‰ september 2017
Gene Hunter Anne Calof ’78 stalks the genetic misprint responsible for the devastating disorder that claimed her daughter.
Students working on Campus Day, 1915. Photograph taken by Lindsley Ross ’15.
Share your harvest. Nourish Reed. Include Reed as part of your legacy by naming the college as the beneficiary of a retirement account or other asset plan. Individuals who are age 70 ½ or older can make an immediate charitable IRA rollover gift from a qualifying IRA and benefit from unique tax savings. Contact Kathy Saitas in gift planning for more information about making an immediate or future gift of your retirement assets.
503/777-7759 | giftplanning@reed.edu | reed.edu/IRAgiving
sean marc lee
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18 clayton cotterell
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Features 14
What Next?
DEPARTMENTS 4 Eliot Circular
Imagining—and launching—a life beyond Reed.
Trapping chaos in a jar Shape-shifting cells and silly putty Annual Fund raises $4.6 million Reed launches neuroscience major Quintessential Hard Heart New initiative helps students work for social justice
By Romel Hernandez 18
Gene Hunter
Anne Calof ’78 stalks the genetic misprint responsible for the devastating disorder that claimed her daughter’s life.
By Joey Rubin ’04 22
What Is a Reedie, Anyway? We profiled twelve proud members of the Class of ’17.
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Advocates of the Griffin Reunions 2017 Meet Your Alumni Board
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Reediana
Books, music, and films by Reedies
Natural History of the Pacific NW Mountains by Daniel Matthews ’70 Calculus and Analysis in Euclidean Space by Prof. Jerry Shurman [math 1989–]
40
Class Notes
News from our classmates
47
In Memoriam
Honoring our dead classmates, professors, and friends
56
Object of Study
What we’re looking at in class
Molecular Seduction
By Randall S. Barton September 2017 Reed Magazine
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Letters to Reed Write to us! We love getting mail from readers. Letters should be about Reed (and its alumni) or Reed (and its contents) and run no more than 300 words; subsequent replies may only run half the length of their predecessors. Our decision to print a letter does not imply any endorsement. Letters are subject to editing. (Beware the editor’s hatchet.) For contact information, look to your right. Read more letters and commentary at www.reed.edu/reed_magazine.
Fresh Air and Humanities
There’ve been a lot of letters recently praising the humanities program. My experience with it in 1959 was not so pleasant. Much of the reason for my displeasure was the subjects we were studying. But the main reason humanities was unpleasant for me was the smoking. It seemed like everyone smoked in the class, including the professor. They tried to accommodate me by seating me next to an open window, but this only put me in the line of fire as the smoke streamed toward the outside world. Aside from the smoking, it turned out that school wasn’t really for me. When I found out biology was nothing like my passion for collecting butterflies, I switched majors to math, thinking that, since my father was a mathematician, I should be able to do it. I was wrong. But at least at Reed I started to find out what I did like: physical things. I spent more time in the gym than I did on my studies, eventually dropping out in my junior year. After postal work, modeling, cab driving, construction work, martial-art teaching, land-use activism, and a first marriage, I’m now happily retired from paid work, in a second marriage at 7,000 feet in the mountains of Colorado. Life is good. It was hard back in 1962 when I could only see an abyss outside of school, having been in it all my life. But by following my interests after I left Reed, one thing led to another and I soon realized I would never return to school. The bottom line is, I don’t regret my time at Reed. I’m happy with where my life is now and I’m sure Reed played a big part in getting me here. Unhappy students should just be taught that there is life after school, that there is more to life than scholasticism, and that to discover it they have to conquer their fear of the unknown and jump in. Steve Doob ’63 Durango, Colorado
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I found Hum 110 to be a profound course, the best I ever had in all my years of schooling. Together, Hum 110 and Hum 210 gave me a sense of community, of shared ideas, with my classmates of all years as I went through Reed. The ideas and content enriched me professionally as well as personally, even contributing directly to my lectures in introductory psychology. I am deeply grateful to the syllabus, the teachers, and the other students, who together made it a powerful experience. William Roberts ’69 Kamloops, British Columbia
More Calligraphy
The reason that Prof. Lloyd Reynolds [English and art, 1929–69] appears often in Reed Magazine is the result of the memorable experience so many Reed students had when they studied with him. Georgianna Greenwood ’60 was responsible for soliciting letters about students’ experience in studying with Lloyd, and
Acropolis most afternoons, I found him to be someone who both saw and felt the same physical response to beauty, both classical and contemporary, that sensitive humans have been expressing since we started out. He shook sometimes with responsiveness when he brought up slides of ancient work, and called on us to LOOK, to FEEL, to train our eye and require beauty in our lives. Calligraphy is just one of the ways we add a heightened sensibility to otherwise mundane activities. As a potter of both functional and purely sculptural work, I constantly think about the things he taught me having to do with legibility (usefulness), elegance of a curve, flow, proportion, simplicity, and the question of whether something that we use in everyday life can actually become pleasurable when the question of beauty becomes part of the process. We employ the same search for aesthetic pleasure in architecture, design of the tools we use, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive,
“It’s not about calligraphy or Professor Reynolds.” —Elizabeth Donnally Davidson ’70 putting together an exhibition in which these letters were shown at a recent reunion. Reading these letters gave a powerful, comprehensive picture of his charisma and magnificent expertise as a teacher. Very revealing! He inspired many students in many ways. Among other things, he was willing to talk about the Big Questions in the context of practical actions such as writing poetry and making letters. He was one of those teachers who could change people’s lives through his teaching. He changed mine. And he always encouraged his students to become teachers. I have followed his advice. I strongly support Anita Bigelow ’67’s recommendation that the appropriate response to this silly letter from Lawrence Butcher is to make a contribution to the calligraphy initiative now going on at Reed under the enlightened guidance of Stephanie Snyder ‘91 and Greg MacNaughton ’89. Sumner Stone ’67 Guinda, California I was so fortunate to study both art history and calligraphy with Prof. Reynolds in the late ’60s. Having spent my high school years in Athens, Greece, doing my homework on the
the books we read, the smartphones we use, etc.—all having to do with the useful. Those things could just exist in a purely functional state with no thought for beauty, but we would be wildly diminished as a culture for it, and probably less happy. The beautiful writing gets read more, whether it’s on the handwritten page or designed for digital use. We are proud to have among our ranks such type designers and calligraphers as Sumner Stone ’67, Chuck Bigelow ’67, Kris Holmes ’72, Anita Bigelow ’67, Donald Day ’68, Willard McCarty ’70, Michael McPherson ’68, and a whole generation of people who made things we do everyday more enjoyable and useful, all students of Professor Reynolds. Mr. Butcher’s disdain for calligraphy as being of “utter lack of value to society” is one of the most unexamined ideas I’ve ever heard from a fellow Reed student. It’s not about calligraphy, or about Professor Reynolds. His question is really about whether we (and I include all animals) need anything useful to be beautiful. The robin might just as well squeak tonelessly a “Get over here” to a potential mate (imagine a life without the song of the robin). If Mr. Butcher even looks at his image in the mirror as he
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www.reed.edu/reed_magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 96, No.3 MAGAZINE editor
Chris Lydgate ’90 503/777-7596 chris.lydgate@reed.edu class notes editor
Katie Pelletier ’03 503/517-7727 pelletic@reed.edu In Memoriam editor
Randall S. Barton 503/517-5544 bartonr@reed.edu art director
Tom Humphrey 503/459-4632 tom.humphrey@reed.edu REED COLLEGE RELATIONS vice president, college relations
Hugh Porter director, communications & public affairs
Mandy Heaton
Please accept my response to Lawrence Butcher’s letter of March 2017. The satire is refreshing, but the lack of the letter J and the concomitant failure to achieve a pangram are regretted. —Colin Smith ’86, Corvallis, Oregon
heads out the door he is belying his own protest about things looking better than simply basic with no thought for aesthetics. Elizabeth Donnally Davidson ‘70 Bainbridge Island, Washington One further note on Lawrence Butcher’s assessment of the “utter lack of value to society” of calligraphy, the celebrated Lloyd Reynolds speciality: The virtue of calligraphy, unlike most arts, is that its elements are clear and accessible. Reynolds was a genius at demonstrating how the elements of calligraphy work. He stood at the blackboard, and with a short piece of chalk held on edge executed rigorous Roman and italic forms such that the whole text body—the letters, the shapes between the letters, the whole words and the shapes between the words and
lines—formed a taut, abstract whole: a work of expressive art. Not everyone can do it convincingly, as we quickly found out when we attempted it ourselves with broad pens on paper. But the logic, at least, was accessible to any attentive person, and the fascination of it was palpable. In those days, upcoming events were advertised on large, calligraphed posters hung in commons. Enough students had taken Reynolds’s class that practically every table bubbled with knowledgeable critiques of each new offering. Those posters were a rich, shared aesthetic experience, constantly renewed: highly valuable to the society of Reed. Stan Washburn ’66 Berkeley, California
Reed College is an institution of higher education in the liberal arts and sciences devoted to the intrinsic value of intellectual pursuit and governed by the highest standards of scholarly practice, critical thought, and creativity. Reed Magazine provides news of interest to the Reed community. Views expressed in the magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent officers, trustees, faculty, alumni, students, administrators, or anyone else at Reed, all of whom are eminently capable of articulating their own beliefs. Reed Magazine (ISSN 0895-8564) is published quarterly by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College. Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to Reed Magazine, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., Portland OR 97202-8138.
More letters online at reed.edu/reed_magazine
september 2017 Reed Magazine
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Eliot Circular news from campus
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Reed Magazine september 2017
Trapping Chaos in a Jar Hovering between two electrically charged spheres, the microscopic ball zigs and zags with giddy abandon, dashing hither and yon in seemingly random motion. To physics major Edgar Perez ’17, however, this intricate dance represents something beautiful—chaos, captured in a jar. The jar is actually a monopole ion trap, and he is the first researcher to show that it can generate chaotic behavior, which he demonstrated in a series of experiments for his senior thesis. “I’m very, very happy,” says Edgar, who won the Class of ’21 Award, recognizing “creative work of notable character, involving an unusual degree of initiative and spontaneity.” Contrary to what you might think, chaos is not the same as randomness. In chaotic systems, simple, nonlinear forces give rise to monstrously complex behavior— behavior so complex that it becomes impossible to predict. Furthermore, tiny fluctuations in one part of the system can lead to massive changes
in another, a phenomenon known as the butterfly effect. The weather is one example of a chaotic system; the stock market another. However, chaos is not disorder. Instead, Edgar calls it “overwhelmingly intricate.” Pioneered by French mathematician Henri Poincaré, the theory of chaos has deep philosophical and practical implications. In the 19th century, physicists believed that a universe governed by physical laws was fundamentally predictable. But the existence of chaos implies that the universe can be at once deterministic and unpredictable. For his thesis, Edgar designed his own trap, which consists of two charged surfaces— a spherical rod and a bowl. Between the surfaces, he placed an electrically charged polyethylene ball, just 50 microns in diameter, roughly the width of a human hair. Electricity repels the ball, so by varying the charge on the two surfaces, he could push and pull it back and forth. He calculated the right charges to make the ball oscillate in midair, and learned that
by tweaking alternating voltage he could make it zigzag like a fruit fly buzzing around a bottle. All through the spring, he finetuned his experiment, using a highspeed camera (shooting 12,000 frames per second) and applying sophisticated mathematical tests to determine whether the motion was indeed chaotic. The crucial moment arrived one night in April. “The graphs popped up, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it worked!’ I couldn’t really move for a few moments. I was too excited.” A first-generation student from California, Edgar chose Reed because of its focus on the life of the mind. “I realized that money comes and goes,” he says. “The only real security you can have comes from knowledge.” Next stop: the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the lab of Ian Coddington ’98. After that he’ll pursue a PhD at the University of Michigan. —CHRIS LYDGATE ’90
photo by tom humphrey
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THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME. Prof.Derek Applewhite [right] won an NSF grant to study mechanisms of morphogenesis.
Shape-shifting Cells, Zebrafish Eyes, and Silly Putty
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The National Science Foundation made three big grants to Reed professors this spring; here is a peak at what they are working on.
beginning the process of forging the tubular formations that become spinal cords and gastrointestinal tracts.
encouraged to generate all the different types of neurons required for us to perceive our surroundings.”
CELLULAR SHAPE-SHIFTERS The way an organism takes shape—known as morphogenesis—remains one of the central puzzles of biology. Prof. Derek Applewhite [biology 2014–] and Prof. Anna Ritz [biology 2015–] won a $589,000 grant from the NSF to lead a project investigating the mysterious signalling system that turns a blob of cytoplasm into a stomach or a spinal cord. The Reed project will focus on nonmuscle myosin II (NMII), a key protein that governs the shape of a cell. The researchers are seeking to better understand the sophisticated chain of command that switches NMII off and on. This chain begins with the architectural blueprints encoded in a cell’s DNA and ultimately generates the microscopic filaments that change the cell’s shape. For example, NMII triggers a process known as apical constriction, which turns round cells into wedge-shaped cells,
EYE OF THE ZEBRAFISH Prof. Kara Cerveny [biology 2012–] won $429,000 from the NSF to advance her research on cell behavior inside the eye of the zebrafish. Prof. Cerveny’s research will focus on understanding the specific mecha-
STRETCHING A SILLY-PUTTY WORLD Imagine an elastic, rubbery world where baseballs can be stretched into spaghetti and coffee cups squeezed into wedding rings. Where our familiar intuitions about shapes, points, and proximity are given rigorous mathematical definitions—and then turned inside out, distorted into an alien universe of dazzling symmetries and dark infinities. Welcome to homotopy theory, a peculiar domain where mathematicians use the relatively well-established tools of algebra to peek inside the fantastic terrain of topology. Prof Kyle Ormsby [math 2014–] and Prof. Angélica Osorno [math 2013–] won an NSF grant of $368,000 to explore the emergent field of homotopy (pronounced HOME-uh-topy), which is populated by strange mathematical entities such as Hopf fibrations, Burnside rings, and infinite loop space machines. —ANNA MANN
Reed Magazine september 2017
“ We understand a lot about it—but there’s so much that we don’t know.” —Prof. Anna Ritz nisms employed within the retina that govern growth, tissue size, and composition. “I’m fascinated by the development of the nervous system,” she says. “One of the things I hope to discover is how at precise times and in specific locations, seemingly identical embryonic cells are
Reedies give $4.6M to Annual Fund Alumni, parents, and friends of Reed engaged in a flurry of passionate philanthropic support in the 2016–17 fiscal year, giving a record-breaking $4.638 million to the Annual Fund to support the challenging, rigorous, and transformative education that Reed provides. Altogether, some 4,293 alumni made gifts to Reed, including 2,839 members of the Loyal Owl Society (for alumni who give for three years in a row). To inspire a strong finish, a challenge match was sponsored by trustee Deborah Kamali ’85 and Kevan Shokat ’86, trustee Konrad Alt ’81, and parents Steven and Diane Marrow. In addition to giving to the Annual Fund, many alumni, parents, and friends were moved to create a scholarship in memory of Taliesin Namkai-Meche ’16 (see In Memoriam, page 47). Gifts to the scholarship have now topped $120,000 from 289 donors, including professors, classmates, parents, friends, strangers who read about his heroism, work colleagues, and Taliesin’s employer, the Cadmus Group. We honor the many reasons for giving to Reed and extend our thanks to all those who support this community of scholars.
