing the family rentals, she was a 55-year member of Order of the Eastern Star and a member of the Episcopal Church. Betty’s husband Wayne passed away in 2001. She is survived by her daughters, Heather Coats and Heidi Lawrence.
Alvin F. Oien ’57
October 18, 2016, in Paradise, Texas.
As a young boy Al served as junior prime minister in the Portland Rose Festival. He graduated from Benson High School and began at Reed in 1953. He left to get pilot training and served as a USAF pilot at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, flying down-range missions during the early years of the space program. Al also served as a military pilot in the 304th Aerospace Rescue Squadron, USAF Reserves, Portland, flying search and rescue missions in SA-16 amphibians. In 1960, he married Sally Dinsmore and attended Portland State College. Al began his career as a commercial pilot in 1962, flying for Delta Air Lines in Dallas, Texas, retiring as captain in 1985. Following the death of Sally, Al married Carol Thomas, his “Sweetbaby,” in 1975. For many years he served as alderman for the town of Westlake, Texas, and was “noted for his candor” by the Fort Worth Star Telegram. Al was privileged to have flown many types of aircraft in his lifetime, including helicopters, amphibians, single- and multiengine props, and jets. He flew the last commissioned B-17 during his Air Force service and, as a civilian, the last operating Boeing 307, now in the Smithsonian National Air and Space
Museum. In recent years, Al collaborated with author/pilot Ross Nixon on the book Finding Carla, a recollection of the tragic loss of his father, Al Senior, in a private plane crash in 1967. His wife, Carol, survives him, as do his brothers, Ronald and Charles.
Christopher W. Ryan Jr. ’57 May 26, 2015, in Durango, Colorado.
Music was always the center of Chris’s professional and private life. He held advanced degrees in choral conducting and voice and was prepared for teaching at any level. At Reed he majored in literature and wrote his thesis, “King Lear: A Study of Theme and Structure.” He went on to get a doctorate of musical arts from the University of Oregon. Chris became an accomplished church musician, and his employment with the First Congregational Church of Eugene, Oregon, gave him the opportunity to put on full-scale performances of the great liturgical works of Handel and Bach. After moving to Durango, he continued to be active musically until his retirement, after which his focus was chamber music, which he directed and enjoyed at home. Many musicians, both beginners and semiprofessionals, participated in the chamber music sessions in the Ryans’ living room. Following a disastrous fall from the roof of the house he built, he had an almost daily struggle with pain. Chris is survived by Ingrid, his wife of 51 years, and by his three children, Ann, Philip, and Catherine.
Patricia Willard Heil ’58 October 17, 2017, in Sherwood, Oregon.
Patricia was born in Portland and raised in North Bend, Oregon. She graduated from North Bend High School in 1954 and won a scholarship to attend Reed, w h e re s h e s t u d i e d anthropology and linguistics. In 1961, she met Charles Heil ’60 at church, and he proposed on their first date. They got married and Patricia devoted her life to raising their five children. Later, she was a child care provider at several churches. A gracious and quiet person with a gift for listening, she loved nothing more than being home or at the family’s cottage in Agate Beach, but traveled to visit daughters living in Germany and Japan. In her final years, her sweet spirit prevailed throughout her battle with frontotemporal degeneration. Patricia is
survived by her husband of 56 years; her children, Benjamin Heil ’84, Andrew Heil, Lisa Heil, Sara Swanborn, and Amy Worsley Heil; and her brother, Richard Willard.
Karie Lazarus Friedman ’61 September 12, 2017, in Montville, Maine.
A poet and lover of languages, Kearvelle (Karie) studied Latin, Greek, Danish, Swedish, Chinese, and Portuguese. She grew up in Los Angeles and began writing poetr y at Reed, where she majored in French and English literature. Karie wrote her thesis, “Common Hieroglyphicks: A Study of Sir Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica and Other Works,” with Prof. William Whallon [English 1957–62] advising. “Learning to cut to the heart of the matter and to speak plainly were the two most useful lessons I brought away from Reed,” she said. She married fellow Reedie John Friedman ’60 in 1962, and the couple divorced in 1987. For many years, Karie worked as an editor on small literary journals, for the Michigan State University Press, as assistant editor of the physics journal Reviews of Modern Physics, and as editor of the online newsletter ICAMNews. In 2005, she moved from Seattle to rural Maine, embarking on a second career as a poet. She earned an MFA in creative writing from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, and was an active member of Maine’s poetry community. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including Atlanta Review, Barrow Street, The Naugatuck River Review, The Indian River Review, and Off the Coast, as well as the 2013 anthology Best Indie Lit New England. A selection of her poems can be found at www.kariefriedman.com. In addition to her literary interests, Karie loved classical guitar, jazz, travel, cooking, and spending time in her gardens. She is survived by her two daughters, Jayne Friedman and Anna Edlund;,and her siblings, Jonathan, Dianne, and Peter.
