Reed College Magazine Summer 2024

In an age of misinformation and voter mistrust, Prof. Paul Gronke is delivering the data.

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Summer 2024 Volume 103, No. 2

EDITOR

Katie Pelletier ’03

ART DIRECTOR

Tom Humphrey

WRITERS/EDITORS

Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Cara Nixon

CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Joanne Hossack ’82

REEDIANA EDITOR

Robin Tovey ’97

GRAMMATICAL KAPELLMEISTER

Virginia O. Hancock ’62

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Lauren Rennan

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS

Sheena McFarland

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.

Reed Magazine (ISSN 08958564) is published quarterly by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon.

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From the Editor

It’s election season. Buckle up.

Every election cycle I receive a deluge of letters, postcards, flyers, texts, and calls in the run up to Election Day. This year there is a particularly aggressive campaign against one of Oregon’s candidates for Congress, resulting in negative campaign ads in my mailbox daily. As a resident of a vote-by-mail state, the barrage of attack ads I could stop if only I would post my ballot early.

The casual observation of this phenomenon and a subsequent conversation with a student led Professor of Political Science Paul Gronke to pioneer a field of interdisciplinary election science and found a nonpartisan academic research center called the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC), which he runs with Research Director Paul Manson ’01 and Senior Program Adviser Michelle Shafer.

Their work is proving critical right now. False claims about elections are stoking mistrust in our democratic systems. Election officials are receiving threats, and many are even leaving their posts. This past fall, fentanyl-laced envelopes were mailed to elections offices in five states. As national news media, scholars, and legislators seek to understand the current landscape of election

administration, they frequently turn to Gronke and EVIC’s research.

In this issue we explore Gronke’s work and what he has learned from the individuals at the front lines who are making our elections happen. At Alumni College in June, Gronke will give the keynote lecture, “Stewards of Democracy: How 8,000 Local Officials Defend Democracy and Enable Elections in the US.” He will share his research from the past six years that is helping us understand and support our local election officials nationwide.

The lecture will be available online at alumni.reed.edu, and I highly recommend you check it out after reading our cover story. EVIC recently revealed unsettling statistics about the conditions that election workers face, but their grit and pride in their work is encouraging.

The election cycle in 2024 could be a wild ride. People like Gronke are working to find solutions and help our heroic election officials and staff hang on.

—Katie Pelletier ’03, Editor

REED MAGAZINE

PHOTO BY OSCAR

Prof. Paul Gronke on a tour of the Multnomah County Election Division

Sarah Lloyd

Weekend Edition host Lillian Karabaic ‘13 in studio at OPB.

Mailbox

Papal Traditions

Thank you for featuring my “Blue Like Jazz” Paideia class in your February 2024 article, “The Festival Must Go On”! I would like to clarify one point: to the best of my knowledge, election of a new pope (and/or anti-pope) has generally taken place via a direct student body election, not at Renn Fayre. The idea that the pope is somehow crowned at Renn Fayre is a bit of artistic license from the film Blue Like Jazz and its author Donald Miller. [As a student] I nominated myself for the papacy because I wanted to win a student body election but didn’t want any of the responsibility associated with holding an office. Once invested, I did my best to tend to the spiritual needs of the students, including giving an address to incoming students during the ice cream social held on the first night of O-Week 2002. Helping to set the tone for such a tremendous class of new Reedies is still among my fondest school memories. POPE JEFF “MOOSE” PRICE ’03, EMERITUS

Father Palladino

In the editor’s note regarding the history of calligraphy at Reed [Spring 2024] there was no mention of Robert Palladino [art 1969–84], who carried on the tradition of Lloyd Reynolds [art 1929–69] for many years. I was fortunate to study with both masters of the pen, at Reed and at the Art Museum. Reed Magazine is to be applauded for the beautiful R on the cover: for Reed, Reynolds, and Robert (sorry). Now it’s time to bring calligraphy back to the classroom.

LON L. PETERS ’74

Dr. Bergman

I was sad to hear of the passing of Dr. Abe Bergman ’54 [In Memoriam, Spring 2024]. What a thrill to learn that someone had made a career of using consumer protections and the legal system to save children’s lives! He would move onto the next challenge, teaching generations of pediatricians to be public advocates. When people have prodigiously productive careers and eight children are listed as survivors, I think a mention of the spouses or partners who made it all possible should be standard.

GERALDINE KEMPLER ’89

Cover photo of Paul Gronke by Daniel Cronin

PHOTO BY MASON TRINCA

Phil Wikelund ’68, co-founder of Students for a Democratic Society at Reed, with Zoe Fleysher ’26.

Knead to Know

Reedies past and present gathered in March in the Student Union for Breaking Bread: Untold Stories of Reed, the second event in the Memory Activism series. Over bread and fruit, students and community members traded stories with two Reed icons: activists Kathleen Saadat ’74 and Phil Wikelund ’68. “These just seemed like two incredible people to have to come and tell their stories to current students, staff, and faculty—particularly in this moment when students are expressing themselves through their activism,” says Professor Catherine Ming T’ien Duffly [theatre], one of the event’s organizers.

Breaking Bread, which was born of a community partnership with Vanport Mosaic, invited attendees to consider questions like “When you talk about Reed now, what story do you find yourself telling?” and “What story would you like to be true of Reed 30 years in the future?” “[One] student talked really movingly about how she felt overwhelmed by the problems she could see in the world,” Duffly says. “And Kathleen said, ‘You should work hard at Reed and take what you’ve learned out into the world.’”

While Breaking Bread was an intimate event, Duffly sees it as part of a global quest to create stronger community ties. “We have community here at Reed,” she says. “How do we practice being in community with each other and really talking to each other? The world needs us to be good at this.”

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Kelly Chacón Wins Swanson Promise Award

Arthur F. Scott Associate Professor of Chemistry Kelly Chacón was recently honored for their outstanding efforts in science research and education, winning the Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust. The prize is given annually to junior faculty (those with fewer than 10 years’ experience as a faculty member).

Chacón is a bioinorganic chemist whose research includes structural biochemistry, X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), electronic absorption, and fluorescence spectroscopy of metal sites in bacterial proteins. They are researching the biology of tellurium, which is a metallic

mining by-product used in technology such as solar cells and processes such as vulcanizing rubber. In its solid state, the metal is neutral. But when a solar cell is thrown away and bakes in a landfill, the tellurium can transform into a toxic state. Some bacteria, though, are able to ingest this toxic form of tellurium, detoxify it, and then produce the neutral tellurium metalloid.

“There are some amazing bacteria that can detoxify this poisonous material and make something useful out of it, but we don’t understand how it is done,” Chacón said.

Chacón works extensively with undergraduate students, whom they credit with creating a large portion of their data

for continued research. Chacón said students will assume a result they obtained isn’t good, yet Chacón will themselves be in awe of the breakthrough their student has come across.

“As a teacher, Kelly is highly rigorous and caring in their approach, leading to a learning environment in which students are thriving,” said Kathy Oleson, dean of the faculty and professor of psychology in her nomination letter for Chacón. “For Kelly, a fundamental goal of teaching is for students to develop a sense of belonging and self-efficacy at Reed, within the chemistry profession, and in academia at large.”

As a Latiné first-generation college student themselves,

Criteria for the Swanson Promise Award include research accomplishments with national recognition and strong potential for future scientific discovery.

Recent Reed faculty recipients of the Swanson Promise Award: 2023, Prof. Kelly Chacón

2021, Prof. Kelly Chacón (Honorable Mention)

2020, Prof. Anna Ritz

2019, Prof. Alison Crocker

2016, Prof. Sarah Schaack

Recent Reed faculty Swanson Scientific Research Award (for senior faculty): 2020 & 2017, Prof. Suzy Renn

Chacón reaches out to mentor students from minoritized backgrounds to create a sense of belonging for those who may not see themselves reflected in the science fields they are pursuing. “They really helped me build my confidence in the lab because when they noticed I would not be comfortable doing something or not have the confidence, they would help me get there,” said Christina Davis ’26, a sophomore studying neuroscience.

Chacón is excited about the research they are doing and working with students who go on to their own careers of discovery. “I’ve always just wanted to be a human showing that science is human,” they said.

Mellies Elected to the American Academy of Microbiology

When the American Academy of Microbiology announced its new class of fellows in February, Amgen-Perlmutter Professor of Biology Jay Mellies was among the 65 scientists recognized. “It’s wonderful to have your work in teaching and research honored by your peers,” he said.

The fellowship recognizes Mellies’s research and teaching contributions to biology at Reed, which have lately focused on the potential ecological applications of plastic-eating microbes.

Students are frequently drawn to Mellies’s research on these bacteria, which can consume polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic, a substance used in common household objects like plastic water bottles, clothing, and food containers.

“They want to make a difference in the world,” said Mellies of the students. “The plastic pollution problem is immense, and so all we can do is our part on a small level, and roll up our sleeves and get to work.”

Mellies hopes that what he’s learned about PET plastic-eating bacteria can serve as the basis of large-scale solutions to the proliferation of plastic throughout the environment, a problem best epitomized by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

“If we could make it more efficient, and we can make it to scale, then it has the potential to really make a difference in terms of recycling PET plastic,” he said. —Megan Burbank

Greek, Latin, and Mediterranean Studies (GLAM) students and faculty abroad in Rome were among the very first visitors to the Forma Urbis Museum on its inaugural day. The new museum is dedicated to the Severan Marble map of Rome, which is set under glass so that visitors can walk over it during their visit, experiencing an ancient Roman streetscape.

Jess Yao, Reed’s first data and digital scholarship librarian, stoked love for data this February, handing out “data valentines” outside Commons for students to exchange. “I census going on a date together,” read one. “I’m 95% confident I love you,” read another.

Reed bands Horsebag and Zerocool performed in the Library lobby for Zinefest in March. Was it the first time a band performed in the library? We don’t know. But, “It’s probably the longest that any band took from forming at Reed (in the band practice room in 2012) to actually performing at Reed,” said Horsebag tuba player Charlie Wilcox ’16

In late March, Reed community members came together on Canyon Day to protect and restore the 28-acre watershed that runs through campus.

A Love of Language, at Reed and Abroad

Reedies participate in prestigious Critical Language Scholarship Program

Jennifer Hadawi ‘24 never expected to find herself explaining her comparative literature thesis in Arabic. Yet standing in front of a room full of other Critical Language Scholars in Nizwa, Oman, she found to her surprise that she could.

Her command of the language, Jennifer said, improved “exponentially” during her 10 weeks

participating in the CLS, a U.S. State Department program that helps undergraduate students “learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world.” As one of two Reed students selected as CLS scholars in 2023, Jennifer spent more than two months speaking, writing, and even thinking in Arabic, after signing a “language contract” that forbade the use of English for the duration of the program.

Jennifer inherited her love of languages from her father, who speaks both Farsi and Azeri. In fact, her initial interest in Arabic, which she had

not studied extensively before the CLS program, arose from her desire to add Farsi to her growing collection of languages (she currently counts four). “If I could learn Arabic, which is way harder . . . than Farsi,” Jennifer said, “then learning Farsi afterwards would be a lot simpler.”

Her counterpart, Daniela Buchillon-Almeida ’25, recalled fond memories of her own immersive experience studying Indonesian in Malang, Indonesia. “My host grandma would always eat meals with me, and she would tell me all sorts of stories about her childhood and life,” Daniela said. “I am fully convinced

Roots of Gospel

When PBS debuted a four-part series on Black gospel music from Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in February, Reedies may have seen a familiar face in the series’ lineup of insightful experts: R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music Mark Burford [music 2007—]. Burford sees his participation in Gospel as “kind of a capstone” on his past scholarship, particularly his work on gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, the subject of his award-winning 2018 book Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field

Burford appears in Gospel ’s first two episodes, which focus on the roots of gospel, in what he describes as a “mosaic” of voices approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives.

“I think part of that community was because it’s both about gospel music, and it’s about Black preaching,” says Burford. “There’s tons of performers in the documentary, too, so I thought it was really nice to have scholarly work in dialogue with more practical, more direct practitioners, who are involved with preaching and gospel performance ,in addition to the scholars that I know who work on this music as well.”

Burford found this holistic lens refreshing, because “I do think that Black culture sometimes gets treated as if it’s something that just surges

up organically, and gospel music is emblematic of this amorphous thing called ‘Black culture.’ But it’s nice to see that there is a history, there are institutional practices, there are techniques, there are relationships.”

The result provides rare insight into remarkable moments throughout American musical history that resonate in the work of contemporary artists today. “I think that students don’t get very much exposure to that at all,” says Burford. “So any opportunity to learn some small part, hopefully an increasingly large part of Black history, is really productive.”

Lately, Burford’s research has pivoted, but it remains focused on the intersection of music and Black history. He’s now working on research into W.E.B. DuBois and music, with a focus on DuBois’s editorship at the NAACP’s magazine The Crisis —Megan Burbank

that most of my Indonesian learning came from talking to her. I really miss those mornings now, and I’ve come to realize how much of a privilege it was to get to talk to someone who has lived through so much of modern history.”

Jennifer and Daniela join a cohort of more than a dozen Reedies who have been selected as CLS scholars over the years. The program, Jennifer noted, was “intense.” There were no off days, no stepping back from immersion. But, she said, “If that’s what you’re looking for, then it’s super helpful.”

—Declan Bradley ’26

Beyond the Great Lawn

A map of the San Francisco Bay’s turbidity, which is a key parameter for tracking delta smelt, an essential species of fish. The figure is used to gauge water quality and the health of delta smelt habitats.

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT

Revolutionizing How We Measure Water

Water is always in flux—moving, changing, and transforming. From lakes to rivers to watersheds like the Reed Canyon, part of water’s beauty is its constant reshaping. But this trait has also made it difficult to measure. Nicholas Tufillaro ’82, with the water quality measurement company he cofounded, Gybe, is making it easier, and consequently helping to work towards a more sustainable future.

Nick and his colleagues, Sara De Moitié, Ivan Lalović, and Omar Zurita, founded Gybe in 2019, after finding that environmental efforts were missing a key component: quantitative measurement. “If you want to improve the environment, you need to measure it, and then if you make changes to try to improve it, you need to have that feedback loop of measurement,” Nick explains. Satellites in space already take images of water reservoirs to collect data, but they can only tell us so much. The Gybe team fuses those findings with their own, collected via an on-the-ground sensor, which has the ability to capture more accurate information about the water’s quality.

Using both satellite and on-theground sensor data makes it easier to see

the changing colors of water and draw conclusions about its quality. GybeMaps, a software-as-a-service, compiles these collected data into a user-friendly app for clients to view. Organizations around the world, including the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy, use GybeMaps to research water quality, track conservation efforts, and ensure drinking water safety. Based on data from Gybe, organizations can track nitrates from farms affecting water; the impact of their conservation efforts; water quality impacts of dam removals; and more. This work all contributes to Gybe’s broader goal—to help in creating a more sustainable environment, which they discussed when they were invited to present at the United Nations Development Programme this last winter. “The idea is that if you want to have a sustainable environment, and in particular freshwater resources, then you should be able to quantitatively measure what you want to sustain,” Nick says.

Nick credits Reed for his computational skills in physics, which have informed his work on Gybe. While at Reed, he completed a thesis introduc-

ing the Swinging Atwood’s Machine—a physics apparatus used to demonstrate chaotic motion—under his adviser, the renowned Prof. David J. Griffiths [physics 1978–2009]. He also spent a lot of time in the Terminal Ward, where computer terminals were once connected to Reed’s mainframe, learning how to program. “It was a subculture that was really wonderful in terms of learning about computing. And that really informed the whole way I do physics,” he says. Nick’s education at Reed launched him into a successful physics career. He was a Fulbright recipient in 1988–89 and worked at Oregon State University for many years.