Reed Launches Neuroscience Major This fall, Reed will offer a major in neuroscience, making it the first college in Portland to provide undergrads with a full immersion in this dynamic field and one of very few in the Pacific Northwest. Neuroscience is sometimes considered a specialized area, better pursued by graduate students at big R1 research institutions. But recent developments in technology have put powerful research
departments, and responds to growing student interest in this important area.” Reed has offered advanced courses and rigorous training in neuroscience for many years. But until now, students never had the opportunity to form a cohesive cohort and major in the field. “We’re really excited,” says Prof. Paul Currie [psychology 2007–], one of the driving forces behind the initiative.
“The neuroscience major harnesses existing strengths to everyone’s benefit. ” —Prof. Nigel Nicholson tools within the reach of undergraduate colleges. At the same time, researchers are coming to understand that success in the field requires skills that are the hallmark of a liberal-arts education: critical thinking, creativity, and teamwork. “The neuroscience major harnesses existing strengths to everyone’s benefit,” says Prof. Nigel Nicholson [classics 1995–], dean of the faculty. “It recognizes the innovative work being done in the field by Reed faculty members in the biology and psychology departments, builds on the excellent working relationship between the two
The new major boasts an imposing set of requirements. Students will take at least five units in biology, five in psychology, two in math, two in chemistry, and two more in either chemistry or physics. They also have to pass a junior qual in both biology and psychology, write a senior thesis, and complete all the other coursework required of Reed students. For more details—including innovative student research and prominent Reed neuroscientists—check out our website. —CHRIS LYDGATE ’90
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Eliot Circular Quintessential Hard Heart
Not only does she climb mountains, Environmental studies–biology major Tiffany Thio ’19 has won the 2017 Mary Barnard Academy of American Poets Prize Contest for her poem “quintessential hard heart.” A science and outdoor enthusiast, Tiffany takes inspiration from the natural world. She wrote her winning poem during a trip for Reed’s outdoor program. On the road to Sisters, Oregon, she passed by the same river where she had paddled her first Class III rapid in a kayak. “It was kind of bizarre to see flat water and a huge concrete wall in a river that’s flipped
my boat so many times! Thinking about the numerous ways in which dams affect riparian habitats and surrounding watersheds is fascinating and quite saddening. Water has always thrilled me, and I love to raft, swim, surf, and kayak—it makes its way into a lot of my writing.” Sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, the contest is endowed in honor of poet and translator Mary Barnard ’32. This year’s judge was Endi Bogue Hartigan ’92, author of Pool [5 choruses] and One Sun Storm.
Tenure Times Six! Congratulations to the six professors who were granted tenure by the board of trustees this past year. Their expertise ranges from epistemology to stage design, they teach courses from Hum 110 to American foreign policy, and they work closely with students in labs like the LoL (Lab of Linguistics) and SCALP (Sensation, Cognition, Attention, Language, and Perception Lab).
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Quintessential Hard Heart my mom built her life on a 45º angle. she says god promised to save lives like hers from the tumble of gravity and my brother says, y’know, after 2000 years of silence maybe his priorities have changed. i wake cold under an open window and wonder if god will ever hear me. after 19 years my tongue can dance the language of prayer as well as any; i still stand in rivers waiting for a reply. once we drove the van way up to where the santiam quieted to a whisper between the trees. my avalanche of water backed by concrete and metal, so demure i swallowed the stars and tromped out to wake god from playing dead. better people than me have tried and none have screamed so damn loud but the wall kept rising and the stones i threw fell to the riverbed and there was nothing left to do but go home
—KATIE PELLETIER ’03
Prof. Kara Becker [linguistics 2010–] studies regional and social varieties of American English. Prof. Troy Cross [philosophy 2010–] explores questions of knowledge and reality. Prof. Joshua Howe [history and environmental studies 2012–] teaches courses in environmental history, the history of science, and American foreign policy.
—TIFFANY THIO
Prof. Peter Ksander [theatre 2011–] is a stage designer and theatre artist. Prof. Michael Pitts [psychology 2011–] is researching brain activity during conscious and unconscious processing. Prof. Kristin Scheible [religion 2014–] studies South Asian religions. Stay tuned for in-depth profiles.
New Initiative Helps Students Work for Social Justice Studying tribal sovereignty among the Northern Cheyenne. The symbology of Afrofuturist art. Providing access to health care in Tanzania. These are just a few of the projects that Reed students undertook over the summer thanks to the Social Justice Research and Education Fund, a new initiative sponsored by Reed’s Office for Institutional Diversity and the Center for Life Beyond Reed. The fund was made possible by generous donations from Kathy and Alex Martinez ’73 and the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation, and came in response to demands from Reedies Against Racism, a student group that seeks to make Reed a more inclusive and welcoming environment for people of color. The fund supports any type of summer internship opportunity on or off campus: students can work on projects guided by faculty or staff or work off campus in a public-sector, private-sector, nonprofit, or other unpaid internship. The fund encourages applications from students from historically underrepresented or marginalized identities or backgrounds. “This is a truly wonderful opportunity for our students,” says President John R. Kroger. “Reedies have always been passionate about changing the world. Now they can get some hands-on experience actually doing that. I’m extremely grateful to Alex and Kathy and the Dougherty Foundation for making this possible.” Some projects supported by the fund: • Daliyah Tang ’18 and Prof. miishen Carpentier [anthro] researched federal Indian policy at the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. • Bio–psych major Crystal McCullough ’19 did an internship with Planned Parenthood and MedLife to deliver health services and knowledge to communities in Portland and Tanzania.
GROW A REEDIE— HOST A WINTER SHADOW. The Center for Life Beyond Reed is seeking alumni and parents to host a Reedie (or two) in their home for the 6th Annual Reed College Winter Shadows Program. We are looking for alumni and parents in all major cities who can welcome a student house guest for 2 to 10 days between January 2–13, 2018. More than 100 Reedies traveled to job shadows in 42 cities and 5 countries in January 2017. Having the opportunity to learn about a career path of interest and observe the workplace environment is invaluable. When you provide housing, you make the Winter Shadows program accessible to a wider range of students by helping to defray costs. Contact Brooke Hunter, Assistant Director, Employer Relations & Strategic Partnerships, Center for Life Beyond Reed: hunterb@reed.edu.
• Prof. Kris Cohen [art history] and comp lit major Jeri Brand ’19 did a research project on the symbology of Afrofuturist visual art and film. Other projects ranged from reducing food insecurity among Reed students to developing a user-friendly coding environment designed for at-risk urban youth.
september 2017 Reed Magazine
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Advocates of the Griffin News of the Alumni Association • Connecting Reed alumni across the globe
REUNIONS 2017 From sing-alongs with s’mores to the Singing Loudly Unto Reed (SLUR) gig, many voices were raised in festive tune and animated conversation during Reunions ’17! Check out the class photos and candid highlights at reunions.reed.edu/.
Lisa Saldana ’94
Beverly Lau ’06, Ph.D.
President
Vice President
lisas@oslc.org
beverly@alumni.reed.edu
Major: Psychology
Major: Physics
Based in: Eugene, Oregon
Based in: San Francisco, California
Field: Research
Field: Software engineering / Fintech
What I’m reading: Inside of a Dog by Alexandra Horowitz.
What I’m reading: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore.
Desired superpower: To expand time.
Meet Your Alumni Board The alumni board (officially the Reed College Alumni Association Board of Directors) is Reed’s national board of directors whose purpose is to work in partnership with the college to direct the alumni association’s goals, programs, and services and represent the alumni in the broader Reed College community. They are all volunteers!
Actual superpower: Dog whisperer. Pet peeve: Bacon added to vegetarian dishes. Favorite villain: Gollum. Best thing about Reed: Learning for the sake of learning with peers who challenge you further.
Desired superpower: The power to switch around to different superpowers. Actual superpower: I grew a pineapple in Chicago. Also, I can subsist on five to six hours of sleep. Pet peeves: Microwaves that are stopped with a few seconds left on them. Best thing about Reed: Reedies.
The board is composed of several subclans: • The executive committee (profiled here) make the weighty decisions. • The alumni trustees (also profiled here) represent alumni on the board of trustees. • The chapter representatives are drawn from local chapters in Portland, the Bay Area, Chicago, and other Reedie habitats. • The at-large members are destined for future glory. The board also maintains several committees, such as the Reed Career Alliance, the outreach committee, reunions committee, and so on. Find out more (and join us) at alumni.reed.edu. Look for more profiles in upcoming issues.
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Jinyoung Park ’11
Richard Roher ’79
Secretary
Immediate Past President
jinyoung@alumni.reed.edu
rich@ppf-ceos.com
Major: Linguistics
Major: English literature
Based in: New Orleans, Lousiana
Based in: White Plains, New York
Field: Tech
Field: Corporate communications
What I’m reading: The Vegetarian by Han Kang.
What I’m reading: Why You Love Music by John Powell.
Desired superpower: Teleportation.
Desired superpower: Flying.
Actual superpower: Organization.
Actual superpower: Problem solving.
Pet peeves: Too many notifications on a phone.
Pet peeves: People who don’t use their turn signals.
Favorite villain: Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones.
Favorite villain: Captain Hook. He inspired fear and nightmares.
Best thing about Reed: The people.
Best thing about Reed: The freedom from social pressure.
Mo Copeland ’82
Dylan Rivera ’95
Alumni Trustee
Alumni Trustee
copelandm@oes.edu
dylan_rivera@yahoo.com
Major: Physics
Major: Political science
Based in: Portland
Based in: Portland
Field: Education
Field: Communications
What I’m reading: The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.
What I’m reading: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath & Dan Heath.
Desired superpower: Flying.
Desired superpower: Super speed. To get ahead of the villains!
Actual superpower: Patience. Pet peeves: Gum chewing. Favorite villain: The Joker from Batman. Best thing about Reed: The high academic expectations and the camaraderie and support from friends and teachers.
Actual superpower: I can be interviewed in front of TV cameras at a moment’s notice. Pet peeves: People who drive too slow in the fast lane. Favorite villain: The Joker, as played by Jack Nicholson. Best thing about Reed: Everyone was so intense and passionate about what they were studying.
CONNECT WITH REED! COME TO AN EVENT.
Check out the alumni section at events.reed.edu
VOLUNTEER.
Captain Scott E. Foster ’77, msc, usn (ret) Alumni Trustee scott@stillwatercove.net
Jay Hubert ’66 Alumni Trustee jayhubert@comcast.net Major: Physics
Major: Biology
Based in: San Rafael, California
Based in: Jenner, California
Field: Energy research and technology
Field: Military and public agency health care administration.
What I’m reading: The Monkey’s Wrench by Primo Levi.
What I’m reading: News of the World by Paulette Jiles
Desired superpower: The ability to heal, especially addiction and mental illness.
Desired superpower: The ability to fly to and from the hardware store.
Actual superpower: Focus.
Actual superpower: The ability to change minds.
Pet peeves: Obliviously standing in a doorway.
Pet peeves: Bad manners.
Favorite villain: Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs.
Favorite villain: Vincent Vega, John Travolta’s character in Pulp Fiction.
Best thing about Reed: Teaching first principles.
Mentor a student. Organize an event. Share your wisdom. Check out alumni.reed.edu/volunteer.
GIVE TO REED.
Make a gift at giving.reed.edu.
STAY IN TOUCH.
Let us know what you’ve been up to! Update your profile in the alumni directory or send us a class note!
alumni.reed.edu 503/777-7589
Best thing about Reed: It makes more Reedies every year.
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What Next?
Senior adviser Charles Daniel points out some opportunities to sociology major Owen Fessant-Eaton ’19.
Imagining and launching a life beyond Reed BY ROMEL HERNANDEZ
Gabrielle Blackman ’17 had a dilemma. She’d arrived at Reed planning on a career as an economist, but now, in her senior year, she’d begun to feel that going for her doctorate wasn’t right for her. It “didn’t play to my strengths.” An economics major, she viewed the world through the eyes of a policy wonk, but she was also fascinated by art and design. If not graduate school, then what? What was next for her? Where should she start? Reed is ranked fourth among undergraduate institutions in the percentage of graduates who go on to earn PhDs—but alumni take many divergent paths once they turn in their senior theses and pick up their diplomas. The great majority of Reedies pursue work outside the academy. This is good news for the vast array of employers who want the skills Reedies possess. Employers put a premium on the research, communication, and analytical skills that are the bread-and-butter of liberal
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arts colleges, especially those with a reputation for rigor and excellence, like Reed. But connecting with employers can be a challenging hurdle for new grads. Fortunately for Gabrielle, she could turn to resources in the Center for Life Beyond Reed (CLBR) for help. There, what she found was very different from a typical career center—and also, for that matter, quite different from the career services center that most alumni might remember. Gabrielle visited for résumé help, but she wound up involved in a much deeper conversation about her interests and passions and the sort of environment in which she wanted to work. She realized she wanted a fast-paced, high-energy environment. “Obviously academics are rigorous here, so [CLBR] helped me to slow down enough to actually think about what sort of job to pursue,” Gabrielle says. “I was able to think creatively about how to incorporate my interests in school and my passions outside school in a job.”
A Whole New Paradigm
CLBR was revamped and rebranded in 2012; its mission was reshaped to engage with students more holistically, in a manner that fit with the ethos of the college. “We want to talk to students about what they really care about,” President John Kroger says, “and try to connect the intellectual passions they cultivate during their time here to successful careers.” Reed hired Alice Harra, who assumed the directorship of the center in 2015. Coming from Northwestern University, where she headed employer recruiting and strategic outreach, Harra’s own mix of higher education and corporate experience as a publishing executive with Prentice Hall and McGrawHill, as well as her work with United Press International and educational outreach work in Kuala Lumpur, gives her a unique perspective that has helped her to continue reshaping the center’s mission. “Most career centers are set up according to the old model, where you have to know what you want to do, but
photos by clayton cotterell
Director of CLBR Alice Harra talks postgraduation plans with Alex Moses ’18.
we didn’t want to start that way at Reed,” Harra says. “We believe if you give students a framework for thinking about their greater purpose, students can take that first step.” At CLBR, experienced advisers come from diverse professional backgrounds—high tech, health care, government. They offer support and resources, whether students are vying for nationally competitive fellowships or internships, applying to professional or graduate schools, or polishing up their résumés to try their luck in the job market. The center serves many of the functions of a typical college career center—helping students with job searching, résumé writing, interviewing. But it is fundamentally much more than that. The center’s advisers encourage students to worry less about job placements or career track, and to think more deeply about where they want to go and what they value. They work with students in an in-depth, individualized way to identify their strengths, focus their ambitions, and develop the strategies to achieve their goals.
