Reed College Magazine September 2019

‰ september 2019

SCHOLAR. WRITER. TEACHER. PRESIDENT. There was no script for Audrey Bilger’s career. So she wrote her own.

Some solutions are challenging.

Others, like making a legacy gift to Reed, can be quite simple.

Naming Reed College as a beneficiary is easy.

And it’s flexible—you can make changes at any time. Safeguard Reed’s future by giving all or a portion of the remainder of your • retirement accounts, such as an IRA, 403b, and 401k; • life insurance policies; • commercial annuities;

Funds given to Reed through beneficiary designation are not subject to income or estate taxes, so 100 percent of your gift will support the college.

503/777-7573 giftplanning@reed.edu reed.edu/giftplanning

• donor-advised funds; • bank and investment accounts.

Simply contact your plan administrator to update your beneficiary designation form.

You may need to know some basic Reed information: Reed Institute d.b.a. Reed College, Tax ID: 93-0386908, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97202.

Then inform Reed of your gift! We want to thank you, and ensure that the college knows how you want your gift to be used.

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photos by clayton cotterell

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september 2019

Features 10

What Is a Reedie, Anyway?

Meet some of the proud members of the Class of ’19.

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Scholar. Writer. Teacher.

President.

There was no script for Audrey Bilger’s career. So she wrote her own.

By Chris Lydgate ’90

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President Audrey Bilger and her wife, Cheryl Pawelski, a winner at the Grammy Awards in 2014.

Departments 4 Eliot Circular Students find glaring discrepancy in U.S. News & World Report rankings Health class is sensation Hot summers spell catastrophe for fish

8 Advocates of the Griffin

News of the Alumni Association

28 Reediana

Books, Films, and Music by Reedies

A History of African American Poetry by Lauri Ramey ’73

32 Class Notes

News from our classmates.

36 In Memoriam

Honoring classmates, professors, and friends who have died.

48 Object of Study

What we’re looking at in class

Students in Art 368 look at books as sculptural objects.

september 2019 Reed Magazine

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‰

Letter from the editor

september 2019

www.reed.edu/reed-magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 98, No. 3 REED MAGAZINE editor

Chris Lydgate ’90 503/777-7596 chris.lydgate@reed.edu DEFINE YOUR TERMS. Students tested (but rejected) this equation in their quest to model the US News ranking system.

writer/In Memoriam editor

Lies, Damn Lies, and U.S. News & World Report

writer/reediana editor

It began as a question, the kind you might raise in class without knowing exactly where it will go. The class was Math 343 with Prof.

Kelly McConville, and the subject under discussion was the infamous US News & World Report college rankings. Just how did USNWR compile its list, anyway, and did it treat Reed fairly?

From that innocent inquiry, students Bailee Cruger ’19, Huaying Qiu ’20, and Wenxin Du ’20 launched an astonishing class project where they figured out how to reverse-engineer the USNWR ranking system with 94% accuracy, based on data available to anyone with an internet connection. (For more details, see page 6. You can also find their paper on our website.) It’s the moral equivalent of building your own iPhone with a handful of parts from the hardware store.

As many readers know, Reed has boycotted USNWR since 1995 due to the fundamental flaws in the system, but it goes ahead and ranks us anyway. One of the most intriguing aspects of the students’ work is that they found a way to gauge the statistical penalty that USNWR imposes on the college for refusing to turn in its survey.

According to the students, Reed should be ranked at approximately #38. Last year USNWR ranked us at #90— a hit of more than 50 places.

This imaginative venture has won all kinds of attention, even landing on the front page of USA Today. It also provoked some furious harrumphing from USNWR, which declared their accomplishment “not possible” and denied that there’s any penalty at all.

Of course, you could argue that the solution is obvious—Reed should simply agree to play the game. In 2014, St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, did exactly that; after 2

Reed Magazine september 2019

years of boycotting the system, it filled out the survey and vaulted from #123 to #56.

Interestingly, however, none of the students thought the college should change its policy. Says Huaying: “I like Reed because I like the professors here—not because of their PhD degrees, but their personalities, styles of teaching, etc. I like the Sakura trees in Eliot Circle. How you like your school eventually comes down to these very personal things rather than numbers and these unmeasurable human feelings would be included in the error term. When the error term has the dominating effect, you know you won’t have a good model. So, why should we take a relatively trivial variable, USNWR rankings, seriously?”

In this bizarre period of American history, when we are flooded with misinformation, disinformation, and “fake news,” when opinions masquerade as expertise, when facts are shouldered aside by ideology and when crucial details are photoshopped in and out of existence, I take pride in the students’ commitment to rigor and integrity—the very quintessence of Reed.

“It’s easy to make up stories,” says Wenxin.

“Except that between rows of data there lies truth. We may never unearth the absolute reality, but we can get close to it—like what we did here. So next time I’m asked, ‘What do you do in statistics?’ I’ll reply ‘Well… the first duty of us statisticians is seeking after the truth.’”

That’s the thing about education—you never know just where it’ll take you.

—CHRIS LYDGATE ’90

Randall S. Barton 503/517-5544 bartonr@reed.edu Katie Pelletier ’03 503/777-7727 pelletic@reed.edu class notes editor

Joanne Hossack ’82 joanne@reed.edu art director

Tom Humphrey tom.humphrey@reed.edu grammatical kapeLlmeister

Virginia O. Hancock ’62 REED COLLEGE RELATIONS vice president, college relations

Hugh Porter director, communications & public affairs

Mandy Heaton 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

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

The New Hum 110

When I got a glimpse into the new Hum 110 curriculum at Reunions, I realized that something was missing. In fact, it’s always been missing: the broad sweep of the whys and hows of human history from prehistory through the present day. The best example of this is Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs, and Steel, truly one of the great books of the modern era. It belongs right at the start of Hum 110; read this, and everything that follows will make a lot more sense. When students study Egypt, Greece, the Aztecs, and Harlem, they will have a framework that explains the rise and fall of empires or civilizations or the spread, decline, or transformation of trading networks, cultures, technologies, ecosystems, or resources.

Nothing could be more relevant today, when the specter of “ecological overshoot and collapse” looms ever larger. But I got to wondering: Is the Reed faculty up to this? I heard talk of the overspecialization of most faculty, with few trained to cut across the humanities and sciences in these big-picture ways. Perhaps the faculty would need their own Hum 110 prep courses.

Dick Burkhart ’69 Seattle, Washington From the Dean of the Faculty: I can offer a short reply to your final question. It is certainly true that many fields are becoming increasingly specialized, and a look at most dissertation titles will confirm that. This specialization is key to many of the classes we offer, and helps our faculty stay at the cutting edge of their disciplines. For many professors, breadth is the work of a career, something you acquire as you absorb new ideas and develop new classes. There is no question that teaching

a broad humanities class such as Hum 110 is a challenge, even for faculty members who, like ours, understand their disciplines and are committed to this educational project. This is why we invest in their development. To prepare for the new Hum 110, for example, faculty members participated in intensive summer seminars, consulted with experts, visited sites in Mexico City, developed pedagogical strategies, and met weekly to discuss the readings.

—Prof. Nigel Nicholson, Dean of the Faculty.

Tangled Up in String Quartet

From the bottom of the tin cup I use as a heart, I thank Prof. David Schiff [music 1980–2019] for his biography of Elliott Carter.

The worst five minutes of my four years at Reed came a week before graduation, under the stern eye of my advisor, Prof. Leila Birnbaum [1969–2009]. I had promised to present, in those five minutes, an analysis of Carter’s First String Quartet. I loved it then and I love it now: it may be the greatest achievement in Western concert music since Béla Bartók died.

Yet after repeated listening, and assiduous study of the score, I did not have a clue. But I was a music major. Was I to give up?

Yes. I gave up. So on that last day I closed the score, turned off the record player, threw back a shot of Wild Turkey, and headed to my doom. I may have smoked a cigarette on the way.

I arrived late, by a minute or two. Prof.

Birnbaum had locked the door. I had to knock upon it. She let me in, and as I oozed past, her nostrils twitched. Just a bit. But they twitched.

She called me to the gibbet—I mean, the witness stand—I mean . . . to the head of the class to explain Carter’s quartet.

Well, fellow Reedies, there it is: the worst five minutes of my time at Reed. But I swear on a stack of Bach cantatas—I tried. I tried hard and long. I studied that damn thing for hours. I just couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t have a clue.

So thank you, Prof. Birnbaum, for grilling me, for embarrassing me, for teaching me a lesson.

But—honest to God—my failure was not due to Wild Turkey and Camels. It was innate; it was my small brain. Now that I have Prof. Schiff’s book in my hands, perhaps I shall finally understand what is going on in String Quartet No. 1.

But I doubt it.

Robert S. Kahn ’73 Denver, Colorado

Editor’s Note: Robert’s book Beethoven and the Grosse Fuge: Music, Meaning and Beethoven’s Most Difficult Work, was published in 2010.

Not a Cough in a Carload

I suggest naming the giant stick of chalk “Marvin,” commemorating the legend that Prof. Marvin Levich [philosophy 1953–94]once put a piece of chalk in his mouth and tried to light it.

I didn’t see this and can’t vouch for it, but it’s one of those “if it isn’t true, it should be” stories.

I am pretty sure that I did once see him with two lighted cigarettes at once.

Eric Landner ’72 Tacoma, Washington

Editor’s Note: The tales of Prof. Levich’s cigarette consumption are indeed multitudinous and could well constitute their own epic. I’m pretty sure I saw him with two lighted cigarettes, too. Anyway, I can vouch for the fact that he has since kicked the habit, though not without some regret.

Economics, the Angry Science?

In Anya Schiffrin ’84’s review of Prof. Kim Clausing’s [economics 1996–] new book Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, Immigration, and Global Capital, she notes that Clausing uses the word “concern” a total of 50 times, and “anger” not at all. As fate would have it, I happened to be taking Clausing’s intro-level economics class in the fall of 2008, as the global economy collapsed around us thanks to the folks FDR once called “malefactors of great wealth.” There is always a place for reasoned argument, but in the context of a disaster that wiped out the savings of millions, I can’t help but wonder if some degree of anger is also warranted, particularly in places, like Detroit, that have borne the brunt of the catastrophe.

I once heard it said that anger is a gift from God that lets us know our values are being violated. If we reckon our values only in dollars and cents, the common coinage of global capital, I suppose anger is superfluous. On the other hand, if we regard people’s lives (and the future of our planet) as ultimately priceless, wouldn’t a little indignation be both righteous and reasoned?

Joel Batterman ’10 Detroit, Michigan

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Eliot Circular news from campus

Welcome To Your Existential Survival Kit.

photo by lauren labarre

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Decked out in laurels, gowns, and mortar boards, the 349 proud members of the Class of 2019 gathered on the Great Lawn for Commencement in May. Dr. Mira Kamdar ’80, acclaimed writer and acting director of the World Policy Institute, urged the grads to cherish what they learned at Reed, resist fear, refuse hate, and spread love. A Reed education, she said, is an existential survival kit. Paraphrasing Ernest Hemingway on Paris, she declared, “A Reed education is a moveable feast. You get to take it with you. No one can ever take it away. Revel in it.”

Reed Magazine september 2019

Eliot Circular

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Reed Magazine september 2019

Difference

For years, we’ve written about the hidden penalty that U.S. News & World Report imposes on Reed and other rebel colleges who refuse to cooperate with the rankings giant. Now a team of Reed students has come up with a way to estimate the magnitude of the hit.

Their conclusion? If USN faithfully followed its own formula in the 2019 rankings, Reed would be ranked at #38, rather than its assigned rank of #90. In other words, USN pushed the college down a whopping 52 rungs on the ladder because Reed wouldn’t fill out its form.

The Reed team—consisting of Bailee Cruger ’19, Huaying Qiu ’20, and Wenxin Du ’20—dug into the USN system for a term paper in a statistics class with Prof. Kelly McConville [math 2018]. They began by analyzing public data sources, specifically a database known as IPEDS, run by the National Center for Education Statistics.

They quickly spotted a red flag. The USN rank depends on a complex scoring system based on dozens of factors such as SAT scores, class size, and so on. One of those factors is how much a college spends per student on instruction, research, and student services.

(The basic idea is that top colleges spend more money on their students.) Our researchers noticed that USN ranked Reed very low on this factor—it was ranked #169 out of 172 schools—despite the fact that Reed spends $54,566 per student, which is more than many schools in the top 50.

This discrepancy aroused their suspicions and inspired them to perform an astonishing feat: they reverse engineered USN’s ranking system.

The project required some fiendishly complicated statistical analysis, but the upshot is simple: starting with the IPEDS data and using formulas they extrapolated, the students were able to predict USN’s rankings with 94% accuracy. In other words, they could make a highly accurate prediction about where a given college would land in the USN rankings, based on its IPEDS data, with one striking exception—Reed.

They reckoned that Reed should have been ranked at #38 in 2019. USN actually assigned it a rank of #90.

Between Estimated Rank and Financial Resources Rank

Students Find Glaring Discrepancy in U.S. News Rankings FINANCIAL RESOURCES RANK ESTIMATE AND COMPARISON 2019 50

OVER-RANKED

0

UNDER-RANKED -50

-100

Reed College 0

50

100

150

200

Financial Resources Rank by U.S. News This isn’t a fluke. The students also checked the data for 2009. According to their calculations, Reed should have ranked at #37. But USN actually assigned it a rank of #54.

The students are careful to reiterate that their results are not perfect. “It is important to emphasize that all results are based on the data available to us and the models we used,” they said. “The uncertainty—the prediction interval which can be found in the slides— should also be mentioned.”

Nevertheless, their conclusions are persuasive. “I was extremely impressed with how deeply the students dug into the USN methodology,” says Prof. McConville. “They worked hard to understand all the various pieces that go into the USN ranking model.

They also followed good statistical practices with their work and tried various modeling approaches to determine how robust their findings were and each time made sure to quantify the uncertainty in their estimates.

From a statistical perspective, I found their arguments that Reed is underranked to be very compelling.”

The discrepancy is glaring but should come as no surprise. In 1995, after a string of highprofile scandals where colleges misreported their data to USN, Reed abandoned the system, and other colleges followed suit. To prevent similar defections, USN established an array of statistical penalties designed to punish refuseniks and prevent others from leaving the fold. Most colleges fell back in line; Reed stuck to its guns and has held out against the system for a remarkable 24 years.

In 2014, Robert Morse, the director of data research for USN, made a presentation to the Association for Institutional Research in Orlando, Florida, where he claimed that his company treats nonresponders like Reed in a straightforward manner, based on numbers they obtain from public databases. The implication was that refuseniks get a fair shake from the system, and that any griping should be written off as sour grapes.

But the Reed paper makes clear that USN maintains a steep penalty for noncompliance, and that the statistical punishment is actually getting more severe. —CHRIS LYDGATE ’90

N AT I O N A L F I S H H A B I TAT PA R T N E R S H I P

Jessie Willson ’19 teaches grade-school kids boundaries.

Health Class is a Sensation What does it mean when a friend says “no” to the offer of a hug but is still smiling? Fourth graders pondered this question in a health class developed by Jessie Willson ’19. At a time when a presidential contender is called out for giving unsolicited shoulder rubs, it is not surprising that grade-school kids struggle with the concept of boundaries.

Jessie won the Class of ’21 Award for her psychology thesis, for which she created, taught, and evaluated a health and identity class for fourth graders. The award recognizes “creative work of notable character, involving an unusual degree of initiative and spontaneity.”

When Jessie first proposed the idea, her advisor, Prof. Jennifer Corpus [psychology 2000–] did not think it was realistic to complete a rigorous study and surmount the red tape of the Portland Public School System. But Jessie was up for the challenge.

Her innovative curriculum featured sensations stations—interactive booths focused on touch, smell, and taste to teach the children that their experiences, and thus their perceptions, weren’t universal. The taste station, for example, included a grapefruit, dark chocolate, and a sour candy; purposefully divisive, some students enjoyed them and others didn’t. This was used as basis for understanding consent.

After just six classes, Jessie’s students showed a significant gain in knowledge about setting and respecting boundaries, gender identities, and sexual orientations. They also showed higher ability to recognize and regulate their own emotions. —JOSH COX ’18

Hot Summers Spell Catastrophe for Fish Fish die-offs in Wisconsin lakes are expected to double by midcentury and quadruple by 2100 due to warmer summer temperatures, according to a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change based on the senior thesis of bio major Aaron Till ’18.

To better understand how fish die-offs are changing, Aaron worked with his advisor, Prof. Samuel Fey, a population and community ecologist and assistant professor in the biology department; Prof. Andrew Bray, a statistician and assistant professor in the math department; and researchers from the UC Davis.

Together they analyzed a database of freshwater fish die-offs in Wisconsin combined with lake temperature data and simulations. They found that more than 100 of 500 fish die-offs recorded between 2004 and 2014 in the state were strongly linked with heat waves and warmer average

surface-water temperatures.

“This research takes a substantial step forward in connecting the dots between the occurrence of rare ecological catastrophes and climate warming,” said Prof. Fey. “Historically, the causes of animal die-offs have been difficult to study because these events tend to be rare and unpredictable.”

The study shows most future fish kills are expected to occur in the southern portion of the state, which is the warmest and most populated part of Wisconsin. Urban, agricultural, and industrial activities combine to impact lakes in the area.

“It feels great to know the research is finally out there,” Aaron says.

“Almost as good as passing my orals.

I owe a tremendous amount to Sam and Andrew for keeping this rolling after I graduated.” He is currently a data research associate at M Science in Portland.

High School Named for Reed Trustee Congratulations to trustee Adrienne Nelson, who will have the distinction of having a school named after her.

The North Clackamas School District broke ground in June on Adrienne C. Nelson High School, named in honor of Justice Nelson, who is the first black woman to sit on Oregon’s Supreme Court. The school, located in Happy Valley, will be built on the site of the old Rock Creek Middle School, and is slated to open in 2021.

Justice Nelson has been a Reed trustee since 2014.

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Advocates of the Griffin

News of the Alumni Association • Connecting Reed alumni around the globe

Mateo Burch ’82 (armed with guitar) leads classmates on 24-hour Iliad singalong at Reunions 2019. (Kidding, it’s just the catalogue of ships.)

From the President of the Alumni Board

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Reed Magazine september 2019

volunteers in Chapter leadership roles transition into an organization of their own.

We need your help! Each committee would love more ad hoc members to help their initiatives come to fruition. If you’re interested in helping our community through one of these committees, please let us know, and we’ll get you plugged in.

In case you missed us at Reunions in June, Alumni Board members were dunked in a dunk tank with cold hose water to raise over $1,000 (in a mere 90 minutes!) for the Reed Community Pantry. I am kind of hoping never to be dunked again, but we will see if this returns next year. If so, here’s hoping for warmer weather!

This year, I would love to continue the work we have been doing while focusing on the following:

photo by nina johnson ’99 / above photo by lauren labarre

Hello, members of the Reed Community!