Though the driving goal of Gybe is preserving the water sources that sustain us, Nick thinks there’s another reason we should care about water: its natural beauty. “Water is just a beautiful, beautiful thing to be involved with and a beautiful thing to look at . . . I want to raise folks’ consciousness about being aware of the world around them and how water affects and touches their lives every day,” he says.

—Cara Nixon

Alumni Board nominations are open

Reed’s alumni board wants you— yes, you! The Alumni Board is seeking innovative, bright, service-minded Reedies for next year’s board. Nominate yourself or someone you know; scan the QR code to complete the nomination form, or visit alumni.reed. edu/board_of_alumni/ Reed’s volunteer alumni board is driven by the mission to create the best possible alumni experience through the work of its committees: the Committee for Young Alumni, the Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and the Reed Career Alliance. The call is also open for honorary alumni and Babson Award nominations.

Alumni Sustainability Group

Are you a Reedie working, studying, or interested in sustainability and the environment? Would you like to be part of a new network of alumni in these fields? Complete the sign-up form (reed.edu/ sustainability) to be added to our listserv. We’ll keep you in the loop about group activities, opportunities, and upcoming events (virtual & in-person).

Board Service Benefits Reed and the Greater Good

President Bilger and Vice President for Student Life Karnell McConnell-Black share the importance of these volunteer leadership roles.

By Sheena McFarland

Serving in a leadership role of any organization can be challenging and time-consuming work, but finding avenues to give back to the profession is something both Reed President Audrey Bilger and Vice President for Student Life Karnell McConnell-Black value. One of those avenues has been to serve on national nonprofit boards that focus on education.

“Why do we participate in national organizations? It’s so that we can connect with other professionals and understand what’s working for other institutions that might be useful for us,” Bilger says.

“If we have established that network and those connections, then when we need help or advice there are people we can contact, and we can be helpful to them, too.”

Bilger and McConnell-Black have found that national board service has allowed them to build reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationships with colleagues in higher education and elevate Reed’s reputation across the country. These boards are nonprofit, which means service is done as an uncompensated volunteer. As a member of the Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges Board of Directors, which is com-

posed of college presidents, Bilger has been able to understand what other institutions are facing and share the innovative work done at Reed College.

“We want people to know that we have good ideas,” Bilger says. “We’re doing some really amazing things on this campus, and by showing up in these national spaces, we’re able to represent our college in many ways. We become walking billboards for the college, and we put Reed on people’s radar.”

Being part of national boards has also helped recruit talented staff in an array of professional roles and continues to grow the positive reputation of Reed in increasingly larger circles. McConnell-Black’s service has opened up pathways for students who are interested in working in higher education as well.

“It’s about the impact on students, and access for students to these organizations that offer mentorship and pipelines to get involved in higher education professionally after they graduate,” McConnell-Black says.

Importantly, being part of a board allows Reed College to represent the perspective of smaller institutions on a national stage, and it helps amplify Reed’s voice in discussions about the value of a

college degree and liberal arts education as a public good. Service on nonprofit boards also allows for advocacy that may not be possible at an individual institution.

“If you’re not in the conversation, then things happen to you without your having any say in the matter,” Bilger says. “Being in the spaces where we’re able to consider how to change the national conversation is really good for the college.”

Learning from colleagues on national boards allows both Bilger and McConnell-Black to bring a fresh perspective to campus.

“When you look around at other institutions, you see your own institution with more clarity,”

PHOTO BY LEAH NASH

Bilger says. “That’s really important for a college like Reed that’s committed to continuous growth and progress.”

McConnell-Black was able to write the core competencies for NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education, when he served on that board earlier in his career.

“I felt like it was beneficial to continue to provide service to this organization that could also not only help me and my institution, but also help everyone else at the same time,” McConnell-Black says.

As he steps into service for NASPA, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education,

McConnell-Black sees opportunities to make an impact on nearly every aspect of student affairs through the organization’s nationwide membership. He shares what he has learned from his board service with students and alumni, many of whom tell him they want to make a difference in the world. McConnell-Black often advises them to serve on a nonprofit board, be it local, regional, or national, to create change in a meaningful way. Volunteering for a nonprofit board is “a reward in and of itself,” Bilger says, and service-oriented Reed alumni who believe in lifelong learning should find boards that align with their values.

“To be on a nonprofit board is to do good in the world,” Bilger says. “It’s gratifying work, and you meet some really, really amazing people.”

Boards President Audrey Bilger serves on: National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Annapolis Group of Liberal Arts Colleges, Project Pericles, Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges & Universities, President’s Advisory Group for Carnegie Classification

Boards Karnell McConnell-Black serves on: NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education (board member, January 2016 to December 2018 and president, January 2020 to December 2023); NASPA, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education

Behind the Curtain

Catching up with former student and star of HBO’s The Gilded Age, Morgan Spector ’02.

By Prof. Emeritus Roger Porter [English 1961-2015]

Morgan Spector ’02 has become one of the most recognizable actors on TV, especially for his starring roles in two HBO series: the adaptation of Philip Roth’s counterfactual novel The Plot Against America, and The Gilded Age. In his senior year at Reed, Morgan had the male lead of Benedict in Theatre Prof. Kathleen Worley’s [theatre 1985-2014] production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. A literature-theatre major, he was a student in my Reed seminar on Shakespeare’s comedies, and I remember well his requests that we think of the plays we were studying as works for theatre, not just texts on the page. I recently sent Morgan a series of questions about his career—its trajectory from Reed, the influences on his work, and the complexities of his acting life.

How did your time at Reed prepare you for a career as an actor (and a producer)?

I had the experience common to Reedies when I realized that in the context of my cohort, I was basically illiterate. As an actor, that kind of humiliation shakes the foundations of your whole self-concept. But the Reed theatre department gave me the opportunity for some of the most creative and playful work I’ve ever done. Students ahead of me were keyed into experimental theatre, put me in their shows, and made me do weird and wonderful shit. Kathleen Worley was enormously supportive of me as an actor and gave me lots of roles to play and opportunities to figure out how much I didn’t know.

You have recently played to acclaim two very different major roles: Roth’s father in The Plot Against America and the robber baron in The Gilded Age. What drew you to characters so different politically, economically, and socially?

I love Roth, and one of my favorite of his books is Patrimony, a nonfiction account of the year leading up to his father’s death. Rereading it helped my playing

his father, and even though that fictionalized version was twice removed from reality, I still felt intimately familiar with the character. When I met the scriptwriter David Simon, he said to me the character I was playing was just a guy trying to do the best for his family. It’s freeing to play someone who isn’t larger than life. Preparing for The Gilded Age was entirely different, because though we have writing and painting from mid- to late-19th-century New York, there’s not much to draw on in terms of how people’s voices sounded, nor how they moved. I also read a lot about the railroads and the robber barons themselves—Gould and Rockefeller and Carnegie.

Do you look for characters who seem compatible with your personality and values, or do you seek to stretch yourself into parts that might be diametrically different from who you are? What Shakespeare roles do you hope to play? I’ve never felt comfortable acting in verse. I did have a great time doing Much Ado at Reed, but it’s no coincidence that much of that play is in prose. With verse I’m not confident

in my ability to not bullshit an audience. People often see Shakespeare’s capacity to speak to us on a level deeper than language alone, so in many ways he is timeless. But the Shakespeare who investigated so many universal human themes was also sensitive to hyperlocal and hyperspecific usages. In performance there are a thousand nuances his original audience would have understood but I miss, and that makes me feel emotionally remote from the work. I don’t care if a character’s values align with mine; it’s more interesting if they don’t. I do think about whether the work has a point of view and how I’ll feel standing behind that. The best you can do is try to find interesting material, though this is not always possible.

You are married to an actor. Since you and Rebecca Hall are both in great demand, how do you balance family and career? It is a constant logistical problem. She is also a writer and director, which multiplies the complexity. There’s always the chance we will get a call that means one of us suddenly has to move to Australia for four months. We have rules about how long we’ll go without seeing each other, and we mostly don’t break them. We’re also very lucky that my mom lives near us and has been part of raising our daughter; that gives us a flexibility without which we couldn’t function.

Your father-in-law, Sir Peter Hall, was the founder of The Royal Shakespeare Company and the director of the National Theatre. One might say that you married

into British theatre royalty. Was that daunting for you? I was in grad school at ACT in San Francisco when Sir Peter’s production of As You Like It came through town with Rebecca as Rosalind. She played the verse with utter clarity, brilliance, and simplicity. It was strange to meet and work with her 10 years later, even stranger to end up marrying her. Her father developed serious dementia toward the end of his life, and by the time I was in the picture he was in no way himself; I spent time with him, but I wouldn’t say I ever got to know him. I did have the

PHOTO BY BARBARA NITKE / HBO

incredible experience of taking my daughter to the National Theatre in London, which Sir Peter, her grandfather, built.

Not many actors, relatively early in their careers, become producers, as you did with your documentary on American socialism, The Big Scary S’ Word. How did you get interested in this subject?

I think a lot of people, post-2016, decided to get more directly involved in politics in one way or another. For me, the combination of being excited by the first Sanders campaign and shocked at Trump’s victory led

me to want to do something more than I had been doing. After the Bush years, and even after progressive failures during Obama’s administration, I started thinking about socialism as a necessity rather than a piein-the-sky fringe position. I had been talking to Yael Bridge ’05, a documentary filmmaker, and we decided to do a film about the history of American socialism and its resurgence as a viable political movement. Helping Yael shape the edit and being in constant dialogue with her for nearly five years regarding the film was greatly satisfying.

In looking back on your career, what do you think you did to make it all happen? What choices were the most helpful for you, and who were the key people who most influenced you?

I’m a big believer in sheer accident as a determining factor. I was able to take the financial risk of a three-year MFA acting program, certainly a privileged thing. Probably the most important break in my professional life was going on as an understudy because another actor got injured. I was covering a lead role in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge on Broadway, and ended up taking over the part. I obviously had no influence over that happening, but I did have control over my being ready in case that opportunity happened.

Your paternal grandmother acted in Yiddish theater in New York. Did she have any influence on your decision to act, or on your work? She didn’t influence my decision to act, but when I was on Broadway for the first time in A View from the Bridge, she came to see me in the show and said, “This was my dream.” She was visibly jealous, just like an actor!

Actor Morgan Spector ’02 with Carrie Coon on the set of The Gilded Age

Financial Savvy and Glitter for All

Lillian Karabaic ’13, an ice-skating, Bowieloving finance reporter who has spent over a decade transforming people's relationship with money, is on to the next challenge.

By Andrew Jankowski

It’s not even 8 a.m., but Lillian Karabaic ’13, the newest morning host of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Weekend Edition, joins me at the Lloyd Center ice skating rink on her day off, during what would usually be her lunch hour. Wearing personalized pink skates, she warms up, cutting sharp figures into the ice.

The Lloyd Center rink’s oval design is unique, and not in a good way, according to Lillian. Figure skaters rely on a rink’s standard shape to accommodate their routines’ precise geometry. As she skates, she pauses in between moves, deciding what to do next—and calculating how to succeed with less space than she needs.

Her training makes skating seem effortless—so much so that someone far less skilled can see themselves in her and imagine what they might one day achieve if they follow her lead. This is true not only of her athleticism, but also of her reporting and financial savvy.

Lilian is a multi-hyphenate wunderkind. She has helped countless people overcome financial struggles through her books that explain personal finance using cat illustrations and Oh My Dollar, a podcast and online forum that delivers money smarts “with a dash of glitter.”

Lillian

Karabaic ‘13 in the studio at OPB, where she took over as Weekend Edition host in April.

Financial Savvy and Glitter for All

She’s known for making people comfortable while they learn, whether it’s about budgets, or ice skates. With her varied passions, she has established ties to many of Portland’s communities, from cyclists and ice skaters to glam rock fans and personal finance enthusiasts. Her animated voice, on air or in writing, is authoritative but personable as she guides her audience through uncomfortable topics like failures in Oregon’s organ donation system. She sounds like a friend or a cool teacher.

Though she’s something of a Portland icon, Lillian was raised in Cincinnati and spent time on both sides of the OhioKentucky border. Ice skating was among her early hobbies and one of her first selffunded ventures. Her parents didn’t want their daughter exposed to the sport’s deepseated sexism, and they refused to pay for lessons. So, she paid her own way with her allowance and lemonade-stand money. When Lillian’s coaches told her parents that she had real talent, her parents finally gave their support, too. “My coaches told my parents, ‘She’s actually pretty good, and she needs to go further than she can get on her rolled-up change,’” Lillian says.

Lillian had to contend with the skating world’s regressive politics when she was outed as queer at what had been her home rink in Kentucky. Though she wasn’t barred from competing, she says she was isolated from her teammates because of homophobic assumptions. “It was rough. I had to use the guys’ locker room, which they thought was very reasonable because they were still letting me skate with their daughters,” she says. “It wasn’t a great experience in the sport, so I had to take a break.”

Lillian arrived in Oregon after dropping out of high school in 2006. She’d originally moved for a six-month stint in Dexter, where she worked as a vegetarian kitchen manager for an intentional community, Lost Valley Education Center and Ecovillage. She moved to Eugene later that year to work for Bosco House, a home for new and expectant mothers, and arrived in Portland in 2007 after spending time with AmeriCorps in Lane County. Her communal living arrangements—including a period where she lived in an outdoor cardboard geodesic dome—kept Lillian’s rent around $300 per month for several years.

She took classes at Portland State University and Portland Community College and enrolled at Reed in 2009 at the height of the Great Recession. She was drawn to studying the financial world because she did not see the lived experiences or income brackets of her peers represented in financial education. “I read every personal finance book, and they were all like, ‘Oh, this is how much you should put into your retirement account,’ and I was like, ‘We don’t have retirement at the nonprofit I work at!’” she says.

At times, Lillian clashed with Reed’s academic structure, but she credits the rigor and personalized learning expe-

Before she ever thought she would become a financial expert, Lillian began to share her spending decisions across online platforms.

“Most people would think what I spend money on is ridiculous. They’d be like, ‘How many cat-print dresses and hot pink suits does a person need?’ Figure skating is incredibly expensive. It’s why it took me 16 years to come back to the sport.”

Using colorful charts and infographics that she illustrates herself, she shares monthly personal statistics reports, covering things like rent, utilities, tacos eaten, hours skated, miles biked, and money saved. In doing so, she demonstrates how

“Most people would think what I spend my money on is ridiculous. They’d be like, ‘How many cat-print dresses and hot pink suits does a person need?’"

rience she encountered among Reedies with helping her excel in journalism and finance.

“I’ve been to dinner at the houses of most of the economics professors. I know all their spouses,” she says. “I studied abroad in Berlin, and I was with other American students, and I would hear about their experiences at Ivy Leagues, and it seemed like I just wasn’t sure they were getting an education. Reed was so rigorous and so hard, but so supportive.”

Lillian’s thesis, advised by Professor Noelwah Netusil [economics], focused on the intersection of bikeability and gentrification and touched on the then-bubbling Portland housing crisis. Her thesis disproved the idea that adding bike lanes to urban centers increases home values enough to drive out longtime residents; in a unique approach, she focused on rental data rather than home sales records, which are the typical data sets analyzed for urban studies and easier to come by.