“We rarely start by asking them what they want to ‘do’ once they graduate,” Harra says. “Usually they don’t know the answer, and they certainly don’t know what they want to do the rest of their lives. Rather than starting the conversation by looking 10 or 20 years out, we want them to focus on making a successful launch from Reed.” CLBR’s advising model is structured around the concept of “communities of purpose” (see next page.) Each community focuses on a broad idea or problem and the professional fields that address it. For instance, “Education and Human Potential” explores what human beings are capable of. It includes teaching and counseling, of course, but also speech pathology, adaptive technology, and coaching. Using this framework, students can connect their interests and passions to careers as well as unlock paths for exploring professional fields while still at Reed through opportunities like jobs, internships, job shadows, fellowships, and alumni connections. The communities are
“major-agnostic,” Harra notes, so they are not associated with specific majors or disciplines. That approach is “very Reed-like,” Harra says, in that it links intellectual development to professional development in thoughtful, sometimes unexpected, and ultimately pragmatic ways. “Before you know what you want to do, you have to know why.” After working with CLBR, Gabrielle realized she wanted a fast-paced, collaborative environment and wound up landing a “dream” position with at Estée Lauder, where she is now a presidential associate, part of a select group of recent graduates who develop leadership skills by working on strategic business projects.
Don’t Wait Around
A key priority of the center is to engage students during their first and second years on campus, and not just at the end of senior year with graduation looming. Getting that head start means students can take advantage of more opportunities to explore while they’re still in college. That was the thinking behind
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bringing together student fellowships, internships, campus employment, and volunteering opportunities and making them accessible in a web-based, one-stop hub dubbed Griffin Door, administered by CLBR. Ashlee Fox ’19 jumped in with both feet early on. The economics major has yet to start her junior year and has already received fellowships to work in corporate finance in New York; urban development in Milwaukie, Oregon; and travel/food writing in Buenos Aires. This summer Ashlee, a Cherokee Nation citizen, secured a research position with the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development in Cambridge. All those experiences were supported through Reed-funded fellowships, the product of gifts from alumni and friends, that “were there for the taking,” she says, once she walked through the doors of CLBR. “I was able to talk to them about my ideas, hopes, and dreams, and get connected to opportunities,” Ashlee says. “The center helps the most when you’re not exactly sure what you want to do, or when you know what you want to do but don’t know how to get there.” CLBR’s approach is proving successful. A first-destination survey showed that more than nine out of 10 members of the class of 2016 entered jobs, fellowships, or graduate programs within their first six months of graduation. They went to places like the NIH, Apple, Google, High Noon Pictures, AmeriCorps, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. They earned fellowships like the Fulbright, Rhodes, and Sperling, and went to graduate schools including Northwestern University, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and many more.
Fellowship and awards adviser Michelle Johnson consults with linguistics major Ally Watson ’19.
Outreach to students has been the key to success. A Job Fayre in the fall drew 80 students, and 450 signed up for one-onone advising at the center, including a sharp increase in first- and second-year students. Griffin Door has proved popular, with twothirds of students logging into the site for everything from applying for campus jobs to researching fellowships. CLBR enjoys solid support from faculty, who view it as an extension of the college’s mission, says Prof. Nigel Nicholson, dean of the faculty. “Graduation shouldn’t be a moment where you just drop off a cliff,” Prof. Nicholson says. “We want our graduates to be prepared to make the transition from college to whatever comes next. The center does a great job of igniting student imaginations
about how they can make a difference.” “It can be challenging for students to think beyond the college bubble,” says Prof. Rebecca LaLonde ’01 [chemistry 2013–]. “They need to see Reed as one step on a journey.” As someone with both private sector (Dow Chemical) and academic (Stanford, UC Berkeley) experience, Prof. LaLonde sees CLBR as a vital part of the education students receive. “At my very first meeting to advise my first-year students,” she says, “I tell them to go to the center.”
Reed’s Greatest Resource: Alumni
Another top objective for CLBR, in partnership with the college’s Alumni Programs office and the Reed Alumni Association, is expanding outreach to alumni eager to help Reedies
Communities of Purpose A unique, Reed-born framework for helping students think about their purpose—and fields that might fulfill it. See reed.edu/communitiesofpurpose for more.
Arts and Expression
Citizenship and Community Living
Education and Human Potential
Global Connectivity and Diplomacy
The drive to make, build, imagine, and express through any type of creative venture. Makers, builders, writers, performers, and artists, of course, but also organization management and intellectual property rights.
Creating a structure by which people can thrive together. Making laws, keeping a community beautiful, creating democracy, building communities that work for all citizens. Law, urban design, housing, transportation, advocacy, spiritual guidance.
Exploring that which the mind can learn, comprehend, and do at any age. Working with potential and with challenge, imagining what is possible. Teaching, counseling, coaching, speech therapy, adaptive technology, game design.
Understanding issues that impact countries from the broadest view possible and seeing huge challenges from a systemic perspective. Drawing together culture, science, religion to solve fundamental problems. Trade, treaties, economics, geopolitics, communication.
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just starting out. Spread across the globe, Reed alumni occupy key positions in virtually every industry, from farming to pharmaceuticals. The alumni are the success stories the center’s advisers point to when they want to inspire students. Brett Kron ’97 has interviewed dozens of Reedies over his 17 years working for Nike. “They come in and ask, ‘I have a degree in philosophy. What’s next? How do I make money?’” Brett assures them that, while it is important to be able to navigate a spreadsheet and extend a firm handshake, there is much more to making a strong impression as a job candidate. “There’s a certain creative person you get at a place like Reed,” he says. “Someone with an independent spirit and an independent way of thinking, the type who tends to do well at Nike.” The center has fostered a close relationship with Puppet, a fast-growing software firm in downtown Portland founded by Luke Kanies ’96. The college has placed a number of interns at the company, which now employs more than a dozen alumni. Last fall the company hosted a “Reed Women in Tech” networking event for current students. “Reed produces graduates that are so different from typical college graduates with a business or engineering degree in terms of their analytical approach, the quality of their writing, their level of engagement,” says Stephanie Sarff, a technical recruiter for Puppet. “We really value our partnership with [CLBR] because we get to bring on talent with really unique perspectives.” CLBR’s combined outreach efforts includes p opular “ winter shadow ” externships, in which students get to
Healthcare and the Cure of Illness Addressing the multifaceted range of challenges and vulnerabilities of the human body, fixing that which is broken, out of balance, and diseased. Medicine, nursing, midwifery, naturopathy, body work, public health, therapy.
Helping students explore and prepare for life beyond Reed Several generous donors have stepped up to support fellowships and opportunities for Reed students to explore life beyond Reed. Here are some recent examples—for more see reed.edu/reed_awards. Career Advancement Fund: Michael L. Jacobs ’04 and Michael E. Schreiber DCR Opportunity Fund: Robert A. Morris ’65 and Celia Hansen Morris ’64 Siegel Salmon Restoration Internship: Paul M. Siegel ’62 Winter Shadows: Suzanne Bletterman Cassidy ’65 and Christopher N. Visher ’65 Student Opportunity Donors: Jonathan S. Feld ’74 and Shelley Longmuir, Steve and Sharon Gigliotti, Deborah Kamali ’85 and Kevan Shokat ’86, Charles and Jessica Kibel, Daniel Krantz Toffey ’07 and Julia Harter, and John Wise. To help fund student opportunities in career exploration, please contact Gaynor Hills ’85 at hillsg@reed.edu. To hire a Reedie by posting a job on Griffin Door, please contact Brooke Hunter at hunterb@reed.edu.
spend part of their winter breaks shadowing alumni, parents, and employers working in an array of fields spanning 42 cities and five countries. This year participants included an attorney in Seattle, a bilingual teacher in Los Angeles, a dentist in Philadelphia, and an archivist in Cambridge, England. Adam Riggs ’95 conceived one of the first major intersections of alumni and students, a Working Weekend that brought clusters of alumni together with students to introduce them to pathways and opportunities in a wide range of careers. The program enabled students to connect with alumni mentors and explore professional fields and paths. Riggs received the Babson Society Outstanding Volunteer Award in 2016 in honor of his work. Building on the foundation of Working
Investing and Financial Responsibility An interest in the confluence of finance and big data, capital generation, asset creation and management, sustainable and socially responsible investing, commercial gain, and supporting ethical marketplaces.
Weekend, CLBR and Alumni Programs are now developing relationships with a wide range of industry leaders, alumni mentors, and employers. In partnership with the alumni board’s Reed Career Alliance, led by Darlene Pasieczny ’01, these offices are recruiting career coaches for alumni and developing online professional networks to connect Reedies who work in the same industry. With more than 10,000 alumni in the workforce, Reed’s career network is robust, ready, and willing— and growing stronger thanks to Reedies helping Reedies. Vice President Hugh Porter notes, “Who can better articulate the value that a Reed education brings than Reed alumni? We are grateful for generous support in time, advice, and donations to help launch future generations of Reedies.”
Technical Innovation
Sustainable Life on Earth
The desire to advance human capability and knowledge through technology, to profoundly improve, to drive change, invent, find new uses, forge new processes, and to investigate the implications of innovation. Automation, animation, design, storytelling from data.
Caring for the Earth, incubating ideas that create better ways to produce, process, and innovate. Heal that which is set awry by inattention or intent. Alternative energy, green buildings, better batteries, architecture, weather science.
Gene Hunter
Anne Calof ’78 stalks the genetic misprint responsible for the devastating disorder that claimed her daughter BY JOEY RUBIN ’04
18 Reed Magazine september 2017
sean marc lee
Inside the office of Dr. Anne Calof in the Biological Sciences building on the campus of UC Irvine, you would not be blamed for wondering how she keeps anything straight. On the desk, alongside a 27-inch iMac, a second monitor, and a widescreen titanium Apple laptop, there is a pile of papers that, in display, would not seem out of place on the floor of a teenager’s bedroom. Behind those papers, on a bookshelf markedly devoid of books, are more papers, piled, heap-like, willynilly. (The books are high up above the cabinets, half-collapsed in a haphazard line.) With the blinds drawn, the office is workaday and plain; behind where Calof sits, a framed Ansel Adams poster leans, floor level, against a wall, nudged between a file cabinet and the window ledge. It is the only decoration. And perhaps this is the essential detail: there is almost no decoration. Only papers. Books. Equipment. Tools of her research, for which she won (along with her husband and collaborator, Dr. Arthur Lander) the 2016 RARE Champion of Hope in Science award. An award given to honor her pioneering work in identifying the genetic signature of a devastating disease; an award given to scientists dedicated to doggedly pursuing questions about rare genetic diseases; an award which honors a career as focused and systematic as this office isn’t. “It’s just that I’m organizationally challenged,” she says, brushing off the comparison. She looks straight forward as she talks, and leans into the desk, unfazed and undistracted by the environment around her. “My lab doesn’t look like this.” Her energy is a breed of nervous—but not an anxious or insecure nervous. Rather, she seems to vibrate with intensity, the way the engine of a car might as it pushes itself up a steep hill. And Dr.