My name is Jinyoung Park ’11. Linguistics. I came to Reed from Phnom Penh, Cambodia back in 2007 and never really left.

I mean, I moved away, but I’m back in Portland several times a year as part of my volunteer engagement, so folks on campus do not have the luxury of forgetting about me. This year, I am excited to continue serving our incredible community as president of the Alumni Board.

A s you may know, the Alumni Board has gone through a multitude of changes over the last couple of years, and I am delighted to report that a lot of progress has been made. (Learn about our hard-working committees at alumni.reed.edu/ board_of_alumni.)

In addition, we have been working with Dave Baxter, chair of the Chapter Leadership Council, as our dedicated

FULL IMMERSION. Jinyoung takes a refreshing dip in the dunk tank at Reunions.

• Commitment to an inclusive alumni board with representation from the various backgrounds and perspectives that make up the Reed community.

• Growing the ad hoc membership of the alumni board (we are looking for more volunteers to serve on committees!)

• Working with the college on interesting and intellectual programming for the alumni community.

I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with our new President Bilger, alumni volunteers who give so much to Reed, and all of you who are part of this one-ofa-kind community.

Please reach out if you would like to chat about anything.

Jinyoung Park ’11 President, Reed Alumni Board jinyoung@alumni.reed.edu

Put your best foot forward with some new socks from the Reed College Bookstore.

bookstore.reed.edu september 2019  Reed Magazine

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What Is a Reedie, Anyway?

PHOTOS BY CLAYTON COTTERELL

Exceptional and exemplary, a dazzling dozen graduates from the Class of ’19 think critically about their years at Reed and reflect on how the experience transformed them. Discover who they were when they got here, the professors who had an impact on them, and the ideas that ignited them.

Brenna Intemann-Milligan Hometown:

Influential book:

Sacramento, California

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.

Thesis adviser:

Concept that blew my mind:

Prof. Joshua Howe [history]

Toni Morrison’s concept of rememory—offered as a way to make and remake the past and present, the knowable and the unknowable—has come up countless times at Reed.

Thesis: A Hitch In The American Dream: Travel Trailers, Mobile Homes, and American Class Anxieties 1930–1970 What it’s about: What can mobile homes surrounded by a white picket fence, or Airstreams in driveways, tell us about the American middle class? My thesis looks at the invention, popularization, and changing uses of travel trailers and mobile homes. I argue that middle-class Americans problematized mobile homes because they represented downward mobility. The ways that mobile-home owners decorated, lived in, and talked about their homes reveal their aspirations to an elusive middleclass identity.

Challenges I faced: I was a house advisor for 3 years and always had a side job. Balancing school, sports, and a social life was often a challenge.

What it’s really about:

How Reed changed me:

How affluent Americans stigmatized mobile homes to protect their own status as members of a unified, moral, suburban white middle-class.

Reed encouraged me to ask a lot of questions and accept that the answers are always changing. I grew a lot, made lifelong friends, and learned to recognize what was important and then prioritize it.

In high school: I was always on

the run—a girl with a sevenyear plan she definitely did not stick to.

Influential professor:

Sophomore year, Prof. Pancho Savery [English] let me take his Contemporary African American Fiction—a great class with a rich syllabus. As important, it was full of hardworking, engaged upperclassmen who showed me what a Reed conference should feel like.

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Cool stuff: I wouldn’t have

made it through Reed without the rugby team, which I was honored to captain for two years, personally disproving the myth that Reedies aren’t sporty. I was involved with the Peer Mentor Program, the Model UN team, and the mock trial team, served on the J Board/Title IX Board, and was a Renn Fayre Czar.

Financial aid: A lot of generous alumni made it possible for me to have the amazing formative experience I did at this institution, for which I am forever grateful. As a big foodie, I was particularly delighted to be the recipient of the James Beard Memorial Scholarship.

What’s next: Law school, but

for now I'm sticking around Portland to play Rugby on ORSU's Women's Premier League squad.

HISTORY

Varik Harris Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Thesis adviser: Prof. Kelly Chacón [chemistry] Thesis: Copper? I Barely Know Her! A Study of Possible Cu Chaperone Proteins for the CuA Center of Cytochrome C Oxidase What it’s about: Cytochrome C oxidase is a protein necessary for aerobic energy production in both single- and multicellular organisms. There are two copper atoms in a subunit of it called “copper A” needed for energy production. Nobody knows how they get there, so I am trying to discern the proteins responsible for helping transport them.

What it’s really about: Copper A is needed for energy production, but nobody knows how the copper gets there. That’s where I come in.

Influential professor: I never thought I would cry in my thesis advisor’s office, and I did. Kelly Chacón told me, “You know, sometimes life gives you a shit sandwich and holds the bread, but it’s what you do next that matters.” She taught me the importance of self-care and being able to keep pushing forward when things are stacked against you.

Influential book: On the Nature of Things by Lucretius.

Concept that blew my mind: Scientists generally agree that there are more bacteria and microbiota in you than there are human cells, or that the numbers are about even. Let that sink in.

Cool stuff: KRRC, the Quest, Beer Nation, using the particle accelerator at Stanford for my thesis. I worked for the admission office leading tours and interviewing prospective students, and

BIOCHEMISTRY

made coursework for the chemistry department showing how organic chemistry has benefited minorities.

Challenges I faced: My dad was hospitalized with a bacterial infection and had heart surgery while I was on spring break. It was the first time all the biochemistry floating around in my brain was used in a way that could help others. I had a conversation with my mom about what the doctors were doing and why and how they would use the information to proceed. It felt great, and I think it helped her and the rest of my family not worry as much.

How Reed changed me: Before coming to Reed, I didn’t know there were nongendered pronouns, that I was more than an ACT score or a GPA, or that you could go to a small liberal arts college and do research that most people think can only be done at a huge state school.

Reed humbled me, increased my self-confidence to new levels, and taught me my worth—how I should be respected by others and how I should respect them.

Financial aid: Without financial aid, I never would have been able to attend Reed. Reed was the most expensive place I applied and was accepted to, yet at the end of the day, ended up being the cheapest school for me to attend. Thank you to the people that make all of this possible. A special thank-you to the family of Taliesin NamkaiMeche ’16. The support from the scholarship in your son’s name was greatly appreciated in my final year.

What’s next: Being an admission counselor at Reed while helping out with research at Reed.

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Yevgeniya (Genya) Zhukova Hometown: Chicago, Illinois, and Krivoy Rog, Ukraine.

Thesis advisers:

Prof. Angélica Osorno [math]; Prof. Paul Hovda [philosophy]

Influential books:

Abstract Algebra by David Dummit and Richard Foote; Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser.

Concept that blew my mind:

Thesis: Cobordism Hypothesis:

Since all and only overlappers of cats are overlappers of cat fusions, the fusion of all cats is the same as the fusion of all cat fusions.

What it’s about: My math thesis is an exposition of the cobordism hypothesis focusing on two dimensions.

My philosophy thesis is about flavors of mathematical structuralism and some problems that they face.

Cool stuff: I organized for the math student colloquium, worked with some awesome students as a tutor and course assistant for the math department; participated in STEMGeMs, the Mountaineering Club, Peer Mentor for Minorities and Philosophy; and was a Griffin Guide. I got the opportunity to work with a local organization called Pacific Spaceflight, which is committed to democratizing space travel, and got to build my very own pressurized space suit! Throughout my time at Reed, I volunteered with Russian Oregon Social Services.

Macaroni as Mathematics [math]; Mathematical Structuralism and Identification Problems [philosophy]

What it’s really about:

Math: How pictures make everything better. Philosophy: What are numbers really?

In high school: I was a math

nerd, rock-climbing gym rat.

Influential professors:

Eddie Cushman [philosophy] showed me that philosophy wasn’t just all old Greek dudes.

Meg Scharle [philosophy] taught me that even the old Greek dudes can be engaging. Mariela Szwarcberg Daby [political science] showed me that there is space in academics for things that don’t just revolve around “theory.” Adam Groce [computer science] taught one of the best classes I’ve ever taken—Comp Comp [Computability and Complexity]. My two thesis advisors, Angélica Osorno and Paul Hovda, are perhaps most influential because they not only taught me some very, very cool material and pushed me to do my best, but were also incredibly supportive during some of my hardest times at Reed.

Additionally, Rodney Sofich [outdoor specialist] isn’t really a professor, but taught me more about facing down my fears, while being smart about it, and I will always be grateful for that.

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How Reed changed me:

Reed caused me to grow into a more critical thinker and a more compassionate person.

Awards, fellowships, grants:

The work I did the summer after my sophomore year was sponsored by the Reed Summer Internship Grant.

What’s next: In the fall I will be

starting a PhD in mathematics at Stony Brook University.

M AT H E M AT I C S & P H I LO S O P H Y

Jeri Brand

CO MPA RAT IV E L IT E RAT U R E

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Thesis adviser:

Prof. Jan Mieszkowski [German] Thesis: Transgender Bioterrorism: Appropriating Technologies of Identification towards Hormonal Designification What it’s about: My thesis is

about the ways that neoliberalism constrains the field of socially viable sex/gender manifestations by demanding an artificial equivalence between identity, the body, and the speaking subject.

I approach this effect from a transgender perspective that sees all sex/gender configurations as technological products, and ultimately call for the replacement of “I am” neoliberal transness with a “yes, and” rhizomatic transness that refuses normalization or ipseity.

What it’s really about: Me! In high school: I was depressed

and angry almost all the time.

The general social environment of my high school was never a great fit for me, and my junior and senior years were defined by my being the only openly trans person to ever attend that school. I had to continually justify my basic personhood to my peers, my teachers, and the administration; I was always on the defensive and had absolutely no leeway to be creative with my gender expression. For me, a major factor in choosing to go to Reed was my need to be in an environment where most students, faculty, and staff share at least a basic understanding of what transness is and how to treat trans people with respect.

Influential professors:

other’s sake. Prof. Kris Cohen’s [art history 2011–] The Art of Capitalism class taught me that you learn far more at the margins than in the center.

Influential book: The Zohar Cool stuff: Judicial Board, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Peer Group. I became a barista, learned Russian, ran a student art show.

Challenges I faced:

There are only a few recurring courses that prioritize sex/ gender scholarship, so I had to design my own plan of study—this is what led me to an interdisciplinary major. Part of Reed’s initial appeal was that the college is small enough to accommodate student-designed programs of study, and I’m glad that I was able to take advantage of that in planning my own curriculum.

How Reed changed me:

Reed taught me that disagreement is valuable in its own right, and that a willingness to be wrong is the best way to genuinely learn and grow as a person. Coming out of a hostile social environment in high school, I was terrified to be interpersonally or intellectually vulnerable. I unlearned that fear at Reed partly by being in conferences where professors cultivated meaningful and respectful debate, and partly by developing a lot of emotionally intimate friendships with very smart, opinionated people.

What’s next: I plan to enroll in

an English PhD program with the goal of becoming a queer and gender studies professor.

Prof. Peter Steinberger’s [political science] Being and Time and Politics class taught me how to think philosophically, such that neither nuance nor precision is sacrificed for the

september 2019 Reed Magazine 13

Mia Bonilla Hometown: Miami, Florida Thesis adviser:

Prof. Gerri Ondrizek [art 1994–] Thesis: Conocimiento What it’s about: Conocimiento constructs a subaltern religious experience that makes visible the way race, gender, sexuality, and theology are psychically and corporeally embodied.

What it’s really about:

Worship and kinship.

Influential professors:

Radhika Natarajan [history] and Joanna Fiduccia [art history] have changed my life through their incomparable brilliance.

They are both such fiercely intelligent people and have constantly guided me towards expansive forms of thinking. I am so grateful for their kindness and compassion, and they have impressed on me the value and beauty of scholarship and learning.

Influential book: Discourse on

Colonialism by Aimé Césaire.

Concept that blew my mind:

Édouard Glissant’s essay “For Opacity” helped me imagine a new way of aesthetically and spiritually interacting with the world.

Cool stuff: Under Claudia Ramirez Islas, Jamila Dozier, and Ruby White, I was one of the coordinators in charge of creating programming for students of color and the larger Reed community through the Gray Fund and the Multicultural Resource Center. This work has been one of my greatest sources of joy. The workshops, events, and talks we put on were so thoroughly thought out and planned with love and care, it was truly an honor to work with such a great staff of black and brown people.

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ART Challenges I faced:

Reed—that’s the challenge. This institution was never meant for people like me: the culture of racism and privilege is so overwhelming that it takes a physical and mental toll on the wellbeing of people of color. I had to take three years off to learn how to accept that it’s not that I wasn’t ready for Reed, or that I don’t belong at Reed, but rather that Reed wasn’t ready for me, and still isn’t ready for people like me. Reed needs to invest in its students of color: it has to put forth resources to not just admit us but support us so that we can truly achieve our potential and reach our goals.

How Reed changed me:

I really think the best part about Reed was how it gave me a chance to rest long enough to think. Being at Reed wasn’t all great all the time, but the time and space it gave me helped spark something in me and forced me to create new frameworks of understanding.

Financial aid: Reed gave me a financial aid package for which I am grateful, and I fully recognize how fortunate I am to have been given the opportunity to go to school. Still, I want to push back against the idea that underprivileged people should be thankful for receiving whatever they’ve been given.

When it comes to equity, it is important to not just think of a marginalized person’s present financial situation but also their future finances. Paying off this debt is not as easy when you are already starting out with a disadvantage and are entering a job market plagued with discrimination and gendered/ racialized wage gaps.

What’s next: Decorating my new

room! After four years of dorm living I am so ready to have a space that is entirely mine.

Ryan Gamblin Hometown:

Manchester, New Hampshire Thesis adviser:

Prof. Kate Bredeson [theatre] Thesis: The Song Cycle as a Medium of Postdramatic Theatre What it’s about: I explore the way that the form of the song cycle is used by contemporary artists to question the bounds of the medium of theatre and harness the power of music in performance—free from the restrictions and trappings of Aristotelian drama, the formal concert, and the American musical.

What it’s really about: How can

we use music in theatre in a way that isn’t so predictable?

In high school: I was a drum

major, a stage manager, a saxophonist, and the singer of an emo band on the weekends.

I was also a lot more tightly wound.

Influential Reed class:

Prof. Peter Ksander’s [theatre] Visual Performance Narratives class has permanently changed the way that I understand art and performance. The entire theatre department has changed the way that I view and interact with the world around me, and made me aware of the ways in which we are all simultaneously creating it.

Influential books: Entangled by

Chris Salter, The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan, and 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane.

T H E AT R E

Cool stuff: I learned how to fix my own bicycle (kind of), studied digital video and interactive art; learned how to design a sound system and use different software and hardware for making music, theatre, and art; collaborated on multiple Renn Fayre projects; directed a show; created work with some of my best friends; was inspired by my collaborators; was in a band; learned how to enjoy dancing; was a tutor; went to the ski cabin; saw the Pacific Ocean; worked or interned at PICA’s TBA Festival, the Wooster Group, the Public Theater, and more.

Challenges I faced:

Adapting to an environment where some of your peers are the children of CEOs and presidents of major corporations was really weird and difficult for me, being from a modest old mill city in New Hampshire. Knowing that some of my peers received educations at some of the most prestigious secondary schools in the country (and world) made me feel inferior for a long time.

How Reed changed me:

I am so much more myself than I ever thought I could be, and am pursuing a breadth and depth of experience that I never thought I could have access to.

Awards, fellowships, grants: I

received the summer internship award twice, a grant from the David Adler Theatre Fund, and commendations for academic excellence at Reed for all four years. I received generous financial aid during my time at Reed, which enabled my attendance.

What’s next: I'm going to keep

trying to make relevant art however I can with as many different people as possible.

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Shelby Williams Hometown: New Orleans and Lafayette, Louisiana Thesis adviser: Prof. Nicholas Wilson [economics] Thesis: The Hair I Swear By: An Economic Analysis of How Los Angeles Black Beauty Firms Affect the Communities They Inhabit What it’s about: I looked at the social and economic impact of Black beauty firms on communities by gauging the firms' contributions. I analyzed crime, housing, and population data in order to understand how these businesses affect different communities as well as create lasting impact on the economic structures. Through Yelp.com, census data, and interviews, I pieced together what is happening in Los Angeles.

What it’s really about: Making sure that Blackness is recognized and researched in economics. I want to make sure Blackness is a part of the institutional memory at Reed.

And also, I love my Blackness.

In high school: I was voted “Most Likely to Be Famous” because I was always interested in the arts.

Influential Reed professor: I had a lot of anxiety and depression starting sophomore year, but from day one, Prof.

Jon Rork [economics] has believed in my potential. He gave me the space to do my work and I tried my hardest because I knew he had faith that I could do it. It made me feel like I was an important and special being in the academic world of Reed even if I wasn’t as blessed with the same prior econ knowledge as my counterparts.

I also really enjoyed his

16 Reed Magazine september 2019

ECONOMICS

jokes in class! Because of his unwavering understanding and commitment, I can say that Jon Rork is the most influential Reed professor that I have had.

Influential books: The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers, all by Malcolm Gladwell.

Concept that blew my mind: The mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell.

Cool stuff: Multicultural Resource Center, Gray Fund, Pre-Law Club, Model UN, Peer Mentor Program, orientation, and much more.

Challenges I faced: Not coming from the same affluence or rigorous education as my Reedie counterparts, I was always behind on understanding simple concepts in class. But Reed taught me that it was okay to ask for help, whether that be through official tutors or from friends. Impostor syndrome is rampant at Reed, and I encourage students, especially low-SES and POC students, to recognize that you are worthy of this education!

How Reed changed me: Reed gave me the option to do more academically and creatively. The fact that I actually understand higher level concepts, wrote a thesis, improved my classical singing— as well as sang before Doja Cat—is quite amazing! I have been able to create my own path as well as understand that to lead is to listen to others. I am a much better person because of my Reed education.

Awards, fellowships, grants: Winter International Fellowship, Multnomah Bar Association LSAT Scholarship.

What’s next: Chilling with my doggo, Cuddles, and living out my next adventure: one day at a time!

Shelby cradles her intrepid thesis partner, Cuddles.

Oona Sullivan-Marcus Hometown:

San Francisco, California Thesis adviser:

Prof. Lucas Illing [physics] Thesis: Computer Generated Holograms What it’s about:

Analog holograms work by recording an interference pattern between the light scattered from an object and a reference beam, then shining the reference beam through the interference pattern to create a 3-D image. I tried to skip the recording step, and use a computer to calculate and generate the intensity pattern I would need to make a 3-D image.

What it’s really about: I made a

cube out of dots in a laser beam.

In high school: I was a shy back-

of-the-classroom dweller, afraid of making mistakes and seeming stupid.