By 2014, a year after she graduated, Lillian’s rent had more than doubled. Even with such new financial challenges, she maintained financial independence.

she practices thrift without denying what she prioritizes.

To get around, she rides her bike or takes mass transit, saving thousands of dollars on transport costs. She doesn’t regularly indulge in Portland’s mouthwatering dining options, but does splurge on a weekly burrito or ramen bowl. And, despite her frugality, Lillian is an avid traveler. Her journeys have taken her to nearly 50 countries via trains and ferries. She lived in London as a freelance journalist for a month to report on Brexit. One of her more recent treks took her from Dublin to Shanghai to get to a conference in Seoul, rerouting from the Belarusian area because of the ongoing RussiaUkraine war.

Lillian has leaned into her love of whimsy and has built it into her professional and personal life. Her years leading the costumed Bowie vs. Prince bike ride as part of Portland’s Pedalpalooza generated a decade’s worth of costumes that she now uses in financial courses to disarm clients, especially those who are averse to the economic world’s reputation for stuffy rigidity. She has written and illustrated two financial advice books packed with pictures of cats; one of them is a coloring book. (A

Cat’s Guide to Money: Everything You Need to Know to Master Your Purrsonal Finances, Explained By Cats; and Get Your Money

Together: An Illustrated Purrsonal Finance Workbook to Help You Budget Your Money, Save for Retirement and Smash Debt.)

She doesn’t use kittens in her books to be condescending. She’s seen countless walks of life and knows how to meet people where they are. Her clients include independent artists, art schools, and nonprofits for at-risk youth who trust Lillian not just because she dresses in over-thetop Bowie drag to explain savings.

Angel Gonzalez, director of support services at HomePlate Youth Services, a nonprofit in Beaverton supporting houseless youth, learned about Lillian’s financial literacy services while in a meeting for another program. He sought her out immediately in his then role as an education coordinator the moment he learned of her use of glitter and cats in her courses.

“Her way in which she frames things is down-to-earth, honest, fun, and really connects to where youth are at,” Gonzales wrote. He notes that she “helps youth with really understanding not just tips and tools around money management, but the emotions that can be connected to spending and decisions we might make.”

Lillian is currently at work on an educational graphic novel about financially navigating the American health care system, and she is also building a Portland triplex with her partner.

She doesn’t believe in depriving yourself of the things that make you happy. “I think that there’s a lot of people who have a limiting belief around finance, that it’s going to make them miserable before they even set out to do it, and I think that there are ways to make it fun, because in the end, money is just a tool, right?” Lillian says.

She still makes appearances on YouTube, but joining OPB meant giving up freelance writing for financial outlets like Slate. She also had to wind down Oh My Dollar to avoid confusion between her and OPB’s brands. Though she doesn’t record new episodes, she still runs Oh My Dollar’s online forum, which she says attracts more than half a million hits per month in website traffic.

“There was a point where I thought to myself, ‘Should I put this in a trust and let someone else manage it?’ Lillian says. “There’s a lot of people who really rely on

the emotional support of that community, and I really didn’t want to give it up.”

She loved the freedom of freelancing, but she ultimately joined OPB for the professional support the network could afford her, like editorial and production assistance, as well as employee benefits like a 401k and health insurance.

The transition has been successful. Geoff Norcross, local co-host of OPB’s show All Things Considered, says, “Lillian has been an exceptional addition to OPB. I’ve never seen a new content creator hit the ground running as fast as she has. It’s like she showed up with a bulging gift bag of stories that were just waiting for the right place to be told.”

Lillian says that at OPB, “I’ve been able to do so much more in-depth journalism that would not have been possible on my own. I’d also been doing Oh My Dollar for

seven years at that point and felt like I’d accomplished a lot of what I’d set out to do with that show.”

By the time I join Lillian on the rink, her example has me deluded into thinking I will glide effortlessly. Nope, not even close. I’m exhausted by the third lap around Lloyd Center’s tiny rink, much to the bewilderment of children and elderly women who have joined us on the ice. Pardon me for not wanting to crush my interview subject with my flailing body. But Lillian never judges my lack of grace or athleticism. Just as she is in her userfriendly discussions of personal finance, she’s clear and encouraging on the ice. And with her smarts and support—honed on the ice and over years of offering kind financial guidance—I get past my fears.

Using colorful donut charts that she posts online, Lillian shares what she earns and spends—and proves tacos won't break the bank.

In an age of misinformation and voter mistrust, Prof. Paul Gronke is delivering the data.

By Sarah Lloyd

Like most of Prof. of Political Science Paul Gronke’s work, the Elections & Voting Information Center, or EVIC, came from the real world.

Gronke came to Reed College in 2000 from Durham, North Carolina, where he had worked at Duke University and only voted in person. Election season communications had the same flow they had in most of the country, starting slow and escalating to a fever pitch as Election Day drew closer. Making his new home in Portland just after Oregon became a vote-by-mail state, Gronke noticed a different pace: election mail came on strong at the beginning of the season, and stopped coming to his house abruptly after he’d sent in his ballot. He offhandedly mentioned how weird that was to one of his students—and that stray observation would lead to Gronke becoming one of the country’s foremost experts on early voting and the business of elections.

That student, Misha Isaak ’04 , was fresh off a year working on congressional campaigns and as a congressional staffer. Of course the mail stopped, explained Isaak. He showed Gronke how to pull up state voting records and track a ballot’s progress. “Campaigns aren’t going to waste money sending you direct mail after you’ve voted.”

Gronke, who had been publishing scholarly work on elections for more than 15 years by then, admits that his first reaction was outrage that campaigns had access to his voting data, but it quickly turned to curiosity. “It’s a different way than I’d ever thought about elections and voting in my whole academic career,” he says. It wasn’t just Gronke adjusting to vote-by-mail—Oregon voters had recently gone through their first presidential election under the newly expanded system, the first of its kind in the United States. “Very few people had started to engage with it [academically],” says Gronke.

“An empirical political scientist, he immediately saw huge potential in the treasure trove of data that campaigns had access to,” Isaak recalls.

Gronke became one of a handful of academics focusing on vote-by-mail, and Reed gave him and his growing network of student collaborators freedom to direct their own research. In 2004, it made sense to build an official home for the work so, along with students Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum ’06 and James Hicks ’08, Gronke founded the Early Voting Information Center. In 2018, after the project grew in scope, it was rechristened the Elections & Voting Information Center, conveniently with the same acronym.

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

Meanwhile, Gronke started attracting a certain brand of Reedie into his orbit, both through his teaching and through playing on the political science softball team, the Swing State Sluggers, which, after a slow start, would go on to win four straight Renn Fayre tournaments.

“Reed attracts the most unique intellectuals,” says Michael Richardson ’07 Gronke attracts those in that set who want to "take his tools" and make a real impact in the world. Galanes-Rosenbaum says, "Paul is one of the few professors from my time at Reed who seemed keen on bringing students and alumni into his work and extending the reach beyond the walls of the institution."

The center’s birth happened “somewhat organically,” recalls Galanes-Rosenbaum, who continued working as a research

assistant after graduation. “The idea back then was to continue pursuing research on early voting in its various forms.”

“It was just literally a letterhead and a business card for a while,” says Gronke. “I managed to make it seem real enough to people that we began to attract funding . . . you create the body and you hope the skeleton fits in.”

It worked: The center’s first bones arrived in 2006, when EVIC received its initial grant. More substantial money came from the Pew Center in 2008, which propelled Gronke into doing more applied research through foundations and nonprofits. It raised his profile within election research, putting him on the same stage as better-funded programs at larger universities like MIT and Caltech.

“I can guarantee you people in our space, when you say Reed College, they say Paul

Gronke,” says Michelle Shafer, senior program advisor at EVIC. She worked in election technology in the private sector and had followed Gronke’s work for decades before joining the program in 2021.

“That’s how they know the school.”

But the real secret to EVIC’s success, and the success of its alumni, is outside of academia.

“One of the things we did that I think was truly groundbreaking was to work with the Pew Center on the States to connect academics doing research on early voting and elections with actual elections administrators, the people who were implementing these new laws,” says Galanes-Rosenbaum. “It’s really unusual for these kinds of conversations to happen.”

Ordinarily, the people studying elections are siloed from people actually making

Multnomah County's ballot sorting equipment. Prof. Gronke researches voting practices, including early voting and vote-by-mail systems.-

elections happen, she explains. They rarely impact one another directly—academics aren’t talking day-to-day logistics with local elections officials, and most administrators aren’t reading academic research.

Approachability comes naturally to Gronke—he once brought a hot apple pie on a plane to DC for a meeting—and he resists silos. He blends into academic conferences, local election offices, and nonprofits by staying open-minded and adapting to each space’s unique norms.

For Gronke, “understanding your place in this world and [how] sometimes you’re not in academia, you’re in somebody else’s space” is a necessary part of the work.

In those meetings between academics and election administrators, Gronke says, “some of my colleagues were frankly, a little bit rude . . . very taken up with the importance of their work and how smart they were.”

He adds, “These people that we're interacting with—election officials—some of whom are elected, are really quite vulnerable. [If] they say the wrong thing or give you a piece of information that gets used the wrong way, they’ll lose their job, and we’re here in this protected ivory tower, very privileged.”

As EVIC grew in scope, so did Gronke’s expertise. First it was early voting, both vote-by-mail and in-person. Then it was automatic voter registration—for example, registering to vote when you’re renewing your driver’s license. Gronke and his cohort published academic work on public trust and voter disenfranchisement, too. One of Gronke’s most widely cited works is a 2005 paper presenting new ways to analyze trust in government and confidence in institutions. Another 2015 analysis noted that following the news predicted hyperpartisan opinions on voter ID laws more than general education or even knowledge about voter ID policies.

Gronke’s easygoing demeanor made him a go-to quotable source in the local and national press for an increasingly broad body of election expertise, and he became a bridge between academics and the public, too.

“You gotta say something important and interesting in 30 seconds and say it in a way that is newsworthy and quotable,” he says. “For a lot of academics, they aren’t

Findings from EVIC’s 2023 Survey of Local Election Officials (LEOs)

43.5% of the country's election officials

work in just two states

In most states, elections are administered at the county level, but in eight states, they’re administered at the village, township, and municipality level. Of 7,800 LEOs, a large amount—3,400, to be exact—work in Michigan and Wisconsin. Another 1,500 of those administer elections in towns and villages in New England.

Misinformation is a problem everywhere, but especially in large districts

96% of LEOs in the largest jurisdictions reported misinformation as a problem, while 57% of the smallest jurisdictions reported it as such.

Local election officials experience high threat levels no matter where they are

1 out of 10 LEOs have considered leaving their jobs due to safety concerns. LEOs in large jurisdictions and LEOs in the Western region of the United States reported experiencing abuse, harassment, and threats at a higher rate than smaller jurisdictions and jurisdictions in the Midwest, Northeast, and the South.

Most LEOs say they are proud of the work

they do

Feelings of pride among LEOs are high and stable over time; 87% say their work gives them a feeling of personal accomplishment; 74% feel they are able to fully use their skills, abilities, and knowledge in the work; and 69% report that their work is respected by citizens.

VOTE OF CONFIDENCE

good at that because it means . . . sometimes you have to simplify things in ways to get them to broader audiences. And a lot of academics don’t want to do that . . . but I happen to be good at it.”

He’s not just good at it. According to his students, it’s a key part of his philosophy.

“Paul was and is distinct from most people in his field in that he actively pursues opportunities to talk about his work with other audiences—that is, outside academia,” says Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum. “He speaks with the media, he is friends with

elections administrators, he looks for ways to work with advocates and public figures.”

“Paul’s desire to do work outside of the purely academic realm is a key part of why EVIC exists,” says Jay Lee ’19, who started working at the center as a student in 2017.

Making academia accessible is nice, but the philosophy of being accurate, transparent, and respectful held the nitty-gritty work to a higher standard. Peter Miller ’06, now a senior research fellow at NYU’s Brennan Center, recalls uncovering some faulty data while trying to replicate an earlier study.

“Paul launched into an extended speech about the importance of conducting research in a responsible, transparent manner,” he says. “He included a line— ‘Do your research like you could be called to testify before the Senate at any time’— that still rings in my mind.”

In 2018, after years of working with election staff on the ground, EVIC brought academia and election administration even closer together by surveying local elections officials, or LEOs, themselves— understudied, underpaid professionals

with deep institutional knowledge whose workplace conditions have a high impact on the business of elections.

Despite the crucial role they play in elections, explains Gronke, their work is routinely minimized. While some election officials in populous counties are in charge of multiple staff members in a busy office, in rural areas elections could be just one aspect of a job that includes other jurisdictional recordkeeping, like pet licenses.

“The typical American local election official is a 55-year-old woman earning less than $50,000 a year,” explains Gronke, pointing out that for most LEOs, their job title is “clerk.”

“When I say the word ‘clerk’ to you, what comes to mind?” he asks, prompting for “secretary.” “When I tell you that 85% of these are women, it’s starting to line up, isn’t it?”

The jobs of both Gronke and election officials fundamentally changed after Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, launching a widespread misinformation campaign alleging voter fraud.

Gronke says that when they started the LEO studies in 2018, they didn’t anticipate “for 2020 to become [when] the president of the United States would begin attacks on local election officials nationwide.” Election denial has had a chilling effect on the community, and one in four LEOs, according to EVIC’s 2022 survey, has received threats of violence.

Gronke had spent 20 years unknowingly training for the moment when the American public needed a friendly voice to authoritatively counter the wild rightwing conspiracy theories that arose out of the 2020 presidential election. He suddenly got very busy.

“When you’re trying to counter information from an individual that has 300 million followers on Twitter, it gets hard," Gronke says. "You’re just a lonely academic over here at a small liberal arts college and you’re countering rhetoric coming out of the White House. It’s tough and it gets tiring.”

Gronke, then a Carnegie fellow, says he “did very little academic research at that point . . . I was fielding calls and countering misinformation and trying to get accurate information up.”

“Since 2020 [work] really hasn’t slowed down for me,” he says. “The 2024 election for me started pretty much [on] January 7th, 2021.”

Gronke, facing four years of 50- or 60-hour workweeks, is stepping away from teaching to work full time at EVIC, though he will remain on faculty as emeritus professor.

“For the external world, nothing will change,” he explains. “I will still have a Reed affiliation, a Reed office, and for all intents and purposes, will be exactly the same person . . . My plans are to continue to work to support and advance safe, secure and accessible elections, to develop pedagogical materials to encourage students to consider elections work, and, I don’t know, to probably just continue to do what I’ve been doing.”

EVIC’s future lies partially at Portland State University, where its research director, Paul Manson ’01, is on the faculty of Hatfield School of Government. Moving forward, the center will be co-led at both Reed and PSU, expanding its capabilities and ushering in graduate research assistants.

Inside the culture at Reed, the change will be more obvious. Like Gronke’s work, his EVIC alumni have found themselves comfortable both deeply embedded in academia and far outside it. Miller became a nationally recognized expert on redistricting, even coauthoring a paper with Gronke in 2020, and Hicks is a professor at Columbia Law School.

Those who took a different path include Dan Toffey ’07, who worked as a research assistant after graduating, then took a hard left turn: after starting his career in politics, he became employee No. 11 at Instagram. Now, he uses his background to “lead a team of researchers and cultural anthropologists that analyze and decode the creative ways young people use [Meta].”

“Without Paul Gronke, I would have quit Reed College,” says Richardson, who went on to cofound the ad tech company Airship. People in Paul’s “orbit,” he says, “have found their own paths that allow them to implement massive change . . . and I am convinced that it has been Paul’s teaching, his philosophy, his pragmatic approach, and his encouragement that has made that possible.”