Anne Calof—mother of a high school–aged daughter, professor of anatomy & neurobiology and developmental & cell biology, researcher in UCI’s Center for Complex Biological Systems, professor of histology for first year medical students, and author and coauthor of a list of significant papers about a rare and little understood genetic syndrome known as Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS)—has shaken her way up quite a few hills. A hospital bed is not necessarily the place a biological researcher would expect to reorient her career. Especially a career focused on basic research (“questions pursued for their own merits,” as she described it in a 2000 essay for Current Biology). Especially if it is the scientist herself in that hospital bed. Yet that’s how it happened for Calof. In 1999, she and her husband were working at UCI, and she was midway through a prominent career pursuing research into growth factor signaling and stem cell regulation—trying to understand the basic biological machinery that manages growth control within the nervous system—when she and her husband learned that they were expecting their first child. Excitement, however, soon turned to concern, when it was discovered that the baby, while seemingly healthy in all detectable ways, was growing far too slowly. Early ultrasounds showed evidence of symmetrical growth retardation— everything was growing, but not fast enough—and no tests existed to determine the cause or effect. Such slow development likely meant something worrisome, but exactly what, no one seemed to know. Meanwhile, Calof began to experience prenatal hypertension and
was put on bed rest. A decision was made to extract a sample for testing, but at only 11 weeks, the sample had to come directly from the placental tissue, in a procedure called chorionic villus sampling. “I sat there with the neonatologist and for a while I was watching the screen,” she says of the ordeal. “But you can’t have any anesthesia. You’ve got this honking big needle and the baby, the embryo, is this big,” she pinches her fingers together until they’re a little more than an inch apart. “I told the doctor, ‘I’m gonna close my eyes too so I don’t get too upset.’ ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do the same.’” At this, she laughs, softly, holding eye contact and looking a bit relieved. “My husband was watching. He’s an MD and even he had to turn away. I looked over at him and he was blue—I was worried he would pass out.” The test, however, was successful—in a way: certain chromosome abnormalities (like Down syndrome) and genetic disorders (like cystic fibrosis) were ruled out. But nothing was ruled in. Then, two months before her baby was due, Calof began to experience preeclampsia. She spent a month in the hospital, where her child—Isabel—was soon born a month early via emergency caesarean section. That day, February 28, 2000, Isabel was whisked away for a full day of surgery: abnormalities in her gastrointestinal system required immediate attention— and she was still under three pounds in weight. “She’d been born with what they call an annular pancreas. It means her pancreas was forming a ring around her stomach. It explained, in a way, her low birth weight. But even after hours and hours of surgery, no one knew what was causing it.” At that time, the majority of
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Gene Hunter genetic syndromes were diagnosed through a rudimentary process: by sight. A geneticist working at the UCI Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Maureen Bocian, used to make rounds through the NICU looking at all the babies in case diagnosis of a genetic disorder was needed. “Isabel was covered in gauze after her surgery,” Calof recounts, “but the minute most of the gauze and tubes were removed from her face, Maureen looked at her and said: ‘She has CdLS.’” Calof lay in bed and her husband sat next to her. They were stunned, and they were frightened. As it became clear that their daughter wasn’t going to leave the NICU, rather than turn inward they turned to their work. At this point in the story, even almost two decades on, tears come to Calof’s eyes. She lets them fall down her nose quietly, wiping
put a book in her hand that changed the course of her life: On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It was a pivotal text for her. “I just completely connected with that book. Completely got into it.” “It was systems biology: thinking through the performance objectives of a system— that’s sort of the way On the Origin of Species takes off. It’s trying to deal with a big problem, and Darwin’s observations lead him to think through that problem. It was pretty revolutionary. At the time I didn’t see it in those terms, necessarily, but I was pulled in.” After dropping out of St. John’s, she moved to Austin, Texas, and got a job working for a motorcycle magazine called Cycle News while she got herself ready for the next thing. She spent a year at University College, Cardiff, as an occasional student, and in the meantime secured admission to both Stanford and Reed. She chose Reed. “It was something about the personal attention that attracted me. It was really important, work-
“Even before she was out of bed, she had started working toward a new, groundbreaking understanding of CdLS.” them away with one hand without fanfare or shame. “That was a bad month,” she says and lets out a sigh. “But both my husband and I are people that want to fix things.” “Arthur immediately got on the phone, right there next to me, and started to make calls.” He got in touch with Dr. Laird Jackson—the “grand old man of CdLS research”—and Jackson sent them a list of other scientists, doctors, foundations, and labs asking questions about CdLS. Isabel lived only 30 days, but by the end of the experience, Anne and her husband had opened up an entirely new avenue of research and collaboration. Even before she was out of bed, she had already started working toward a new, groundbreaking understanding of CdLS. Anne Calof was born in Northern California, but with a father in the Air Force, she had lived in California, Japan, New Mexico, and Texas by the time she was 16. She attended St. John’s College in Santa Fe as a young college freshman, attracted to its intensive Great Books program. It only sustained her for two years, though it did
20 Reed Magazine september 2017
ing that way with professors. I mean, coming from St. John’s, Reed was big. Reed was kind of a big world—a six-fold expansion. It seemed enormous to me.” At Reed, Calof lived what she describes as a “play hard, work hard” lifestyle. She stayed in a big house with a multitude of housemates, and befriended fellow Reedies studying in all disciplines and living a range of alternative lifestyles. There was a lot of compilation tape making, planning for and recovering from house parties, playing cards, and listening to Stevie Wonder and Mozart. “I really had a good time. I made a lot of friends. I stay in touch with a lot of people from that time. I mean, it was the era of all-night parties—the ’70s. But if I hadn’t gone to Reed, I wouldn’t have met such a wide range of people, or learned to listen to Mozart, or met people tuned into interesting things, and by proxy, been tuned into them myself. ” She also stayed tuned in to On the Origin of Species. In her first year at Reed, she took a class in the psychology department with Prof. Dell Rhodes [psychology 1975–2006]. Prof. Rhodes, newly arrived at Reed at the time,
was fresh from a postdoc at UCLA, where she’d worked in “big science” (large-scale research projects funded by government agencies). This style of focus impressed Calof, and Rhodes quickly became one of her most important mentors. She decided to major in psychology as well as biology. Rhodes directed her to the Neurological Sciences Institute in Northwest Portland, which at the time sponsored Reed students seeking to do off-campus research. There, Calof met Dr. William J. Roberts (“Bill”), and they hit it off. He agreed to coadvise her on a project that Rhodes would direct, and to host the research component; they would use his electrophysiology lab, preparing and running the study that would become her thesis: “Adaptation of Cutaneous Sensory Neurons to Autonomic Nervous System Stimulation.” Where Bill facilitated her research, Rhodes, and the Reed psychology department, inspired it. “Dell really pushed me forward by connecting me to the NSI, but also by giving me access to opportunities to present my work, both at Reed and elsewhere. That gave me confidence in what I was doing, in my own thinking and my findings. I was interested in graduate school by about my second conversation with Dell.” After Reed, she followed her passion to graduate studies at UC San Francisco. And it was at UCSF that she met her future husband, Arthur Lander, and from there they both launched themselves into the kind of careers in “basic science” that found them, eventually, with appointments at UCI: he, as the Donald Bren Professor of Developmental and Cell Biology in the School of Biological Sciences, and she as a professor of anatomy & neurobiology in the School of Medicine. “It was because of Dell and Bill that I got interested in neurobiology, which, in those days, was called physiological psychology. From there I got interested in molecular and developmental neurobiology, which is what they brought me out here to do. That’s what I was doing when Isabel—” She pauses here and takes a deep breath. “When I got pregnant with Isabel.” It took Isabel’s birth—and her abrupt death—to change that. And to change not only her research interests, but her perspective on the role of scientific research in the world, and in her world, more profoundly. CdLS is a multisystem birth defects syndrome that affects one in 10,000 children. For those
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individuals born with CdLS, symptoms can be quite severe and usually have a profound impact on quality of life. According to the CdLS Foundation—a research, family support, education, and advocacy group (which Calof has worked with extensively, currently serving on the Clinical Advisory Board and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the international foundation)—people with CdLS can experience a wide range of severe medical issues including gastroesophageal reflux disease, heart defects, seizures, feeding difficulties, vision problems, and hearing problems. Likewise, it’s not uncommon for those with the syndrome to present with limb differences, as well as cognitive and behavioral issues and growth delays. When Calof and her husband began to work on CdLS, they joined a small team of researchers who had solid knowledge of the characteristics of the syndrome—one being the classic array of facial features that Dr. Bocian had noticed that day—and some guidance on how to help those with the disorder live with it, but little understanding of its genetic basis. Through Dr. Jackson, they found their way to a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia working to map the genetic mutation responsible for CdLS, Dr. Ian Krantz. With Krantz, they spent four years mapping CdLS. They donated Isabel’s blood to the project, as well as countless hours of mentoring, conversation, guidance, and debate. Finally, Krantz and his associates, along with Calof, her husband, and one of her postdocs, published the findings in Nature Genetics in 2004: they had identified the gene, named it NIPBL (Nipped-B-like gene), and found evidence that it could influence a wide range of fetal and adult tissue present in those with CdLS. It was a breakthrough for CdLS—but so was it also for an understanding of how far-ranging gene effects can be in syndromes like CdLS, and how thoroughly influential in organ system development a single genetic “typo” can be. For Calof, it was just the beginning. With the knowledge created in their initial CdLS gene mapping study, she and her colleagues, students, and graduate assistants continued to seek a deeper understanding of the disease. In her lab at UCI, she and her collaborators created mouse and zebrafish CdLS models by using molecular genetic tools to create NIPBL-deficient animals. She and her collaborators have spent over a decade analyzing the models to better understand the genomic, molecular, and cellular effects of
Anne Calof ’78 (right) and her husband Arthur Lander (top left) discuss their research on the Nipbl gene with colleagues at National Taiwan University in Taipei.
NIPBL deficiency, (the most common cause of CdLS) on fetal development. Since that initial paper, they have published findings related to the NIPBL’s effect on gene expression and synergistic gene action in growth control, adipose tissue development, congenital heart disease, gastrointestinal development, limb defects, limb development, and more. These are all highly impactful findings for those living with CdLS and those who will be born with it in the future. But so are they also for those undertaking corollary studies related to other genetic syndromes. Today, her research continues to follow the path inspired by Isabel’s birth, diagnosis, and short life: she maintains a focus on understanding CdLS through a modeling and systems biology approach, a renewed focus on developmental genetics and growth control in the nervous system, and a brand new focus she’s never embarked upon before: therapeutics. “It’s humbling,” she says, shrugging. “It’s really hard. I have a newfound respect for people who perform good translational research to develop new drug treatments. It’s extremely difficult to determine efficacy.” In her 2000 Current Biology article, “Long Odds,” Calof wrote about the shift triggered by Isabel’s diagnosis: “I used to think that basic research was somehow better than applied research, but now I’ve changed my mind,” she wrote. “Now it seems entirely worthwhile to focus one’s scientific curiosity on problems whose solutions will have a direct impact on our lives and the lives of our children.” She echoes that sentiment today. Outside
her office, she makes a beeline for her car—an ancient, faded Honda Civic. “This is my nemesis,” she says patting the driver-side door. “I’m surrounded by people who drive big SUVs, but this thing punches. It really does.” She opens the door and looks back at the biological sciences building she’s just left. In 10 days she’ll be heading to Taiwan for a summer of research and child raising. “You know that award I got last year?” she says, suddenly reenergized, refocused on what she’s spent the last hour discussing. “Well, it came out of the blue; I don’t know what happened. But when I was there, accepting the award, this woman came up to me and she said, ‘Are you Anne Calof?’ I nodded. She said, ‘I flew here from New York to meet you. I have a son who has CdLS, and I wanted to talk to you and I wasn’t sure if you’d be willing.’ I was blown away. Of course I was willing! So we spoke, and we were able to hook her up with the foundation, with doctors. Look, to me, that is the true achievement. People are always patting you on the back for the time you put in. But that somebody actually read what I’d written, and thought that I could help them, and came to me, and I was able to give them some useful information? Most scientists don’t get that privilege. It’s huge.” She laughs, opens the car door and turns the ignition. As the old car makes its way onto the road and up a nearby hill, it begins to shake just a bit. But, knowing that Calof is driving, there is no doubt that it will get where it’s going.
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What Is a Reedie, Anyway? BY RANDALL S. BARTON | PHOTOS BY CLAYTON COTTERELL
They make a science of the art of learning, deconstructing Bauhaus, uncovering the truth in mathematics, or pondering why folks in the Pacific Northwest identify with salmon. A dozen members of the class of ’17 share what they loved about Reed, how it changed them, and concepts that rocked their boats.
Ricardo Rojas-Echenique Hometown: Portland, Oregon Adviser: Prof. John Lind ’06
[mathematics 2016–]
Thesis: “The Dress Map over Local Fields” What it’s about: The Dress map is a function taking separable field extensions to their trace forms. I’m trying to give a generating set of relations for the kernel of this map in the case where the base field is p-adic.
Favorite class: Number Theory
was my favorite class in terms of personal growth, but in terms of actual material, that would be Galois theory with Prof. Irena Swanson ’87 [mathematics 2005–].
to make a really abstract thing slightly more concrete.
Cool stuff: I played in a ’90s-inspired rock band called Dog Thieves, studied abroad at the Budapest Semester in Mathematics, went to the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, had a lot of fun working in the math tutoring center, and worked for the Conservation Corps making trails.
Who I was when I got to Reed:
How Reed changed me:
I played bass in a high school band called Murray—after Bill Murray—and spent a lot of time thinking about questions I didn’t have the tools or experience to answer.
Reed taught me to think more carefully and how to express good intuition clearly. I also got a lot clearer picture of what I valued.
What it’s really about: Trying
A concept that blew my mind:
Math is about finding new truths. Starting from simple axioms, a whole world of meaningful and often surprising ideas can be discovered and proven unequivocally. Even more mind blowing, it often happens in math that when a new theorem is conjectured, the mathematical technology ultimately used to prove the theorem takes decades or even centuries to develop!
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M AT H E M AT I C S
What’s next: Studying math at
Paris 13 University on a master’s fellowship, then a PhD in math or computer science.
Word to prospies: If you have the passion, Reed professors are definitely going to help you out. Financial aid and awards:
A bunch of financial aid, including the Victor and Edna Chittick Scholarship, made going to Reed possible. I was also an NSF STEM Scholar.
Florence Randari Hometown: Kitui, Kenya Adviser: Prof. Denise Hare
[economics 1992–]
Thesis: “Financial Inclusion Gender Gap: A Case Study of Tanzania” What it’s about: My thesis
looks at the financial inclusion gender gap in Tanzania, investigating whether being a woman makes your probability of getting an account in a formal financial institution lower, and recommending policy changes that can help close this gender gap. Microfinance firms loan to people not served by formal markets at really high interest rates (sometimes as high as 96%).
What it’s really about:
In Tanzania, fewer women than men have bank accounts, and policy makers should work on removing the barriers that exclude women. Who I was when I got to Reed:
When I got to Reed I was ready to succeed, but I missed the constant support and inspiration of my family. I had to learn to be my own person, make decisions, and stick by them. Influential book: Poor Economics
by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo looks at specific problems that come with being poor and offers practical solutions on how to fight global poverty.
Favorite class: Development
economics with Prof. Denise Hare introduced me to the concept of experimental economics. I never knew that economists could actually go into the lab and perform experiments that would provide insights on how to solve different problems.
ECONOMICS
Cool stuff: I was one of the first people to do the Software Design Studio at Reed, which was so awesome. I was a housing adviser, was on the international student advisory board, and got a President’s Summer Fellowship to study in Tanzania, working as a loan offer in a microfinance company. How Reed changed me:
Economics opened my eyes and taught me to identify a problem and then propose ways to solve it. What’s next: I am currently
interning as a business analyst with Mercy Corps here in Portland.
Word to prospies: At Reed, the academics are really challenging and the professors keep pushing you. They’ll give you problem sets or papers to write that are not even directly from the book. “How am I supposed to answer this?” you wonder. You begin to connect different things and you’re like, “Oh, wow, this is working out!” You realize there is not just one answer for a problem. The professors are really encouraging and they look for ways of making your life awesome. Financial aid: I got this education from Reed College on a scholarship and have developed ideas that can impact my country when I return to Kenya. In Reedies 4 Reedies, we raise scholarship money for an incoming student by asking current students to donate. Our mission is to engage people in philanthropy. If you want to change the world, it’s important to contribute.
Florence is wearing a traditional dress from her home country of Kenya.
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Ashlin Hatch Hometown: Arroyo Grande,
California
Advisers: Profs. Elliot Leffler [theatre 2014–] and Catherine Witt [French 2005–] Thesis: “This Must Be the Place: Devising as a Device for Fostering and Fracturing Folklore” What it’s about: During the 1972 Spring Crisis at Reed, students became really angry upon hearing the news of Nixon escalating the Vietnam War. Critical of the way our institution encouraged people to be a part of systems that were oppressive, they decided to occupy Eliot Hall. For my thesis, I interviewed Reed alumni, spent a lot of time in the archives, and set about making a show in a deeply communal and collaborative way. Collaborative theatre making allows communities to confront the nature of their folklore. [Ashlin won the Class of ’21 Award for her thesis.]