Influential professors:

Prof. Lucas Illing will ask you to do a lot of algebra, but it will be worth it because your understanding of physics will grow. I took three classes with him and got so much out of each one. I also greatly enjoyed Francophone Literature with Prof. Michaela Hulstyn [French] and Musical Ethnography with Prof. Morgan Luker [music], who both exposed me to ideas I never would have encountered otherwise.

Concept that blew my mind:

The Big Bang should have produced equal amounts of matter and antimatter, which would have annihilated each other in the early universe.

However, for some as yet unknown reason, slightly more matter was created (some estimate 1 in every 10,000,000,000 particles!), which was left over after the matter-antimatter annihilation, and this excess of matter makes up everything in the universe!

PHYSICS

Cool stuff: I was a TA in the physics department and really got into kickboxing. Scriptorium is a biweekly calligraphy event that falls somewhere between class and club. Developing a love for letters was an unexpected but incredibly significant part of my Reed experience, and I’m grateful to have had a creative outlet and learned to see text differently.

I ran the student darkroom and was an active member/ leader of STEMGeMs, which seeks to support gender minorities in STEM fields.

Challenges I faced:

It can be challenging to have discussions about identity as it relates to education, particularly in a department where those discussions are not directly related to the course content. I have, at times, felt that the physics department has reinforced some barriers that gender minorities face in STEM fields, which I have worked to help change.

How Reed changed me:

Reed has brought irreplaceable people into my life and taught me how to participate in the process of learning. I have become more comfortable with asking questions and making mistakes because I have learned how to recover from them. Now I sit in the front row and am much less afraid of seeming stupid because it doesn’t matter how I “seem.”

Financial aid: I’m extremely grateful that my Reed education was possible because of the financial aid I received, which included the Warnaco–White Stag scholarship.

What’s next: Moving to France

to teach English for a year.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 17

Bella Brownwood Hometown:

Nevada City, California Thesis adviser:

Prof. Julie Fry [chemistry] Thesis: NO3-iniated Oxidation of Isoprene: Oxidation Mechanism and Aerosol Formation What it’s about: I am simulating the reaction of NO3 and isoprene that occurs in the atmosphere.

NO3 is formed from the interaction of ozone and NOx, which is an anthropologically controlled emission that comes from any combustion reaction like car engines or power plants.

Isoprene, an organic compound, is the largest plant volatile organic compound (VOC) emission globally. The product of this reaction is a secondary organic aerosol (SOA), which can condense on other particles to form particulate matter in the air. I am trying to quantify how much particulate matter in the atmosphere from this reaction will increase as NOx emissions increase. To do this, I am looking at the aerosol (particulate matter) yields under conditions that vary the ratio of NO3 to isoprene.

What it’s really about:

Learning how to fill a bag with air; also, keeping track of 7+ data files and 3+ data workup files per experiment.

In high school: I kind of

tried to stay under the radar, was generally reserved and unopinionated.

Influential professors:

Every class I have taken with the ES faculty has been amazing and also influential in how I think about my environmental interests, both scientifically and socially. Professors Julie Fry, Noelwah Netusil [economics], and Chris Koski [political science] in particular have been mentors in and outside of

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E N V I R O N M E N TA L S T U D I E S – C H E M I S T R Y

the classroom, supporting me immensely in scientific research and attempts at furthering campus environmental sustainability, and helping me access invaluable resources, opportunities, and connections.

Cool things: Greenboard, Sunny Day Sorbet, Sustainability Committee, Reed Mountaineering, Reed Co-Ops, Reed Community Garden, Reed Outing Club, Reed Tango Club, Brewers Guild, and the Outdoors Center.

Challenges I faced: Balancing my extracurricular activities with my schoolwork has been a challenge. I do so many things and love all of them, but it’s easy for me to forget about schoolwork completely if I am doing something else. Now I write neurotic hourly schedules before each week starts so I don’t forget anything.

How Reed changed me: Reed

provided a space in which I could try out and become involved in a huge array of activities, allowing me to explore different facets of myself. I was able to step into leadership roles, which was different for me. I gained a lot of confidence in my abilities to make change, motivate people to act, and connect with people who can help me get stuff done!

Awards, fellowships, grants:

I received the Paul Siegel Environmental Studies Summer Experience Fellowship for the summer of 2018 to go to Jülich, Germany, to participate in an international collaborative research campaign.

What’s next: I am going to

spend a while living out the passions I developed at Reed (climbing and dancing) that I was unable to completely invest myself in while taking classes.

Ally Watson Hometown: Springboro, Ohio Thesis adviser: Prof. Sameer ud Dowla Khan [linguistics] Thesis: Beirut or Beyrouth: French-Oriented Identity in Lebanese Arabic

LINGUISTICS Cool stuff: I’ve had a pretty fabulous time at Reed. I learned Coupé-Décalé drumming patterns in Abidjan, studied abroad in Beirut, won the Great Reedie Bake-Off with my team, Mélange Ethnique.

at the relation between the French r used as a replacement for the Arabic r and how this relates to French-oriented identity, which is a conflation of language, religion, politics, and social status. This phenomenon is recorded in folk literature, but hasn’t been quantified or connected in an academic study before.

Challenges I faced: Less than a month into my freshman year, my older sister died, which impacted my college experience at every level. It makes things harder, but I think a loss can also challenge you to be your best self. Smaller challenges include tearing my ACL skiing in Lebanon, and the culture shock of moving to a bigger, more liberal city.

What it’s really about:

How Reed changed me:

In a multilingual community, how does language work to distinguish us, and how do we distinguish ourselves through language?

The biggest development has been gaining my confidence.

Freshman year, I was the kid who wouldn’t speak in Hum conference—just wrote my ideas down on paper and talked to people outside of class about my theories and opinions. Now I have the confidence not only to speak my mind and feel like I have valuable insight, but to embarrass myself completely.

What it’s about: My thesis looks

In high school: I was a bit of

shy nerd with a lot of scattered hobbies, like being obsessed with the Prose Edda, astrology, and robotics.

Influential Reed class:

Vector Calculus with Prof. Jerry Shurman [math] was one of the most incredible classes I’ve taken at Reed. It taught me a lot about myself in terms of my enthusiasm and dedication towards learning a topic just for the sake of it, and how excited I get struggling with an interesting problem.

Financial aid: I feel extremely lucky that I can attend this institution, but also that education should be accessible and not gatekept by financial restrictions. So thank you very much to all the wonderful donors who make this possible!

Awards, fellowships, grants:

Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria, Jr.

Initiative Grant to collect original data in Lebanon, Winter International Travel Fellowship to study drums in Abidjan.

Concept that blew my mind:

What’s next: I'm currently

Influential book: Custer Died for

I’m in love with the concept of discourse markers. I did an independent study with Prof.

Matt Pearson [linguistics] on the pragmatics of discourse markers. Words like “but” or “well” in English have substantial literature related to their complexities.

working as a data analyst for a global health nonprofit.

Ally's whisk was a decisive factor in winning the Great Reedie Bake-Off.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 19

Ananthan Nambiar Hometown: Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Thesis advisers:

Prof. Mark Hopkins [computer science ] and Prof. Anna Ritz [biology] Thesis title: Computing the Language of Life What it’s about: I studied the use of tools from natural language processing and deep learning to interpret biological sequences as a language. These techniques were then used as nonalignment-based methods to predict the function of proteins based on just the primary sequence information.

What it’s really about:

If proteins make up a language, how can we tell what a protein “means?”

In high school: I was a little

competitive and adamant on getting things right.

Influential Reed classes:

Three classes had a huge impact on my time at Reed: 1. Computational Methods with Prof. Andrew Larkoski [physics] was the first time I got formal exposure to the techniques necessary to apply concepts from math and physics to realistic problems. 2. In Computation with Prof. Mark Bedau [philosophy], I got the unique chance to think about computation and artificial intelligence from a philosophical perspective. This class also led to my involvement in several research projects. 3. With my thesis, Mark Hopkins and Anna Ritz allowed me to pursue a very interdisciplinary topic despite not being an interdisciplinary major.

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COMPUTER SCIENCE

Concept that blew my mind:

The universal approximation theorem states that feed-forward multilayer neural networks are universal approximators for any continuous function on a closed and bounded subset of the reals (. . . given some assumptions).

Cool stuff: I participated in the Association for Computing Machinery Pacific Northwest Region Programming Contest on a team called Algogriffins 2, and conducted an independent study with Prof. Larkoski, where I got my first exposure to deep learning by using neural networks to study the Higgs boson decay to a pair of tau leptons. I used data from the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN for this. Another fun thing that I did was teach at several elementary schools in the Portland area for the Reed Science Outreach program.

Challenges I faced: Moving to the U.S. was quite challenging.

Like many international students, I had never been to the U.S. before Reed. It didn’t take long to realize that Reed was not very representative of the country in general.

Financial aid: I turned down

a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious university in the U.K. to attend Reed. This decision would not have been possible if I hadn’t received a generous financial aid package.

Awards, fellowships, grants:

Student Opportunity Subsidy (SOS) Grant, Reed Opportunity Grant.

What’s next: I’m heading to the

University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign to get my PhD and will be working in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory to use deep learning for cancer drug predictions and studying microbial ecosystems.

Ananthan brandishes a GPU (graphics processing unit) that made his thesis possible.

Ashlee Fox

ECONOMICS

Hometown:

Bartlesville, Oklahoma Thesis adviser:

Prof. Noelwah Netusil [economics] Thesis: Sovereignty and Self-

Governance in Indian Country: Applying a Law and Economics Framework to Carpenter v.

Murphy What it’s about: Carpenter v.

Murphy is a pending United States Supreme Court case that will determine whether or not Indian reservations exist in Oklahoma. My thesis applies a law and economics lens to argue—and demonstrate empirically—that tribes are the best maximizers of the welfare and well-being of their citizens, and as such, the Supreme Court should affirm the sovereignty of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation by finding that the tribe’s reservation still exists.

What it’s really about: Tribes

are sovereign nations. Act like it.

In high school: I spent my

high-school years entrenched in Oklahoma politics and tribal politics. By the time I got to Reed, I was eager to change the world. I met with President Obama in Durant, Oklahoma, to discuss the importance of tribal language revitalization efforts.

I traveled to Washington, DC, twice during my senior year, as a White House Tribal Nations youth ambassador and in my capacity as president of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Youth Council, to attend the White House Tribal Youth Gathering.

Influential professors:

Prof. Noelwah Netusil inspired me to dream big, do meaningful work, and use economics for the greater good. Prof. miishen Carpentier [anthropology] taught me to think and

engage critically, especially when it comes to imagining different futures, legalities, and sovereignties in Indian Country.

I’ll forever be indebted to him.

Influential book: Red Skins,

White Masks by Glen Coulthard.

Concept that blew my mind:

We’re all just chasing incentives, for better or for worse.

Ashlee proudly carries the flag of the Cherokee Nation.

Cool stuff: I founded American Indians at Reed; was a Truman Scholar; was a mentor in the Peer Mentor Program; was a Griffin Guide for incoming economics majors; and received the Winter International Travel Fellowship to spend three weeks writing a food blog in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I spent a summer as the Gerhardt policy and legal intern at 1000 Friends of Oregon, where I wrote a report on wildfires and land use law and recommended policy changes. I was an American Indian studies research assistant for Prof. Carpentier; spent a year abroad at the London School of Economics; and was a summer research intern at Harvard.

How Reed changed me:

Reed taught me to think critically and question incessantly. But more than that, Reed expanded my world and gave me access to unparalleled opportunities—to travel the world, to study at worldrenowned institutions, to figure out who I was and who I wanted to become.

Financial aid: I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to receive an education I never dreamed possible due to the generous support I received.

What’s next: I’ll be joining the

government relations team at the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. After that, I’m off to law school.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 21

SCHOLAR. WRITER. TEACHER. PRESIDENT. There was no script for Audrey Bilger’s career.

So she wrote her own.

BY CHRIS LYDGATE ’90

In 2010, Audrey Bilger, then a literature professor at Claremont McKenna College, got an urgent request from the dean of the faculty: could she save the writing center?

Having experienced a series of leadership changes over the past decade, the college’s writing center was facing some steep challenges. It suffered from high turnover and low morale. Many professors didn’t want anything to do with it, in part because they questioned its relevance, and there had been a revolving cast of directors who had struggled because of the center’s marginalization. It had become an institutional orphan.

Bilger hesitated over her response. The center had no direct connection to her own scholarship, which centered on 18th-century English literature and gender studies. Nor did she have a background in rhetoric or composition. Some of her faculty colleagues, she knew, scorned the center as a remedial program, and others were suspicious of the idea of peer writing tutors. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it,” she says now. She wasn’t sure the center could be saved.

But as she considered the centrality of writing in her own life and work, she

22 Reed Magazine september 2019

realized that she could rethink it. Something she had long told her students and firmly believed was that writing is a superpower. She had always loved helping students find their voice through writing and working with colleagues to discuss and improve one another’s work. She was also committed to public writing and engaged scholarship.

Later that year, Bilger relaunched the center with a new mission—to promote excellence in writing and public communication.

As founding faculty director of the renamed Center for Writing and Public Discourse, she

lauren labarre

Audrey Bilger applauds Reed students who presented their summer research in Eliot Hall.

brought in speakers, put on workshops, and oversaw tutoring for 700 students per year.

And she put a special emphasis on helping students—and professors—connect with a wider audience.

“Writing for the public is not about dumbing down or watering down,” she says.

“It’s about finding a way to make the ideas live outside the specialized realm so they can circulate more widely. If we want to have an impact on the world, we need to find opportunities to engage with a broader audience.”

The revamped center was a smash hit.

For Bilger—Reed’s new president—it was an important milestone in a distinguished career that includes three books, scores of articles, truckloads of awards and honors, and side gigs as journalist, drummer, and DJ. The episode also provides a telling example of her intellectual transformation. As a young person, she looked for answers in books. But over time she learned that “the book” isn’t always right—and that sometimes, when you find yourself in uncharted territory, you have to write your own script.

Bilger (pronounced with a hard g as in “grrr”) was born in West Virginia, the granddaughter of former coal miners. When she was young, her family moved to Oklahoma, where her father worked in sales for an aluminum company and her mother took care of the family, which included her and her three brothers. Growing up, she always had her nose in a book: Nancy Drew mysteries; The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Lord of the Rings. “I read anything I could get my hands on,” she says.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 23

BILGER PROFILE, cont.

Star ting in 1978, she attended Oklahoma State University. Like many of her OSU peers, she was a first-generation college student. Her interest in writing and the humanities stood apart from the norm, and she enjoyed classes with long reading lists and lively discussion sessions. In her sophomore year, she took a class that changed her life—a philosophy course focused on the ancient Greek tragedies. The philosophy department at OSU was small and tight-knit; it was her first experience building relationships with professors. “I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t had teachers who took an interest in me, who noticed me, who encour-

At UVA, Bilger also discovered her love of teaching. “When it works in the classroom, when discussion takes off and ideas are forming, and people are learning, there’s a kind of magic,” she says. “I just realized that that’s how I wanted to spend my days.”

She served as program coordinator for the Women’s Center, organizing events and bringing in speakers. She also was a DJ for the college radio station, WTJU, where she spun vinyl by emerging artists such as REM, Nirvana, Prince, Jane Siberry, and more.

In 1992, after earning her PhD (she won a prize for her dissertation on the subversive comedy of Jane Austen), she took a job as a visiting English professor at Oberlin

“ I wouldn’t be where I am now if I didn’t have teachers who took an interest in me, who noticed me, who encouraged me to push a little harder.” aged me to push a little harder,” she says.

“Like the best mentors, these were teachers who conveyed the message: ‘I see something in you.’”

During her senior year, she took an English class on Romantic literature and came to love the work of the poet and printer William Blake. “The combination of image and word was really powerful,” she says.

“Sometimes I would look at the Oklahoma sunset with its colorful Blakean cloudscapes and think that, even though Blake was writing almost two hundred years ago, he was speaking to me.”

After graduation she went to the University of Virginia to study English literature. It was an exciting time to be in grad school. Literary theory, gender studies, and critical race theory were shaking up the academy and revolutionizing decades, even centuries, of established dogma. Bilger began to explore authors and traditions that had been overlooked, misunderstood, or trivialized by generations of scholars. Reading Jane Austen, she discovered a rich, deeply ironic voice that delivered a devastating critique of the social expectations of the Georgian era by deploying an unexpected weapon— humor. “It became clear that the female protagonists are often at odds with the world around them. The novels are making fun of the assumptions that society makes—and this is what Jane Austen subjects to ridicule.”

24 Reed Magazine september 2019

College. It was her first sustained encounter with a small liberal arts college, and she instantly grasped the transformative power of the model. “There were amazing conversations at all hours of the day,” she says. “I wish I had known about this kind of school when I was a student.” In 1994, she joined the faculty in the literature department at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, and soon became the coordinator of the gender studies program.

During her time at CMC, she got a manila envelope from a former student containing the premier issue of a new feminist zine.

The former student was Lisa Jervis, and the zine’s title was Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture. The fledgling magazine soon won an avid national following for its hot takes on pop culture. Before long, Bilger was contributing articles—one of her earliest pieces was an essay on the phrase “you guys.” (From a feminist perspective, she found the phrase troubling, but on a personal level she found it hard to scrub from her vocabulary.) This essay ended up circulating widely and was anthologized in collections on gender studies and linguistics.

The experience of writing for a broader audience reinforced her conviction that scholars can play a vital role in the world beyond the classroom. She went on to write for a long list of publications, from the Los Angeles Times to the San Francisco Chronicle to Ms.

magazine. As she navigated the uncharted waters of being an English professor, a feminist, and a public intellectual, she was also rewriting the script of her personal life.

Bilger learned to play the drums when she was teaching at Oberlin. She had always loved music, but drumming provided a physical dimension to performance that she found captivating. She started an allfemale blues band in LA; they played covers at coffee shops and bars. “I learned a lot about leadership from being in a band and particularly from playing drums,” she says.

“There’s something about being in that position—in the back, laying down the rhythm, having other people come in on top of it— that creates a special sort of teamwork. Also, bands have to figure out how to share the stage and function as a group.”

One day, her band was scheduled to play a show at the local Borders bookstore. A week before the gig, she decided to go to the store to check out the venue. Impressed by the band that was playing, she struck up a conversation with the rhythm guitarist during the break. The next week, as her band played, she looked around the store and noticed that the rhythm guitarist, Cheryl Pawelski, was in the audience.

“We had a long conversation about music— and it never stopped,” she says. After being together for 12 years, they were legally married in 2008, shortly before California voters approved Proposition 8, which banned additional same-sex marriages in the state (and which was later annulled by the U.S. Supreme Court). Early on in their relationship, Pawelski began to bring Bilger in as an editorial consultant on musical projects for Pawelski’s record label, Omnivore Recordings, which eventually included a release of previously unknown recordings by country singer Hank Williams that garnered a 2014 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album.