Larry Shaw ’61
August 19, 2017, in Petaluma California, of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
The sympol π, as every Reedie knows, represents a fundamental geometrical constant— the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter—whose precise value is elusive, but which famously begins 3.14159 . . . In 1988, Larry Shaw was working as a technical curator for the Exploratorium, a San Francisco museum, when he came up with the idea of honoring the influential constant with an annual party. The Exploratorium celebrated its first Pi Day on March 14 at 1:59.
Since then, Pi Day has become an international phenomenon, with math lovers everywhere marking the occasion with pie, pizza, and various kinds of Euclidean tomfoolery. Perhaps not coincidentally, March 14 was also Albert Einstein’s birthday. “He was honored that it became such a holiday,” says his wife of 54 years, Catherine. “It was a greater honor when the Exploratorium decided not to charge admission on Pi Day.” Larry believed the best part of Pi Day was its ability to make math seem accessible and fun to folks who may have suffered through it during their school days. Pi may be an irrational number, but Larry’s celebration of it was rational, civil, and orderly. For 38 years, he donned his red cap emblazoned with the magic digits and led a parade of museumgoers, each of them holding a sign bearing one of the digits of pi. They would march in strict order, with 3 in front, the decimal point next, and then 141592653489 . . . Of course the number of sign carriers was exhausted long before the infinite digits of pi. Born in Washington, DC, Larry moved with his family to the Bay Area as a toddler. After graduating from Pleasant Hill High School, he earned a degree in physics from Reed, writing his thesis on negative wire corona with his adviser, Prof. Jean Delord [physics 1950–88]. Between leaving Reed and joining the Exploratorium in 1972, Larry worked at various physicsrelated jobs—including at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at UC Berkeley. He married Catherine Adams in 1963, and the next spring they traveled to Yucatan aboard a 250cc East German Zundapp motorcycle. After a succession of broken chains and flat tires, they put the bike on a moving van and hitchhiked back home. When he was recruited for the electronics department of the newly formed Exploratorium, Larry was living in a yoga ashram, selling carrot juice, and with four other yogis had published a small book entitled Spiritual Community Guide. He and Catherine were expecting their first child, and he decided he should get a real job.
march 2018 Reed Magazine 45
In Memoriam That “real job” turned into a career, and as technical curator Larry performed just about every function possible at the museum. He specialized in helping artists in residence at the Exploratorium turn wild ideas into actual exhibits, and helped design a lighthearted series of hexagons on which visitors would step, bounce, and dance to create abstract music. Exploratorium staff members often commented on the importance of Larry’s mentorship to their professional development, and on his cheerful, welcoming, demeanor when they first started at the museum. “He loved to help people realize they are capable, and that they can get involved in areas of human thought that they thought were closed to them,” Catherine said. When he retired from the museum after 33 years, the director said to him, “You are the Exploratorium.” In retirement, Larry pursued his passion for art and photography. He also volunteered his time as an audio engineer for nonprofits. He was an ardent Buddhist, who rose each day before the rest of the family for his extensive Buddhist practice. He visited, studied, and practiced at Buddhist sites in the U.S., Tibet, China, Nepal, and Japan, served several terms as president of the Buddhist Temple of Marin, and was always willing and able to help all in need and to share his knowledge and insights. Larry is survived by his wife, Catherine; his two daughters, Tara Shaw and Sara Shaw; and his siblings, Robert Shaw and Winifred Kershaw.
Jacob Kind ’62
April 8, 2017, in Tenafly, New Jersey.
Jacob was born in Seattle, Washington, and majored in biology at Reed, where he wrote his thesis, “Localization of the Hyperglycemic Hormone in Astacus trowbridgii,” with Prof. Frank Gwilliam [biology 1957–96] advising. He worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs as a clinical psychologist, at the Veterans Affairs New Jersey Health Care System, where he was a devoted psychologist to veterans and trauma victims. He later went into private practice. His wife, DeeAnne, and children, Rebecca Kind Slater and Jonathan Kind, survive him.
Richard Weisbart ’64
November 1, 2016, in North Hills, California.
Richard was a professor of medicine at UCLA and chief of rheumatology and director of the UCLA San Fernando Valley fellowship training program at the Sepulveda VA Medical Center, where he ran his research laboratory for 40 years. He developed safe and innovative therapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. He is survived by his wife, Jan, and his children, Matthew, Lisa, and David.