Initially being at Reed was very scary for me, because everyone around me seemed to Really Have It Together. I applied for senate secretary, got it, and was suddenly friends with all these people who were able to say things so eloquently, and clearly had their finger on the pulse of what’s going on. It was cool to be around them, but also I felt like, “This is unrealizable, the level to which they’ve ascended.” But after working on some really hard issues about community governance, I realized we’re all learning, we’re all in college. Nobody knows everything—if they did they wouldn’t need to be here! Favorite class: My favorite thing
about Reed classes is how they both support one another and call each other into question. It makes it feel like I’m putting together some cool, very personalized, very big puzzle.
What it’s really about:
The relationship between storytelling and social progress.
How Reed changed me:
excitement, but a far smaller set of tools with which to mold that excitement into something meaningful.
Influential book: Suzan-Lori
24
Obstacles I have overcome:
Outside the classroom: I was a senator, was student body president, cofounded a small theatre group called Theatre of the Well-Dressed, and worked in New York as a summer intern with NPR on Ask Me Another.
Who I was when I got to Reed: A person with a lot of
Ashlin's sign was part of a parade created by her puppetry class, inspired by activist ensemble Bread and Puppet Theater, which in times of political turmoil encourages "resistance of the heart against business as usual."
LITERATURE/THEATRE
Parks’ The America Play and the essays attached to it are structurally wild, and probably worth reading about a million times over, because even though the printed text stays exactly the same, their context is always changing.
I’ve been exposed to ideas and ways of thinking that I didn’t even have on my radar as available ways to interact with the world. What’s next: I will be cocreating
and directing a new piece of devised theatre, focused on the small town where I grew up. It will be made up of interviews and archival text; the aim is to open up an inclusive and accessible space for dialogue about the social issues that our town has a tendency to sweep under the rug.
Vikram Chan-Herur Hometown: San Francisco,
California
Adviser: Prof. Jay Mellies [biology
1999–]
Thesis: “Effects of PerC Regulation and Membrane Vesicles of Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli on a Proinflammatory Response” What it’s about:
Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) is a deadly strain of E. coli that causes diarrhea in children in developing countries. For my thesis, I look at the host side: what happens to the human when the bacterium shows up and what immune response does it have? EPEC injects proteins into the cells of the gut lining to evade the immune system so they can colonize the gut. It also produces outer membrane vesicles, which, in other bacteria, have been seen to assist in evasion of and in detection by the immune system. What it’s really about: Looking at a tiny part of the host-microbe party in the gut.
B I O LO G Y
Who I was when I got to Reed:
I liked science and history, was an editor of my high school literary magazine and the yearbook, and did sound tech for most of the theater productions. Influential book:
Mountains beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is about Paul Farmer, a doctor and anthropologist from Harvard who founded an organization called Partners in Health. To solve a health problem, you need a lot of people with different perspectives and skills coming together.
Favorite class: Intro to Analysis
with Prof. James Pommersheim [math 2004–].It was cool to see how to take tools we take for granted with math, like numbers, addition, and subtraction, and rigorously define and prove these.
Outside the classroom:
I was an editor at the Quest, helped to start the Grail, and was one of the three science majors in charge of the literary magazine. Doing publications helped me realize how important structure and clarity is in all forms of communication—especially in science writing, where the message can get lost in how it’s being conveyed. I was a teaching assistant and a tutor and worked in public affairs.
How Reed changed me:
When you’re working on publications, you just go until they’re done, often not finishing until morning. I learned I’m not a night person. What’s next: Continuing with bacteria! I’m looking at the microbiome at Verily. Financial aid: I’m very grateful that alumni and other donors see the value of Reed and shared it with me. At Reed, we like to say we’re interrogating concepts and ideas. Diversity of experience, thought, and perspective helps us do that more completely and with more integrity. Without a strong financial aid system, we would lose a lot of those perspectives and experiences. Word to prospies:
Reed professors do a really good job of constructing classes that force you to engage with the material. But they're always willing to help you. Take advantage of that.
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Aziza Afzal
T H E AT R E
Hometown: Silver Spring,
Maryland
Adviser: Prof. Kate Duffly
[theatre 2012–]
Thesis: “The Short Play: A Brief Moment in a Radical Structure” What it’s about:
What constitutes a short play? What makes a short narrative compelling? What are the best uses of the short play structure? I test my hypothesis that short plays’ inherent manipulation of perceptions of time and space invite a manifold present through expansion and compression, relative length, reversal, immediacy, anonymity, and a punctum to the contextual studium. Over winter break, I wrote one short play per day—20 plays in 20 days— trying to represent a multitude of different scenarios, times, and places, all within a very short time frame and experience.
A concept that blew my mind:
Theatre is the live study of people interacting within time and space. I’ve collected tools that apply to life problem solving and solutions for bodies in space interacting with each other and the environment, including concept designs to solve larger problems or a structure to facilitate communication in communities. Favorite class:
In Race and Identity in American Theatre with Prof. Kate Duffly, I learned how to talk about race, identity, and art within the community and when engaging with critical discourse.
The special effects of brevity on perceptions of time, structures of performance, and story.
Cool stuff: I worked on productions in the theatre department, including artistic collaborations with other students outside of class; made and printed my own coloring book; learned about civic devising in a workshop with Michael Rohd of Sojourn Theatre; and snowshoed for the first time.
Who I was when I got to Reed:
How Reed changed me:
A shy young nerd with a love for performance, art, and writing.
Reed confirmed my suspicion that there isn’t only one right way to do something, and taught me how much can be gained from the differences I encounter.
What it’s really about:
Influential book: The Skriker is
a play by Caryl Churchill about two girls haunted by a mythical fairy who relies on the memories and emotions of humans to stay alive. In 2015, I put on this play with a theatre ensemble made up of five friends who were all going to school in different places. We rehearsed for nine months and had weekly Skype rehearsals.
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What’s next: I intend to perform with my ensemble, Welcome Homesick; get a job; and work to support intersectional cooperation interpersonally and through writing to better the current political climate (a big task, but I have some ideas). I also hope to work with the Neo-Futurists in New York and continue writing plays.
Aziza's puppet was constructed in collaboration with fellow students in Peter Ksander's puppetry class for a campus parade in the spirit of Bread and Puppet Theater.
Ray Self
HISTORY
Hometown: Seattle, Washington Adviser: Prof. Benjamin Lazier
[history 2007–]
Thesis: “Organized Oblivion: Modernism and Totalitarianism in the Architectural Theory of Ludwig Hilberseimer” What it’s about: Ludwig Hilberseimer was a master of city planning at the Bauhaus during the ’20s. Following the rise of fascism in Germany, he immigrated to Chicago. I compare his designs from the ’20s with his Chicago work from the ’40s and ’50s. Using three cases of 20th-century “failed” modernist architecture projects, I examine how the Bauhaus creed of rationality and functionalism entailed a totalitarian approach to space, and how this approach played out in the design of the concentration camp, and later, the American public housing project. A student of Hilberseimer’s from the Bauhaus was actually one of the architects who designed Auschwitz.
Favorite class: Making Race,
taught by Prof. Margot Minardi [history 2005–], is a history of how the modern understanding of race developed, spanning from ancient times to the present day. It was fascinating to learn about the various historical modes of race thinking and contextualize them in terms of contemporary understandings of race and ethnicity.
Cool stuff: I worked as a research assistant and a history tutor, ran a knitting and crochet club, led a mushroom identification hike in the Tillamook State Forest, and volunteered as an intern with the Oregon Historical Society film and photography archive, processing new acquisitions and learning how to repair 16-mm and 8-mm film. How Reed changed me: I’ve
our utopias become graveyards?
learned so much from my peers and friends, both in and outside of the classroom. I have more of an ability to read, comprehend, and question, and gained a lot of experience doing archival research. Most importantly, I learned how to actively listen, how to manage my time, and thus locate and make space for the things I truly care about.
Who I was when I got to Reed:
What’s next: I received a
What it’s really about: How did
I was a pretty serious kid, passionate about art, theatre, and activism. Having worked fulltime at a coffee shop for the past year, I was so incredibly ready to go back to school, but I had no idea what I wanted to study.
Lankford Grant to work on a research project about Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism and the social dynamics of the alt-right. I hope to apply to graduate programs in history next year.
Influential books: The Human
Condition, by Hannah Arendt and The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin. Arendt because she taught me what it means to live an active life. Le Guin because I believe in the power of science fiction and imagined futures to tell us truths about ourselves and the world we live in.
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Claire Young Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio Adviser: Dr. Danielle Cass
[chemistry 2010–12, 2014–]
Thesis: “Urban Metals: Just a Hop, Skip, and a Beer Away” What it’s about: In 2016, researchers created a sensation when, using moss as a bioindicator, they found unusually high levels of heavy metals around Portland. Portland Parks and Recreation and Portland Public Schools also found extremely high levels of lead in water sources. Hops is a crop commonly grown in the Pacific Northwest. Many people grow hops in their backyard and brew their own beers. But home brewing isn’t regulated. I am seeking to determine the levels, if any, of cadmium, arsenic, and lead in locally grown hops and whether these metals come through into home-brewed beer (brewed with the sampled hops). What it’s really about:
Whether or not it is chill to brew your own beer with Portland hops (and drink it). Who I was when I got to Reed:
E N V I R O N M E N TA L S T U D I E S /C H E M I S T R Y Favorite class: Retro PE—
what’s not to love about dodgeball? Also, Prof. Jon Rork’s [economics 2010–] Urban Economics class, which exposed me to something I could see myself doing in the future: urban planning and sustainability.
Cool stuff: I opened the manholes around campus as part of an independent project to get samples of people’s urine to test for drug metabolites (yuck!). Got to know a diverse set of people at Reed through being both a lab TA and a drop-in tutor at the DoJo for chemistry. How Reed changed me: Reed
has made me consider who I am, who I want to be, and the people I want to surround myself with. I realized in my time here that chemistry is not what drives me or what I am passionate about. Reed has pushed me to seek out a path that will engage and motivate me to do the best work that I can.
What’s next: I am living in
NYC and working at Publicis Media, in the data sciences. My incredibly awesome sister is also here!
A person with a plan. I came to Reed thinking I would go immediately to graduate school for chemistry, get a job in a lab, and be a scientist Influential book:
Organic Chemistry, by Thomas N. Sorrell was my textbook for Organic Chemistry with Professor Rebecca LaLonde ’01 [chemistry 2013–]. I probably spent more time with this book, and its numerous practice problems, over the past four years than any other.
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Using a bulb and pipette, Claire tested Portland beer for heavy-metal contamination.
Aaron Ramcharan Hometowns: Edmonton,
Alberta, and Orlando, Florida
Adviser: Prof. Troy Cross
[philosophy 2010–]
Thesis: “Intersectional Epistemology and the Problem of Social Ignorance”
P H I LO S O P H Y
Favorite class: I did an
independent study with Prof. Darius Rejali [political science 1989–] on a question at the forefront of the work of Medieval Islamic philosophers: what it means to develop a relationship to yourself.
knowledge and ignorance of others is due to who we are. Our ignorance of others can sometimes have harmful consequences. I argue that we have a duty to remediate our ignorance of others insofar as what we learn contributes to justice in society—even when that learning involves changing ourselves.
Outside the classroom: I was on the Student Committee for Academic Policy and Planning, worked for the admission office, and was a house adviser, which paid for my room and board—a huge component in how I was able to navigate the financial needs of going to a school like this. I spent almost 50 nights at Reed’s cabin on Mount Hood, including my 19th, 20th, and 21st birthdays.
What it’s really about:
How Reed changed me:
The consequences of misunderstanding others and why we ought to foster understanding.
I gave everything I could to my education and, in return, received more than I ever could have hoped for.
Who I was when I got to Reed:
What’s next: I want to pursue
What it’s about: Some of our
In high school, I was in a band with several friends, did martial arts, and started a philosophy club where I ran little seminars. Influential book:
James Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son,” is really important to me. There’s a lot of truth, beauty, happiness, and also intense sadness, in Baldwin’s piece that conveys how complex our relationships to our racial identities can be.
law, but am also interested in philosophy as action— something beyond just sitting, writing, and thinking.
Financial aid: I benefited tremendously from financial aid at Reed and one day would love to give money to Reed myself and help people go to college.
A concept that blew my mind:
Philosophy brings intention to action and thought. Plato is one of my favorite philosophers. I work to understand the ways philosophy has contributed to the state of justice in the world. Many philosophers have contributed positively, but some people with complex philosophical thought have done extremely negative things.
“My family is integral to who I am. These photographs sit above my desk.”
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Leila Pyle
STUDIO ART
Hometown: Kodiak, Alaska Adviser: Prof. Gerri Ondrizek
[art 1994–]
Thesis: “‘I’m a Salmon:’ The Role of Oncorhynchus ssp. in Storytelling and Place-Making in the Pacific Northwest and Implications in a Changing Climate” What it’s about: Salmon are an
important symbol of life in the Pacific Northwest, and yet are incredibly threatened by dams and warming waters. My thesis explores how and why people here identify with salmon and the role this can play in bringing communities together to fight climate change. In addition to the written part of the thesis, I made a series of artist books about salmon, illustrated with metal-plate etchings. What it’s really about:
Making art about salmon and hoping this can make a difference. Who I was when I got to Reed:
I was a passionate learner, ready to get off Kodiak Island and explore the world. I was excited to embrace creative thinking and about the idea of living in an honorable community. Influential book:
The Wild Trees by Richard Preston is an incredible true story about a group of scientists (including Reed alum Stephen Sillett ’89) who explore and research the canopy ecosystem in redwood forests.
Favorite class: Introduction
to Art History with Prof. Dana Katz [art 1994–] expanded what I saw as art to include things like architecture and spaces, and made me know I wanted to be an art major. I was fascinated by the idea that you could read an object—that it has more to say than just being a thing in space.
Cool stuff: I led outdoor odysseys, got certified as a Wilderness First Responder, volunteered with a local Girl Scout troop, and was a leader of Greenboard, Reed’s environmental club. I also taught with the Science Outreach program, where Reed students teach classes at a local elementary school. How Reed changed me: Reed is
a place where people are deeply committed to having hard conversations and are not afraid to show a lot of vulnerability and trust. This taught me to be a better listener as well as to initiate those hard conversations myself. At Reed, I learned to be a more understanding and compassionate human.
What’s next: I’ll continue to
follow my passions of art and education and am excited to see where that leads me!
Financial aid: I was awarded a Udall Scholarship for my environmental work and am very grateful for all of the support I received that helped make Reed possible for me.
A concept that blew my mind: Using art and culture
to communicate really hard issues is important. Making beautiful things—even if they are beautiful things about really terrible things—adds something interesting to a world that is ugly in a lot of places.
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Leila’s illustration, “Tied to the River,” shows the interconnected ecosystem of the Pacific Northwest. She also designed and printed the Canyon Day graphic on her t-shirt.