Meanwhile, Bilger was busy racking up a formidable portfolio of scholarly achievement at Claremont McKenna. She published Laughing Feminism, the first study to examine Jane Austen’s relationship to a tradition of Enlightenment feminist humor; edited a critical edition of Jane Collier’s satirical 1753 satire, An Essay On The Art of Ingeniously

lauren labarre

VINYL HOUNDS: Audrey Bilger and her wife, Cheryl Pawelski, at home with their record collection.

Tormenting; and coedited an anthology of writing on lesbian love and marriage, titled Here Come the Brides! She wrote scores of articles, book reviews, and essays on everything from Jane Austen to antifeminism to the secret history of Wonder Woman. She chaired the literature department, sat on dozens of committees, and chaired a working group on academic resources for international, first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented-minority students.

Her experience relaunching the writing center gave her a new insight on education as a collaborative endeavor. “I discovered that I liked building teams and developing programs that served the college more

broadly,” she says. She began to spend more time thinking about how to make college work better for students from all backgrounds, in the classroom and beyond it.

In 2014, she was nominated to take part in the American Council on Education’s yearlong fellowship program to train leaders in higher education. As part of the program, she shadowed the provost of UC Riverside.

“It was a transformative experience,” she says.

“It gave me invaluable perspective on some of the challenges facing higher ed today.”

Just months after completing the fellowship, she was hired to serve as the chief academic officer at Pomona College, where she championed the college’s academic mission and

the work of its faculty. Her commitment to liberal arts education, to the teacher-scholar model, and to the value of higher education for society drew her to Reed.

Her protean career, from Jane Austen to Jane Siberry, from analyzing discourse to crashing cymbals, will no doubt prove invaluable at the unique institution that is Reed. And as the first woman to occupy the president’s office, she will once again have the opportunity to rewrite the script. celebrate!

Join us for the inauguration of President Bilger on Friday, October 4. We’ll have calligraphy, weathergrams, and free-wheeling cult band NRBQ. See more at events.reed.edu/inauguration

september 2019 Reed Magazine 25

AUDREY BILGER: IN HER OWN WORDS

What is your vision for Reed?

I come to Reed with more than a quarter of a century of experience in liberal arts education. Twenty-four of those years I spent in classrooms as a faculty member, so I really understand the value of the teacher-scholar model that is at the heart of Reed. From my experience, I know that a single leadership vision rooted in one person makes no sense for our community.

I believe in a shared vision, one that is participatory and that brings in many voices. The role of the president is to help articulate that cocreated vision and to share the message within the college and with the world outside.

You’ve talked about “inclusive excellence.” What does that mean to you?

In the pursuit of knowledge and in our educational mission, excellence is a fundamental goal. In order to achieve excellence, we need to bring a diverse array of voices and perspectives into dialogue and polylogue. We also need to make sure that we create the conditions for our students to succeed,

26 Reed Magazine september 2019

lauren labarre

How have the liberal arts shaped your career?

I am the product of public higher education. In the high school I attended in Oklahoma, the majority of my peers did not attend college, and I never even heard of places like Reed.

When I started my first faculty job at Oberlin, I fell in love with and dedicated myself to the liberal arts model. I find inspiration in helping talented undergraduates work with amazing faculty who believe in the educational mission of the college and seek to advance knowledge through their research. Liberal arts education is all about connections—among individuals within our community, across time in pursuit of answers to the most difficult questions, and across boundaries and perceived differences. It is an honor to be part of an enterprise that changes lives and helps to make the world a better place.

recognizing that not everyone has had access to the same kinds of resources.

As a first-generation college student, I know what it feels like to come to the table with a sense of being behind, of not having the same background as more privileged students, and throughout my career, I have encouraged students who think that everyone else knows more than they do to persist and to believe in their capacity to learn, to grow, and to contribute.

What is a successful college education?

The best education is a starting point for a lifetime of curiosity and engagement. We are educating students for jobs that might not yet exist, and we have no idea what twists and turns their lives might take. What we do know is that a broad-based education helps prepare our students to be adaptable and gives them the tools to thrive. We want them to lead meaningful lives and to have inner resources

to sustain them when they face challenges, which they inevitably will. We also want our students to become engaged members of society, and a liberal arts education prepares them to speak up and participate.

What does it mean to learn something when virtually all human knowledge is available with a couple of keystrokes?

Online resources have made it possible to gain access to information rapidly; however, the ability to assess, to process, to make connections— to make sense of that information— requires critical thinking. We learn in order to discern. Even more important, we learn so that we may produce knowledge and create.

You’ve written about the subversive role of comedy. Should we take comedy more seriously?

As a genre, comedy tends to be underestimated and seen as “light”

entertainment. In my research, I have examined how humor and comedy can be enlisted to challenge the status quo and promote new ways of thinking. Comedy is multifaceted: it can provide relief and celebration; it can include elements of satire and social criticism; and, of course, it can make us laugh and assist us in coming to terms with the incongruities of the human condition. It’s definitely worth taking seriously.

Are the liberal arts still relevant in 2019? Shouldn’t first-year students be writing Python instead of reading Plato?

The beauty of a liberal arts education is that we recognize that there is no such thing as Python versus Plato.

Studying a wide range of disciplines, learning about art, performing, creating, connecting to society—whatever working lives our students pursue, they will have a rich tool kit that will prepare them to succeed.

Should Reed work harder to be more integrated into the cultural life of the city of Portland?

I do not believe in the ivory tower— in a separation between the college and the world around it. I have lived in other college communities in which we talk about the “bubble” that orients our focus inside the campus boundaries, and I see that inward orientation as an unhealthy one. We are so fortunate to be located in this vibrant city and to be surrounded by so much natural beauty and grandeur. My hope is that students who come to Reed have numerous opportunities to get to know the city and to benefit from a network of partnerships between the college and organizations within Portland. Portland offers so much to Reed, and Reed has a great deal to offer to Portland. I look forward to exploring and strengthening these important relationships.

INTELLECTUAL MILESTONES 1981

2010

Graduated from Oklahoma State University with a BA in philosophy. Was a firstgeneration college student.

Founded Center for Writing and Public Discourse at CMC. Became an inaugural writer for the Ms. magazine blog and got an exclusive interview with Twitter star Feminist Hulk.

1992 Won the Zora Neale Hurston Award for best graduate student paper on women or gender at the University of Virginia for her dissertation.

2011 Began writing for the newly founded Los Angeles Review of Books.

1994

2012

Joined literature department at Claremont McKenna College as assistant professor.

Coedited the anthology Here Come the Brides! Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage, with Michele Kort; it was a finalist for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award.

1995 Became coordinator of gender studies program at CMC.

1997 Published interview with author Jeanette Winterson in The Paris Review.

1998 Earned tenure at CMC. Published first book, Laughing Feminism: Subversive Comedy in Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen.

2002 Chair of literature department at CMC. Published article on the phrase “you guys” in Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture.

2003 Editor, critical edition of An Essay on The Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (1753), by Jane Collier.

2005 Provided editorial assistance for A Musical History, a five-disc box set by The Band produced by her wife, Cheryl Pawelski.

2014 Was selected as an American Council on Education Fellow; spent a year in residence at the UC Riverside, with visits to colleges and universities around the country and abroad to study academic leadership and issues in higher education.

Provided editorial assistance for The Garden Spot Programs, a compilation of previously unknown recordings by country singer Hank Williams, produced by her wife, Cheryl Pawelski, who won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Historical Album for the project.

2015 Wrote profile of comedian Amy Schumer for Ms. magazine.

2016 Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Pomona College.

2019 President of Reed! september 2019 Reed Magazine 27

Reediana Books. Music. Film. Send us your work!

EDITED BY KATIE PELLETIER Email reed.magazine@reed.edu

A History of African American Poetry Lauri Ramey ’73 rethinks the canon If asked to riff on the origins of African enslaved black people in any concepAmerican literature, the average Reedie tion of the origins of the genre,” in might be able to conjure up a series of her own reimagination of African terms learned long-ago from a high- American poetry’s “bedrock,” she foreschool textbook or Norton anthol- grounds the suspicious omission from ogy. Those key terms might include scholarly histories and anthologies of Wheatley, Hammon, or 18th centu- “printed poems by free black people and ry, and our Reedie might even think oral poems by enslaved black people,” themselves passingly familiar with the linking that erasure to the authors’ forfoundation of this literary canon. They mal independence. would be wrong.

In choosing to place “oral literature” In A History of African American alongside published work in her secPoetry, literary scholar Lauri Ramey ond chapter, “The Origins of African ’73 formulates a trenchant historio- American Poetry,” she cements the litgraphical critique of the traditional erary import of “slave songs”—“the canon and offers a polyphonic revi- earliest and largest canon of African sion with far-reaching implications for American poetry”—highlighting their the study of African American poetry, experimental, intercultural quintesand Anglophone literature in general. sence. Naming the major antholoIn a monograph that covers cultural gies that omit slave songs wholesale works created everywhen from 1400s or only list them separately from “literWest Africa to 2018, she persistent- ary” poetry, she dismantles the notion ly asks, “Why this text and not that that slave songs are anything but litertext?”— making visible the politics at ature, unpacking their inventiveness play in canon-formation as she sys- and tracking their enduring allusory tematically recuperates literary fig- presence in the works of generations ures and forms understudied and/or of African American poets. Her excaerased for a panoply of logistical and vation of free black poets published political reasons, from lack of access in the colonial and antebellum eras to sources to systemic predilections for pushes the reader to think critically sidelining the avant garde and under- about the reasons cultural innovators valuing modes of expression deemed popular in their lifetimes have fallen non-literary (i.e., “folk” or “vernacular” out of favor to the point of disappearor “African” or “Black”). ing from the canon almost completely.

For Ramey, any history of African The chapter titles sketch a rough American poetry that starts with the periodization that is simultaneousworks of Phillis Wheatley, Lucy Terry, ly blurred within each chapter’s text. and Jupiter Hammon is “chronologi- She uses her more capacious canon to cally too late to represent the origins create through lines that convincingof the tradition” and fundamentally ly connect West African cultural pro“conservative” for its contemporane- duction observed by Europeans during ous and pre-18th-century exclusions. the so-called Age of Exploration to livThough she concedes that “it is essen- ing African American poets writing in tial to incorporate written texts by a multitude of forms today, hip hop 28 Reed Magazine june 2019

included. She recontextualizes familiar poets, references a host of semiforgotten ones, and reiterates the ways in which creativity and the critical reflexivity necessary for canon creation occur not in vacuums, but in response to and conversation with each other.

Returning to the hypothetical scenario with which we began, after reading A History, we know to say: “The process of becoming African Americans, and producers of African American products, began at the nightmare moment of irrevocable capture.” We know, through Ramey, that to truly attend to what is African and what is American about

A History of African American Poetry by Lauri Ramey ’73 (CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2019)

Ramey offers a polyphonic revision with far-reaching implications for the study of Anglophone literature.

African American poetry, we must examine the entanglements and tensions at the genre’s heart: between orality, musicality, performance, and print culture; slavery and freedom; land, home, migration, and diaspora; an individual and their community; self-determination and collective concerns; the past and the present; art and activism; the covert and the overt; and a ceaseless “capacity to navigate change and continuously refresh itself for new times and conditions.”

“Canons,” she says, “are built on access to information, and that which is made visible and available stands the greatest chance of entering awareness and recirculating.” For students, scholars, and fans of cultural products indebted to African American cultural innovation, this lineage-building work is essential. —ALEA ADIGWEME ’06

Chimes of a Lost Cathedral Revolution, Poetry, and an Indomitable Spirit in the latest by Janet Fitch ’78 “Only in Russia is poetry respected. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?” —Osip Mandelstam, 1891–1938 Eleven years in the making, the sprawling 2018 novel by Janet Fitch ’78, The Revolution of Marina M., drew a range of critical responses but most agreed that, even at 800 pages, it was a rollercoaster of a novel. This year’s sequel, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, is nearly as long and in many ways even more engrossing. We rejoin the teenage poet Marina Makarova in spring 1919. She has survived the first two years of the Russian Revolution—barely. She has cheered on the Bolsheviks’ war with the White Russians, even as they have laid waste to her beloved St. Petersburg (aka Petrograd) and shattered her secure existence. Married in haste to a rebel poet, she’s on the run from a sadistic crime lord and still pining for her first love, an opportunistic

dandy from a bourgeois family.

Now pregnant, she is working in a small-town boardinghouse and shacking up with a one-armed railroad man when the Red October agit-prop train rolls into town with her poet husband aboard. Reunited, they crisscross Russia’s boundless plains, performing revolutionary sketches at every whistle-stop before he abandons her in a remote hamlet to give birth. Out of options, she returns to Petrograd with her infant girl Iskra (“spark”) and finds work in an orphanage where she can keep Iskra by her side.

Temporarily free from the threat of freezing to death, dying of starvation, or being tracked down by the enemies she has made, she seeks out the poets she once knew. Her own verses are well received, and she takes her place among such esteemed (real-life) literary figures as Mandelstam, Gorky, Blok, and Akhmatova. She runs into

High Voltage Women: Breaking Barriers at Seattle City Light Historian Ellie Belew ’79 captures the drama, the events, and the personalities of a landmark affirmative action effort in the electrical trades that began in Seattle in the early 1970s. The extensively researched account covers 25 years of city politics and combined union and civil rights activism. (Red Letter Press, 2019)

American Sutra The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. Duncan Ryūken Williams ’91 reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation’s history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.

(Harvard University Press, 2019)

her acquaintance Emma Goldman at a workers’ protest. The encounter is mildly amusing until the soldiers’ bullets send them running.

Against all the evidence, Marina retains a glimmer of hope for the Bolshevik regime, but her counterrevolutionary “individualist” tendencies—in plain words, her disdain for propaganda—make her as much a target for the secret police as the other poets she so deeply admires.

The tumult of the era and Marina’s own impulses thrust her into one desperate situation after another.

Her fecklessness could become exasperating if she weren’t such a gifted chronicler of all that she sees and feels, the mundane and sublime all swirling together. Chimes runs more than 700 pages, and I found myself slowing as the end approached, wanting to inhabit Marina’s world just a little longer. —ANGIE JABINE ’79

Book of the Wonders of the World: Studies, Transcription, and Translation. John Block Friedman ’60 published, with Kristen Figg and Kathrin Giogoli, an edition and commentary of Secrets de l’Histoire Naturelle, an elaborately illuminated Middle French geographical and encyclopedic compendium dealing with real and imagined places. (Burgos:Siloé 2018) Ecological Living. We already have the technologies available to make ecological living possible, argues John Gusdorf ’67. In his latest book, he presents an optimistic vision of our future, showing how decoupling the system that produces our goods from resource extraction is possible, and a key means of achieving an equitable world within environmental limits. (Routledge, 2019)

Chimes of a Lost Cathedral by Janet Fitch ’78 (LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, 2019)

English Universities in Crisis: Markets without Competition. Recent policies have replaced direct government funding for teaching with fees paid by students. As well as saddling graduates with enormous debt, satisfaction rates are low, a high proportion of graduates are in nongraduate jobs, and public debt from unpaid loans is rocketing. In this timely and challenging analysis, economist Jeff Frank ’72 combines theoretical and data analysis and insights gained from running a university to give robust new policy proposals. (Bristol University Press, 2019)

june 2019 Reed Magazine 29

REEDIANA The Cartoon Introduction to Calculus Yoram Bauman ’95 returns to his roots as a Reed math major with his latest, coauthored with and illustrated by Grady Klein. The pair collaborated previously on The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, the two-volume Cartoon Introduction to Economics, and a pamphlet called The Cartoon Introduction to Digital Ethics that was commissioned by the European Union and is available as a free download at standupeconomist.com. (Hill and Wang, 2019)

How to Build A Dragon or Die Trying: A Satirical Lo o k a t C u t t i n g - E d g e Science. What if you could have your own real dragon?

Science has brought us to the point where it might really be possible. Biologist Paul Knoepfler ’89 and his daughter Julie Knoepfler have cowritten this humorous look into the possibilities of making fire-breathing dragons using CRISPR and stem cells, while also poking fun at science hype. (World Scientific Publishing, 2019) The Better Sister. The latest thriller by Alafair Burke ’91 is another twisty tale of domestic noir. When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters—one the dead man’s widow, the other his ex—must set aside mistrust and old resentments . . . but can they escape their past?

(Harper, 2019) A Handbo o k fo r N e w Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control.

Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci and Stoicism practitioner Gregory Lopez ’99 provide 52 week-by-week lessons to apply timeless Stoic teachings to modern

30 Reed Magazine june 2019

life. Whether you’re already familiar with Seneca and Marcus Aurelius or you’re entirely new to Stoicism this handbook will help you embrace challenges, thrive under pressure, and discover the good life. (The Experiment, 2019) U n d e r s t a n d i n g Yo u r Toddler: A Month-by-Month Development & Activity Guide for Playing with Your Toddler from One to Three Years. Ayelet Marinovich ’03 shares distilled, researchbased developmental information paired with simple activities to play with your toddler on a month-by-month basis, guiding you and your child through toddlerhood.

Detail of Frank Antoncich’s map of Kabetogama Lake, from an article by Prof. Craig Clinton in The Portolan.

FACULTY PUBLICATIONS “The 1930s ‘Cartomaps’ of Frank Antoncich” in Winter 2018 issue of The Portolan 1930s cartographer Antoncich’s maps featured cartoon figures (Native Americans, early European fur traders, anthropomorphized wildlife, etc.) with extensive text components focusing on the region’s history (indigenous people, American settlers, lumber and railroad barons, etc.). A color-illustrated article by Prof. Craig Clinton [theatre 1978–2010] aims to provide a niche for Antoncich among the better-known pictorial mapmakers of the 1930s and beyond.

Crises of the Sentence There are few forms in which so much authority has been invested with so little reflection as the sentence. Though a fundamental unit of discourse, it has rarely been an explicit object of inquiry, often taking a back seat to concepts such as the word, trope, line, or stanza. To understand what is at stake in thinking—or not thinking—about the sentence, Prof. Jan Mieszkowski [German 1997–] looks at the difficulties confronting 19th- and 20th-century authors when they try to explain what a sentence is and what it can do.

By showing how an investment in superior writing has always been an ethical and a political as well as an aesthetic commitment, he offers a new perspective on our love-hate relationship with this fundamental compositional category. (University of Chicago 2019)

Thank you.

From quiet study sessions in the library, to exciting breakthroughs in the laboratory or studio, to boisterous champagnesprinkled celebrations of joy and achievement, you were there for Reed and Reedies.

Last fiscal year, 5,514 donors made a difference in the lives of Reed students.

Class Notes These Class Notes reflect information we received by June 15.

The Class Notes deadline for the next issue is September 15.

Barb Hansen ’62 and Dave Hansen are festive at a dance group party.

Class Notes are the lifeblood of Reed Magazine.