Prof. Paul Gronke on a tour of the Multnomah County Election Division which he attended with the National Association of Election Officials. Gronke is known for building trust among the election administrators he works with and for bridging the gap between academia and the people who make elections happen.

PHOTO BY OSCAR

Reediana

BOOKSHELF

Edited by Robin Tovey ’97

Experimental Dance and the Somatics of Language: Thinking in Micromovement

Situating itself where theory meets practice, this debut book by Megan Nicely ’89 illuminates dance’s relationship to language. It investigates how dance bodies work with the micromovements elicited by language’s affective forces, in addition to the micropolitics of the thought-sensations that arise when movement and words accompany one another within choreographic contexts. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Corals of Hawai‘i, second edition

Douglas Fenner ’71 has updated his field identification guide to Hawaiian corals, their diseases, and the different organisms that live together on coral reefs. Only available from the Maui Ocean Center website, it presents 87 hard coral species and 24 of their relatives, and includes a new section on coral biology and reef ecology. (Mutual Publishing, 2023)

Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities

Erina Duganne ’93 coedited two recent publications. Art for the Future is a collective history of the 1980s anti-imperialist campaign, when artists, writers, and activists came together against US intervention in Central America. Cold War Camera illuminates how the camera stretched the parameters of the Cold War beyond East-West and US-USSR binaries. (Duke University Press, 2022)

Apocrypha: The Art of Dennis Evans

An illustrated text based on archival photographs and documents, this book by Matthew Kangas ’71 explores the myriad artistic accomplishments of artist Dennis Evans. In a mixture of analysis and anecdote, it chronicles his origins as a chemistry student, ceramics enthusiast, performance artist, and sculptor, continuing with his forays into installation art, artist’s books, and art in public places. (Utopian Heights Press Studios, 2023)

Feeding Ghosts

In a graphic memoir that melds genres and generations of matrilineal heritage, Tessa Hulls ’07 tells the tale of her grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself—exploring love, grief, and exile. By delving into Chinese history and doing the delicate, painstaking work of engaging with relatives near and far, Tessa faces the complexity of the past and sheds new light on family mythologies. In the process of writing about her family that was “formed around the contours of negative space” and a grandmother who shared their home in California but was never truly present, Tessa discovers how much these women were haunted by various kinds of dislocation. She uses evocative imagery as well as prose to reflect on inheritance and identity— her illustrations may be black and white, but it is in the gray areas of her narrative that the courageous heart of this story beats. This affecting work has received praise from Professor of Creative Writing Peter Rock (“rife with hardwon wisdom and surprising humor”) and from artist-author Lucy Bellwood ’12 (“a tale humming with emotion, symbolism, and insight”).

(MCD Books, 2024)

Psychology According to Shakespeare

This book by Robert L. Johnson ’62 and Philip G. Zimbardo illuminates how the famous author understood human behavior and the innermost workings of the mind. Stories involving potions, poisons, the four fluids called “humors,” and a mental hospital called Bedlam show how his perspective on “nature-nurture” was grounded in the medicine and culture of the time. (Prometheus Books, 2024)

The Compatibility of Free Will and Determinism

Peter Clark ’63 has published his senior thesis on whether we are morally responsible for our actions if they are “fully determined by environmental, genetic, and situational factors.”

In considering the conditions of determinism, he anticipated conclusions of modern philosophers on questions still central to the free-will debate. (Independently published, 2023)

Commentaries on the Work of Michael Eigen

Robin Bagai ’74 has published his first book, an introduction to this groundbreaking psychoanalytic sage. Through exploration of Eigen’s two texts The Psychotic Core and Emotional Storm, Bagai addresses human concerns of the book’s subtitle, Oblivion and Wisdom, Madness and Music, incorporating themes from psychoanalysis, philosophy, and literature. (Routledge, 2022)

Words of the Temple: Unmasking the Corona

Debbie Sadler ’77 has published the final book in her trilogy, in which the Piscean age dominated by Christianity is giving way to the Age of Aquarius. This installment weaves the COVID-19 pandemic with physics and metaphysics, expounding upon the precession of the equinoxes, a 26,000-year astronomical event. (Strategic Edge Innovations Publishing, 2021)

Guide to the Ruins

The first chapbook by Eve Müller ’89 is an extended prose poem about living in Rome, her love affair with the city, and the simultaneous disintegration of her marriage. Overflowing with themes of loneliness, desire, and aging, the second-person narrative channels a speaker who revels in bodies: crypts of bones, broken statues, men on motorbikes, and fleshy bodies at the beach. (Plan B Press, 2023)

The Rain Artist

Claire Rudy Foster ’06 asks the question of how art and artists can thrive under commercialized capitalism in this debut novel. Called “magical, disturbing, provocative,” the story is set in a future where rain is a luxury enjoyed exclusively by the ultrarich, and the world’s only umbrella maker is framed for the murder of the patriarch who controls the earth’s last natural resources. (Moonstruck Books, 2024)

Still Alive

In her debut novel, LJ Pemberton ’05 propels a fast-paced, first-person queer narrative that has been described as “a hero’s journey through a dying empire.” A love story that covers varied misadventures, multiple years, and both coasts (including Portland, circa 1989), it “renders the much-maligned adult millennial experience with affection and profundity.” (Malarkey Books, 2024)

Red Mare 26

A collection of poetry, “How to Care,” by Eve Lyons ’95 was featured as the 26th edition of this handsewn, ecofeminist chapbook. Poems include “Año Nuevo, California,” “Climbing Buck Hill on Shavuot,” “How to Care for Orchids,” and “When I First Became a Therapist.” The limited-edition volume, featuring a block print of ferns, is available on Etsy or by contacting Eve.

Edited by Carla Beecher and Michael Lerner

The Buddha: A Storied Life,

by Kristin Scheible

cowritten with Vanessa R. Sasson (Oxford University Press, 2023)

What is your book about?

Over 2,500 years and a global geographical spread, various representations and retellings of the foundational life story of the Buddha have animated and sustained Buddhist thought and practice. Buddhist holidays, pilgrimages, and rituals are pinned to the arc of

his biography, and his story is the model for exemplary Buddhists to follow. In this cowritten volume, my coeditor and I have assembled premier scholars of South Asian Buddhism to articulate the Buddha Blueprint, the narrative underlying pattern that holds the life story of a buddha together.

We retell episodes of Buddha Gautama’s extended life story to stress the multivalent centrality of this story and its cosmic and proximate impact.

Who should read this book? A colleague told me it was prominently displayed at the Met, so

it has a broader audience than my other scholarship. Anyone interested in Buddhism or the idea of a buddha will find it useful and thought-provoking.

Anything else? The book sprang forth from my conference Religion 331: Lives of the Buddha. —CB

Disenchantment, Skepticism, and the Early Modern Novel in Spain and France, by Ann Delehanty

What is your book about?

How five 17th-century European novels use moments of contradiction, shock, and surprise to suggest that all is not as it seems in the world. These works seek to train their readers to be more skeptical about appearances.

Why is this important?

These 17th-century novels engage in a kind of philosophical reasoning that was popular in the era and show how works of the imagination can play a role in helping people recognize the incoherence of social illusions. The novels also reveal that our era is

not the first with problems of “fake news” and that there are creative ways to combat the myriad deceptions that bombard us.

What surprised you about the topic? Once I started to look for moments of shock or surprise in these novels, I found them every-

(Routledge, 2023)

where. I had to adjust my reading methods to understand this as a dynamic model of a literary work— putting ideas in juxtaposition with one another, like a Platonic dialogue might—rather than a static model. —CB

The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines, by Marat

What is your book about?

It examines how in the postWorld War II period, Soviet Jews preserved their Jewish identity by reading a common set of culturally significant books. Whether they were reading Anatoly Rybakov’s Heavy Sand , Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov’s The Golden Calf, or Lion Feuchtwanger’s Josephus, Soviet Jews scoured Russian literature and litera-

ture translated into Russian for whatever references to Jewish life could be found, and read between the lines in order to elicit the Jewish message embedded in many works of Russian and Soviet literature.

How did you get the idea for The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf? When I was a student at Columbia University after just two years

Grinberg (Brandeis

University Press, 2023)

of living in the US, I took a German literature course. One day I came to talk to the professor and started talking about the German Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger, and the professor’s reaction was “Why would you want to talk about him? He is so minor, he’s not particularly interesting.” That was utterly baffling to me because for my Soviet Jewish family, and for Soviet

Jews at large, Feuchtwanger was a major-major author. So that experience suggested to me that Soviet Jewish culture, and identity are almost completely unknown in this country, and what is known is very limited, mythologized, and stereotyped. So this was the main impetus to excavate Soviet Jewish culture. —ML

Non Sola Scriptura: Essays on the Qur’an and Islam in Honour of William A. Graham, coedited by

Kambiz

GhaneaBassiri

with

Bruce Fudge, Christian Lange, and Sarah Bowen Savant (Routledge, 2022)

What is your book about?

Rather than focusing on a single topic or making a single argument about the Qur’an or Islamic studies, this coedited volume demonstrates the influence of Graham’s scholarship on the field of early Islamic history. Bill, as his students and colleagues

referred to him, was my dissertation adviser and one of the premier scholars of the Qur’an, early Islamic history, and oral dimensions of scriptures. He also was a capable administrator who served as the dean of Harvard Divinity School and helped that school diversify its

curriculum by hiring faculty who specialize in non-Christian religions and non-European Christianity.

Why is this important?

His pioneering scholarship helped pave a way out of area-studies silos for scholars of Islam by using Islamic texts, beliefs, and

practices to think humanistically and broadly about the role of religion in human history. My coeditors and I show in the book how successful he had been in changing the field through his mentorship and scholarship. —CB

Espejismos reales. Imágenes y política en la literatura rioplatense, by Diego Alonso ( EDUVIM, 2023)

Briefly, what is your book about? It’s about the deployment of images in the work of five canonical River Plate authors: Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Rodolfo Walsh, Juan Carlos Onetti, and Ricardo Piglia. Their imagistic writing activates a rich network of associations that expands

the concept of mimesis and makes possible new ways of engaging with history, justice, ethics, and politics.

Why is this important?

My reconsideration of this largely 20th-century corpus sheds light on pressing questions confronted by current literature and crit-

icism. I put this corpus in dialogue with the so-called iconic turn reflected in the recent proliferation of fiction works that incorporate visual materials. I also establish crucial links between the texts and the new politization of contemporary biographical and testimonial narratives.

Who should read this book? Anyone who is interested in deepening their understanding of these authors or of aesthetics and literary theory and their relationship to history, justice, ethics, and politics. —CB

Making German Jewish Literature Anew,

by Katja Garloff (Indiana University Press)

What is your book about?

The book traces the emergence of a new Jewish literature in Germany and Austria from 1990 to today. I found that the rise of a new generation of authors who identify as both German and Jewish and who often keep affiliations with several countries offered a unique opportunity to analyze the foundational moments of a diasporic literature.

Why is this important?

It’s important to understand how these new writers, who come two or three generations after the Holocaust, use Jewish identity in their texts. Throughout the book, I ask what exactly marks a given text as Jewish—the author’s identity, intended audience, thematic concerns, or stylistic choices—and reflect on existing definitions of Jewish literature.

Who should read this book? It’s definitely an academic book, but I provided a broad introduction and enough information about these authors for any reader to get a sense of the importance of the topic.

What surprised you about the topic? I wasn’t really surprised by how fast contemporary literature changes, but trying to catch a rapidly moving phenomenon was quite interesting. These new writers seem to bring different kind of experiences to each new work. —CB

Class Notes

Edited by Joanne Hossack ’82

Then and now: the inset photo captures students walking to class in Eliot Circle during the spring of 1981. Look how much the cherry trees have grown!

1950

Moshe Lenske and 42 other veterans from around the country visited northern France at the beginning of June on a trip organized by the Best Defense Foundation. The group spent eight days visiting Normandy and surrounding areas, coinciding with the 79th anniversary of D-Day, the initial invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. The returning veterans “were greeted by applause and cheers almost everywhere they went.” Moshe served as a radio operator in Luxembourg, where he was assigned to the Second Armored Medical Battalion as part of the Ninth Armored Division. The division received a Presidential Unit Citation for repelling fierce German counterattacks as American forces assembled to relieve Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

1954 70TH REUNION

I hear the Reedites singing . . .

1955–62

According to Reed’s house style guide, those of you whose class year precedes 1958 are Reedites, and those whose class year is later than 1958 are Reedies. (Class of ’58 . . . take your pick?)

1963

Peter Clark recently published a book based on his Reed thesis! Yes, his Reed thesis, which he finished in 1963! (See Reediana.)

1964 60TH REUNION

“Third time’s a charm,” writes Graham Seibert. He says he was was successful in business and as an author but struck out in marriage. “As a triumph of hope over experience, well into retirement I gave it another try. Oksana believes in family and in 14 years has given me three wonderfully normal kids, now 3, 6, and 12, her highest priority. As a pensioner I can also give them lots of attention.”

1965

John Ullman writes, “Moving back to Portland at 80 is certainly an amazing life adventure. Irene and I are glad to be back.”

1966–67

I hear the Reedies singing!

1968

Since retiring from a 30-year career in education as a teacher, curriculum developer, and school principal in western Canada, Dan Rubin has been active on the East Coast as an arts manager, music producer, and recording artist. His most recent, 13th full-length recording, Indulgence, was recorded in St. John’s by the trio Atlantic Union. Dan is also deeply involved in his local community as a garden educator. As the founder of Food Producers Forum (www.foodproducersforum.com), a provincial nonprofit group, he has been leading teams of volunteers, developing local solutions to restore food security and community health in Newfoundland and Labrador. He has also been busy as an author and editor. His fiction, poetry, and journalistic writing have been awarded, published, anthologized,

Graham Seibert ’64 with wife Oksana and their three wonderfully normal children.

Class Notes

and broadcast on CBC radio. His most recent book is Sun, Seed & Soil: Tips and Techniques for a Northern Garden . In 2022, Dan received the first-ever Community Health Champion Award from the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Memorial University for his work on food security. He is currently leading development of the Provincial Food Network, connecting 14 Indigenous communities, family farms, and community gardens across Newfoundland and Labrador to create support for local food production and education.

1969 55TH REUNION

Gerson Robboy, formerly known as David Robboy, plays trombone with the Carroll Raaum Swing Orchestra. He also performs with Betty Booher ’78 as the accordion, clarinet, and vocal duo Bellows & Squawk, which can be heard at the Reed Reunion Marketplace on Saturday, June 8.

1970

The varied carols I hear,

1971

Douglas Fenner has published the second edition of Corals of Hawaii (See Reediana.)

Matthew Kangas spent April in Naples, Apulia, and Calabria researching artist Italo Scanga. Matthew also has a new book out. (See Reediana.)

1972

Those of artists, each one singing theirs as it should be, clear and colorful,

1973

An article coauthored by Jill Gay, “Lessons Learned from COVID-19 to Reduce Mortality and Morbidity in the Global South: Addressing Global Vaccine Equity for Future Pandemics,” was published in BMJ Global Health in January 2024.

Lucinda Jackson’s latest book, Project Escape: Lessons for an Unscripted Life (2022), has led her to a new career in postcareer/ retirement speaking and consulting. She speaks to a whole range of companies, organizations, and groups interested in “How to Have a Remarkable Life Post-Career” and does consulting for scientists facing their “next act.” She writes, “I find it really fun and rewarding!”