Naima Karczmar-Britton Hometowns: Accord, New York,
and Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Adviser: Prof. Pete Rock
[creative writing 2001–]
Thesis: “Mythologies” What it’s about: When I started
the project, I was interested in how stories function and how they’re told. This concern was tied to considerations of race, hegemony, gender, and femininity—all things that we see in stories, fictional or otherwise. So I built a weird, hybrid, theoretical frame, which allowed my brand of storytelling to have an awareness of exactly what it was doing—basically literary theory and anthropology in lyric essay form. The finished product consisted of a series of lyric essays and short stories; some are autobiographical, others heavily theoretical, and others are reimaginings of the myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
What it’s really about:
A creative investigation of fictionality, fields of reference, stereotypical discourse, and semiological myth in the form of linked stories and lyric essays. In other words, I’m not entirely sure. Who I was when I got to Reed:
I was terrified—I had no money and low self-esteem, academic and otherwise. In high school, I majored in visual art and thought of myself as a writer/ painter, but I was also interested in studying law. Influential book:
Bluets, by Maggie Nelson, is super intertextual, highly personal, and stunningly written. It’s about a color, but also about love and pain. It’s rare to encounter a piece of literature as smart, and as moving.
ENGLISH
Favorite class: Prof. Pancho
Savery’s [English 1995–] class on Critical Race Theory changed my entire academic trajectory. I didn’t know that race could be an academic endeavor. It was exciting for me to encounter theory that was legal and literary, revolving around this important aspect of my life.
Cool stuff: I worked for a brilliant poet and professor, Samiya Bashir, who is also a personal hero of mine, on coordinating the Visiting Writers Series and Poetry Salon. An Eddings Opportunity Grant allowed me to attend the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, where I worked on a project that was part biography of John Coltrane, part autobiography, and part conceptual project. It involved the online Library of Babel and several large spreadsheets. How Reed changed me: Trial by
fire will make you work harder than you ever have in your life— but it also taught me just how capable I was.
What’s next: I’ve discovered a
love of academia, and of theory, editing, and creative writing. I found a way to marry all of those things, and want to go to graduate school and then to teach.
Financial aid: I received an incredibly generous financial aid package that allowed me to attend Reed for all four years, including the Dorothy and Ted Johnson scholarship.
Naima started at Reed's Scriptorium her Sophomore year, and has been an avid calligraphy hobbyist ever since.
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Dylan Holmes
C O M PA R AT I V E L I T E R AT U R E
Hometown:
Obstacles I have overcome:
Albuquerque, New Mexico
I’m the first person in my family to get a bachelor’s degree. Going to college also meant coming to terms with my gay identity, which I found all the more difficult to do with this fire under my feet. So, I had to overcome the pitfalls of being poor and gay.
Adviser: Prof. Mónica López
Lerma [Spanish 2015–]
Thesis: “Seeing Between the Wander Lines: Elaborating the Communal Cinema of Fernand Deligny” What it’s about: I examine films that were produced or directed by Fernand Deligny, a 20thcentury French educator, as a realization of his more general body of practices. I hope to elaborate how his reorientation of the camera, subject, and spectator create aesthetically and politically what I call a “communal cinema.” Deligny was interested in what forms when you go about the world without trying to transcribe order, or categorize things. He wanted to cut past all the noise, and all the words, and learn how to exist and how to appreciate the pure beauty that is life. What it’s really about: I want
people to care about movies this strange French hermit made.
Who I was when I got to Reed:
I was kind of arrogant in high school, but when I first came to Reed, I felt like I was profoundly stupid. I simply hadn’t been exposed to many of the texts here, including the Hum 110 texts. In high school, the most advanced reading we did was Macbeth, and partway through we just gave up and listened to the audio recordings in class. Influential book:
Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal perfectly strikes the delicate balance between sensorial pleasure and modernist lament.
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Favorite class: Prof. Michael
Taylor’s [English 1995–] German Landscapes: New World Horizons moved seamlessly among fiction, poetry, theory, art, and film to point out the truly intertextual (and political) nature of aesthetics.
Cool stuff: I was a student senator, worked with a documentary filmmaker, coordinated on-campus HIV testing, wrote for the Grail, acted in student productions, and cofounded the Queer Masculine Peer Group. How Reed changed me: A lot
of us come into this college thinking we’re superstars, and then get our asses handed to us by a team of frightfully intelligent professors and peers. Reed taught me the art of strategic planning, opened me up to radically different perspectives, and provided me with a sophisticated, intellectual tool kit that I can put to use for the rest of my life.
What’s next: I’m going to be
teaching English in France for the coming school year. I’m planning to work for a year or two, pick up amateur filmmaking as a hobby, and then apply to graduate schools.
Financial aid: I am thankful for the financial aid office, the Alice Corbett Scholarship, and the people out there who keep Reed afloat monetarily.
Dylan, with a print of The Painter's Daughter Mary.
Rose Driscoll Hometown: Davis, California Adviser: Prof. Suzy Renn
[biology 2006-]
Thesis: “Epigenetic Regulation of Aromatase Underlies Environmental Sex Determination in the Cichlid Fish Pelvicachromis pulcher” What it’s about: In the fish species I’m studying, the pH conditions an individual is raised in determine whether it becomes male or female. Nothing is known about how this happens, so I’m looking at whether a mechanism involved in temperature sex determination (aromatase gene methylation) is also involved in pH sex determination. What it’s really about:
Epigenetics means that early life experiences have long-term impacts! Who I was when I got to Reed:
I adored conference, but was terrible at it. When my Hum professor told me I was monopolizing the conversation, we brainstormed about ways to let other people take a turn. When I had an idea I wanted to share, I would write it down in a notebook. By my sophomore year, I was taking notes not on what I was thinking, but what other people were saying. I got a lot out of conference when I paid attention to what other people were saying, rather than what I had to contribute. Influential book and class:
The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, was the subject of a class I took with Prof. Michael Faletra [English 2001–]. I was amazed by how little people and society have changed since the Middle Ages. Chaucer has a ton of fourthgrade humor, like fart jokes. Medieval people laughed at the same things we laugh at now.
B I O LO GY ( W I T H C O N C E N T R AT I O N I N L I T E R AT U R E ) Cool stuff: I tutored an at-risk high school student, learned the Carolingian hand at Scriptorium, and learned how to read and pronounce Middle English. I took a Brazilian jiu-jitsu PE class and started a ScienceChat group to get people from different majors together to talk about cool science. How Reed changed me: I came
in thinking I was a humanities person, but learned I was a scientist.
Word to prospies: I thought science was the last thing I would do and tried to get my science requirement out of the way. But I got super into Prof. Suzy Renn’s biology class, and she said, “Rose, you should be a bio major.” The next day, she emailed me a schedule of how I could complete a bio major in the next two years. When I still hesitated, she said, “How about you come and work in my lab this summer and decide in the fall?” Throw yourself into everything, because you may think you know what you want but discover something completely different. Financial aid: I received the Help Out a Reedie, David Eddings, and Betty Gray scholarships, and was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, a President’s Summer Fellowship, an Opportunity Grant, and a Biology Undergraduate Student Travel Award. What’s next: I have a postbac in
Suzy Renn’s lab. I’m expanding on my thesis—hopefully to get it published! After that, I’ll be applying to grad school.
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Reediana Books. Music. Film. Send us your work!
EDITED BY KATIE PELLETIER Email reed.magazine@reed.edu
Natural History of the the Pacific Northwest Mountains
[Timber Press, 2017]
By Daniel Mathews ’70
A forest in Washington’s Olympic Mountains, six years after a fire. Mathews’s book details the complex ecological role fire plays in Pacific Northwest forests.
older edition (which I rather liked, as they remind me of the scritta paper used in bibles). Anecdotes about various giants of Pacific Northwest natural history are a welcome holdover from the first edition, and are a feature that sets this book apart from its few counterparts. Anyone new to the area (and there are so many these days!) must acquaint themselves with David Douglas and Archibald Menzies, for whom the Douglas fir tree (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is named, not to mention Thomas Nuttall, John Kirk Townsend, and Franz Karl Mertens, whose names grace a multitude of Northwest flora and fauna. Daniel covers them all. It is Daniel’s intimacy with his subject, however, along with his keen knowledge of facts, figures, and
folklore, that make his work unique. Nowhere else have I found Native American stories about Coyote the Trickster, information on how to prepare the edible thistle, and a discussion of why amphibians are in decline worldwide all between the covers of a single volume. Now that I have two copies of Daniel’s book, I should really pass one on to my daughter, a student at Western Washington University, in the shadow of Mt. Baker and close to several other mountain ranges, but I’m loath to part with either. I’ll have to get Sadie her own copy of this essential guide, so that she too can explore our majestic mountains with Daniel at her side. —ANNE LAUFE ’87
courtesy of Timber Press
34 Reed Magazine september 2017
photo by daniel mathews’70, courtesy of Timber Press
I’m still carrying around my original 1988 copy of Daniel Mathews’s Cascade-Olympic Natural History, dog-eared and worn, but completely functional. As readers of this magazine may recall, an old Reed boyfriend gave me the book, sealing my love for both him and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. The boyfriend has long since drifted out of my life, but the book, and my love for the mountains, remain. Now Daniel has come out with an updated third edition of his guidebook. Renamed Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains, because he includes the Vancouver Island Ranges and the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, it’s the perfect trailside reference for a new generation. Daniel packs an impressive amount of information into just over 500 pages, covering plants, animals, fungi, geology, and climate. Although it is still relatively lightweight (2 lb., 3 oz.) for a work of its depth and breadth, changes to the new edition include an extensive list of recommended websites, color tabs to make finding different sections easier, a discussion of the pros and cons of traditional Linnaean taxonomy, and, of course, information on how global climate change is likely to affect the region. The most obvious change, one that I love, is that photos and text now appear alongside each other, replacing the bank of about 400 color plates located in two sections of the original. No more turning from picture to text to figure out if I’m looking at sickletop or birdbeak lousewort, hairy arnica or arrowleaf groundsel. The pages are also thick and glossy, compared to the lighter-weight pages of the
Calculus and Analysis in Euclidean Space [Springer, 2016] By Prof. Jerry Shurman [math 1989–] Calculus, when first encountered, is typically framed in the context of familiar or at least intuitive concepts like slopes of tangent lines and rates of change. And although formal definitions allow for a precise description of these mathematical constructions, the many technical details are usually skipped over so as not to lose the forest for the trees. Those who continue with their study of calculus do eventually come to fill in all those pesky details. By this point, however, the familiar and
intuitive frameworks are usually left by the wayside in favor of introducing abstract perspectives, and this gulf between informal introduction and rigorous technical treatment can be a significant challenge for students. Which brings us to Prof. Jerry Shurman’s wonderful Calculus and Analysis in Euclidean Space. This is an exceptionally well-written textbook that expertly guides students in the transition from first-year calculus to a technically precise generalization
of the subject to several variables. By emphasizing geometric perspectives where appropriate and adopting a methodical yet natural writing style that effectively expresses both the fine details and the bigpicture ideas, Shurman motivates the material while preparing students for more advanced analysis. Add in an obvious regard for pedagogy and the result is a tour de force of mathematical exposition. —CHRIS HALLSTROM ’92
Seaweed: A Global History
Otranto
By Kaori O’Connor ’68
By Thomas L. Owen ’73 [Createspace, 2017]
[Reaktion Books, 2017]
A slapstick, anything-for-alaugh adaptation of a classic of English literature. Otranto is an English teacher’s nightmare: that which was bloodchilling to 18th-century readers has been transformed into something like Laurel and Hardy, or Abbott and Costello. The Duke of Otranto is determined to have an heir to his castle, but nothing goes right for him. It’s a knockabout, anything-goes romp for the theater of the mind.
Seaweed is both the world’s oldest and newest superfood. As a food, seaweeds are now more associated with the East than with the West, yet they have long been eaten in many parts of the world, including Europe and the Americas. Mistakenly thought of today as a forage food for the poor, in ancient times seaweed was highly prized, a delicacy reserved for royalty in Japan, China, Korea, and the Pacific Islands. Illuminating seaweed’s many benefits through a fascinating history of its culinary past, Seaweed tells a unique story that stretches along coastlines the world over. Combining myth, magic, and science, Kaori introduces readers to some of the 10,000 kinds of seaweed that grow on our planet, demonstrating how seaweed is both one of the world’s last great renewable resources and a culinary treasure ready for rediscovery. Offering recipes that range from the traditional to the contemporary, and taking us from Asia to Europe to the Americas, Kaori shows that seaweed is not only highly sustainable but extraordinarily nutritious—and delicious.
RecoveryMind Training
By Paul Earley ’75 [Central Recovery Press, 2017]
Drawing on his interest in neuroscience (which started with Prof. Steve Arch, Prof. Frank Gwilliam, et al.) and decades of experience and research in addiction studies and treatment, Paul’s book RecoveryMind Training is a comprehensive rework of addiction treatment. Seven years in the writing, it constructs a lucid framework and discrete goals so that those who suffer
from addiction can maintain a lifelong recovery from their addiction disease. It is also written for therapists, physicians, psychologists and the like. (See Class Notes.)
The Glamshack By Paul Cohen ’85 [7.13 Books, 2017] Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate and Prairie Lights Fiction Prize winner Paul Cohen’s debut novel The Glamshack is a lyrical, darkly humorous meditation on love, divinity, the Plains Indian Wars, and the male gaze. Cohen’s prose has echoes of James Salter and Martin Amis, but is bold and original in and of itself. The story follows a doomed love affair in its final 12 days from the setting of a rent-free pool house in Silicon Valley. The Glamshack was nominated for a Pushcart Press Editor’s Book Award by an editor at a Big Five publishing house for a favorite manuscript that he tried and failed to acquire.
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Reediana Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey By Jeremy Walton ’99 [Oxford University Press, 2017] The sway of Islam in political life is an unavoidable topic of debate in Turkey today. Secularists, Islamists, and liberals alike understand the Turkish state to be the primary arbiter of Islam’s place in Turkey—as the coup attempt of July 2016 and its aftermath have dramatically illustrated. Yet this emphasis on the state ignores the influence of another field of political action in relation to Islam: that of civil society. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Istanbul and Ankara, Muslim Civil Society and the Politics of Religious Freedom in Turkey is Jeremy’s inquiry into the political and religious practices of contemporary Turkish-Muslim nongovernmental organizations. Since the mid-1980s, Turkey has witnessed an efflorescence of NGOs in tandem with a neoliberal turn in domestic economic policies and electoral politics. One major effect of this neoliberal turn has been the emergence of a vibrant Muslim civil society, which has decentered and
transformed the Turkish state’s relationship to Islam. Muslim NGOs champion religious freedom as a paramount political ideal and marshal a distinctive, nongovernmental politics of religious freedom to advocate this ideal. Jeremy’s study offers an accomplished, fine-grained perspective on this nongovernmental politics of religious freedom and the institutions and communities from which it emerges.