While a Reed education confers many special powers, omniscience is unfortunately not among them; your classmates rely on you to tell us what’s going on. So share your news! Tell us about births, deaths, weddings, voyages, adventures, transformations, astonishment, woe, delight, fellowship, discovery, and mischief.

Marlaine Lockheed ’64 and husband Steve Frakt hike at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico.

Email us at reed.magazine@reed.edu. Post a note online at iris.reed.edu. Find us on Facebook via “ReediEnews.” Scribble something in the enclosed return envelope.

Or mail us at Reed magazine, Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland OR 97202. Photos are welcome, as are digital images at 300 dpi. And don’t forget the pertinent details: name, class year, and your current address! Please note that starting in September 2019, new class notes will be available online in pdf form in our digital magazine. If you have any questions or concerns, let us know.

EDITED BY JOANNE HOSSACK ’82

1947

Vlasta (Becvar) Barber was sponsoring soloist for the May concert of the Portland Youth Philharmonic. (She’s a 1943 alumna of the Portland Junior Symphony.)

1954

Don Green reports that the class of 1954 had a modest 65th reunion in San Francisco on April 13. “My classmate and best man Abe Bergman flew down from Seattle for a visit. My wife Joan, Abe, and I joined classmate Ayame Ogimi Flint at her home and then out for dinner at the Palette Tea House, a new Chinese restaurant in Ghirardelli Square. And yes, we got a few pieces of chocolate.” Don and his wife have also been on several trips with Don’s classmates Harry and Lila (Field) Jacob, who live in Minnesota. “My suggestion to other older alums: find classmates nearby and get together. It is really fun.”

1959

“After 17 years of direct/indirect involvement with the local water/sanitation district,” Loline Hathaway writes, “I was plaintiff in a court action placing the district into receivership, as no one was willing to serve on the board of directors, let alone vote in the election. My ‘divorce’ from the district has been a little messy, 32 Reed Magazine september 2019

but the burden is elsewhere and more time is available to travel to Durango for Southwest Civic Winds activities.”

1960

John Block Friedman and his wife, Kristen Figg, have collaborated on four books.

Their latest, with Kathrin Giogoli, is Book of the Wonders of the World. John and Kristen are both affiliates of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the Ohio State University, Columbus. One of John’s daughters, Anna Edlund, is chairperson of the biology department at Bethany College, Bethany, West Virginia, and one of his granddaughters, Karolina Edlund, is studying opera as a freshman at Kenyon College. (See Reediana.)

1962

Barbara Serrell Hansen is celebrating five years as a line dance instructor for Portland Parks and Recreation. “I had no idea this would be my retirement career,” she says. “I credit Reed College folk dance for giving me a good start.”

1964

We heard from Marlaine Lockheed: “Happy to report that my husband, Steve Frakt, and I are still vertical and enjoying hiking out West whenever possible.

2018 took us from New Jersey to Costa

Rica, California, and New Mexico, exploring new sights and visiting familiar bestloved places. For the past three years, I have been working collaboratively with colleagues at the World Bank on a project that led to publication of Facing Forward: Schooling for Learning in Africa. (See March 2019 Reediana.) Our four granddaughters are tweens and teens, and it has been a delight to see them mature into young women passionate about global and social issues. Their generation may ensure a sustainable future for us all. Meanwhile, the lakeside bald eagles, red foxes, Canada geese, squirrels, and chipmunks keep us entertained on a daily basis.”

1965

Richard Conviser is keeping busy! “I continue to teach violin and viola, perform, and compose. I’m in the process of recording a CD, Ruminations, containing 30 songs for soprano, with violin and piano accompaniment, based on poems

by Jelaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi mystic. I also continue to lead and play music for the Dances of Universal Peace.

Last September I moved within Fallbrook, California, to a place that has mature and bearing navel orange and oro blanco grapefruit trees. Because the place is across from the southern boundary of Rainbow, California, I am calling it the Pot of Gold Orchard and have been producing orange, orange-grapefruit, and grapefruit juice. I never intended to start a new career at age 75, but I’m trying to practice good stewardship of the groves that passed into my hands. I have also planted more than two dozen other varieties of fruit trees and berries.”

a stent and decades of hiking and cycling.

I’m now fully recovered, and then some, since I switched to a ketogenic diet, but I’m hiking with canes instead of hiking poles due to tendinitis. I continue my retirement occupation as a volunteer citizen activist, focusing nationally on escalating economic inequality with the Unitarian-Universalists, the rise and fall of civilizations, and now climate catastrophe. You’ll find dozens of my book reviews on Amazon, always probing deeper. Locally I work with the Sierra Club on transportation and land use, and now on affordable housing and homelessness in Seattle’s Othello neighborhood, where I’m currently attempting to extract our tiny house village from a crisis. In addition, I keep my mathematical/computing skills sharp, now finishing the testing and write-up for my ‘clustering algorithm for proportional representation’ for when voters rank or rate candidates.”

It’s an era of amazing inventions: home VCR, floppy disk, email! (Did someone say email? It’s Reed.Magazine@reed.edu.)

and Kaiser health care systems. For the last 10 years she’s also been an officer in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). In 2017, she was granted an ACOG John McCain, MD, Fellowship in Government Affairs. This allowed her to spend four weeks in Washington DC, working with ACOG’s government relations team. Her specific area of interest was maternal mortality; the U.S. maternal mortality rate is the highest in the developed world, she notes, and has risen dramatically since 2000. After returning from her fellowship, Marguerite worked with her Oregon representative, Alissa Keny-Guyer, to craft legislation to create Oregon’s Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Review Committee; this passed in the 2018 legislative session. “Members of the committee are appointed by Governor Kate Brown (I will not be on the board). They are expecting to create a report within two years, and based on their findings we will decide what the next legislative steps should be. The U.S. ranks #46 in the world in relation to maternal mortality. We can and must do better.”

Nancy Day Adams is enjoying retirement. “Received fantastic award from the American Society of Nephrology (my professional organization): the Robert Narins award for contributions to education. Clearly the commitments of all my teachers—especially at Reed—played a large role in my career goals.” Nancy was also recognized as a Master of the American College of Physicians, and thus may now sign her name “Nancy Day Adams, MD, MACP.” Congratulations, Nancy!

1972

1976

1969

1973–74

1979

1975

1980–81

1966

In 2018, Galen Cranz “graduated” from full-time teaching to become professor emerita of the graduate school in architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. She continues to write and to consult on body-conscious design to help clients live and work in ways that support their bodies and make them happier.

1967

John Cushing played with the Portland Megaband at the Seattle Folklife Festival.

John Gusdorf’s book Ecological Living was recently published by Routledge.

He lives in northern New Mexico. (See Reediana.)

David Schoenfeld retired from his long career as a biostatistician at Harvard.

In May, he began walking the Camino de Santiago. He wishes to thank the Reed language requirement and Monsieur Danon for the gift of a second language.

1968

Dick Burkhart writes, “At age 72 I’m ‘aging,’ as the docs like to say (bad right eye, bad balance), but I’m still a strong hiker and activist. Finished the Pacific Crest Trail 5 years ago, the Wonderland Trail 3 years ago. Survived an out-theblue heart attack 2 years ago thanks to

1970–71

Jeff Frank coauthored a book, English Universities in Crisis—Markets without Competition. (See Reediana.)

Anne (Geiger) Hamilton earned her U.S. Coast Guard Captain’s License and Merchant Mariner Credential for Master of Inland and Near Coastal 100-Ton Motor and Sailing Vessels at the age of 60, after circumnavigating the Pacific for eight years as maritime consultant for Wycliffe Bible Translators.

You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this class note’s about you. Don’t you? Don’t you?

Marguerite Cohen has been a practicing ob-gyn in Portland for 34 years and has worked in the Legacy, Providence,

Dick Burkhart ’69 visited Lake Lenore Caves in eastern Washington last September.

Left to right: John Larkin ’77, wife Pam Larkin, Mark Seidenfeld ’75, and Colleen Kelley ’75 celebrate at graduation dinner for John and Pam’s daughter Katie.

Silly rabbit finally allowed to eat Trix.

1977

John Larkin and his wife, Pam, attended their daughter Katie’s graduation from Florida State University in Tallahassee, where they stayed with Mark Seidenfeld ’75 and Colleen Kelley ’75.

1978

Want to play Space Invaders?

Ellie Belew has a new book out! (See Reediana.)

Spanish town of Huéscar signs peace treaty with Denmark, ending 172-year casualty-free war. september 2019 Reed Magazine 33

Class Notes 1982

Congratulations to Pam Ronald on her recent election to the National Academy of Sciences!

1983

Having recently concluded a long career as the city manager of Lafayette, California, Steven Falk received one of the firstever Bay Area Metro Awards recognizing people, projects, organizations, and local governments that have advanced solutions to ease the Bay Area’s housing crisis, improved the transportation system, and/or made the nine-county region more resilient. Launched jointly by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee and the Association of Bay Area Governments, the awards program honors positive impacts on the Bay Area’s mobility, affordability, resilience, and community, and recognizes efforts that make the region a better place to live, work, and play. Steven was honored for his commitment to sustainability and focused housing development that “fits” a specific community. (To hear his comments to the assembled delegation, search for “Steven Falk remarks” on YouTube.) This summer, by invitation, Steven joined the faculty at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy to teach a course on public budgeting; he’s been invited to consider teaching again in the fall and spring.

1984

First sighting of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

1985

Scott MacLeod is glad to announce that World University and School (worlduniversityandschool.org) is growing, licensing with California’s Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, and seeking to offer online free-to-students Creative Commons–licensed MIT OpenCourseWare–­centric PhD degrees, first in English, and as a wiki as well (twitter.com/WorldUnivAndSch and youtube.com/user/WorldUnivandSch).

Congratulations to Liisa Sjoblom, winner of the Oregon Library Association’s Distinguished Service Award!

The award is bestowed annually upon a library staff member who has worked in the profession for 15 years or more and who has demonstrated exceptional service over that time period. Liisa is a community librarian at the Downtown Bend Library.

34 Reed Magazine september 2019

Liisa Sjoblom ’85 is a distinguished librarian!

The many new developments in the life of Yoram Bauman ’95 are displayed in this photo and detailed in his class note.

1986–88

Isles of Scilly, an archipelago off the tip of Cornwall, signs peace treaty with Netherlands, ending 335-year casualty-free war.

1989

Paul Knoepfler and his daughter Julie have collaborated on a new, fun book: How to Build a Dragon or Die Trying: A Satirical Look at Cutting-Edge Science. “The idea behind it is how one could actually build a real dragon using cool technologies like CRISPR and stem cells, but at the same time we poke fun at how science gets hyped so much.” (See Reediana.)

on another empire’s territory.’ I’m trying to discover what this research can tell political scientists about state proliferation and international order, while also drawing from several years spent in areas experiencing contested sovereignty (Bosnia and north Cyprus) as well as over six years of working for a great power that has provided a few insights on what it is like to ‘see like a state,’ in the immortal words of James Scott.”

1994

Alafair Burke has a new thriller out!

(See Reediana.)

In May, Ray Wells was “eagerly anticipating the arrival of four more copies of The Impoverished Students’ Book of Cookery, Drinkery, and Housekeepery to include in graduation presents. About a quarter of the purchase price goes to financial aid at Reed. A few years ago I made a commitment to include the book in all graduation and housewarming gifts that I contribute to, and I encourage all Olde Reedies to do the same.” (Editor’s note: These excellent convocation and apartment-warming gifts are available at bookstore.reed.edu.)

1992

1995

1990

Richard Nixon’s secret career aspiration revealed: “I have often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.”

1991

First text message sent.

1993

Lynn Tesser has exciting plans for the fall. “I will be on sabbatical, spending part of the time at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy—my first extended stay in the region since 2012. I’ll be working on my next book on the international roots of the nationstate system. Recent trends in historical research show that new states often owe more to the (un)intended effects of great power policy than the work of nationalist activists or other forces. Prominent historians such as Reed alumna Jane Burbank and coauthor Frederick Cooper have pointed out that empires have even tried to make nations, though ‘preferably

Yoram Bauman reports that most of the new developments in his life are visible in the nearby photo: his 8-monthold son Teddy, who is wearing a Reed onesie and enjoying the company of big sister Zadie; his latest book, The Cartoon Introduction to Calculus (see also Reediana); a yard sign for the clean-air-andclimate ballot measure he’s working on in Utah (details at CleanTheDarnAir.org; the one-sentence campaign plan is to come up with a policy that folks like Mitt Romney could support and then get folks like Mitt Romney to support it); and his and wife Laura’s ongoing gardening efforts in the big backyard that was one of the rewards of moving from Seattle to Salt Lake City. Not pictured is his latest economics comedy routine

(a knock-knock joke about robots taking our jobs), but you can find a video at standupeconomist.com.

After 15 years teaching elementary school, Zach Vestal has left the classroom. He now runs Portland U-Brew and Unicorn Brewing in Westmoreland, which has a homebrew shop, a brewery, brewing classes, and a pub. There he combines two passions: brewing and education.

1996

Congratulations to Juniper Manley, who was named director of the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico.

1997–98

RIP Carl Perkins.

1999

Greg Lopez has published a practical philosophical workbook to help readers apply the ancient philosophy of Stoicism to their own lives. (See Reediana.)

2000

Wilson the Volleyball wins Critics’ Choice Award for Best Inanimate Object for role in Cast Away.

2001

Dr. Liz Gilkey is celebrating the oneyear anniversar y of her business, Beyond College and Career Counseling.

Liz helps young adults, ages 14 to 24, identify life goals and make college and career plans to achieve them. Through a unique, research-based process, young adults build self-awareness, motivation, and planning skills and walk away with a road map for the next five years. Liz works in Portland and remotely with young adults all over the country.

2002

Melissa (Feineman) Suzuno, Marian Macindoe, Claire McCabe, and Katy

Davis ate pizza followed by a movie in Berkeley on a Thursday.

2003

Ayelet Marinovich has followed up her book on playing with your baby with a new volume on playing with your toddler.

(See Reediana.)

2004–05

First European Chess Boxing Championship takes place in Berlin.

2006

Congratulations to Scott Beutel, who’s been promoted to being the assistant commissioner with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, managing the agency’s external affairs including communications, civic engagement, and public policy. Scott had been MDHR’s public policy director since 2013. “Working on public policy issues has been a great path for me to be able to do a mix of research, writing, and advocacy on a wide variety of issues. Besides work, I’m still in Minnesota riding bicycles and skiing as the snow allows.”

We’ve learned that Elizabeth Rush’s Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore (excerpted in Reed, December 2018) has received multiple well-deserved accolades, including the National Outdoor Book Award and nominations for the Pulitzer Prize and the Chautauqua Prize. Rising was also named to several 2018 “Best Book” lists.

2007

I Am Class Notes (And So Can You!)

2008

Bon voyage to Claire Siepser, who’s heading to graduate school for counseling psychology!

Class of ’02 members Melissa (Feineman) Suzuno, Marian Macindoe, Claire McCabe, and Katy Davis converge upon pizza.

AnnaLise Bender-Brown ’13 graduated from the George Washington University Law School with honors.

Reedies partying in Nashville (left to right): Taya Koschnick ’04, Micha Rahder ’04, Reagan Mitchell, Megan Harrington Wilson ’03, Des Ramirez ’04, Tara Anderson ’05, and Sergio Pastor ’04 celebrate Micha and Reagan’s wedding!

“Working at the State Capitol has encouraged improved fashion since my time at Reed,” says Scott Beutel ’06.

Carl Hedman ’13 was named a 2019 Rappaport Public Policy Fellow!

2009–12

Dutch diving club De Waterman sets new official world record for extreme underwater ironing.

2013

AnnaLise Bender-Brown graduated from the George Washington University Law School with honors in May. She will start work as a litigator at a large law firm in New York this fall. Nicely done, AnnaLise!

The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at the Harvard Kennedy School named Carl Hedman a 2019 Rappaport Public Policy Fellow. As a Rappaport fellow, Carl participated in a 10-week summer internship at the City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development and attended a weekly seminar series featuring leading public policy practitioners and scholars. Carl is currently a graduate student at MIT. Haley Jacobson has launched a new immersive travel company in Cambodia, running custom trips to explore history, culture, and tradition in the Kingdom of Wonder. This summer, Haley led a Reed alumni tour, exploring the history of Cambodia and Southeast Asia from the 11th century to the present. “I was a ling major, so Khmer classes were included ;)”

2014–16

Kanye West’s secret career aspiration revealed: “I have decided in 2020 to run for president.”

2017

Cody Barnes has moved to Santa Fe to start a new job as a paralegal for the New Mexico Environment Department.

Mike Frazel has moved to Chicago and released the first season of his short fiction podcast The Phone Booth, found wherever you get your podcasts.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 35

In Memoriam EDITED BY RANDALL BARTON Email bartonr@reed.edu

photo by Casemore Kirkeby

Steve Kahn ’66 in front of his work, Quadrant #1 Mural, 1976, from The Hollywood Suites.

Physicist Who Redefined Photography as Abstract Art Form Stephen Kahn ’66

February 1, 2018, in Oakland, California, of cancer.

In 1974, Steve was working a brief stint as a photographer for a bondage magazine shooting at the Villa Constance, a down-and-out Hollywood apartment house renting by the day or by the hour. A handheld flash gave Steve’s images the blown-out look of evidence photos. But the compositions spoke to broader issues of bondage, containment, and isolation.

“On one occasion, the model didn’t show up,” Steve explained. “I found that I could explore the same issues by photographing the room itself—without the models.”

The container proved more interesting than the content—the banal hotel art, dilapidated 36 Reed Magazine september 2019

curtains, and peeling window frames came together as isolated elements in giant, abstract, multiple-image presentations. The Hollywood Suites, as this body of work came to be known, ignited Steve’s career and helped to redefine photography as a serious medium for abstract art.

Born in Los Angeles in 1943, Steve majored in physics at Reed. He met his Reed roommate and best friend, Loren Madsen ’65, entirely by accident, even though their fathers held similar positions within the same company in different cities. The dads had alerted the sons to each other, but Steve and Loren cemented their friendship on drives to Linfield College in McMinnville to visit their girlfriends.

“Steve and I became roommates, sharing aspirations, the cost of booze, and the occasional girlfriend,” Loren remembered. “Steve, another friend, and I went to Europe for a year. Steve and I ended up in Positano before it was hip.

Reed, in those days, disparaged art, which I wanted to pursue (it’s subjective and can’t be discussed rationally). Steve got his degree in physics. I got out.”

Steve wrote his thesis, “The ‘Already Unified’ Field Theory of Rainich, Misner, and Wheeler,” with Prof. Nicholas Wheeler [physics 1963– 2010]. Even then, Wheeler remembered, Steve’s interests were divided between physics and photography.