1974 50TH REUNION

Robin Bagai, PsyD, is not quite sure whether he graduated in 1974 or ’75 because of “issues” involving student loans. Nevertheless, he has maintained a psychotherapy practice in Portland since becoming a licensed psychologist in 1992. He also recently published his first book. (See Reediana.).

Martha Deutsch has been living in Guanajuato, Mexico, for the past six years. “It’s a beautiful, historic city that offers many diverse cultural activities. Life is good!”

1975

The attorneys singing songs of justice and freedom,

“Reed transformed my life. I give a little bit back every year to thank you.”

—NEIL

FLIGSTEIN ’73

reed.edu/givenow

1976

Sharon Ranals was appointed city manager of the City of South San Francisco in 2023.

1977

Deborah Sadler is “grateful for the depth of the education I received

that enables me to be a critical thinker. I just completed writing and publishing a trilogy called A New Humanity , about our times. Just whipped it out! Reed laid the foundation for my life as a thinker, healer, visionary, and educator. Thank you so much for the rigor. It grows corn.” (See Reediana.)

Prashant Timblo has 4+ grandchildren living in New York and Portugal.

1. Lucinda Jackson ’73 demonstrates “How to Have a Remarkable Life Post-Career.”

2. Mark Mitchell ’81 hangs out with a friend in Puebla, Mexico.

3. Sharon Ranals ’76 is now city manager of the City of South San Francisco!

4. Behold Emmett, muse of composer Betty Booher ’78.

1978

Betty Booher won a composition contest sponsored by the International Double Reed Society. Her quartet for oboe, English horn, and two bassoons will be premiered this summer at the IDRS conference. The piece is called “The Emmett Variations: Selected Scenes from the Life of a Kitten and His Friends.” Betty is studying jazz voice and composition at Portland State University. She has lived with Gerson Robboy ’69 (formerly known as David Robboy) for around eight or nine years, in Southeast Portland. They perform as the accordion, clarinet, and vocal duo Bellows & Squawk, which can be heard at the Reed Reunion Marketplace on Saturday, June 8. Janice Grubin is one of three longstanding LGBT legal activists (of whom two are Reedies [!]; the other is Mark Johnson ’82) honored by the American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity with its 11th annual Stonewall Award. Janice is a partner at Barclay Damon LLP in New York and was a founding member of the firm’s LGBTQIA+ Employee Affinity Network. She has worked to diversify the New York and federal bench both in

evaluating candidates and in educating LGBT lawyers and aspiring lawyers about how to become a judge and assisting them in identifying pathways to pursue. She has also been the first vice president of the LGBT Bar Association and Foundation of Greater New York and has served as the chair and cochair of the judiciary committee of that organization for more than 12 years.

1979 45TH REUNION

To his infinite surprise, Ncoom Gilbar (Norman Gilbert), at age 66, received a phone call from the army asking him to appear for reserve duty, 19 years after he was released from reserve duty. Ncoom is serving with two of his sons, protecting the community he lives in, Shilo, Israel. Shilo was the first capital of the Kingdom of Israel, 3,300 years ago, before Jerusalem became the (better-known) capital. Until the recent war, Ncoom spent most of his time guiding tourists from just about every country you can imagine coming to Shilo to hear its story; he has also done a fair bit of translating, primarily from Hebrew to English. He has seven children, the youngest a 25-year-old daughter with Down’s syndrome. “I tell

people I raised six children, and she raised me,” Ncoom writes. He’s currently the proud circus-master of 16 grandchildren.

1980

As 2024 began, Paul Youngs wrote that he was planning a pilgrimage to visit family and witness the superbloom phenomenon in Death Valley this year. (Send pics, Paul!)

1981

Well into his fourth decade working at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Mark Mitchell became CFO in September.

1982

The Economist printed Thomas David Kehoe’s letter to the editor. The letter was in response to an article about how Heathrow Airport transports animals: “When vultures are transported by air, are they allowed carrion luggage?”

1983

The song of the programmers clicking and clacking with their ones and zeros,

1984 40TH REUNION and ones and zeros,

1985–88 and ones and zeros,

1989 35TH REUNION

The first chapbook by Eve Müller is an extended prose poem about living abroad in Rome, her love affair with the city, and the simultaneous disintegration of her marriage. (See Reediana.)

Megan Nicely is pleased to announce the publication of her first book, Experimental Dance and the Somatics of Language: Thinking in Micromovement. She is associate professor of performing arts and social justice at the University of San Francisco. (See Reediana.)

Ncoom Gilbar ’79 juggles part of his family circus.

1990 and the recyclers separating the ones from the zeros,

1991

Pete Dussin writes, “I have been living in Seattle, Washington, since graduating from Reed’s 3/2 program with Caltech. I’ve been married to Genevieve for 23 years, and my eldest son, Philip, is a sophomore at Reed. I couldn’t be more proud!”

1992

The sizzling song of the chefs,

1993

Erina Duganne recently coedited two books! (See Reediana.)

Meisha Rosenberg ’s article “Overlooked No More: Henry Heard, Tap Dancer and Advocate for People with Disabilities” was published in the New York Times on February 2, 2024.

1994 30TH REUNION

The writers singing as they sit down at the keyboard, or with a pad of paper,

1995

Eve Lyons’s collection “How to Care” was featured as Red Mare 26, a hand-printed, limited-edition chapbook available through Etsy. (See Reediana.)

1996–98

or leave the keyboard with their work complete,

1999 25TH REUNION

It’s been an eventful couple of years for Tobia Gerson, who currently resides in Davis, California. In 2022, Tobia married Janice Aliman (February 2022) and had open heart surgery (August 10). In 2023, his son Rohan Altair was born (April 6), he achieved his 10-year anniversary of working at Genentech/Roche in Vacaville, California (August 4), and his daughter April Jean started at UC Davis (September 25). What will 2024 bring?

1. James Terwilliger ’00 and family took this ship on a Southern Hemisphere cruise; here, it’s stopped in Antarctica.

2. Rick Beaumont ‘08 presents his company at Techstars.

3. Five of the 10 Mills Reed alumni: Beth Mills ’70, Lucy (Mills) Gunther ’59, George Mills ’70, Annice (Mills) Alt ’51, and Rachel (Mills) Szumel ’02.

4. Meet Isabel Rose, the second daughter of Catherine Liggett ’06.

WHETHER YOU IMAGINE

a student reading a book under a tree on the Great Lawn or following a thread through ancient texts in the library, you can make a direct impact on the experience of future Reedies by including the college in your estate plans.

JOIN THE ELIOT SOCIETY by letting us know you’ve made a gift to Reed in your will or trust. The Eliot Society celebrates donors who make a gift to Reed in their estate or who establish a life income gift to benefit the college.

• 503-777-7573 • giftplanning@reed.edu • reed.edu/legacyplanning To learn more about including Reed in your legacy planning:

2000

“In breaking our time-honored tradition of the class of 2000 staying out of the Reed Magazine,” writes Muriel Bartol , “ I wanted to let my fellow Reedies know the big news that after 20 years, swrve, a small, independent apparel company focused on making the most durable and functional outdoor apparel possible, which I cofounded with my husband Matt Rolletta, will be closing. Incidentally, after the announcement, I had a meeting with a fellow Reedie, David Billstrom ’83, exploring possible ways that the company can live on. Nothing firm has yet developed, but we do hope to find a partner that will take swrve on to its next adventure, as we set off on our own.” Good luck, swrve!

Last year, James Terwilliger’s family went on an incredible fourweek vacation spanning Antarctica, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and for good measure, Panama on the way back. “Our group of six spanned three generations, from age 11 up to 76,” James writes. “We saw Easter Island, Chilean and Argentine wine countries, the awe-inspiring geography and biodiversity of Iguazú Falls, the immense engineering of Itaipu Dam and the Panama Canal, the cultural centers in Montevideo, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, and uncountably many penguins. It was, by any definition, the trip of a lifetime.”

2001

The copy editors humming as they add and delete commas,

2002

“I loved my time at Reed and am happy to support financial aid for future Reedies in need.”

—JAMES SHEIRE ’91

reed.edu/givenow

A family reunion in North Carolina in November 2022 collected 5 of the 10 Mills Reed alumni: Beth Mills ’70 , Lucy Gunther ’59 , George Mills ’70, Annice (Mills) Alt ’51, and Rachel (Mills) Szumel. Dearly missed were Michael Mills ’56 , Sheldon Mills ’27 , Francesca (Dekum) Mills ’28 , Alden Mills ’26, and Patsy (Neilan) Mills ’27

1. Sandesh Adhikary ’15 and Nisma Elias ’12 at their wedding ceremony in Kathmandu, Nepal.

2. Harriet Delaney, daughter of Allie (Rangel) Delaney ’10, believes that reading is FUNdamental. 1 2

2003

Ryan Moran recently published his first monograph with Cornell University Press. (See Reediana.)

2004 20TH REUNION

Elizabeth Blake’s academic book Edible Arrangements: Modernism’s Queer Forms was published in August by Cambridge University Press. (See Reediana.)

2005

David Gatta and his wife Amynta Hayenga ’07 recently went into private practice together and launched Dynamic Change Psychotherapy (dynamicchangepsychotherapy. com). They share a clinical practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy, where they emphasize holistic mental health. On the side, David is teaching psychoanalytic theory and Amynta is supervising trainees while also teaching in the areas of professional development and vocational burnout.

The first novel by LJ Pemberton (previously known as Laura Jean Long, then Laura Jean Moore) was published in February 2024. (See Reediana.)

2006

I n 2023, Tracy Steindel Ickes joined the legal team at Uber after

12 years as a litigator in law firms large and small, became a member of the Oakland Ski Club, took her daughter on her first backpacking trip, and visited Gavin Kentch ’04 and Susan Orlansky ’75 in Alaska. Catherine Liggett and her husband, Carlos Moreno, welcomed their second daughter, Isabel Rose, in August 2023!

2007

A graphic memoir by Tessa Hulls launched on March 5 with a reading at Powell’s. (See Reediana.)

2008

Violating rational fears of public speaking, Rick Beaumont stepped onto the Techstars stage in December 2023 to bring his company to the world. Bravo, Rick!

2009 15TH REUNION

The sweet singing of the new parents as they change the baby’s diaper

2010

Allie (Rangel) Delaney and husband Arthur welcomed Harriet Elizabeth Delaney in August 2023. Current favorite activities include hollering, cooing at her dog-siblings Max and Auggie, and charming every person she meets.

2011

Or load the washing machine,

2012

Nisma Elias and Sandesh Adhikary ’15 married in May 2023. After a decade of being long-distance across multiple cities and continents since they met at Reed, Sandesh and Nisma celebrated their enduring love with family and friends in Nepal and Bangladesh, where they are from, and in a small ceremony in Seattle, Washington, where they live and are pursuing their PhDs.

2013 or load the dryer,

2014 10TH REUNION or fold the laundry, or load the washing machine again, or load the dryer again, for this is the gift of babies,

2015

Rachel Fox and Ted Sand were married last September in a joyous ceremony in the Berkshires. After several years in Somerville, Massachusetts, they now live in Los Angeles with their (Portland-born!) cat, Leroy, while Rachel does her PhD in neuroscience at UCLA. Ted works as a data scientist at a startup and tries his best to survive biking in LA.

The Tayloe Piggott Gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is now the Maya Frodeman Gallery! Along with its sister business, No. 62 Jewelry, the gallery is now under the direction of Maya as managing partner and Alexis Dittmer as principal partner. Maya started out at the gallery in 2018 as a writer; as she learned the contemporary art and fine jewelry scene, she found connections to her Reed education in philosophy—“specifically how beauty, ethos,

passion, and art come together and make life beautiful.” She advanced to gallery director in 2020, working directly under founding partner Tayloe Piggott before becoming an owner last year. The gallery specializes in modern and contemporary art, “unit[ing] artists from all over the world in a tightly curated vision.”

2017–18

I hear them singing at Reunions,

2019 5TH REUNION

Singing loudly unto Reed,

At the wedding of Ted Sand ’15 and Rachel Fox ’15, from left to right: Su Liu ’13, Emmeline Hill ’15, Vikram Chan-Herur ’17, Katelyn Best ’13, groom Ted, Jossef Osborn ’15, bride Rachel, Varchas Gopalaswamy ’15, Gracie Rittenberg ’15, Maggie Perlman ’17, Dylan Vaughn ’15, Danielle Juncal ’15, Adriana Lovell ’15, Jake Lovell ’15, Sasha Peters ’15, Kieran Hanrahan ’15, and Liz Pekarskaya ’15. Not pictured: Emily Merfeld ’16.

Class notes are the lifeblood of Reed Magazine.

Tell us about births, weddings, voyages, adventures, bizarre encounters, transformation, astonishment, woe, delight, fellowship, discovery, mischief, reflection, or whatever else has been occupying your time recently. High-res photos are welcome.

The deadline for the fall issue is June 15. Notes can be emailed to reed.magazine@reed.edu; submitted at iris.reed.edu, via form link in Reedie News or sent via mail. Reediana submissions are published on a rolling basis as space permits. Please note that we edit class notes for length and content.

In Memoriam

Edited by Britany Robinson and Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Reed’s

first lady whose warmth and leadership were invaluable during a turbulent time

Nancy Horton Bragdon

February 26, 2024, in Portland, Oregon, at the age of 95.

Nancy was an early childhood educator, community organizer, supporter of the arts, inveterate people-person, and the wife of Reed College President Paul E. Bragdon [1971–88]. She embraced her role as a president’s wife and integrated herself into Portland’s civic, education, and cultural community, leaving an indelible impact on some of the city’s premier arts and cultural organizations.

In the same way that Paul Bragdon is credited with saving Reed from closure and laying the foundation of the college’s longterm financial sustainability, Nancy’s work repairing Reed’s relationships—with Eastmoreland, with the greater Portland community, and those among Reed’s faculty, staff, and students—stands in equal measure.

Nancy was born and grew up in Rochester, Minnesota. Her father was a doctor who worked at the Mayo Clinic. Her mother also worked at the Mayo Clinic as a lab technician before she became a stay-at-home parent to Nancy and her siblings.

Maine: Paul Bragdon. The couple married in 1954. Their honeymoon was cut short when Nancy had to return to New York to accept a promotion at Life, to be a photography and layout editor, one of the last people to see mockups of the magazine before it left for the printer. After nine years at Life, she left to focus on raising three children, Susan, Peter, and David. Becoming “just smitten at watching their development and how they thought about things,” Nancy earned a master’s degree in early childhood education and child development from Bank Street College.

Politically active, the couple helped found the Lenox Hill Reform Democratic Club, a progressive grassroots organization that worked to oust Tammany Hall machine politicians. During that time, Nancy counted Eleanor Roosevelt as one of her mentors. Nancy’s run for a state assembly seat—in which she, Paul, and their sup-

She liked nothing more than a dining room full of people debating and having robust civic and philosophical dicussions.

—DAVID BRAGDON MALS ’09

After graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1951, Nancy “got on the first plane I could” for the country’s publishing capital: New York City. “I wanted to be at the center of the action,” she said— an attitude that would be steadfast throughout her life. She worked briefly for MacMillan before working in the business department at Life magazine.

In New York, she met a reserved, ambitious man from

over Eliot Hall during an anti–Vietnam War protest, Nancy would remember “a really tough week with very little sleep,” with college operations “being run out of our living room. People were here all hours of the day and night. [It would be] four in the morning, and we’d still be up.”