46 Reed Magazine march 2018
A researcher and teacher specializing in immunotoxicolog y, Allen once described himself as “an inveterate social-deviant troublemaker with a sense of humor about it.” He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and graduated from Bowen High School. At Reed he wrote his thesis, “The Synthesis and Reactions of a [Beta]-aryl Ether Lignin Model Compound,” with Prof. Marshall Cronyn [chemistry 1952– 89] advising. Years later, the things he most remembered about Reed were “its ideal of learning (making knowledge your own), and the patience of assorted faculty with this crazy kid from industrial Chicago.” He got his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Edinburgh and MIT, and researched and taught at MIT, Sloan-Kettering, and State University of New York Upstate Medical University. He was the author of more than 70 reviewed papers and was cited thousands of times. Allen also advised multiple Environmental Protection Agency Superfund committees in New York City and State. An antiwar and environmental justice organizer in Boston, New York City, and Syracuse, he was a tireless crusader for civil rights, economic justice, public health, and public education. He is survived by his son, David.
children and dogs ran free, and cherished the time spent on his Uncle Peter’s farm, sitting with his cousins in the hopper of the combine as the wheat rained down, or resting his forehead on the warm flank of the cow he milked. After World War II, Laurin’s family moved to Denver, Colorado, where he delivered the Rocky Mountain News at dawn and the Denver Post in the afternoon, lobbing the papers onto porches from his bicycle. Before graduating from East High School, he watched newsreels of A-bomb tests on the Bikini Atoll, and signed affidavits that he had never been associated with anyone on a list of a hundred or more organizations, all of them Communist fronts. The House Un-American Activities Committee dominated the news. The Korean War loomed in the future. In the gloom of the ’50’s, Laurin smoked Camel cigarettes and read Hot Rod magazine, Kierkegaard, Camus, and Kafka. He enrolled in the engineering school at the University of Colorado, and then spent six months at the Army Language School in Monterey, California, and two years as a translator in Frankfurt, Germany. After his discharge, he remained in Europe, attending the University of Montpellier in the south of France. Returning to the states, he earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from the University of Chicago, and, to support himself, worked for the Encyclopedia Britannica, researching and answering questions to which readers could not find answers. He then headed to San Francisco and found work as a bank teller. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Laurin hopped a freighter and headed back to Europe, where he married a girlfriend from his days at Montpellier. The couple moved to Portland, where Laurin earned an MA in teaching at Reed and then taught English at Portland Community College from 1967 to 1990. In 1989, he married Deborah Rand. During his retirement, Laurin enjoyed travel, music, carpentry, reading, and philosophizing with friends over a cold beer. He published a book on the astronomical roots of Homer’s Odyssey. When his beloved 1950 pickup camper finally rusted out, he converted a mini–school bus into a cozy retreat for Deborah and their golden retrievers. Whenever he felt the need to pray, he sat at his upright piano and played the andante of Bach’s Italian Concerto. Laurin is survived by his three children, Mira Lazaro, Lisa Diamond, and Isaac Johnson; their mother, Yvette Roche Johnson; his sister, Lois Jouette; his wife, Deborah Rand; and his stepchildren, Julie Crary and Matthew Goodwin.
Laurin Johnson MAT ’66
Jeffrey Bernard MAT ’71
Laurin was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, where his Norwegian grandparents had homesteaded. He enjoyed childhood in a day when
He had been called the da Vinci of Ashland, Oregon, a creator who perfectly blended the
Allen Silverstone ’65
November 19, 2017, in Jersey City, New Jersey.
August 25, 2017, in Portland.
August 20, 2017, in Ashland, Oregon, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
best qualities of “right” and “left” brain. A true Renaissance man, Jeffrey mastered sculpting in Italy and boat building in the Netherlands, and had a career as a software engineer and applications architect. A native of the Boston area, he was offered scholarships to Harvard and Yale, chose the latter, and graduated in 1970 having studied engineering and economics. The following year, he earned a master’s degree in teaching at Reed. Jeffrey wanted to learn how to build boats; rather than take a class, he traveled to Holland and studied with master boat builders. He started out sweeping the floors, then sanded wood. One day his boss told him, “Go fix my daughter’s sailboat. Part of the hull is rotted.” After working in the shop for five years, Jeffrey knew how to build a boat. He then moved to Italy to begin an apprenticeship in sculpting marble, pounding stone with a wooden mallet and antique chisel. He worked at an antiquated marble quarry in Carrara, where all the heavy roughing out of marble blocks was still done by hand, and worked in several sculpture studios in Pietrasanta, carving figurative, decorative, ornamental, and architectural sculptures in marble. In 1972, he moved to Ashland and met his wife, Debbie Hansen-Bernard. With some buddies from Yale, he bought a large piece of land on Dead Indian Memorial Road, later donating half of it to the Nature Conservancy. As a sculptor, Jeffrey was a major contributor to Ashland’s art and history. For Lithia Park, he restored the Butler-Perozzi Fountain and its crowning Cupid statue, and sculpted the missing head of the Abraham Lincoln statue. Both triggered a rebirth of interest in public art, drawing big crowds at their rededications. He
also sculpted the bronze gargoyle for the fountain formerly in front of the Black Swan Theatre. Jeffrey worked as a software engineer for Plexis Healthcare Systems, as a technical architect for Harry and David Corporation, and as a software product applications architect at Accenture in Ashland. Reminiscing at their 20-acre Little Creek Ranch off Siskiyou Boulevard, Debbie said, “He would master one thing and move onto the next. He could think out any problem and would draw plans and put it together. He just had one of those brains. He was a kite-flying, marble-sculpting, rollerblading, sky-diving, boat-building, fly-fishing son of a gun.”