“In the physics building (then new) there was

a darkroom across the hall from my secondfloor office,” Wheeler said. “It was unused, except for the refrigerator, in which Prof. Ken Davis [physics 1948–80] stored nuclear emulsions left over from an earlier stage of his career. Davis therefore guarded the darkroom jealously, and it was not easy for me—a very junior member of the physics faculty—to gain permission for Steve to put the darkroom to the use for which it was intended. There he did the work that resulted in private publication of ‘Cathedral,’ a collection of mostly Reed-based art photographs.”

Steve was an innocent player in a contretemps that involved his applying to grad school at Brandeis, from which Wheeler had taken his own PhD. One day, a friend of Wheeler’s found himself across the table from a young member of the Brandeis physics faculty at lunch.

“The drift of the conversation,” Wheeler recalled, “led the guy to mention that among the amusing absurdities encountered in his work as a member of the admissions committee was a letter from Reed College, in which the recommender remarked that he would not be astounded to learn that after a few years the applicant had abandoned physics in favor of a career in photography.

My friend wrote back that I should be more careful about the construction of my letters of recommendation.”

Wheeler was right, however; Steve did abandon physics for photography. While doing graduate work in physics at New York University, Steve met David Serva, an accomplished American flamenco guitarist, who encouraged him to make a pilgrimage to Morón, the epicenter of Andalusian flamenco in Spain. The

war in Vietnam was in full swing and Steve’s student deferment was revoked; he was called for duty. But after failing the army physical— and concerned that life was short—he set out for a three-month sabbatical to Spain to seek out the great pueblo flamenco guitarist Diego Amaya Flores del Gastor. Hours before boarding the plane, he took part in one of the first “Be-Ins” on May Day 1967, when thousands of young people converged on Central Park. Steve wondered if he should be leaving the United States just as so many exciting things were happening.

The more he learned about flamenco, the more he wanted to learn; the three-month leave turned into a two-year immersion. While in Spain, Steve married fellow Reedie Virginia Gilmore ’68 in Gibraltar and turned his focus on photography.

In the late ’60s, he settled in Los Angeles, where he made a living working as a stringer for magazines, including Life and Newsweek. On the side, he made art photography.

“I studied [photography] like a language and got my experience on the street, shooting what was around me,” he said.

His work was included in a 1973 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and he published a book, Stasis, followed by other important exhibitions. In 1979, he won the Young Talent Purchase Award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the next year won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Later he produced photo essays on Spanish Gypsy flamenco musicians and dancers, people and places in India, chemical plants, and death row inmates in San Quentin.

In 1970, Steve and Loren Madsen purchased 40 acres in northern California with friends and built a shared cabin.

“Our relationship was one of those where an interruption of a few years was bridged in a few minutes,” Loren said. “We both ended up living in NYC—abandoning the hippie lifestyle as too damn much work—where the families—he and his wife and child and I with mine—had dinner most Saturdays.”

It is notoriously difficult to maintain an art career, and by 1986, Steve had moved to New York to pursue commercial photography. He continued to produce art, including a book of photographs of his neighborhood titled Soho New York, published by Rizzoli in 1999. In 2002, he produced a group of post-9/11 portraits titled Subway Series.

He moved to Berkeley in 2012 and began showing his earlier work, which met with success. Steve’s works were acquired by major institutions throughout the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and San Francisco’s de Young Museum and SFMOMA. A solo exhibition of his work is planned for September at the de Young, and a book, Chemical Plants, will be published by Nazraeli Press later this year.

“Steve’s first cancer symptoms developed here in northern California,” Loren said. “He fought it for four and a half years. His ashes reside here. We tend them regularly.”

Steve is survived by his daughter, Zoe Kahn, and sister, Susan Ansen. He was married for 23 years to Zoe’s mother, Robin Amos Kahn.

Social Engineer Developed the Science of Persuasion Prof. Richard A. Katzev [psychology 1967–91] June 2018, of complications related to osteoporosis, in Portland.

Researcher, author, and mentor to generations of Reed students, Richard Katzev was an authority on social psychology with particular expertise in one of the knottiest problems of human society—getting people to change their behavior.

Prof. Katzev grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University, where

he majored in philosophy. He married fellow Stanford grad Aphra in 1959; they had two children, Alex and David. After Stanford, Richard went to Harvard to study social relations; there he was exposed to the ideas of B.F. Skinner and became interested in psychology.

Following the death of his father, the couple returned to California and he earned a PhD in psychology from UC Berkeley, joining the Reed psych department in 1967.

Initially his research focused on behaviorism and conditioning. Over time, however,

he became interested in social psychology— the study of human behavior in groups— and he devoted the rest of his career to this field. Together with his students, he devised ingenious experiments to investigate social behavior in its dazzling complexity. To explore the effects of social disapproval, for example, they spent hours at the Oregon Zoo waiting for people to feed snacks to the bears (a practice that was common, if frowned on) and then verbally admonishing them. It turned out that zoo-goers who were reprimanded were later september 2019 Reed Magazine 37

more likely to help a woman who dropped her handbag (and who was secretly another of Katzev’s students). The stronger the scolding, the more likely people were to offer assistance.

Katzev was fascinated by the phenomenon of persuasion, particularly when it came to promoting environmentally conscious behavior, and published dozens of articles on bus ridership, car sharing, household recycling, and the use of energy-efficient light bulbs. In 1987, he published a book titled Promoting Energy Conservation; his student Ted Johnson ’82, who died tragically in an avalanche shortly after graduation, was listed as the posthumous coauthor.

“Katzev was a huge influence on me,” says Richard Brownstein ’85. “I took a class from him on psychology and the law. One of the central questions was whether prisons deter crime. We looked at the psychology of reward and punishment and the structure of the legal system. We visited the state penitentiary. All of our views were shattered and reformed. It was an incredible class.” Katzev and Brownstein published several papers together; Katzev insisted that Brownstein be listed first.

A sparkling lecturer, Katzev’s restless

intellect simply could not be contained. After retiring from Reed, he launched a second career as a consultant in social and environmental research and was the principal of Public Policy Research, Inc. He also published ten books on classic literature, social research, the history of Florence, and other subjects.

In 2009 he published a paper on the impact of a humanities reading program on people who were economically and educationally disadvantaged. Drawing students from low-income neighborhoods in Portland and from state prisons, the Humanity In Perspective program offered readings in Aristotle, Plato, Sappho, Sophocles, Henry David Thoreau, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Martin Luther King, and Toni Morrison. The results were striking—at the completion of the program, students showed significant improvement in volunteerism, critical thinking, and satisfaction with their life. It was a fitting conclusion for a man whose life was shaped by the relentless pursuit of truth.

His survivors include Aphra; children Alex and David; and five grandchildren.

—Chris Lydgate ’90

Psychiatrist Was Expert on Online Romance and Seduction Esther Gwinnell ’75 February 22, 2019, in Portland.

Esther had been practicing psychiatry for years when, in about 1996, she began noticing the internet’s effect on her patients. More of them were talking about falling in love with total strangers and building romances through email, or becoming addicted to cybersex. Without the sensory input of a face-to-face relationship, everything is left to the imagination. She encouraged her readers to ask the most basic questions, such as “Do you keep a neat house?”

In 1998, her book about why online romances happen and how they differ from those formed in daily life was published.

Online Seductions: Falling in Love with Strangers on the Internet gained her national attention, including appearances on Nightline and NPR’s Talk of the Nation. In her book, Esther compared the modern online relationship with historical cases of individuals who met as pen pals and fell in love. Offering guidelines for how to protect oneself online, she examined our obsession with online seduction.

“Intimacy is revealing things to others that make you anxious,” she explained. “Then you feel closer to them. You revealed something and they didn’t reject you.” Online intimacy leads to fantasizing about the person sitting at the other keyboard, which can generate romantic or sexy feelings.

Born in Germany, Esther grew up in Alaska 38 Reed Magazine september 2019

and after visiting a friend at Reed decided, “This is the place for me.” She wrote her thesis on the immune system of the newt with Prof.

Laurens Ruben [biology 1955–92]. As a reporter for the Quest, she covered protests against the war in Vietnam and the occupation of Eliot Hall by student protestors, and remembered when President Nixon was hung in effigy. She went on to medical school at the University of Washington and a psychiatry residency at what is now Oregon Health & Science University.

For 25 years, Esther had a private psychiatry practice in Portland. She then took three years to pursue research and treatment in traumatic brain injury as a psychiatrist for the U.S. Army in Schweinfurt, Germany. She worked for several years at Standard Insurance. She was also a glass artist, photographer, published author, and raconteur.

She met her husband, Marc Goldberg, in 1983 after responding to a personal ad in Willamette Week. Meeting at a restaurant, they clicked. When he asked whether she planned to answer any other ads, she replied that there was just one other ad that had caught her eye.

“I’m going to answer it,” she said, “and then we’ll just have to see what happens after that.” Marc asked her to read the ad.

“Girl of my dreams, would you send flowers to a man? Do you still clap for Tinkerbell? And do you know the real name of the Lone Ranger’s

theme song? Send your answers to a 32 Y/O, quiche-eating DWM.” Marc placed his hand on hers and said, “Save your stamp. It’s me.” The couple married in 1988 and divorced years later.

Esther was a steadfast supporter of Reed; she created the Dr. Esther Gwinnell Scholarship in 2015 and made a generous gift in her estate. She also supported the Oregon Food Bank, Janus Youth Programs, and the William Temple House.

David L. Gass ’40

March 27, 2018, in Skokie, Illinois, at the age of 99.

David followed his older brother, Oscar Gass ’34, to Reed and started here two years ahead of his sister, Frieda Cohen ’42. Majoring in economics, he wrote his thesis, “A Study of the Propensity to Consume,” with Prof. Robert Terrill [economics 1937–44] advising. He went on to complete the requirements for a PhD, with the exception of thesis, at Stanford University. For many years, David was president of Gem Manufacturing Co., an automotive accessory wholesale and manufacturing firm in Chicago. He was elected to the Reed board of trustees. He is survived by his daughters, Trudy Burke and Ethel Jevsevar; his son, Zachary Gass; and his sister, Frieda.

Ethel Katz Suher Briller ’46 January 29, 2019, in Seattle, Washington.

Ethel grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she attended Classical High School. She worked on the school paper and received a scholarship to American International College, a local private college.

In high school, she met her first husband, Ted Suher, and they were both at AIC when America entered the Second World War, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Ted was placed in the Army Specialized Training Program to be trained as a dentist. While he was attending classes in Vancouver, Washington, he asked Ethel to join him. Portland had a very good college called Reed, he told her, and sent her the catalog.

“It just looked like a perfect fit,” she said. “And it was. Best thing that ever happened to me, going to Reed.”

Ethel and Ted married in 1944 and she started as a junior at Reed the following spring.

She took a sociology course called The Family, taught by Prof. Lawrence Bee [sociology 1945– 46], whom she rated as one the best professors she ever had. Bee inspired Ethel to switch her major to sociology.

She wrote her thesis, “A Statistical Study of Factors Associated with Success and Failure in High School,” comparing the success of students who went to Roosevelt High with those who went to the Jane Addams School, who were stigmatized as slow learners. During the summer, she took education classes at the Vanport Extension Center (which later became Portland State University).

At Reed she loved “the freedom to think your own thoughts and say it. You were never afraid to say anything,” she said.

Ethel treasured having close relationships with professors. “You had this feeling that you weren’t looked down upon by the professors,”

she said. “ You were looked on as maybe co-conspirators, and co-learners.”

After graduating, she moved with Ted to Chicago and got a job with the Jewish Family and Child Service Agency as an assistant to the statistician. When he heard that she was a Reed graduate, he hired her on the spot.

“I’ve had many very qualified people with master’s degrees who have assisted me,” he told her. “But nobody has ever learned it so quickly and only needed to be told once what to do, as you.”

“That was something I heard quite a few times,” Ethel reflected. “People are always impressed that they only had to tell me something once. When he said that to me I said, ‘But you know, I’m a Reed graduate.’”

Ethel next took a job as a caseworker with Chicago’s welfare department, switching to intake when she became pregnant. Ted got an offer to head the Department of Children’s Dentistry at University of Oregon Dental School, and they returned to Portland. In the next six years, Ethel gave birth to four children.

Over the years, she worked a variety of jobs, including directing and teaching at the Sam and Regina Frager Foundation School of Congregation Neveh Shalom in Portland. She coordinated the development of the North End Jewish Community Center in Seattle, was the education director of Congregation Beth Shalom, and activities director for St. Francis Convalescent Home in Bellingham, Washington. While living in Bellingham, she took a sales position at Griggs Bookstore and Office Supplies.

“My favorite job,” she recalled, “was when I was on-call substitute candy/popcorn salesperson at the Sellwood Theatre in Portland, employed by my teenage son, the manager. I just loved reorganizing the candy counter to enhance marketability.”

When her marriage to Ted ended in divorce, Ethel moved to the Seattle area. “I’m not getting married again,” she told a friend at lunch. “I had my romantic, wonderful marriage. It’s over and I’m not looking for anybody.”

“Someone will find you,” the friend said. And someone did.

In 1984, she met and married David Katz, who gave her back her maiden name. Sadly, David died four years after they were married.

But in 2005, Ethel married her longtime beau, Stan Briller, with James Mirel ’69 officiating and a passel of Reedies attending.

“For several years after David died, I didn’t go out at all,” Ethel explained. “And when I did go out, someone else found me. Stan and I were together some 15 years.”

Ethel served on Reed’s national alumni board, and chaired the Rainier chapter for four years.

“Reed has had a great influence on my life,” she observed. “It was like a meeting of minds

HONOR THEIR

Memory IN THE SPIRIT OF REED

Honor your professors and classmates with a gift to Reed in their name. You can make Reed possible for the next generation.

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In Memoriam and personalities. I found exactly what I wanted in Reed.”

Ethel is survived by her children, Randy Suher, Celia Suher Cramer, Daniel Suher, and Brian Suher.

Eva Ann Rydalch Dalton ’46

April 11, 2019, in Portland, of heart failure.

Born in Portland, Ann grew up in the Laurelhurst area. As a child, she traveled with her parents around the country, and these adventures instilled in her a love of travel. She gained a lifelong love of swimming from her father. In high school, her greatest wish was to study chemistry at Reed, which she did. She wrote her thesis, “The Growth of Microorganisms upon Lignin and Sulfite Waste Liquor,” advised by Prof. Arthur F. Scott [chemistry 1923–79].

After graduating, she worked for a laboratory in California, then moved back to Oregon to earn a master’s in chemistry from Oregon State University. While working as a teaching assistant, she met Charles Dalton, also a student at OSU. They married after receiving their degrees and both began teaching careers in Bonanza, a small town in southern Oregon.

They made lifelong friends in Bonanza, but Ann hankered for something new. So, in 1959, when Chuck was offered a teaching job at Kamehameha School in Honolulu, Hawaii, they hopped on a prop plane with their two daughters and flew to that tiny dot in the middle of the Pacific.

Ann taught chemistry (and later math) at Punahou School, a college prep school. Ann and Chuck loved living in Hawaii and made great friends. They added a third child to the family (a boy, born in the same hospital as Barack Obama). When the children were older, they took them to Europe nearly every summer, gadding about on the cheap. Ann was in heaven.

After the children had left home, Ann and Chuck divorced. She continued to teach at Punahou, and the day after she retired, she left on a plane and spent the next year traveling by herself around Europe. Eventually, she settled back in Portland, near her daughters.

She enjoyed her volunteer work for Portland Rescue Mission, the Red Cross bloodmobile, the Washington Park host group, and Storeto-Door, and loved spending time with other people. Twice a year, she found time to travel.

At home in her condo, she swam regularly and read widely until the last months of her life.

Ann is survived by her three children, Carolynn Cohrs, Susan Dalton ’81, and Craig Dalton.

Bobbie Jean Taylor Dodds ’46

March 10, 2019, in Casper, Wyoming, of natural causes.

Bobbie Jean was born in Idaho and moved to Eugene, Oregon, at an early age. She graduated from University High School in Eugene and completed her education at Reed College.

40 Reed Magazine september 2019

In her element: chemistry teacher Ann Rydalch Dalton ’46.

She met the man who would become her husband when she was in junior high. Her marriage to Joseph Dodds, who was with the U.S. Air Force, would last 61 years. Together, Joe and Bobbie Jean made a home for their three children as they moved across the continent 11 times and to Europe for an extended tour in Germany.

“It really sounds very cornball,” Bobbie Jean said, “but life in the air force was meant for us.

I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Beginning with dance lessons when she was a child, Bobbie Jean embraced life. This continued with school clubs and activities as an air force wife as a hostess in their home. She spent much of her time and energy creating a fun and loving home for her children.

Bobbie Jean and Joe made their retirement home in Colorado Springs, filling the next 29 years with family, friends, and travel. She is survived by her three children, Twyla Hollister, Matthew Dodds, and Rebecca Nilson.

Marguerite A. Fox ’47

July 17, 2012, in Harmony, Pennsylvania, at home following a brief illness.

Born in Warrendale, Oregon, Marguerite attended Reed, but did not complete a degree. She was a member of the Park United Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, loved to bowl, and served as a volunteer for Meals on Wheels and for the women’s association at her church. She was married for 55 years to Villard Fox, who preceded her in death, and is survived by her four children, Keith Fox, Neal Fox, Ron Fox, and Martha Weygandt.

John A. Beck ’49

February 16, 2019, in Vancouver, Washington.

As a toddler, JB, as he was known, moved with his family to Vancouver, Washington, from Texas. He stayed there for the rest of his life. After attending Benson Boys Polytech, a technical high school in Portland, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II. JB studied physics at Reed. He wrote his thesis, “An Investigation of Physical Properties for Transistor Action,” with Prof. Theodore Lashof [physics 1946–50] advising.

In addition to getting a degree, JB left Reed with “an open mind to accept or at least consider new ideas. Reed encouraged me to accept different opinions and beliefs of others and to realize their views might be the right ones, at least until proven otherwise.”

In his diverse career, he worked as an FDA inspector, a pharmaceutical rep, a residential developer/builder, and a city plans examiner.

JB was an avid reader, who closely followed current events, and enjoyed target shooting and road trips.

His wife of 57 years, Helen, died in 2004.

JB is survived by Alan and Eric, his “boys,” as he called them, and Virginia, his companion of 14 years.

Mary Elizabeth Strasser Bishop ’49 January 31, 2019, in Portland.

Mary grew up in the Arleta neighborhood of Portland and graduated from Franklin High School. She attended Reed for two years until leaving to work as a tack welder in the Kaiser Shipyards during World War II. She met her husband of 68 years, Al Bishop, while working at the Shell Oil Company, and they married in 1950. Mary later worked as an early Portland

Architect of the sun: Bill Church ’49.

meter maid. She loved her family, books, gardening, cats, and tailoring. She died one year to the day after the death of her husband, and is survived by their three children, Larry, Ann Tohlen, and Dean.

William Campbell Church ’49

April 2, 2019, in Portland.

Considered Oregon’s first practicing solar architect, Bill served as the Oregon Governor’s Solar Advisor in 1977 and went on to become the commissioner for renewable resources for the Portland Energy Commission.