During the fall semester of Paul Bragdon’s second year as president, a dinner with the board of trustees took place on campus. Nancy gave her husband and herself a pep talk: they needed to push aside their shyness in large groups. “I reminded us of our obligation to make everyone welcome and the need to take some initiative in speaking to people,” she recalled years later.

porters “spent night after night after night canvassing, ringing doorbells”—was unsuccessful.

Nancy was just as aware as her husband that, when they came to Reed in 1971, the college faced numerous challenges. In the oral history she gave in 2004, she alluded to the heavy toll of those early years: long hours, back-to-back events, constant demands. When students took

As the dinner guests mingled, Nancy walked up to four trustees. “Good evening,” she said. “How is you?”

The faux pas was met with silence. Marshaling her charm and humor, Nancy embraced the moment. “Well,” she said, “you can see how I are.”

While her husband shored up Reed’s financial security, Nancy healed rifts in the college’s relationships. “We believed in trying to make ‘the town and gown’ thing better,” she said.

She started with their Eastmoreland neighbors, who worried that the Bragdon home would become a “pleasure palace” for Reedies and lobbied Portland’s City Council to not approve the permits necessary to renovate their home. When renovations were complete, Nancy invited those same neighbors to dinner. “And that was that,” she said. Their house was too small to entertain Reed’s faculty, so the Bragdons hosted faculty parties three nights in a row to accommodate everyone. They began the tradition of Reed’s president hosting freshman students and housing advisors before the school year began. When Nancy learned that Commons did not serve dinner on Sunday nights, she made it known that students could come over for lasagna, pot roast, and other hearty fare.

Nancy helped organize the Reed College Commons Club, which invited guest speakers to give a lecture over breakfast in Commons. It was a successful, strongly attended series.

The congeniality and sheer number of the dinners and parties Nancy organized became legendary. “The Bragdons’ Eastmoreland home was center of a

high degree of socializing associated with commencement,” a May 29, 1977 Oregonian article noted, including a dinner hosting that year’s commencement speaker, another dinner honoring Arlien Johnson ’17, dean of USC’s School of Social Work, and, later that week, a tea service.

“She liked nothing more than a dining room or living room full of people debating and having robust civic and philosophical discussions,” her son David Bragdon MALS ’09 said. “She thrived on that.”

Over the course of Paul’s tenure as president, nearly 40 Reed students would live in the Bragdons’ basement room, rent-free (in exchange for occasional baby sitting and help with entertaining).

Through it all, Nancy maintained an independent career. She taught early childhood education at Portland Community College half-time, supervising student teachers in day care settings. She and Aphra Katzev, wife of Richard Katzev [psychology, 1967-91], authored Child Care Solutions: A Parent’s Guide to Finding Child Care You Can Trust, published in 1990. Her expertise in childhood education informed her husband’s work to bolster the support services available to students, which began correcting the college’s dismal retention rate.

Nancy served on the boards of Catlin Gabel School and Chamber Music Northwest and was a frequent attendee of benefits supporting children’s organizations. “Our motivating factor has always been . . . [Portland] is a great community to live in and if there’s any way you can contribute, then contribute,” she said.

In 1985, she cofounded Portland Arts & Lectures, which brought authors of national

repute to Portland, including Tom Wolfe, Susan Sontag, and Larry McMurtry. “Luring the World’s Literary Lions,” an Oregonian headline read. Working as the development director and in audience relations, Nancy was deeply involved in the merger between Portland Arts & Lectures and the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts in 1993, which created Literary Arts. Still boasting the largest live audience for literature events in the country, Literary Arts has become one of the flagship institutions of Portland’s literary culture.

Nancy was the headliner of lectures as well. In 1980 and 1987, she gave two speeches on the role of a college president’s wife. Her 1980 speech was a Reed Commons Club event and took place two days after Mount St. Helens erupted, which led her to quip that the issue of college presidents’ wives “may seem a mini furor as we contemplate an erupting mountain.”

“I am often asked by younger women on the faculty and by women students if I don’t resent being ‘Mrs. Paul Bragdon,’” she said. “We all fill a lot of roles. At times, I am David, Susan, or Peter’s mother. Sometimes I am Julie’s or Aphra’s colleague,” or a teacher, daughter, sister, friend.

“And sometimes I am Paul’s wife,” she went on. “I do not feel diminished when I am characterized as such. It seems to me that such descriptions extend my sense of self rather than diminish it . . . a strong sense of one’s personal identity is essential if one is to enjoy life to the fullest.”

Nancy is survived by her three children, David, Peter, and Susan, grandchildren and great grandchildren. —Amanda Waldroupe ’07

Playwright and Provocateur

Joan Holden ’60 January 19, 2024, in San Francisco, of cancer. A satirist who saw humor as “the revenge of the powerless,” Joan was one of the most prolific artists to emerge from the San Francisco Mime Troupe. During her 32 years as the group’s resident playwright, she unleashed plays targeting racism, misogyny, and political extremism, driven by her enduring philosophy: if you

can’t slay the dragon, make him look silly.

Born Joan Allan in Berkeley in 1939, Joan was the daughter of William Allan, an agricultural economist, and Seema Rynin, a psychiatric social worker. Even before her birth, progressive values shaped Joan’s life: her family’s Berkeley Hills social circle included members of the Industrial Workers of the World, and her

parents first met while visiting the former Soviet Union.

At Reed, Joan was an intellectually voracious English major. “I stayed in the library every night, consuming everything,” she told Reed Magazine in 2000. It was at a Reed performance that Joan first encountered the Mime Troupe, which, despite its misleading name, performs in a verbose style mixing everything from slapstick to melodrama to vaudeville.

Joan’s husband, chemistry major Arthur Holden ’58, joined the Mime Troupe’s ranks after graduation. After abandoning an unsatisfying stint as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, Joan moved to Paris in 1964 to become a novelist. Failing to finish a book, she tried her hand at journalism, only to be rejected by the Berkeley Barb —a disappointment that freed her to adapt, at Arthur’s recommendation, Carlo Goldoni’s 18th-century comedy L’Amant militaire for the Mime Troupe.

couple had three daughters— Kate, Lily, and Sophia—and a dog who knew the route from the family’s home to the Mime Troupe’s studio well enough to walk back and forth alone.

Joan’s most successful plays were among her most provocative. In 1973, she won an Obie Award for The Dragon Lady’s Revenge , about government agents profiting from drug trafficking in Southeast Asia. Even riskier was 1989’s Seeing Double , a musical about two characters—one Jewish, one Palestinian—flying to Israel on the fictitious Trump Flyby-Night Airlines. A New York

“Maybe I can’t slay the dragon, but I can make him look silly.”

—JOAN HOLDEN ’60

Times review noted that Seeing Double ’s “even-handed” perspective on conflict between Israel and Palestine could “offend extremists on both sides,” but it won another Obie.

Pioneer of law technology

Michael Mills ’69 October 1, 2023 in California, of complications from leukemia.

Michael Mills, innovator, mentor, and leading global figure in law firm technology, died at 77, with his life partner, Karen MacNeil, at his side.

His career spanned legal technology, litigation, and local television. Since 2011, he was the cofounder and president of Neota, a no-code platform for intelligent automation.

“Law has lost a visionary strategist, an imaginative practitioner, and a business leader,” said Liam Brown, the chairman and CEO of Elevate Law. “We have all lost an extraordinary friend.”

Harris Tilevitz, of global law firm Skadden, described Michael as “kind, unassuming, gentle, brilliant, and someone you want to be like.”

which led to an opportunity to join the presidential campaign of anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy; Michael was invited to manage the campaign in Oregon. In 1968, he accompanied McCarthy to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where 10,000 demonstrators were met with now infamous police brutality.

“I encountered something I’d never seen,” Michael said, “which was a street battle in the United States, in the middle of the 20th century. These guys in big Chicago leather police jackets and a couple of guys on horses just knocking kids down—for the hell of it, really.”

A daring fusion of puppetry and Vietnam War–era social commentary, L’Amant militaire helped establish Joan as the artistic and political voice of the Mime Troupe. By 1970, she had written her first original play, the feminist melodrama The Independent Female, or A Man Has His Pride , which showcased her talent for intellectually and emotionally challenging audiences. “What would happen with the play is that couples would come holding hands and leave arguing,” she recalled.

After separating from Arthur, Joan embarked on a 34-year romance with her partner, fellow Mime Troupe member Dan Chumley. The

In 2000, Joan retired from the Mime Troupe but continued to write. Her post–Mime Troupe achievements included a theatrical adaptation of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America , Barbara Ehrenreich ’63’s book about her harrowing undercover experiences working as a maid, a nursing home worker, a waitress, and a Wal-Mart clerk.

Joan is survived by her daughters, including Lily Chumley ’03 . Reed’s ethos was an important influence on Joan’s work, informing both her sense of humor and her intellectual rigor. “What I learned at Reed was to not be afraid of asking tough questions,” she told Reed Magazine “To follow the truth wherever it led.”

Michael was born in 1946 in Rochester, New York. His father, John Mills IV, was a photographer and filmmaker. His mother, Elisabeth (Parker) Mills, was a social worker and political activist. Both were liberals and die-hard New Yorkers.

His second half of high school was spent at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he was the editor of the school newspaper. Michael had deep family ties to the University of Chicago, where buildings were named after his relatives. In a move that shocked his parents, he chose Reed College instead. “I had never been west of Chicago,” said Michael. “Reed felt to me like a place that was intellectually open. And so I went off to Reed.”

His junior year, Michael took a leave of absence for an internship at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.,

Michael returned to Reed after the internship. As a student, he took a part-time job at a Portland television station, where he was given his own weekly TV show, City on My Mind , in which he interviewed local political figures. There was potential for a promising career in broadcast journalism, but Michael chose to attend law school at the University of Chicago after graduating from Reed with a bachelor’s in political science.

Three months into his law studies, Michael was drafted. But through cleverly positioning his skills, he avoided overseas duty, working on administrative projects for the Pentagon and then becoming a chef for a two-star general. At the end of Michael’s tour of cooking duty, the general presented him with a general-purpose medal. When Michael asked him what it was for, he told him, “All of it, all of your good service deserves a reward. But it was your whole wheat bread that really swung it.’”

Michael returned to Chicago to finish law school, after which he returned to Portland for a clerkship with federal district judge J.M. Burns, then moved to Manhattan for a position with the prestigious law firm Davis Polk. He practiced there for eight years, then left for a partnership in the New York office of Mayer Brown, where he was put in charge of a new technology committee. This shift away from litigation led to Michael’s bold decision to leave a lucrative law firm partnership for an administrative position in technology. He later rejoined Davis Polk as the director of professional services and systems, a job he held for 20 years. Liam Brown described Michael as “an accomplished, straightout-of-central casting traditional lawyer who made a leap in the dark.”

Michael pioneered many advances that later became commonplace among top law firms. In 2000, he created what may have been the earliest and most ambitious expert system used within a law firm. He collaborated with Fred Parnon, then the CEO of the software

company Jnana, and Laureen Bedell, who was then a partner at Davis Polk. Bedell described it as “a humongous Global Credit expert system Michael developed that our banking clients [including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs] used for decades to test credit risk in over 60 jurisdictions worldwide.” The system incorporated 11,000 rules, 80 products, and 25 industry agreements. It delivered nuanced legal judgments on a seven-point scale.

Neota team to improve the soft ware until his death.

While Michael blazed his own trail, he was a kind and generous mentor to others who sought to transition out of their legal prac tices and into technology and knowledge management roles. Simpson Thacher’s Oz Benam ram said of Michael: “His gen erosity, combined with his supe rior brain, made him a pillar of the legal tech community.”

Along the way, Michael quietly but effectively lent his time, expertise, and money to the causes he found important. He cofounded the Central Park Conservancy; served as fellow, board member, and president of the College of Law Practice Management; and funded the college’s annual innovation awards. He acted as founding director, vice chair, and gener ous financial contributor to Pro Bono Net, a nonprofit corpo

Michael Mills was an innovator and leading global figure in law firm technology who pioneered many advances that later became commonplace among top law firms.

In 2010 Michael and his longtime collaborator John Lord decided to launch a new software company, Neota Logic, to help law firms “productize expertise” with expert systems like the one Michael had built at Davis Polk. Since then, under Michael’s guidance, Neota has grown to become tremendously sophisticated. Pro bono organizations acquire the software to enhance their “access to justice” initiatives. Leading universities around the world teach Neota, enabling students to build legal solutions of their own without computer science skills. Michael continued to work with the

Honor Their Memory

IN THE SPIRIT OF REED

ration created to improve the coordination and delivery of pro bono legal services through technology.

Michael loved living near the ocean. He bought a 1926 sailboat as a restoration proj ect; it now rests in the Mys tic Seaport Museum. But in 2018, Michael left Manhattan to join Karen MacNeil and her daughter Emma in landlocked St. Helena, California. “For love and only love, Michael was willing to abandon the sea,” said Michael’s close friend, John Alber.

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

Michael is survived by Karen and by his two brothers, John and Peter.

In Memoriam

Constance Sayre Collier ’45

November 30, 2023, in Bellingham, Washington.

Constance was born in Denver, Colorado, into a pioneer mining family. She met her husband, Rox, while attending Reed, just before the United States entered the Second World War; they courted by mail while Rox was training to be a Navy pilot.

After the war, Constance raised five children while Rox earned a PhD in economics. She filled the role of hostess and faculty wife, supporting Rox as dean of business, first in Logan, Utah, at Utah State University, and then in Bellingham, Washington, at Western Washington State University.

Constance was actively involved in community theatre, starring in several roles in Bellingham, including Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit, Mother Superior in Agnes of God, and multiple roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. She was also a talented singer. While living in Utah she worked with Austin Fife, noted Mormon ethnographer, singing to illustrate his lectures on Mormon folk songs.

Constance was a humanist and loved being surrounded by interesting people. As a member of P.E.O., a philanthropic organization focused on education for women, she was a strong supporter of women’s rights and educational opportunities. She also played a wicked hand of bridge.

Constance is survived by five of her children, Catherine, Charles, Maurice, Hal, and Matthew. She was predeceased by her husband, Rox, and her son Daniel.

Thomas Conway ’48 November 3, 3023, after a brief battle with pneumonia.

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Reed. His thesis, “An Attempted Determination of Inclusions in the Silver Coulometer Using Radioactive Sulfur,” was written with advising from Prof. Arthur F. Scott [chemistry 1923-26 and 1937-79].

Tom’s education was interrupted by World War II; he proudly served four years in the Navy on board the PC466 in the Pacific, and he was present at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. Following the war, he married his college sweetheart, Jeannette Conway ’52 . The two moved to Mercer Island in 1957 with their two children, Robin and Peter. Tom went on to earn his master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Avid hikers, both Tom and Jenny were fond of trekking Rainier and the Cascades or walking the Mercer Island trails.

Tom taught chemistry at Mercer Island High School and math in the Seattle, Lake Washington, and Bellevue school districts. He also enjoyed coaching soccer on Mercer Island. He retired early to care for Jenny, who passed away from cancer in 1984. Tom later married Claire Lidzbarski.

Tom continued an active lifestyle. He loved rugged road trips, the Oregon coast, and the San Juan Islands. He kept busy with volunteer work and his church choir, and he was an active member of Emmanuel Episcopal Church and later St. Peters in Seattle. Although his body slowed down, his mind and memories never did. Tom was an excellent storyteller up to the day he died and astounded others with his

ability to recall the smallest details of his travels from many years past. He is survived by his daughter, Robin; his son, Peter; and his ex-wife, Claire.