Sarah Michelson By David Velasco ’00 [The Museum of Modern Art, 2017]
David is the series editor of Modern Dance, a series of monographs published by the Museum of Modern Art exploring dance-makers in the 21st century. Each volume focuses on a single choreographer, presenting a rich collection of newly commissioned texts along with a definitive catalogue of the artist’s projects. David is alo the volume editor of the third volume, Sarah Michelson. Michelson has lived and worked in New York since 1991, where she has become a fixture of
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the downtown dance community. Her works are known for their athleticism, rigor, beauty, and attention to architectural space. Her choreography, she has written, “risks rejection” and “denies safety”; deliberately difficult, it inspires both adoration and debate. This book—featuring original essays, an interview with Michelson, and a cultural history of her oeuvre written by her peers— explores the concepts and content of the choreographer’s work, bringing it vividly to life. David notes that the art world has began to recognize the significance of contemporary dance in recent years, and each book in this series demonstrates how choreographers continue to make work in a world where the old models of dance companies and repertory have expired.
The Spirit of the Endeavor (podcast) By Kodiak Vornbrock-Hieber ’02 and Jamaica Zoglman Kodiak and Jamaica Zoglman discuss mindful, seasonal, joyful living and embrace mishaps along the way in this podcast. “We want to feel like we are living poetry. But we struggle too with the daily work of being awake to beauty while managing kids, career, creativity, and the world. Our podcast reflects our belief that, in the end, life is all about the pursuit of beauty, mystery, and the sublime—and the spirit with which we undertake this important work—whether we succeed in our endeavor or not. Recent episodes include “Seeing Your Neighborhood with Fresh Eyes,” “Just Add Fire,” and a summer vacation special. (See Class Notes.)
Sweet Insurgent By Elyse Fenton ’03 [Saturnalia Books, 2017] Elyse Fenton’s follow-up to her critically acclaimed first book furthers the great themes of women in wartime. From intimate meditations on birthing, motherhood, and parenting in a time of war to explorations of the frank and grave matters surrounding a life lived while a lover is off fighting a war, these lush poems of the human interior always put themselves in harm’s way, for there the poet finds the truest meanings. Sweet Insurgent, winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Prize, is a book of vivid and crushing lyric poems, each one landing like a mortar on the earth.
March Trilogy By John Lewis, Andrew Adin, & Nate Powell Edited by Leigh Walton ’07 [Top Shelf Productions, 2016]
Leigh Walton, former MLLL signator, and now an editor for Top Shelf Productions, has worked extensively on this trilogy from Congressman John Lewis. In 2016, Volume 3 won the National Book Award, the first graphic novel to earn this distinction. March tells the story of the civil rights movement through the eyes of Lewis, one of the movement’s most iconic figures.
TITAN By François Vigneault ’13 [Éditions Pow Pow, 2017]
For L’ADMN João da Silva, this is no routine inspection: the Homestead mines are no longer profitable and the workers, giants known as Titans, are at loggerheads with the administration. With the help of Phoebe Mackintosh, a union representative with muddy allegiances, João must discover what is really going on, before the situation unravels into an interplanetary conflict. TITAN is a 200-page, mature readers graphic novel in the “hard” sci-fi and romance genres. It emphasizes culture, politics, sexuality, and emotion alongside wartime action and high-tech elements. François notes that TITAN began as a project for a “Comics and War” class at Reed; the first 12 pages of the book served as his final for that class.
Faculty Books
Aleksandr Askoldov: The Commissar By Prof. Marat Grinberg [Russian 2006–] [INTELLECT LTD.] Filmed in 1966 and ’67, but kept from release for 20 years, The Commissar is unquestionably one of the most important and compelling films of the Soviet era. Based on a short story by Vasily Grossman, it tells of a female Red Army commissar who is forced to stay with a Jewish family near the frontlines of the battle between the Red and White Armies as she waits to give birth. The film drew the ire of censors for its frank portrayal of the violence faced by Russian Jews in the wake of the revolution. This book is the first companion to the
film in any language. It recounts the film’s plot and turbulent production history, and it also offers a close analysis of the artistic vision of its director, Aleksandr Askoldov, and the ways that viewers can trace in the film not only his complex aesthetics, but also the personal crises he endured in the years leading up to the film. The result is an indispensable companion to an unforgettable film.
Making Climate Change History Prof. Joshua Howe [enviro studies & history, 2012–] [UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON PRESS, 2017]
This collection pulls together key documents from the scientific and political history of climate change, including congressional testimony, scientific papers, newspaper editorials, court cases, and international declarations. Far more than just a compendium of source materials, the book uses these documents as a way to think about history, while at the same time using history as a way to approach the politics of climate change from a new perspective. Making Climate Change History provides the necessary background to give readers the opportunity to pose critical questions and create plausible answers to help them understand climate change in its historical context; it also illustrates the relevance of history to building effective strategies for dealing with the climatic challenges of the future.
Reading the Maha-vam · sa
By Prof. Kristin Scheible [religion 2014–] [Columbia University Press, 2016]
Vam·sa is a dynamic genre of Buddhist history filled with otherworldly characters and the exploits of real-life heroes. These narratives collapse the temporal distance between Buddha and the reader, building an emotionally resonant connection with an outsized religious figure and a longed-for past. The fifth-century Pali text Maha-vam·sa is a particularly effective example, using metaphor and other rhetorical devices to ethically transform readers, to stimulate and then to calm them. Reading the Maha-vam·sa advocates a new, literary approach to this text by revealing its embedded reading advice (to experience sam·vega and pasa-da), and affective work of metaphors (the Buddha’s dharma as light), and salient characters (na-gas). Scheible argues that the Maha-vam·sa requires a particular kind of reading. In the text’s proem, special instructions draw readers to the metaphor of light and the na-gas, or salient
TITAN by François Vigneault ’13
snake-beings, of the first chapter. Na-gas are both model worshippers and unworthy hoarders of Buddha’s relics. As nonhuman agents, they challenge political and historicist readings of the text. Scheible sees these slippery characters and the narrative’s potent and playful metaphors as techniques for refocusing the reader’s attention on the text’s emotional aims. Her work explains the Maha-vam·sa’s central motivational role in contemporary Sri Lankan Buddhist and nationalist circles. It also speaks broadly to strategies of reading religious texts and to the internal and external cues that give such works lives beyond the page.
Getty-Dubay Italic Calligraphy for School & Home By Inga Dubay [Getty-Dubay Productions 2016] A hands-on introduction to calligraphy that takes students from first strokes to writing pangrams and quotations. Inga is a regular instructor at Reed Scriptorium and has presented calligraphy at the college during Paideia and Reunions. The book was developed in collaboration with a group of teachers who gathered at Reed as part of the Critical Practice Institute, a branch of the Calligraphy IInitiative in honor of Lloyd J. Reynolds at the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery. Inga notes, “There is much of Lloyd Reynolds in this book.”
september 2017 Reed Magazine 37
Thank you for supporting students
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on their paths through Reed.
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You made it possible for Reed to devote more than $26 million to financial aid so students with need—55% of the student body, with an average package of $44,789—were able to attend in 2016–17.
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You are a part of something inspirational. In fiscal year 2017, 5,455 alumni,
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You restored and maintained the canyon, where 1,150 native trees and shrubs were added in 2016–17 and where Reed students undertake field work for their biology classes every year.
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students, parents, and friends gave $4,638,755 to Reed’s Annual Fund. Your gift supports Reed and Reedies in myriad ways. Thank you for making a Reed education possible. giving.reed.edu
In Memoriam EDITED BY RANDALL BARTON Email bartonr@reed.edu
Slain Defending Teens from Hate The Spirit of Reed READ more about classmates and professors who have died at www.reed .edu/reed_magazine/in-memoriam. SHARE your memories there. HONOR them with a gift in their name at reed.edu/givingtoreed.
Taliesin is flanked by his father, Christopher DuPraw, sister Aurora Dachen, and his mother, Asha Deliverance.
Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche ’16
May 26, 2017, in Portland, of stab wounds.
It was the first day of Ramadan, the holiest time of the year for Muslims. Taliesin Namkai-Meche ’16 was riding in a Portland MAX train when a man got on board and began harassing two teenage girls, one of whom was black and the other who wore a traditional Muslim hijab. As the man escalated his rant about how Muslims should die, Taliesin ended his phone conversation with his aunt. He had to help the girls; the man was out of control. When he and two other passengers stepped forward to intervene, the man, Jeremy Christian, pulled a knife from his pocket and repeatedly slashed them before fleeing the train at the next station. He was later apprehended and charged with aggravated murder. Taliesin stumbled along the aisle, his face pale and his flannel shirt covered with blood. “I’m going to die,” he told a fellow passenger, Rachel Macy. “We can handle this,” Macy said. “Lay down.” She crouched beside him as he lay on the floor of the train, and pulled off her tank top to stanch the blood from his wound. “You’re not alone,” she told him. “We’re here. What you did was total kindness. You’re such a beautiful man. I’m sorry the world is so cruel.” She prayed with him as he closed his eyes and tried to keep breathing.
As the lifeblood drained from his body, Taliesin had one last message. “Tell everyone on this train I love them,” he said. Taliesin and one of the other men who intervened both died of their wounds. The third man survived. News of the 23-year-old hero who lost his life standing up to intolerance circled the globe, and countless people who’d never met Taliesin realized that in some way, we were all on that train. A week later, at a celebration of Taliesin’s life in Reed’s Cerf Amphitheatre, his father, Christopher DuPraw, said, “I don’t know what you’ve heard about his passing, but he was completely blessed. I don’t know if he’d have completely pulled his remembrance all by himself, but there were a couple of angels on board, and they hung with him solid, and reminded him of his creator connection. He did come to remembrance and they helped him.” Paula Sohl, a minister with the United Church of Christ in Ashland, Oregon, watched Taliesin grow from a feisty, friendly toddler into an accomplished and gifted young man. “Tilly was peaceful, loving, brave, and honorable,” she said. “Smart, clever, always problem solving and always dreaming of a better world, he made people feel welcome and important, and his smile was as wide as his head.” “Taliesin was born with magic,” said his mother, Asha Deliverance. He was named
after the sixth-century Welsh bard and shaman Taliesin, which also means “shining brow” and is pronounced “Tal-EE-zjin.” For his middle name, they bestowed a wizard’s name, Myrddin, which in Arthurian legend became Merlin. And then there’s his hyphenated last name. When Asha was pregnant with Taliesin, Christopher dreamed that his son was coming as a flame from the heavens. For the child’s last name, a Rinpoche gave them Namkai-Meche, which means “a flame from the sky.” The incident on the MAX train was not the first time Taliesin had fearlessly faced danger. “In high school my brother was once attacked by a mountain lion that jumped on his sleeping bag while he was doing a solo backpacking trip,” said his sister, Kriya Krisnabai-Gitanjali ’14. “He jumped up faster than humanly possible and screamed really loudly and it ran away. My mom made us hike with dogs after that.” Taliesin was always a leader, encouraging his friends to join him on quests into the forested hills that surrounded the purple Victorian house he grew up in a block from Ashland’s Lithia Park. “When we were kids, we used to swim in circles in the park’s fountain,” said his friend, Alex Landt. “The joy that we had, late at night, running around in the park. His gift is so fundamental: choose love in every moment.” “He was the barometer you would use to judge what’s going on with your life,” said friend Zane Pindell, who met Taliesin in preschool. “Tilly was always doing something great.” In high school, Taliesin entered the rigorous Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, California, where he was active in student council, sports, wilderness programs, and the campus radio station. “He was such a unique young man, so mature,” said Justin Bates, his history teacher and soccer coach. “Even as a freshman he brought a worldly perspective. He didn’t just sit back in apathy when he heard something september 2017 Reed Magazine 47
In Memoriam in class that rubbed him the wrong way. He saw wrongdoing on that train and decided to do something about it.” By the time he started at Reed, Taliesin was committed to social justice issues. “His comments in class conveyed a deep intellect and passion about environmental issues,” said his adviser, Prof. Noelwah Netusil [economics 1990–], who worked with him on his thesis. “He loved working with large and complex data, and was enthusiastic about his career as an environmental consultant.” At Reed, Taliesin also took an introduction to Islam course with Prof. Kambiz GhaneaBassiri [religion 2002–] and wrote “Islam: A Religion of Peace,” an analysis of a panel discussion by two leaders of the Portland Muslim community sponsored by a local organization called Race Talks. “His final words carried the same resonance of purity and earnest desire as when he told me why he wanted to learn more about Islam,” Prof. GhaneaBassiri said. “He wanted to help counter the prejudices Muslims face in America today.
Erika Hurth ’16 dated Taliesin for several years at Reed, and recalled when she first introduced herself to him. “He was standing in line waiting for ravioli at commons, his blond hair flopping over the brim of his sheep-lined sherpa coat. I didn’t even like ravioli, but I liked him a lot. Maybe it was the beard, or the early-’90s black Mercedes that always smelled mysteriously like patchouli and incense. . . . Standing in that line I knew that I was about to introduce myself to an old, old soul. The funny thing about old souls is they aren’t meant to stick around this earth very long. They already know most of what they need to know. They’re just here to teach the rest of us fools how to go about living.” Taliesin worked as summer intern at the Cadmus Group after his junior year at Reed. After graduating, he rejoined Cadmus as a fulltime analyst, and applied the economics and cognitive skills he had learned at Reed to the evaluation of government and utility energy efficiency policies and programs. Jim Stewart of the Cadmus Group was Taliesin’s supervisor and also served as an adviser during his
senior thesis. “Taliesin was an outstanding analyst, bright, hardworking and curious, and he was proud to have a part in helping the world address the problem of climate change,” Stewart said. In addition to his parents, Taliesin is survived by his siblings: Chris Lejeune, Melita Charan, Ati Nasiah, Elias Decristo, Indeara St. Clair, Vajra Alaya‐Maitreya, Kriya KrisnabaiGitanjali ’14, and Aurora Dachen. “Last week my son transmuted into a thousand-armed Hindu god,” Christopher DuPraw said at the celebration of life. “I swear it happened just like this. Thank you guys for going for it and continuing to go for it, because that’s what I’m talking about with him now having a thousand arms, because that’s what you’re doing. That’s a lot of arms and heads. I’m thinking we might get somewhere.” In the wake of the tragedy, members of the Reed community chose to create a scholarship fund to honor Taliesin’s life and create a legacy of generosity for future Reedies. To make a gift in his memory, please go to giving.reed.edu and indicate the Taliesin Scholarship in the notes section.