He was born in Portland and followed his brother, Dudley Church ’42, to Reed. Bill’s year at Reed was followed by service in the U.S. Navy. He began studying architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but three years into his degree, he returned to Portland to begin a long and illustrious career. In a rare accomplishment for the time, he passed his architecture exams on the first attempt. Years later, he sat on the American Institute of Architects board of examiners to spearhead improvement for exams and learning outcomes.

An extraordinary visionary, Bill won many awards for his outstanding residential and commercial designs. He worked tirelessly on single-room-occupancy housing and energy conservation projects in the Portland area and authored books on these subjects. He served on numerous committees, boards, and task forces, often in leadership roles as president, chair, and director. In the ’70s, Bill was an instructor at the University of Oregon and for the Department of Energy. He was inducted as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1983.

Bill met his wife, Barbara Tague, while they wore both working at his father’s firm. A shy man, he was slow to ask her for a date. But their courtship deepened and the couple married in 1953. Barbara was quick to tell people, “Bill

Church is the greatest man who ever walked the face of this earth.” Together with Barbara and a handful of like-minded friends, Bill designed and initiated a passive solar co-housing community in Portland that thrives 40 years later.

Barbara died in 2010.

From kayaking to river rafting, backpacking, and mountaineering, Bill immersed himself in the natural world. A natural athlete, he participated in sports and was a devoted fan of the Oregon Ducks. He played tennis until arthritis won the game and then turned his attention to a book club. Late in life, he discovered painting and worked to loosen the grip on his drafting hand. He was graced with a traveling companion in his son-in-law, John Pisano, who took him to Scotland, to Central America, and on a road trip along Route 66.

Bill left this world gently in a cozy cloud of quilted comfort provided by his caregivers.

He is survived by his daughters, Sara Church, Martha Wiedmaier, and Bronwyn Murray, and his brother, Dudley Church.

Morton T. Rosenblum ’49

April 20, 2019, in Portland, Oregon.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mort graduated at age 16 from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx and then completed the two-year program at the State Institute of Agriculture in Farmingdale, New York.

After working in agriculture in upstate New York during the first years of World War II, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was stationed at the Seattle Naval Air Station and the Astoria Naval Air Station. Unable to qualify as a pilot because of his poor eyesight, Mort was a Link trainer instructor, teaching pilots to fly in ground simulators, as well as a photographer.

Upon his discharge from the Navy in 1946, he enrolled at Reed College in economics, and wrote his thesis, “The Allocation of Joint Costs in Multiple Purpose River Development Projects,” with Prof. Charles McKinley [political science 1918–60] advising. In addition to the academic experience of working with McKinley, Prof. Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934– 84], and Prof. Arthur Leigh [economics 1945– 88], Mort treasured the lifelong friendships that began on campus, and in particular, “that girl from Kerr.”

He met Billie Seltzer ’49 when they both were working in the dining hall; they married in 1948. Mort went on to earn a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Oregon State University and completed all doctoral work except for his dissertation before going to work in agriculture-related businesses in Sheridan, Oregon, and Portland.

Mort also taught introductory economics in the evening program at Portland State University. In the ’60s, he began a long career in the travel business as president and founder of Mortours, LTD, specializing in tours of the

South Pacific and Southeast Asia.

He was a proud and active alumnus of Reed; a devotee of classical music; served as president of the Portland chapter of Skål International, a professional travel organization; and was a member of Congregation Beth Israel for 71 years. Mort’s wife, Billie, died in 2002; his two sons, David and Bruce, survive him.

Patricia Bennett Hunt ’50 September 20, 2014, in Paradise, California.

Patricia was valedictorian of her high school class in Hood River and followed her brother, Edward Bennett ’43, to Reed. Majoring in biology, she wrote her thesis, “A Study of Mitotic Rhythm in Salamanders with Special Reference to the Effect of Methylcholanthrene,” with Prof. Ralph Macy [1942–55] advising.

She married Angus Hunt ’50, and after graduating they moved to Alamo, California, where they lived for 50 years, raising three children.

A devoted mother and homemaker, Patricia worked as the receptionist at the Alamo Medical Group when her children were older. In her later years, she enjoyed traveling and summers at their Montana cabin. She is survived by her children, Marla Peters, Alan Hunt, and Sarah Dimon.

Thomas Evans Robertson ’50 September 22, 2018, in Larkspur, California, peacefully at home.

Known as Tomo to friends and family, Thomas was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in the village of Glendale, Ohio, where he dreamed of becoming a shortstop for his favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals. He left high school at 16 and entered St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, but his education was interrupted

by World War II. At age 18, he joined the army and soon sailed to Europe. On the ship, he was asked to edit the ship’s newspaper, the Stars and Stripes. Thomas’s quick wit and intelligence endeared him to his commanders. Upon his arrival in Germany, he was recruited to join the newly formed Counter Intelligence Corps, which led to a long career in the intelligence service and postings in Europe, including Munich and Geneva.

After his military service, he studied philosophy at Reed, Yale University, and UC Berkeley. september 2019 Reed Magazine 41

In Memoriam Carrying a passion for deep reflective thought throughout his life, Thomas often asked the big questions of those around him, challenging them to reflect on their lives and purpose. He frequently quoted Socrates: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

He married Anne Sharrett DeShazo in 1952, and they had four boys, Scott, Christopher, Marc, and Perry. Leaving government service in 1974, Thomas followed his passion and began a second career as a visual artist.

He studied sculpture at the College of Marin and joined the O’Hanlon (Sight & Insight) Art Center. Importing huge blocks of marble from Carrara, Italy, Thomas produced many sculptures, some of which adorned his home and garden in Larkspur, California.

In 1981, he committed himself to a year of writing poetry and afterwards began painting works on canvas. Thomas’s large abstract pieces combined acrylic paint, shellac, shredded rubber, mechanical motors, and other unusual materials.

He married his second wife, Ann Cayen O’Shea, in 1987. They shared a passion for art and traveled extensively in Europe and the United States visiting museums, galleries, and private collections. In the 1990s, Thomas interrupted his painting practice to study the piano for seven years, fulfilling a lifelong desire.

Recently he had returned to visual art, experimenting with collage as a new medium. Exhibiting frequently, he generously gave his work to friends, family, and acquaintances. He authored two self-published books, Tomo’s Journey and Reach for Creativity.

Thomas is survived by his wife, Cayen; three sons, Christopher, Marc, and Perry; and three stepchildren, Eileen O’Shea, Steve O’Shea, and Katie Axelson.

Joan Campbell Snodgrass Callaway ’54 May 5, 2019, at home in Davis, California.

On New Year’s Eve in 1970, Joan tucked her 12-year-old son Keith into bed following a family skiing trip. Later that night, a fire broke out in their Davis home. Joan and her husband, Glen Snodgrass ’53, rushed to get the kids and dog out, but one of the children shouted that Keith was still in the house. Glen broke a window and pulled Keith onto the grass as the fire trucks arrived. Both Glen and Keith died as a result of the fire. Years later, Joan wrote a book about that awful night, It’s an Ill Wind, Indeed . . . That Blows No Good, recounting how she and her four surviving children survived, coped, and eventually healed from the tragedy. The memoir is a hopeful exploration of grief from the vantage point of a widow and her teenaged children, who lost not only a father and brother, but also a mother as they had always known her.

42 Reed Magazine september 2019

Mental Health Association; and founded Be Smart, a literacy program in Davis. She was also instrumental in the opening of All Things Right & Relevant, a consignment store which benefits a handful of local nonprofit organizations.

A beneficiary of services that Joan helped start wrote, “You have clearly put your life, your losses, and your extraordinary energy to good use all your adult years. I believe there are known and unknown angels in every life, and you have been one of the heretofore invisible angels at work in ours.”

In addition to her husband, Ed Callaway, Joan is survived by her children, Valerie Henry ’73, Marci Snodgrass Reilly, Laurie Snodgrass, and Mark Snodgrass.

Joan Campbell Snodgrass Callaway ’54 with her husband, Ed.

Until the tragedy, Joan had identified as a wife and mother who, when the need arose, worked as an administrative assistant, transcriptionist, or speechwriter. The arduous journey following the death of her husband and son led her to search for a meaningful life. She became a guide to others who were surviving tragic loss. Working with psychologist Louise Wilson, Joan cofounded a group called Bereavement Outreach, which started out with six widowed people and expanded to include parents who had lost children. Active in many areas of mental health at the state and local levels, Joan received a number of awards for her work.

Realizing she needed to make a living, Joan opened a store that sold craft-based art and beads. One day, she gambled that some customers might be willing to pay more for Laurel Burch earrings. Those earrings sold quickly and Joan became known as the “Earring Lady” when she switched from selling beads to selling earrings. She opened two more boutiques that sold clothing, art, and antiques from around the world. Customers would come in and hold palettes up to clothes to match the color tones that flattered their summer, winter, fall, or spring complexions.

Intrigued, Joan began a quest to understand seasonal color analysis—how fashion, color, and personality intersect. In 1986, she wrote The Color Connection: From a Retailer’s Perspective for retailers and designers and later published a consumer style guide. She continued to raise her children and eventually found love again, marrying Ed Callaway in 1976.

After writing a second memoir, Invisible to the Eye, Joan founded and facilitated a memoirwriting group. She believed that a strong democracy is shaped by the efforts of individuals in their own communities. During her 53 years in Davis, she cofounded Bereavement Outreach, Citizens Who Care, and Yolo Community Care Continuum; was president of the Yolo County

John Buckinger ’55

March 13, 2019, in Palm Springs, California.

John was born in Portland and started at Reed as a chemistry major. During the first two years, he recalled, he was having too much fun and was asked to leave. He worked in construction that summer and decided it wasn’t something he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Returning to Reed, he switched to physics and credited his mentor, Prof.

Kenneth Davis [physics 1948–80], for getting him on the right track. With Prof. Nathan Wainfan [chemistry 1954–56] advising, John wrote his thesis, “Transparency of Thin Films in the Vacuum Ultraviolet.”

John’s father worked at Miller Paint, and while John was at Reed, he began working as a stock boy at the company. He progressed to paint maker and lab assistant. When he graduated, he went to work for RCA in New Jersey and then spent nine years with Boeing in Seattle and at Cape Canaveral. He returned to Miller Paint as a factory manager and by 1988 had become president and CEO of the company.

John helped develop a new CGI tint system for formulating paint colors and became interested in environmental issues and their effect on the paint industry. He helped create Associated Businesses for Legislative Action, an industry group to study the issues, and worked with both the Environmental Protection Agency and the DEQ formulating regulation guidelines.

He also implemented one of the first in-house hazardous material training programs.

John assisted in developing Metro's government-operated paint recycling operation and supervised the pilot batch, offering Miller Paint’s factory for the project. Prior to retiring, he converted Miller Paint to a wholly employeeowned company by establishing an employee stock-ownership program.

In 1955, John married Marjorie Munroe, with whom he had three daughters. The couple

divorced and, in 1984, he married Donna Caughell, acquiring a stepson and stepdaughter to whom he was an active father.

The City of Portland awarded John and Miller Paint the Spirit of Portland Award for contributions of time and materials to charitable and city improvements, such as Christmas in April, REACH, and antigraffiti efforts. A longtime contributor to local youth organizations, John often supplied paint when needed without requesting recognition.

After retirement, John and Donna split their time between Vancouver and Palm Springs and enjoyed playing golf and traveling. They spent many nights out enjoying local music and making friends with the musicians. John is survived by his wife, Donna: his daughters, Elizabeth Johnson, Vivian Gysler, and Laura LeVigne; his stepson, Neal Caughell; and his sister, Elaine Chandler.

Margaret Zundel Shirley ’55

January 25, 2019, in Portland, Oregon, of natural causes.

Margaret was a respected Northwest artist and a beloved art teacher for more than 40 years, inspiring students at Reed, Portland State University, Mt. Hood Community College, and Marylhurst University.

As a child, she read profusely, made her own clothes, and did chores on the family acreage near Astoria, Oregon. She came to Reed— followed by her brother, David Zundel ’56— and earned a BA in sociology, writing her thesis, “A Content Analysis of the Novels and Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” with Prof. Howard Jolly [sociology 1949–70]. Margaret went on to get her BFA at Yale University, where she was influenced by modernism and the color theory of Josef Albers, and did printmaking and etching with Gabor Peterdi. At Portland State University, she earned a master’s in teaching as well as an MFA. Working with artist Mel Katz at PSU, she found freedom in the abstract form.

It let her focus on connections and relationships, “without getting bogged down in representational issues.”

Margaret’s initial work was pencil and graphite on paper, drawn with a T square as a guide. “The cumulative effect of her shimmering graphite rainbows hybridized the airy visual trickery of Op Art with the cool certainty of Zen meditation,” noted an Oregonian review.

Interested in the polarities between planning and accident, order and randomness, she began meticulous hand stitching on canvas, and made works that combined layers of paint, pencil, gravel, and other natural elements to heighten the sense of texture and natural color.

“My intent has been to find art processes

which reflect and enhance those of nature, creating a coherent visual whole,” she said. “I have hoped to create works in which the natural and abstract elements illuminate and enhance each other.”

Margaret’s work was exhibited in Portland’s Russo Lee Gallery and in group exhibitions throughout the country. In 2011, a 30-year retrospective of her work was exhibited at Reed’s Feldenheimer Gallery, curated

by Prof. Gerri Ondrizek [art 1994–], who met Margaret when she taught at Reed for a year beginning in 1995. For decades, Margaret served on the faculty at PSU and Marylhurst University, where she earned an excellence in teaching award in 2004.

She is survived by her daughter, Jennifer Shirley; her stepdaughters, Tory Shirley-Parker, Stephanie McGuigan, and Marybeth Olmstead, daughter of her late partner, Vern Olmstead; and her partner, Hugh Wilson.

to heal, but the scientific and comedic parts of his brain were working at full capacity almost immediately after the injury. When, in the hospital, he was unable to recall the names of his family, he said with a knowing smile, “Into each life a little brain must fall.” He lived seven more years.

The loves of his life were philosophy and physics (he saw these as intrinsically linked with the humanities), his work, and his family.

Bill worshiped Albert Einstein, enjoyed PBS— especially British dramas—and loved classical music and opera, particularly San Francisco’s Pocket Opera.

He is survived by his daughters, Naomi Bowman, Kim Wood, and Nori Jabba, and his sons, Josh and Samuel Wood.

William H. Wood ’57

March 30, 2019, in Sunnyvale, California, from cardiac arrest.

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, as a child Bill sang in the Episcopal church choir and was an accomplished trumpet player. At Reed, he studied physics and philosophy and wrote his thesis, “Einstein’s Conception of Science,” with Prof.

Albert Bork [physics 1963–68] advising. Bill married Winifred Jaeger ’55, and after college was drafted by the army, serving in Tokyo.

The Wood family, which came to include three daughters, loved Japan. Each daughter was bestowed with a Japanese name. In 1962, the family moved to San Francisco, where Bill worked for Standard Oil before moving to Los Altos. He had a passion for electronics and inventions and founded several companies, including Design Specialists, which designed learning lab equipment for schools. He later modified this equipment, designing booths for simultaneous interpretation and establishing himself as a pioneer and leader in the field of conference interpreting.

After his divorce, Bill met Janet Swid through a ski club, and they married in 1979.

Their twin sons, John and Benjamin Wood, were born in 1988. Bill juggled sports activities, music lessons, and the milestones of his young sons with weddings, birthdays, and celebrations of his three adult daughters and his five grandchildren.

Traveling the globe through his work, Bill absorbed new ideas, perspectives, and cultures with passion and made a difference in connecting the world through language. He defined his success by how deeply he cared about the people and clients with whom he worked. In 2012, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to the field. That year, he suffered a brain injury that resulted from a fall. It took time and patience

Cliff Sather ’61 and Bill Buss ’60

William Charles Buss ’60

December 25, 2018, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, of esophageal cancer.

Bill was a Reed “dropout,” but he loved and benefited from his time here, and Reed may proudly claim him as one of its own. Eventually becoming a professor of pharmacology at the University of New Mexico, for more than 40 years he was a respected researcher and professor, and a beloved teacher and mentor to generations of medical students.

He was raised in Vancouver, Washington, and after leaving Reed served in the National Guard and worked a variety of short-term jobs. Committing himself to pursuing medical science, he enrolled at Portland State University and got a bachelor’s degree in chemistry.

He received a PhD in pharmacology in 1971 from what is now Oregon Health & Science University and commenced a lifelong professional career at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine in the department of pharmacology. He served as chairman of the department for 10 years, published more than 30 scientific papers and book chapters, mentored generations of medical students, and received faculty awards for teaching excellence. september 2019 Reed Magazine 43

In Memoriam Although he retired in 1998, he loved teaching and continued to teach part-time until just a couple of months before his death.

Early in his career, Bill moved to the little town of Corrales, a few miles northwest of Albuquerque, where he purchased a half acre on a hillside with an expansive view of the Rio Grande Valley and Sandia Mountains. Here he designed the charming adobe home in which he would spend the rest of his life. Establishing a small winery on the property, he single-handedly produced award-winning wines and served as a mentor to aspiring winemakers and as a certified judge of wines in regional competitions. In retirement, he devoted himself wholeheartedly to several major pursuits. A voracious reader of both fiction and nonfiction, he loved the natural world as a lifelong rock climber and advocate for wilderness preservation. Bill took courses in pastel painting from renowned artists and became a prolific and accomplished painter himself, receiving awards for his pastels of New Mexico landscapes. He traveled and trekked with intrepid companions for many weeks every year, mainly on major hiking trails in Europe, but also in Turkey, Russia, and Nepal.

Married and divorced twice, Bill is survived by his brother, Jim, and by his son, Bill D. Buss.

The younger Bill recalls his father describing the dread that he experienced at Reed in anticipation of biweekly “paper conferences” with his humanities instructors. “He told me that he often felt awful after having his work subjected to such severe scrutiny, but he also told me that these sessions were the best instruction imaginable for learning how to write. What he learned in that class provided him with many of the skills he needed for his career in science— drafting and revising grant proposals, papers, book chapters, and abstracts.”

Bill loved Reed and benefited greatly from his time here. As his son observes, he “will be sorely missed by all who admired his compassion, humility, wide knowledge and wisdom, communication skills, sense of humor, and fearlessness.” —Contributed by Richard Morgan ’60

Thomas Mason Landye ’60 May 8, 2019, in Portland.

Tom was the son of James Thomas Landye, a prominent labor and personal injury lawyer, who had immigrated to Portland from Wales.

James died at the age of 44, and his wife, Ethel Mason Landye ’30, raised her three children. Active in the Oregon Democratic Party, Ethel cochaired the successful U.S. Senate campaign for Wayne Morse. After Tom graduated from Lincoln High 44 Reed Magazine september 2019

School, he followed Morse’s advice and chose his mother’s alma mater for his college.