June Ekstrom Bennett ’50

November 4, 2023, Portland, Oregon

June was born in Oakland, California, to Erik and Ellen Ekstrom, immigrants from Sweden and Denmark. She had an idyllic life, growing up in Oakland with her sister Helen.

At Reed, June wrote for the Quest. She met Eleanor Roosevelt at a tea when Mrs. Roosevelt came to visit her granddaughter at Reed. June also met Forrest Bennett ’49 at Reed, whom she married in 1949. They had 10 children and lived in Portland, where Forrest had a medical practice. They later divorced and June bought her dream home in Milwaukie. She worked many years at Aurora Aviation as office manager, a job she loved. She often traveled to Mexico. In 1969, she entered a poetry contest and won a brand-new Ford Mustang.

After June retired, she spent many happy years in her beautiful home with the tropical garden she planted. When she wasn’t tending the garden, she enjoyed relaxing and reading by her fireplace. She had a true “green thumb” for outdoor and house plants. Her

many children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren mostly lived nearby and visited often.

June was predeceased by her children, Linda and Julie. She is survived by her other children, Laura, Ron, Diane, Rebecca, Bruce, Sandra, Jan, and Amy.

Daniel L. Love ’50

Feb. 8, 2024, in Portland, from Parkinson’s disease.

Dan was born in Portland, where he attended Grant High School, set a new state record for the 440-yard dash, and met the love of his life, Yvonne Nielsen.

Dan earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Reed. His thesis, “Vapor Pressures of Silver Amalgams,” was written under Prof. Arthur F. Scott [chemistry 1923–26 and 1937–79]. Dan subsequently received his master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Portland, a teaching assistantship in physical chemistry at the University of Texas, and a PhD in fuel chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. In 1955, Dan became a radiochemist at the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco. He is credited with the discovery of radiopolarography, an achievement so noteworthy that the 1959 Nobel Prize in Chemistry cited the importance of his work.

Dan went on to become the head of the radiochemistry and nuclear chemistry branches of the Naval Surface Weapons Center. When he later became the center’s director of basic research, he supervised over 100 scientists.

After retiring in 1984, he moved back to Portland. For 30 years, he taught chemistry and physics at Reed, Linfield, Marylhurst, and the

Oregon Graduate Institute. He also served as an instructor at Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue and volunteered 7,500 hours at Meridian Park Medical Center with Yvonne.

Dan was predeceased by Yvonne, to whom he was married for 70 years. He is survived by his daughter, Carolyn, and his son, David.

Edward Kessler ’50

December 12, 2023

Edward was born in Flushing, Queens, New York. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics at Reed and wrote his thesis, “Coordination Problems in Federal, State and Local Finance,” with advising from Prof. Arthur Leigh [economics 1945-1988].

Edward had a successful career as a certified public accountant. He enjoyed traveling with his wife and cruising on the family boat. He was known for his effortless wit and kindness. Edward is survived by his wife, Gita, and his daughter, Winnie.

Marilyn Losli Brownawell ’55

November 2, 2023, in Bend, Oregon. Marilyn earned her bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Reed and wrote her thesis on the reaction of carbon monoxide gas with sodium phenyl; Prof. Arthur F. Scott [chemistry 1923–26 and 1937–79] was her advisor. In

German class with Prof. Kaspar Locher [1950-88], she met her future husband, Darrell Brownawell ’54. Marilyn later earned her master’s and became a research chemist and a teacher, working for a time at Exxon USA, where Darrell also worked.

After graduating from Reed, Darrell was stationed in Germany with the army and Marilyn joined him. “We took one of Professor Arragon’s textbooks with us and used it as we traveled for a month in Greece, seeing all the sites he’d talked about in class,” wrote Darrell in The Gray Alumni Challenge.

Marilyn was an avid hiker and enjoyed exploring with Darrell the Olympic National Forest and Mount Rainier. She traveled extensively in Europe, visited Africa, and lived for two years near Oxford, England. When Marilyn retired, she and Darrell moved to Black Butte Ranch where they had vacationed often. She started teaching Sunday school at the Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Sisters.

Marilyn is survived by Darrell and her sons, David and Mark.

Paul “Dick” Burgess ’56

Feb. 11, 2024, in Gilbert, Arizona, of Alzheimer’s disease.

Dick was born in Logan, Utah, and grew up in Hyrum. His father, Paul, served as a leading community doctor and his mother, Alice, was a former nurse. An excellent student, Dick graduated from South Cache High School and went on to Reed, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Oxford University in England, where he earned another bachelor’s

degree in human and animal physiology.

After completing his PhD in neurophysiology at Rockefeller Institute, Dick returned to Utah and became a professor at the University of Utah, where he conducted research and taught in the medical school for decades.

Dick was a great conversationalist. Never a follower, he always charted his own path. He is survived by his wife, Jane, and his daughters, Kim and Lisa.

Elizabeth Adamy ’58

November 20, 2023

Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Liz devoted her life to education and music.

After attending Reed, she became the headmaster’s secretary at Catlin Gabel and married Ed Adamy, the school’s woodshop teacher. The couple had three children and moved to McMinnville, where Liz worked as a high school principal’s secretary and was organist and choir director at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. After retiring, she continued to play and compose music. She is survived by her three children.

Joan Evelyn Berray

Allen ’58

July 2, 2023, in Globe, Arizona. Born in Los Angeles, Joan was raised in a family that often traveled for business, spending parts of her childhood in Mexico. Her favorite memories of Reed included attending a poetry reading by Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder ’51, which she found out about from a sign in Prof. Lloyd Reynolds ’s [English and art 1929–69] calligraphy class. Joan married Gary Snyder’s

friend Bob Allen and eventually moved to Arizona to be a caretaker for her mother, Jane Hoffman Berray.

Joan was a homemaker for most of her life and was passionate about genealogy and animal welfare, often donating time to animal rights causes. She is survived by her daughters Paulette Copperstone and Emma Allen, and brother John Berray.

Peter Humber ’60

April 2023, at home, of cirrhosis of the liver. Peter spent 1959-60 as a pioneer exchange student from England’s University College of North Staffordshire, now Keele University, with Virginia Oglesby Hancock ’62 [music] as his counterpart. (Virginia attended Keele the following year). He maintained 60+ year Reed friendships.

Peter grew up in Battersea before it was “fashionable,” boxing and middle distance running (a London schools champion). He embraced Reed, where study of the Cotton South started with Charles (Bud) Bagg led to academic distinction at Keele. He also spent time uphill at Lutz’s, introduced cricket in front of Doyle and darts at Mount Angel Seminary, and hitchhiked America during breaks.

Following graduation from Keele, Peter admits he ‘drifted’ into teaching in London but quickly earned promotion. He then moved, with his family, to West Somerset to a school on the edge of Exmoor. One hears of teachers who changed lives, and Peter was one such teacher. He was inspirational, and the positive effect he had on many young lives cannot be overemphasized. His love of history and politics remained with him to the end and his knowledge and understanding were

In Memoriam

formidable. He was a respected Liberal Democratic District Councillor, an active member of local cricket and hockey clubs, a pub regular near their beloved “Foxwarren” home with its crops garden, and host to many from Reed.

Peter struggled with his mental health throughout his adult life and suffered from bouts of depression and anxiety. His beloved garden provided a refuge, along with his golden retrievers.

Peter’s last years were blighted with physical ill health. He died at home, as he wanted, cared for by his wife, Jean, supported by their daughter Ellen and family.

Jean writes that Reed “was a profoundly happy time” for Peter and that the family’s visit to Reed decades later remains a treasured memory.

—Contributed by Milt Krieger

Eugene “Gene” Clifford Hirschkoff ’64

January 23, 2024, in Oceanside, California, of an aortic aneurysm.

Gene was a lifetime learner. Graduating as valedictorian from Venice High School in Los Angeles, he was offered scholarships to Caltech, Harvard, and MIT. Instead he opted for the liberal arts approach at Reed, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and mathematics. He wrote his thesis, “The Formal Solution by Phase Space Methods of the Quantum Dynamical Problem,” with

advising from Prof. Nicholas Wheeler [physics 1963–2010].

After Reed, he earned a master’s degree in physics at Harvard, a PhD in Physics from UCSD, and an MBA from San Diego State University. At 50, he began taking classes at the USD Law School, passing the California bar exam in 1998. In 1972, he joined the start-up company S.H.E., focusing on the research and development of technology used in conjunction with MRI to map function in the brain. He served as vice president of clinical research and continued in this role as S.H.E. became BTi and later 4D Neuroimaging. During “retirement,” he continued as a consultant and patent attorney.

Gene was blessed with a big brain and also a big heart. He met his wife, Barbara “Bobbi” Hirschkoff, on a trip home during his time at Harvard. She had a spark that inspired him to be and do his best, and they were married in 1965. There were many long-distance phone calls while he completed his final semester at Harvard, after which they were reunited, settling in San Diego in 1966. While Gene began his career in research, Bobbi taught life science and math at San Diego Unified. Together they developed mutual interests in travel, culture, and making their home a personal paradise. They designed a custom home in Leucadia, where they raised their children, Ben and Joel. Gene was a patient, supportive, and loving father—a steadfast presence in their lives.

After their sons moved out, Gene and Bobbi relocated to Olivenhain. Gene’s zest for life did not fade with age; he kept a busy schedule filled with live music, travel, trying new restaurants, volunteering as an usher at theaters around San

Diego, and assisting Bobbi in the garden and in her art studio. Gene is survived by Bobbi; their sons, Ben and Joel; and his mother, Sylvia.

Sharon Lee Robinson Morris ’65

February 7, 2024, in Vashon, Washington of cancer.

Sharon was born in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Washington. She then went to Reed, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and wrote her thesis on Republican voting in the Deep South with Prof. Kirk Thompson [political science 1964-71] as her advisor. She had a long career in occupational safety and health, eventually retiring from the University of Washington as a senior lecturer in the school of public health. Sharon was an intrepid traveler whose favorite vantage point was the hatch of a sea kayak, from which she explored the wilds of Alaska with her close friends and family. She visited all seven continents and spent months at a time living in Vietnam and Israel with her husband, Moshe Rosenfeld. Sharon was, at her core, a writer; she completed her book, The Meaning of Wife, about the travails of her grandparents, Frank and Libby Robinson, this year.

Sharon is survived by her husband, Moshe; her children, Rebecca Morris-Chatta, Daniel, and Jennifer Morris; and her step-daughters, Rakefet Houchbaum and Segal Kirsch.

Colleen Kelley ’75

November 12, 2023, in Tallahassee, Florida. Colleen was the consummate college professor. After graduating from Reed, and before

finishing her graduate studies at Stanford University, she was hired as a visiting professor by her undergraduate alma mater from 1978 to 1980. After returning to Stanford to earn her PhD studying human memory, she went on to teach at Willams College and Macalester College before joining the psychology faculty at Florida State University in 1996. She retired from FSU in 2021 and was awarded emeritus status shortly thereafter.

Colleen was revered by her students. She was known for reading widely and penetratingly and for maintaining rigorous research standards. She had a gift for guiding students to explore their ideas, to think creatively, and to carry on their own research in cognitive psychology. Her students described her as extremely demanding, yet also incredibly kind and understanding. After Colleen’s passing, several of her students wrote notes to thank her posthumously for “allowing” them to learn. Not surprisingly, many students who took classes from Colleen at both the undergraduate and graduate levels went on to secure academic positions at universities throughout the United States.

Outside of work, Colleen enjoyed hiking forest trails, walking on the beach, and reading a good novel. She also could not resist trying to find a real bargain, often scoring remarkable purchases on the Shop Goodwill auction website.

Colleen leaves behind her husband of 29 years, and closest companion and greatest admirer for 45 years, Mark Seidenfeld ’75, as well as her son, Matthew Seidenfeld, and his wife, Lacey Lindquist. She is also survived by her sister, Linda Ebberson, and her brothers, Tony and Dan Kelley.

Sheila Quinlan ’83

January 21, 2024, in Saratoga, California, of

Sheila was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but made Saratoga, California, her home. Her father, Harry, was a Nabisco mechanical engineer and WWII veteran. Her mother, Mary, was an air traffic controller and pilot. Sheila was the well-adjusted middle child of three siblings. Her dad would spend time with Sheila on outings around the lakes and woods, where she loved to observe insects and was given the nickname “The Bug.” She was very observant of nature and loved playing outdoors. In her senior year of high school, Sheila signed up to be an exchange student in Wales, where she attended a Welsh boarding school.

Her passion for social justice was born at Reed, where she took classes on social issues, class, and race. She studied anthropology and wrote her thesis on population pressure and its use in anthropological models; Prof. Claude Vaucher [anthropology 1963-94] was her advisor.

It was also at Reed where she met the love of her life, John Robert Shannon ’85, who was studying physics and electrical engineering. John says of meeting Sheila: “I liked her right away, it was just like that.” John and Sheila eloped in 1989 in Waukegan, Illinois, and their bond lasted 40 years. In 2000, they had a son, Roy Quinlan Shannon ’22

Upon John’s graduation, the couple moved to Chicago,

where Sheila pursued her PhD in anthropology at the University of Chicago. Halfway through the program, she changed her mind and received a master’s instead, after which she attended law school at Northern Illinois University.

After law school, Sheila moved with John to the Bay Area. John pursued a career in tech and Sheila interned at the San Francisco public defender’s office while studying for the bar. She set up her immigration law practice in 1996 in San Francisco. This is when the magic happened. Her practice grew, her reputation preceded her, and she achieved certified specialist status. Sheila went on to help thousands of hardworking immigrants through her practice, and even more by mentoring other attorneys. Many immigrants went on to achieve their American dreams because of her.

Sheila became an endurance athlete and took up long distance running, competing in marathons and triathlons. She also loved playing darts. One of Sheila’s proudest athletic moments was in 1999, when she hit her first double in San Francisco “D” league softball—while five months pregnant with Roy—for the championship win. She was proud when Roy applied to and was accepted to Reed in 2018 and more so when he graduated in 2022.

Sheila received her breast cancer diagnosis in 2016 and refused to let it slow her down. She was determined to live her best life and continued running and biking, being the best mom she could possibly be, and continuing her unwavering dedication to serving her clients. She even took on new hobbies, determined to experience everything she could in life:

candle making, gardening, bird watching, cooking, and learning Hawaiian.

Joseph Niski III ’83

November 2, 2023, at home in Portland, surrounded by loved ones.

Born and raised in Nyack, New York, Joe came to Portland to attend Reed, where he majored in religion and philosophy. His thesis was titled “Look Before You Leap: Paradox and Christianity in Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript,” which he wrote with advising from Prof. John Kenney [religion 1980-1995]. Joe valued his experience at Reed and made many long-term friends. After graduating in 1983, he worked in human services with disabled adults. Later he became a software engineer and worked for computer user services at Reed. Joe brought his quick mind and warm heart to every company he worked at. He enjoyed the intellectual challenges of programming, as well as collaboration, team building, personal connection, and mentoring his younger colleagues.

Joe loved hiking and backpacking in the Northwest wilderness. He was an avid bicycle commuter. He followed world events and politics and had a keen sense of social justice.

Joe met his first wife, Antoinette (Nan) Schmitz ’85 , at Reed, and they were together for 16 years until her sudden death in August 1998. Surprised to find love again, Joe married Nanette Niski in 2001. Together they traveled to China, India, Mexico, and the UK. They shared a love of music, singing duets and performing in choral groups. Their home quickly became the heart of their community, with

regular gatherings for meditation and music; it was filled with wonderful food, laughter, and joy.