Tamar Monhait ’98
August 21, 2017, in Portland, from a bicycle collision.
The life of multidisciplinary artist Tamar Monhait was cut tragically short when the bicycle she was riding collided with a garbage truck making a left turn. Originally from Chicago, Tamar attended Reed, but got a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. As an artist, she explored process, ritual, music mathematics, technology, and time. Her work included photographs, paintings, and music, and she participated in group shows in Portland at Disjecta, Hall Gallery, Pacific Northwest College of Art, the Mark Woolley Gallery, and the Jace Gace restaurant, and the Newberg Gallery at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. She had solo exhibitions at Stumptown Downtown, and was also exhibited by Studio Nemo. Tamar was the inaugural curator for Disjecta Vestibule, an independent project space dedicated to showing dynamic site-specific installations and collaborations.
Prof. James Wallace [education 1966–72]
October 9, 2017, in Portland, after a long illness.
Prof. Wallace was born in New Hampshire, and went to Earlham College, where he met his first wife, Norma Autenrieth. The couple had four children. He earned his master of arts degree from Haver ford in 1953, worked for the American Friends Service Committee in Mexico and Chico, and taught school in New Jersey and New Hampshire. In 1966, he earned his PhD in education from Harvard, and moved his family to Oregon to teach at Reed. He made rich friendships during his time at the college, and went on to work for the Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission. Following that, he had a long and fulfilling career as a professor at Lewis & Clark. A committed citizen, administrator, teacher, writer, and scholar, he did his best to live by William James’ instruction: “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” Wallace is survived by his wife, Mary Guenther; his sister, Ruth Sugarman; daughter, Tina Tau; son, Richard Wallace; and stepdaughter, Anna (Lila) Guenther; He was predeceased by daughters Kathryn Cramer and Barbara Conde.
PENDINg Enid Lamar Phillips ’45, Norman Lezin ’48, Bill Smart ’48, George Young ’49, Patricia Towne Jahoda ’50, Celia Walker Moss ’51, Carole Calkins Colie ’54, Robert Fernea ’54, Joanna Jeffreys Klick ’59, Jaclyn Vidgoff ’62, Peter Stone ’67, Marshall Sherwin ’69, Anthony Tunder ’74, Michael Preston ’83, Laurie Levich [staff]
REED COLLEGE MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES
“When I finished my undergraduate studies in engineering, I felt that my intellectual passions were unfulfilled; there were so many other things I wanted to know and study. I wasn’t ready to narrow my options down to one field with a specialized master’s degree, so I chose the MALS program to challenge myself and open my mind up to areas of inquiry that I had not yet explored. As a MALS student, I’m able to rigorously study topics that truly excite me and to talk about problems that matter with others who care deeply. Reed’s interdisciplinary program allows me to supplement the limited scope of my undergraduate studies, improve my writing and research skills, and prepare myself for further graduate studies beyond Reed.” —LIBBY O’NEIL MALS ’19
Learn more at reed.edu/MALS.
Object of Study
What we’re looking at in class
When Stars Explode Prof. Alison Crocker’s astrophysics class (Physics 364) covers the physics behind how stars form, remain in equilibrium for most of their lives, and then, sometimes, spectacularly explode or implode when nuclear reactions are exhausted. Students recently learned about the Eddington limit, which poses an upper limit on the photon luminosity a star may emit before becoming dynamically unstable and ejecting its outer layers as a stellar wind. High-mass stars undergo such a furious pace of nuclear reactions at their core that they surpass the Eddington limit in their
luminous output. The image shown here is of a star known as WR (Wolf-Rayet) 134— the brightest star below the center of the image—illuminating material it has previously ejected. WR 134 probably started out as a star about 45 times the mass of our sun, but has lost so much material it is now closer to 19 times the solar mass. This image was taken by the 4 m Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, using filters to isolate emission from the 656 nm hydrogen line and the 673 nm doubly ionized sulfur line. These emission lines reveal the distribution of ionized gas in the nebula.
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Newly constructed, Anna Mann glows with pride as the sun sets over the West Hills.