Majoring in political science, he wrote his thesis, “The Background of Urban Renewal in Portland, Oregon: Slum Clearance without Public Housing,” with Prof. Charles McKinley [political science 1918–60] advising. He went on to receive a master’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago and pursued a PhD in political science, but ultimately graduated with a JD. Tom returned to Portland after law school and joined the law firm of Keane, Haessler, Bauman and Harper, now known as Landye Bennet Blumstein. Focusing on corporate law, he became renowned for his keen intellect, strong business negotiation skills, and integrity.

He represented a diverse array of public and private entities, and was particularly proud of his work for Alaska Native corporations. He was a member of the Oregon State Bar for 50 years.

Tom and his wife, Patricia, endowed the Ethel M. Landye Scholarship at Reed. Patricia, his wife of 24 years, survives Tom, as do his sister, Donna Tewksbury; his brother, Jerry Landye; his stepdaughter, Kathleen Flynn; and Pat’s daughters, Victoria Barbur, Leslie Owens, and Emily Yensen.

Joanna Baker ’61

January 18, 2019, in Benson, Arizona, of lung cancer.

A native of Nyack, New York, Joanna graduated from high school in Montclair, New Jersey.

At Reed, she majored in literature and wrote her thesis, “Children of Evil: a Study of the Characterization of Evil in King Lear,” advised by Richard H. Tyre [English 1957–61].

“Reed does not (or did not) provide career training,” she said, “but I learned to think, research, and express my thoughts—invaluable.”

In 1963, she married Reed Prof. William Alderson [English 1943–63], who died in July of that year.

Joanna worked in computer science. She was manager of administration at the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland, California, and vice president at Bank of America’s World Banking Division in San Francisco. In 1999, she moved to West Point, California.

Ten years later, Joanna retired and moved to Benson, Arizona. An animal lover, she participated in adopting rescued dogs and exhibited a whippet in competitions. She took up dressage horseback riding at J-Six Ranch Equestrian Center, and she and her horse, Maggie, were honored with admission to the Century Club, recognizing horse-and-rider teams whose combined ages totaled at least 100 years.

She was in her 50s when she started riding,

and in the beginning, it was a struggle. Having come from a sedentary lifestyle and suffering from emphysema, she rode with a portable oxygen concentrator attached to her belt.

But she stuck with it, lost weight, and gained muscle. With her enthusiasm restored, her whole outlook changed.

Maggie, a buckskin mare, was the other half of the team. Believed to have been used to transport drugs across the border from Mexico, Maggie was rescued by the Border Patrol when she was found wandering in the desert. Transport horses are used hard; when their cargo gets to its destination, the horses are turned loose in the desert to live or die. After a recovery period, Maggie lived on a farm, and Joanna leased her for dressage lessons and competitions.

“Maggie has been the best partner I could imagine,” Joanna said. “She is calm and willing and forgiving of my mistakes. She takes great care of me.”

Leslie W. Dundes Holzner ’65

April, 7, 2019, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from cancer.

Born Leslie Weir Dundes in New York City, she was raised on both coasts, in NYC and San Francisco. After attending Reed and San Francisco State, she settled in Pittsburgh and was pleased to call it home to the end. She went on to earn both a master’s and a PhD in sociology and worked in the field of sociologically based knowledge, rising to become assistant director with the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Leslie worked to make testing, results, and analysis more useful within public school systems.

After the LRDC, Leslie carried this passion into a collaboration with her husband, Burkart Holzner, coauthoring a book on knowledge usage and global transparency. She is survived by her son, Weir Strange; her daughter, Sara Chapman; and her stepchildren, Dan and Claire Holzner.

Charles Richard Lehne ’65 March 30, 2019, in Piscataway, New Jersey, after a long illness.

Born in Mineola, New York, Richard graduated from the Cambridge School in Weston, Massachusetts, and earned a bachelor’s degree from Reed. He went on to earn a PhD from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.

Richard was a political science professor at Rutgers University, and during his academic career, authored seven books and numerous scholarly journal articles. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität in Heidelberg, Germany; a visiting professor at

their opinions,” she said. “He strongly believed that we must tolerate hearing different views and believed that, in the end, people would see reason and would do the right thing.”

Jon’s death was unexpected. He had been hospitalized for the removal of a gallstone, and pancreatitis was revealed during the operation.

While in the ICU, he suffered a heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn; his children, Jon Magnus, Rachel, and Sarah; and his siblings, Anne Økvik, Anders Lauglo, and Harald Lauglo.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt/Main, and at the Institut für Politikwissenschaft, Universität Leipzig; and a faculty member for the Annual Seminar on American Politics at Rheinland-Pfalz, Atlantische Akademie.

Earlier in his career he served as an advisor to the majority leader in the New Jersey General Assembly, as well as to the New Jersey State Department of Education and the National Institute of Education. He is survived by his wife, Susan G. Forman, and his brother, Henry Theodore Lehne.

Philip Douglas Uhlinger ’72

Jon Lauglo ’66

October 15, 2018, in Phoenix, Arizona, of blood infection that led to sepsis.

March 17, 2019, in Oslo, Norway, of a heart attack following a gall bladder operation.

The consummate professor, Jon had a deep sense of social justice and practical application. He was committed to extending democracy and material progress based on reliable theory developed through rigorous research and practical application. Throughout his academic career, he gave intellectual service to the development interests of some of the least advantaged.

Jon was born on a farm in Leinstrand, Norway, a place to which he maintained a lifelong attachment. In high school, he was chosen for the American Field Service (AFS) exchange program and asked to be placed in a Southern state so he could study race relations firsthand.

Instead, AFS sent him to Minnetonka, a posh suburb of Minneapolis, where he acquired an affinity for Republicans.

“My year at Minnetonka was important for my life,” Jon said. “It made me interested in international issues in education—a theme which I pursued professionally in both my higher education and in my main work bases.”

He returned to Nor way to complete secondar y school. After working as an untrained primary teacher in the Arctic north of Norway, he served in the Norwegian army, where he studied Russian. Then in 1964, he returned to the U.S. on a scholarship to Reed, where he majored in sociology.

His friend, Jane Burbank ’67, remembered that at the time “Reed was an intellectual’s school—a radical, underground politics kind of place for people who love the outdoors, where nonconformity is not just appreciated but required," and Jon fit right in.

“He was smart, loved the outdoors and beauty of the place, and he was a contrarian,” Jane said. “At Reed, his contrariness took the form of being a political conservative on a campus that was 99.9% left-wing, anarchist, revolutionary, etc. He seemed to enjoy this, and many of us enjoyed his company.”

After two years, Jon left Reed and married Marilyn Tsuchiya, whom he met the summer before while working at the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis. The couple moved to Chicago, where Jon got a PhD in comparative education

from the University of Chicago. They subsequently had three children and lived in Norway, London, and Washington, D.C. In developing countries, the ’80s and ’90s were a heady time for education. Participants discussed the nature and purpose of education, and debates raged about the best ways to administer and manage education, and what kinds of curriculum would be most relevant.

Jon’s academic work was central to all of this. At the time he was lecturing on education in developing countries in the Department of International and Comparative Education at the Institute of Education at University College London. With colleague Martin McLean, he organized a conference on international perspectives on the centralization/decentralization of education, resulting in a book, The Control of Education (1985), coedited with McLean. He researched vocational education, searching for ways to make it more relevant and effective.

He was a professor of sociology of education at the University of Oslo and wrote a book, Vocationalized Secondary Education Revisited, in 2005. Prior to that he worked as a senior education specialist, Africa region, for the World Bank in Washington, D.C.; was director of research for the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities; and taught at the Institute of Education, University College London. He consulted usually for aid agencies concerned with developing education in the Third World.

Jon’s wife, Marilyn, recalled that he loved to debate and that his positions were often based on some obscure bit of history he had picked up through his very wide range of reading and on his ability for lateral thinking.

“When I suggested that perhaps he shouldn’t have expressed a view, he increasingly came back to the notion of tolerance—the importance of accepting people while disagreeing with

Douglas was born and raised in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where his parents were American Baptist missionaries. After graduating from the American School of Kinshasa, Douglas started at Reed, where he was chair of the judicial board and on the Reed College senate. He wrote his thesis, “Frantz Fanon: Three Theories,” with Prof. Maure Goldschmidt [political science 1935–81]. He went on to get a law degree from DePaul University College of Law in Chicago.

Douglas spent most of his legal career in public service, with the vast majority of his career at the Illinois Appellate Court. He was a judicial law clerk (research attorney) for one of the first black women on the court. Prior to that, he was counsel for the People with Disabilities Foundation, assistant managing attorney for Legal Assistance for Seniors, and managing attorney for Home Base, which provided advocacy and policy recommendations on issues affecting homeless people.

While at appellate court, he met his wife Irma.

During their married life, Douglas and Irma lived throughout the Chicago area, in the Bay Area, and in Arizona.

He loved playing and watching tennis, reading, foreign films, and ethnic restaurants.

He sang along to recordings of Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, and Joan Baez, and was an enthusiastic dancer, eager to take his bride for a spin on the dance floor whenever Mexican ranchera music was playing.

Douglas is survived by his wife, Irma Villarreal, and two sisters, Nancy Uhlinger and Kristin Geoffrey.

Lisa Shara Hall ’74

March 9, 2019, in Portland, from ALS and related dementia.

At an early age, Lisa learned to cook at her mother’s elbow. She ran her own catering company when she was in high school and went on to forge a dynamic career as a food and wine writer, becoming a champion of Oregon’s wine industry. september 2019 Reed Magazine 45

In Memoriam Born in Newark, New Jersey, Lisa imbibed the activist spirit of her dynamic parents, who participated in Martin Luther King Junior’s 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 March on Selma. As a teenager growing up in West Orange, New Jersey—just 18 miles from Manhattan— she was allowed to take the bus into New York City after school for art classes at the New School or visits to the Museum of Modern Art. When it came time to choose a college, Lisa chose Reed over Radcliffe and drove her yellow Volkswagen bug west, eager to strike out on her own and be part of an intense intellectual environment. She fell in love with Portland and stayed for the rest of her life.

Majoring in religion, she wrote her thesis, “Kaleidoscope: The Patterns of the Contradiction in Judaism on its Definition of the Role of Women,” with Prof. Simon Parker [religion 1968–75] .

At a Valentine’s Day brunch in 1988, Lisa met Kirk Hall and married him later that year.

She worked for civil rights enforcement for the City of Portland, in commercial litigation, and finally in community relations for Legacy Emanuel Hospital.

Able to marshal a five-course meal for 40, Lisa was an early and enthusiastic supporter of organic foods. She began food and restaurant writing for Willamette Week and then for the Oregonian, specializing in restaurant news rather than reviews (what new place was opening, which special dish to try). With Prof.

Roger Porter [English 1961­–2015], she coauthored The Food Lover’s Companion to Portland, a comprehensive guide to Portland’s developing culinary scene.

Eventually Lisa got bored with food writing.

“How many times can you write about roast chicken?” she said. She began sneaking in news about wine tastings or new wineries in Oregon.

Her 2001 book, Wines of the Pacific Northwest, was a finalist for the Cookbook Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Visiting nearly every wine region in the world, Lisa judged wines and made friends with growers, vintners, and wine journalists.

She wrote for The Oxford Companion to Wine, Decanter, and Hugh Johnson Pocket Guide and was a senior editor for Wine Business Monthly.

Lisa, who had already gone through years of surgery for Crohn’s disease, diagnosed in her teens, was diagnosed with ALS in 2016. She was in hospice care for over a year and died peacefully at home at the age of 66. She is survived by her husband, Kirk, and her sister, Cathy Fantz.

Roberta Siegel ’76

March, 20, 2019, Gleneden Beach, Oregon

Roberta was an American studies major at Reed, where she wrote her thesis, “Pre-Revolutionary Domestic Architecture in New England: From 46 Reed Magazine september 2019

Roberta Siegel ’76 with her daughter, Rachel Hawks.

Colonial to Aristocrat,” with Prof. John Tomsich [history 1962–99]. She went on to get a law degree from Northwestern University, eventually setting up a practice in Portland with her husband, Nathan Sanders. They specialized in working with the elderly and mentally impaired populations. The couple had two children and restored a historic Tudor revival home in Portland’s Laurelhurst neighborhood that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2013, she married Jack Walsh and the couple moved to the Oregon coast. Roberta retired from her law practice and began doing mosaic art full time. Jack, a lifelong ceramic artist and teacher, created a studio next to their home. Roberta is survived by her children, Rachel Hawks and Owen Sanders.

researching environmental law and lobbying the state legislature on mining regulations and other environmental concerns.

Dave developed type 2 diabetes and six years ago was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, which severely restricted his activity. But he continued to research both environmental and historical topics and loved freewheeling intellectual discussion. At the time of his death, he was corresponding with the city about the potential environmental impact of a proposed second OHSU tram.

A devoted uncle, brother, and friend, Dave had a menagerie that included chameleons, finches, and some really cute rats. He is survived by his two sisters, Katy Nadal and Barbara Kuehner, and his two brothers, Joe and Tom Nadal.

David B. Nadal ’77

James Edward Walsh Jr. ’77

January 20, 2019, in Portland, from heart failure.

As president of his sophomore class at Portland’s Wilson High School, David organized the signature gathering that put the Oregon Scenic Waterways bill on the ballot. Two years later, he opened and ran the Citizens Advancing McCarthy’s Policies (CAMP) office in Portland to support the presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. He attended college at New York University, Reed College, and then Lewis & Clark College, where he had a double major in biology and history.

Never pursuing a traditional career, David primarily supported himself as a legal wordsmith at large law firms in Los Angeles and Portland. This allowed him to spend nearly six months each year on his five-acre paradise in Halfway, Oregon, as well as time in Salem

February 25, 2019, in Ankeny, Iowa, from complications of Addison’s Disease.

A political science major, Jim wrote his thesis, “A Critique of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice” with Prof. Maure Goldschmidt [political science 1935–81]. He was a senior special agent with Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and worked with the Violent Gang Task Force in Los Angeles. Jim had great stories of guarding presidential candidates.

Michelle Fulton ’87

June 29, 2018, in Portland, Oregon, of cancer.

Michelle’s family announced her passing at the age of 53. She is survived by her father and stepmother, John and Ruth Fulton, and three sisters, Katie Anthony, Judy Urness, and Jenni Ford.

Walter LeBrun ’93

March 13, 2019, in Newport, Oregon.

Born in Texas to Thomas and Jan LeBrun, Walter earned his degree in chemistr y from Reed, writing his thesis with Prof.

Thomas Dunne [chemistry 1963–95]. He became a chemist brewmaster, including work as a brewing chemist at Rogue Ales. Walter is survived by his parents, Thomas and Jan LeBrun, and his sister, Amanda Andersen ’91.

spent part of each of the prior five years engaging in cultural activities and building a network of close friends there. His passing was marked by a Buddhist ceremony performed in the Spanish language—which would have pleased him. He is survived by Betty; his brother, Robert Thomas; and his stepdaughter, Ann Lehto.

Marcus Thomas ’95

March 2, 2019, in Oaxaca, Mexico, of a heart attack.

Born and raised in Texas, Marc received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Reed. He served in the military, worked for the forest service, and taught math in Portland public schools.

He met his life partner, Betty Durham ’90, while they were both teaching HyperCard—a software application and development kit for Apple Macintosh computers—in the Talented and Gifted program at Portland Public Schools.

For a year, they lived in the foothills of the Himalayas, in Mussoorie, India, where they engaged with Tibetan refugees and Marc taught math at the Tibetan Homes School as a volunteer. They also traveled to New York and

Pending

Paris, and walked the Camino de Santiago from Oporto, Portugal, to Santiago, Spain.

As an activist, Marc was ardently involved in recalling the death penalty and was involved with Amnesty International and in supporting Tibetan refugees in America and abroad. At the Oregon Humane Society he played Santa Paws. In the fall of 2017, he and Betty moved to Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico, having

Arthur Lezin ’49, Mary Lou Hershey Scioscia ’49, Myron Joe Floren ’50, Barbara Weeks Shettler ’50, Edward Gammon ’51, Leonard M. Goldberg ’51, Anna Bozarth Payne ’53, Jo Tice Bloom ’55, George Richard Wallman ’55, Sally J. Wiskemann ’63, David Kobos ’66, Laurel Wilkening ’66, Kim Ferris ’79, Bushra Azzouz ’80, Grant Gawaine Stipek ’86, Garon Coriz ’08

A number of these memorialized were members of Reed’s Eliot Society and included a gift to the college in their estates. We are grateful for their contributions to the world and to the college.

Parent & Family Weekend November 8 & 9, 2019

Parents and family members of Reed students are invited to campus for Parent & Family Weekend 2019.

Schedule and registration: reed.edu/pfw

♦ Connect with your student and experience Reed campus life together. ♦ Learn important information about declaring a major, the junior qual, the thesis process, and resources available at the Center for Life Beyond Reed. ♦ Immerse yourself in the Reed experience by touring campus and Portland.

september 2019 Reed Magazine 47

Object of Study

What they’re looking at in class

Follow the Script

In the spread above, you might notice the Notre Dame Cathedral, or the Eiffel Tower, or an angel bringing a trumpet to his lips. You might see, as the author intended, God moving through the streets of Paris.

La Fin du Monde Filmée par L’Ange N.-D. (The End of the World Filmed by the Angel N.-D) is a bound, illustrated chapter book with 22 pochoir (stenciling technique) designs. A collaboration by poet Blaise Cendrars and Fernand Léger in 1919, it was pioneering in its

48 Reed Magazine september 2019

marriage of image and typography, anticipating developments in typographical layout and book design that we take for granted today.

Students in Prof. Gerri Ondrizek’s [art 1994–] Art 368, “Image and Text: The Book as a Sculptural Object,” study the book before embarking on their own projects.

Both Cendrars and Léger were wounded fighting in the Great War, and their book features an apocalyptic end-of-the-world scenario, arguably a veiled response to their own expe-

riences. The story follows the main character, God, beginning in his American office, where he smokes a cigar among his chiefs of staff: the Pope, the Great Rabbi, the head of the Holy Synod, the Dalai Lama, and Rasputin. Cendrars’s text reads like a script, with director’s notes rather than a straight narrative. Léger illustrated and designed the typography for the book using both handwritten and stenciled lettering. His illustrations reflect the fractured rhythms of a new mechanized century.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2019 9 A.M. RACE START IN THE QUAD ♦ Free Pancake Breakfast ♦ Live Music ♦ Vendor Booths ♦ Kids’ Activities ♦ Tech T-shirts ♦ Participant Medallions

Register, volunteer, sponsor, and learn more at reed.edu/5k.

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photo by eric zhang ’20

A WORLD AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. Bill Nelson ’62 was back selling books on the SU porch at Reunions, capping a tradition he’s maintained for more than 50 years.