Since first learning to play at age 11, Joe loved the guitar. He was a fan of every music genre, played bass and guitar, and sang and recorded with multiple bands. In the summer of 2014, Joe attended Mark Hanson’s “guitar camp.” It was a transformative experience, introducing him to a new community and purpose. Shortly after, he said goodbye to the tech world and started training as a music therapist at Marylhurst University. Joe was totally inspired by this new endeavor, taking classes and studying classical guitar for the next three years. But early symptoms of Alzheimer’s ultimately prevented him from finishing his degree.

In 1998, Joe began an in-depth study of Buddhist philosophy and a daily meditation practice. He was actively involved with Dharma Rain Zen Center, serving on the board. A friend there described him as “warm-hearted and kind, and the smartest person in the room.” His spiritual perspective and his meditation practice anchored him through his years of illness and inspired many people. He worked hard to function, to maintain equanimity, to be grateful and loving to all who cared for him. And he succeeded brilliantly in moving from a very active, intellectual life of “doing” to a quiet life of heart. Joe faced his disease with a mix of grief, frustration, and fear. Ultimately he met the challenge with grace and fortitude—and tremendous love. His spiritual name was Shisei, which means “arrive at truth.” This was his aspiration.

Joe leaves behind his wife, Nanette Niski; his mother, Gay

cancer.

In Memoriam

Disco; two sisters, Jan Niski and Jill Niski; and half-brother, Mike Ninen.

Kevin Regan ’87

November 1, 2023, at home in Los Angeles, California, of heart failure.

Kevin was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on March 4, 1964, the son of Judith Regan and the late Thomas F. Regan. He was a 1983 graduate of the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, and received his bachelor’s degree from Reed in 1987. He wrote his thesis, “Hope and Salvation in Raymond Carver’s Escape from Minimalism,” with Prof. Robert Knapp [English 1974–] advising.

Kevin spent the majority of his professional career at Reuters Television in Los Angeles, where he served since 1994 as senior news producer and head of the bureau. He distinguished himself as a gifted writer and sharp diviner of the news hook. A generous collaborator, colleague, and mentor, Kevin inspired many early-career journalists. “A great boss and a sweet friend”; “A fantastic colleague and friend!!!”; “He taught me so much, not just about the industry but about what being a good manager and friend means”; “One of the kindest, calmest, funniest, and most competent folks you’d ever meet in the highly stressful and competitive TV news biz. We’ve lost an absolute prince.” These are just a sample of the many tributes from those whose professional and personal lives were enriched by knowing and working with Kevin.

Kevin relocated back to New Jersey at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, where he stayed with his mother and provided needed companionship and support. He was a

prodigious reader and voracious consumer of news and information spanning current events, pop culture, literature, and history. He did not suffer fools, charlatans, or poseurs gladly. Well into the digital age, he continued to maintain a massive music CD collection, spanning many genres. Kevin’s acerbic wit provided constant entertainment, amusement, and, on occasion, fierce debate in the Regan family. That wit will be sorely missed, as will his committed companionship to his mother.

In addition to his mother, Judith, Kevin is survived by his brother, Brian, and his sister, Christine Greenebaum.

Shannon Dailey ’88

December 7, 2023, in Hudson, New York

A seeker of spiritual truths, Shannon Dailey dedicated her life to expanding her therapeutic skills and perceptual awareness, forging a singular path in the field of alternative somatic therapies.

The youngest of five siblings, Shannon was born in Portland in 1966 and transitioned in 2023. She moved to Fiji with her family when she was four years old and always considered the tropical island her home, even after relocating to Hawaii with her parents and later returning to Portland.

While studying theater at Reed, Shannon met her first husband, playwright and author Gordon Dahlquist ’83. Both pursued theses in directing. Prof. Craig Clinton [theatre 1978-] and Prof. Lena M. Lencek [Russian language & literature 1977-] advised Shannon on her thesis, “A Polish Playwright in the Twentieth Century: Slawomir Mrozek, an Absurdist Parabler.”

After graduating, Shannon and Gordon moved to New York

City, where Shannon maintained her passion for Shakespeare, studying and performing in the Bard’s plays. When her interests turned toward healing and development, Shannon became a massage therapist. She graduated from the Swedish Institute of Health Sciences, where she later taught courses in shiatsu, professional development, and more.

After establishing a New York massage practice, Shannon studied biodynamic craniosacral therapy, a noninvasive form of massage therapy. She founded a cranial practice that lasted over 20 years, as well as a biodynamic school that she, Clara Fable, and Christina Morrow started under the tutelage of Franklyn Sills.

After separating from Gordon in 2005, Shannon partnered with fellow somatic therapist Tom Bertels. The couple shared a life for 18 years, living in Brooklyn and Hudson, New York, and embarking on a pilgrimage to India and Tibet, driven by their desire to embrace a variety of religious traditions.

An impassioned reader since childhood, Shannon embraced modern and classic literature. She felt almost as close to Dickens, Austen, Melville, and Tolstoy as she did to her beloved cats, Lacey and Lilly.

Shannon is survived by her husband, Tom; her mother, Joan K. Dailey; and her siblings, Will, John, Kathleen, and Theresa.

Ravindra A. Yatawara ’90 October 28, 2023.

A leading economist and respected expert on finance, Ravi received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Reed College and a PhD in

economics from Columbia University. At Reed, he wrote his thesis, “Trade Strategies and the Industrial Development of Sri Lanka since 1970,” with advising from Prof. Jeffrey Summers [economics 1987-92].

In the early 1990s, Ravi interned at the World Bank. He became a dependable coworker, an invaluable member of the South Asian economists’ team, and a friend to many. Years later, he was appointed senior economist at the World Bank for South Asian countries.

Ravi was a part of the World Bank’s trade and competitiveness practice section, working on South Asian regional integration, foreign investment, and global value chains. He co-led work on intraregional foreign investment throughout the region. He was a member of the core team of the World Bank’s global value chain community on apparel.

Ravi held faculty positions at Columbia University and the University of Delaware, where he was a popular teacher, given his vast knowledge, commitment, and empathy for his students. He also taught an international trade course in Europe. All this work and commitment did not stop him from running in the New York City marathon.

Upon returning to Sri Lanka, Ravi took on several management positions, including general manager of LB Finance and director of the Credit Insurance Bureau of Sri Lanka. He was an excellent collaborator and a joy to work with.

Cory McCloud ’91 2024, in San Francisco.

Cory loved working at bilingual crossroads in technology and publishing. Born in 1969, he studied

French literature at Reed. His thesis, “Le Breton soluble et son poisson reconstitué”: Essai sur André Breton et l’écriture automatique, written under Prof. Samuel Danon [French, 1962-2000], focused on the French writer and surrealist André Breton. Cory continued his study of French literature at the American University of Paris and later founded GiantChair, a company that helps publishers leverage the latest digital technologies. He is survived by his daughter, Rose.

Priscilla

West Williams MALS ’94 December 12, 2023, in Portland.

Priscilla was born in China to missionary parents in 1933. She acquired both English and Mandarin as her first languages, living under Japanese occupation with her family before being forced to flee to the United States.

After World War II, the family returned to China, only to flee amid the Communist revolution. They settled in Oregon, where Priscilla’s father became a pastor at Medford First Presbyterian Church and Priscilla emerged as a prodigy at the keyboard. She grew to be a tall teen, complaining that the boys wouldn’t dance with her because of her height.

After graduating from Lewis & Clark College, where she was crowned homecoming queen, Priscilla married Dr. Christopher Williams in 1957. The couple honeymooned at a thennew amusement park called Disneyland, moved to Seattle, and settled in Eastmoreland in 1968. Together, they raised three sons.

Continuing her journey as a musician, Priscilla played pipe organ and conducted church choirs. She also taught music in

public schools, then switched to teaching piano at home, mentoring students who went on to enjoy lifelong musical careers.

At Reed, Priscilla wrote her thesis, “The Romanesque Portal of St. Pierre, Moissac,” with advising by Prof. William Diebold [art history].

Priscilla loved painting the Oregon Coast, Hood River, and the Rhododendron Garden, though she was just as eager to paint peaches in the kitchen before slicing them. Eternally passionate about art, she volunteered as a docent at the Portland Art Museum.

Christopher died 17 days after Priscilla passed away. The couple, who were married 66 years, are survived by their two children.

Mike Russo

September 17, 2023, in Portland, Oregon. Mike Russo was an acclaimed blues guitar and piano player who often performed on the Reed College campus during the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1937, Mike was the son of wellknown artists Michele Russo and Sally Haley. Together with his parents, he moved to Portland in 1947. As a child Mike was a musical prodigy, playing the violin and mandolin skillfully. In the 1950s he began performing locally on his guitar and was soon playing concerts throughout the Pacific Northwest

Mike often performed on Campus with banjo player Ron Brentano, but also with many of the well-known roots musicians and blues guitar players of that time, including Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Fred McDowell, Furry Lewis, Bukka White, and Mance Lipscomb. During some of the many off-campus jam sessions that occurred after concerts and at other times as well,

Mike played with Doc Watson, the Reverend Gary Davis, B.B. King and others.

Mike was a huge influence on many in the Reed community, including James Dickey, resident poet at Reed from 1963 to 1964. Together with Ron Brentano, Mike created a version of the now-famous duet Duelling Banjos that captivated James Dickey and inspired him to include it in his novel Deliverance. When Deliverance was set to be filmed, Dickey wanted Mike and Ron to play the iconic music for his film. However, despite intense lobbying by Dickey and others, Warner Bros. opted for studio musicians to record the soundtrack. During his musical career, Mike recorded two albums with Chris Strachwitz, legendary profiler of the roots of American music and owner of Arhoolie Records. John Ullman ’65 , who together with his wife, Irene Namkung Ullman ’65, founded Traditional Arts Services, booking tours for iconic roots musicians throughout North America, said, “I don’t think our career as agents and managers would have flourished if we had not had Mike’s example of how to interact with the older roots musicians respectfully and authentically.” About Mike’s guitar technique, he says, “He could play Leadbelly’s most intricate and powerful pieces flawlessly. No one I heard in the folk revival could come close.”

In addition to his musical career, Mike was a well-regarded sign painter in Portland. He often helped Reed students with posters and signs and was a role model for at least one Reedie who later became a professional sign painter. Peter Bergel ’65 recalls that “Mike thrilled me as a young Reed student because he was a consummate blues guitar player, yet personally

approachable, and was an awesome sign painter.” Lee Littlewood ’68 (dba: Lee’s Better Letters) says, “Mike is probably going to be eulogized for his music, and rightfully so. But his other job was sign painting, and he was exceptionally skilled in that.[ . . .] In a quiet way, he did a lot for the commercial, visual scene in Portland and Gearhart for many years, and a couple of us are still trying to make letters like he did.”

Mike is survived by his wife, Candy Anderson Russo ’67 , son Michael Antony Russo and daughter Judith Russo.

Forthcoming obituaries: Rosemary Berleman ’48, Tom Conway ’48, John Rogers ’51, William Berleman ’53, Verna Shmavonian ’53, Donald Green ’54, David Henry Leonard ’55, Robert Greenberg ’56, Marrine Lind ’58, George Roth ’62, Robert Buckley ’64, Susan Green ’64, Leslie Lischka ’64, Susan Salasin ’64, Druscilla Shipman ’64, Sharon Lee Morris ’65, Lewis Bowers ’67, Peri Frantz ’67, Mara Gelbloom ’72, Colleen Kelley ’75, Rebecca Rach ’79, Jo Whitman Diamond ’82, Tracy D Johnson ‘86, Fred Dushkin ’86, Rochelle Savit ’70, Barnard Gage ’78, Carolyn Duncan ’02, Alex Morgan ’21, Michael Litt [chemistry 1958–67]

Object of Study

Age of Oakmoss

Meet Evernia prunastri, our favorite campus lichen! Evernia prunastri, commonly known as oakmoss or antlered perfume lichen, is a soft green-whitish lichen that grows abundantly as an epiphyte on tree branches around campus. Lichens are not single organisms, but are composite organisms made of a community of fungi, alga, and bacteria. The lichen lifestyle (or lichenization), although very complex, has been shown to be a strategy utilized

by fungi at different times and places across evolutionary history. Recent and ongoing research on lichens continues to reveal new mysteries about this intricate community of organisms, how they form, and how they function in what we call a lichen symbiosis. Because of these unique features, lichens allow an exciting study system for student investigation into biological and ecological concepts, which is exactly what students in

Bio 123: Lichens of the Pacific Northwest are doing with campus lichens. This class engages student learning by exploring lichens as simultaneous ecosystems and organisms, considering the ways in which living things are interconnected and interact. Because lichens are so abundant on the Reed campus, students in this course conduct campus-based observations and research, using lichens like Evernia prunastri. —Prof. Hannah Prather [biology]

BY TOM

PHOTO

HUMPHREY

Thank You, Alumni Volunteer Leaders.

Your steadfast service to the college and the alumni community is a gift. Reed deeply appreciates your time and many talents, and it is an honor and a pleasure to work with you. Thank you.

Alumni Board

Michael Axley ’89, ALUMNI TRUSTEE

Dave Baxter ’87, PAST PRESIDENT

Carla Beam ’76, ALUMNI TRUSTEE

Grant Burgess ’13

Maya Campbell ’15

Jennifer Delfino ’05

Claire Dennerlein Manson ’02

Ian Fisher ’07

Carmen García Durazo ’11

Ashlin Hatch ’17

Avigail Hurvitz-Prinz ’05

Valentina Jin-Trowbridge ’11

Eve Lyons ’95

James Mater ’68, PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENT

Caitlin McKenna ’08

Bronwyn North Reist ’07

Katie Rempe ’05, SECRETARY

Dylan Rivera ’95, PRESIDENT

Vasiliy Safin ’07

Lisa Saldana ’94, ALUMNI TRUSTEE

Alix Sanchez ’08

Marjorie Skinner ’01

Tina Sohaili-Korbonits ’07, ALUMNI TRUSTEE

Andrei Stephens ’08, VICE PRESIDENT

Gay Walker ’69, PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENT

Alumni Fundraising for Reed Steering Committee

Keith Allen ’83

David Buckler ’85

Doug Fenner ’71

Jay Hubert ’66

Advait Jukar ’11, CO-CHAIR

Kyndra Homuth Kennedy ’04

Katherine Lefever ’07, CO-CHAIR

Christine Lewis ’07

Jan Liss ’74

Kathryn Mapps ’86

Dylan Rivera ’95

Andrew Schpak ’01

Lara Simonetti ’20

Anne Steele ’70

Andrei Stephens ’08

Ray Wells ’94

Marcia Yaross ’73

Janet Youngblood ’68

Sam Elgin ’11

Diversity and Inclusion Committee Chairs

Lilia Raquel Rosas ’94

Cris Cambianica ’16

Chapter Leadership Council

Emily Allen ’19

Wayne Clayton ’82

Johanna Colgrove ’92

Justin Corban ’04

William Huiras ’15

Gray Karpel ’08

Andrew Korson ’04

Eve Lyons ’95

Peter Miller ’06

Jim Quinn ’83

Reed Career Alliance Chair

Matt Giger ’89

Committee for Young Alumni Chair

Laramie Silber ’13

3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.

Portland, Oregon 97202-8138

Tunnel of love: During thesis parade, Shalra Azeem ’24 passes through a tunnel of Reedies celebrating the seniors.

PHOTO BY LAUREN LABARRE