Rewired Attitudes about Adoption Marietta E. (Bunzel) Spencer ’44
April 2, 2017, in Roseville, Minnesota.
Marietta was a pioneering social worker who revolutionized attitudes towards adoption. She established terminology that removed the stigma of being adopted and was a fierce advocate for the rights of adoptees to have access to their medical history throughout their lives. She grew up in Vienna, the youngest of two children born to a merchant family in the jewelry trade, and moved to the United States during World War II after receiving an academic scholarship to Reed. An anthropology major, Marietta wrote her thesis, “Acculturation Among the Austrian Refugees of Portland, Oregon,” with Prof. David French ’39 [anthropology 1947–88] and met her life partner and collaborator, Prof. Robert Spencer [sociology 1946], who taught at Reed. “Reed College shaped my life,” she said. “It gave me knowledge, a social sense of belonging, and also led to my marriage. My husband, Robert Spencer, was a brilliant anthropologist, a heavyweight wrestling champion, and he was caring and fun to live with.” The couple moved to the Twin Cities, where Robert became an acclaimed professor of cultural anthropology at the University of 48 Reed Magazine september 2017
Minnesota. Marietta collaborated with him on his field research, including months in the Arctic studying the Inuit population, where she did the drawings for the book he wrote. Marietta earned a master’s in social work from the University of Minnesota in 1952 and began studying child-rearing customs of other cultures to help adoptive parents. In 1974, she founded the postadoption department of Children’s Home Society of Minnesota (CHS). At the time, many adoption agencies did a poor job of collecting background information. There was no clear sense of when or how to tell a child that he or she was adopted, or even how to define adoption. Marietta disliked the term “adoptee,” feeling that it labeled the child based solely on his or her adoptive status. “When a woman gets married,” she pointed out, “you do not say that she is a marriagee.” Marietta defined adoption as “family building by way of social contract.” In the same way that a man and woman become a family through the social contract of marriage, so do children become family members through the social contract of adoption. In her 1979 article “The Terminology of Adoption,” she pressed relentlessly for clear language that demystified adoption and wiped away stigmatizing terms that made adoption appear illegitimate or suggested a lack of caring by birth parents. In her vocabulary, there were no “real parents,” but rather “birth parents” and “adoptive parents.” Children were not “surrendered” or “given up”; instead, families made a “loving plan”
for a child. While controversial at the time, Spencer’s vocabulary has been credited with helping adoption gain broader acceptance worldwide. Filmmaker Jennifer Arndt-Johns produced Crossing Chasms, a documentary about trying to locate her biological relatives in South Korea. After a showing of the film, Marietta approached Arndt-Johns and insisted on correcting a statement she made in the film about being “abandoned on the doorsteps of a police station” in South Korea. “Marietta literally took my hand and said, ‘I want to let you know you were not abandoned, but you were placed upon that doorstep to be found,’” said Arndt-John. “I remember tears filling my eyes. With that single sentence, she changed my whole concept of myself. . . . It was a reminder of the powerful resonance that words have.” “My mind always searches for something that will be useful,” Marietta said of her life of service. Asked whether Reed had prepared her for life in general, Marietta replied, “It did exactly what it promised to do: set high ideals, gave one confidence, motivation, and the guts to achieve positive goals. What a break for me to receive a scholarship.” Throughout her life, she generously supported the college. Marietta is survived by her son, Paul Spencer. Her husband, and daughter, Claudia, predeceased her.
Homeless Champion, White Bird Founder Robert Dritz ’67
January 15, 2017, in Eugene, Oregon.
Eugene’s homeless community lost a tireless advocate with the death of Bob, who was one of the earliest administrators of White Bird Clinic, an agency now synonymous with crisis counseling and medical, dental, and drug and alcohol treatment for people living in poverty or on the streets. “When Bob came to White Bird, it was a struggling, hippie-era free clinic with a deliberately anarchic management structure and less than a dozen employees, and was often forced to choose which of its creditors to pay and which creditors to stall,” remembers David Zeiss ’67. Today White Bird is an essential part of Eugene’s social-service system, operating out of buildings it owns at six addresses in central Eugene, with more than 130 employees and real financial security. “Bob led White Bird through all this growth without changing the deliberately anarchic management structure,” Zeiss said. “He rigorously insisted on keeping White Bird a staffrun workers’ collective. All management decisions are still made by consensus of the staff, and the salary structure remains unusually flat. Bob, and his successors in management, have never taken more hourly pay than a janitor or data-entry clerk.” In addition to serving people on the streets of Eugene, White Bird also provides medical and crisis intervention services for rock concerts and similar events. In 1998, Bob secured the contract to provide services for Renn Fayre, which was his favorite event till he retired in 2007. White Bird remains a fixture at Renn Fayre. Bob was born in Bronxville, New York, the big brother of three sisters. He suffered from asthma as a child, a condition that often kept him inside, and friends say this is what developed his lifelong love of books. He studied literature at Reed and wrote a thesis on the fiction of Samuel Beckett. After college, he taught English for a time, and then in the late ’70s eschewed work in California finance to seek his real purpose. He found it at Eugene’s White Bird Clinic, a fledgling nonprofit agency dedicated to helping the poor, sick, and disenfranchised. Bob’s longtime companion, Germaine Louise Fuller ’67, passed away in 1994. Cori Taggart met Bob on a tour for new White Bird volunteers in 1979. The future crisis counselor remembered his round glasses and the twinkle in his eye. “He kind of gave us a wave as we walked through and I said to myself, ‘That is a very interesting-looking man,’” she said. Later, the two became intimate partners and remained close thereafter. At White Bird, Bob quickly went from
bookkeeper to program coordinator. Taggart recalled that once when there was a threat to cut crisis funding in Eugene, Bob showed up at the meeting with a phone book. When it was his turn to speak, he said, “I want to speak to the importance of this crisis line to our community.” He opened the phone book and there on the first page, with all the other emergency numbers, was White Bird Crisis. The funding was restored. He was not interested in the trappings of leadership and developed an equitable pay structure at White Bird that kept administration square in the middle. Bob was humble in his attitude and his dress, usually coming to work in jeans and a tee shirt. Taggart remembers Bob walking into meetings
of county commissioners and important people rifling through their expensive leather briefcases. “When Bob opened his mouth,” she said, “they started to listen.” Friends and colleagues also recount Bob’s wry sense of humor. After creating White Bird’s mobile crisis unit, he decided on the acronym CAHOOTS, for Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets. Bob retired in 2007, after 25 years of service. In January, he developed a blood infection; Cori Taggart was with him when he decided to stop treatment. Sitting at his bedside, she thanked him for everything. “He looked at me and nodded,” Taggart recalled, “and he said, ‘I gave it my all.’ And he did.”
september 2017 Reed Magazine 49
In Memoriam Harold Carlson ’39
March 13, 2017, in Los Altos, California.
At the age of 100 years, 1 month, and 11 days, Harold took his final flight. He attributed his longevity to dark chocolate and well-chosen parents—Swedish immigrants Sven and Inanna Carlson, who instilled in him a sense of honesty, tenacity, kindness, and humor. After attending Reed for a year, he was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy. Upon graduation from the academy, he entered WWII and became an accomplished naval aviator, renowned for his many heroic missions in North Korea, most notably the Carlson’s Canyon Campaign. After 21 years of naval service, he retired as a commander, having earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart. He settled his family in the Bay Area, where he had a 20-plus-year career as an aeronautical engineer at Lockheed Martin Corporation. Harold had a lifelong passion for education and received an MBA from the University of Santa Clara, an MS from the University of Southern California, a master’s from Stanford University, and a diploma in social science from the University of Stockholm. He kept his mind sharp by taking college-level courses well into his 90s. He and his wife, Isabel, traveled extensively during their 63-year marriage. He is survived by his children, Robert, Catherine, Mary, Elizabeth, and William.
Elizabeth Ann Brown ’40 March 7, 2017, in Washington, D.C.
Elizabeth was writing her political science thesis on American isolationist propaganda at a difficult time for the nation and the college. An ominous cloud hung over Europe, and two of her professors disagreed violently about America’s isolationist views. “My thesis was considered an insult to one of the professors,” Elizabeth remembered. “He refused to attend my orals on my thesis as a consequence.” Prof. George Bernard Noble [political science 1922–48] advised her thesis, which explored some of the isolationist arguments from the standpoint of there being a propaganda campaign going on in the United States involving many political types at a high level, including John Foster Dulles, an isolationist then prominent in the religious peace movement. “My thesis was designed to show that their claims to intellectual accuracy in this period were farfetched,” Elizabeth said. A year after she wrote her thesis, America entered the war. Elizabeth went on to have a brilliant foreign service career. Many years after writing her thesis, she came to know Dulles, who expressed regret for his parochial prewar views. 50 Reed Magazine september 2017
Harold Carlson ’39
Elizabeth Ann Brown ’40
The daughter of Portland couple Edwin and Grace Brown, Elizabeth was a day dodger at Reed. She took a skiing conditioning class from Emilio Pucci ’37 and regularly attended when Prof. Noble hosted groups of students in his home to listen to the NBC Symphony concerts on the radio. She worked as a waitress in the newly built Timberline Lodge when the Works Progress Administration completed constructing it in 1937. After Reed, Elizabeth was a teaching fellow at Washington State University and went on to get a master’s in political science from Columbia University. “There weren’t many Reed students in my day who went on to graduate school,” she said. In 1946, she entered the foreign service with the State Department’s delegation at the first session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The following year, she was made a journeyman foreign service officer—one of the few female officers—at the Geneva United Nations meeting. In 1960, Elizabeth was appointed as First Secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Bonn, Germany. She became the director at the Office of U.N. Political Affairs, a political counselor at the American Embassy in Greece, and the deputy chief of mission at The Hague in the Netherlands. During her career, she came into contact with many prominent Americans at the United Nations, including Henry Cabot Lodge, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Adlai Stevenson. After retiring from the State Department in 1979, she dedicated much of her time to charity work. She was a world traveler, was devoted to her dogs, and participated in organizations promoting animal welfare. A loyal Reed supporter, Elizabeth served on its National Advisory Council. In 1992, she was presented with the Foster-Scholz Club’s Distinguished Service Award, given to members of
the Reed family who have made major contributions to the community and/or the college. She is survived by her cousin, Laura Lively, and many close friends who loved her dearly and are pleased to have been considered her family.
Owen Putnam Cramer ’40 March 23, 2017, in Portland.
For more than 90 years, Owen lived in the home he grew up in on Dosch Road. His parents had both been educated at Stanford, and it was foreordained that when he g raduate d from Lincoln High School, he would go to college. Owen had a hankering to become a forester, but was advised to take a couple of years of liberal arts before specializing, which is why he ended up at Reed for his first two years of college. While he was at Reed, Timberline Lodge opened on Mount Hood and recruited a number of Reed students for their winter weekend opening, including Owen as a busboy. One of Owen’s favorite things at Reed was the camping trip to Eliot Glacier just before classes started. In the summers, he worked as a fire lookout with the U.S. Forest Service, paid $100 a month. His sophomore year, he roomed with Neil Farnham ’40, the architect who designed the cross-canyon dorms. Farnham also handled the remodel of Owen’s house when it became too small to raise four boys. During the presidential campaign of 1936, speakers from the four political parties— Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, and Communists—expounded their par ticular philosophies at an on-campus banquet.
Owen remembered that following the banquet, students piled into a truck decorated with a banner that read, “Simpson for Queen—God Save the King!” Carloads of students followed the truck as it drove up and down Broadway in downtown Portland, attracting a lot of media attention. Owen recalled that the college sponsored a “charm” instructor who worked with students, emphasizing neatness of appearance, table manners, and graceful sitting and rising. But the thing he most remembered about Reed is that he was encouraged to use his brain and think outside the box. “In Barry Cerf’s [English 1921–48] literature course we had to do a lot of writing,” he said, “but the idea was to develop ideas. You can get people who can put in the commas and the periods and organize the phraseology, but it’s difficult to find people that really can generate new ideas and innovations, and that’s much more important in the long run. Reed emphasized that—the delight of academic mental adventures.” This was good training for when he transferred to the forestry program at Oregon State University. “In forestry you’ve got soils, geology, all of the ecosystem components, and then all the different use aspects: wildlife, watershed, recreation, raising time, as well as economics and public relations,” he said. “Learning to think and apply information of all aspects was something that forestry just lives by.” After receiving a bachelor’s degree in forestr y, O wen ser ved three summers manning forest fire lookouts on mountaintops in the Oregon Coast Range. With the advent of World War II, he enlisted in the navy and was trained to be a meteorologist at UCLA. Assigned to the aircraft carrier Natoma Bay, he served in the Pacific combat. His ship survived a typhoon and the battles of the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and was lightly damaged by a kamikaze plane that hit the foredeck before returning to the states in 1945. Owen married his college sweetheart, Mildred Maxine Martin, moved into the home where he grew up, and began a family. He took a job with the weather bureau in 1946, and later transferred to the U.S. Forest Service, where he conducted research on the relationship between forest fires and weather. His research often took him to field studies in forested mountain terrain, where he studied wind and weather patterns. When possible, he took his family along to remote areas, where they enjoyed camping while Owen conducted research. He served as the fire behavior officer on forest fires in the western United States. A committed family man, Owen coached Little League baseball, was a Boy Scoutmaster, and was involved in YMCA summer camps. Through family skiing, hiking, and camping
trips, he instilled in his sons a love of the outdoors as well as a spirit of adventure. In 1995, Maxine suffered a stroke and spent her last seven years in a care home. Owen’s nearly daily visits and commitment to Maxine in sickness and in health were an inspiration to all. In retirement, one of Owen’s greatest interests was the field of metaphysics. With the help of a study group, he sought to understand the interactions of the spiritual and the physical and to use those principles to benefit all. He acknowledged that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. He was preceded in death by his wife, Maxine, and his eldest son, Greg. Sons Steve, Doug, and Bruce survive him.
Dwayne Feeken AMP ’44
September 2, 2016, in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
A resident of Omaha, Nebraska, Dwayne started his own engineering firm, Municipal Engineers, after working at Fairbanks Morse. He attended Reed in the army premeteorology program and received his bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1948 from Iowa State University. His wife, Gertrude, preceded him in death. He is survived by his five daughters: Gail Rose, Denise Smith, Allison Lindsay, Sheryl Feeken, and Lisa Ewan.
David L. Johnson AMP ’44 January 19, 2014, in Seattle, Washington.
David was born in Moscow, Idaho, and served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was in the army premeteorology program at Reed and received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Idaho and a PhD in electrical engineering from Purdue University. He joined the faculty of the department of electrical engineering at the University of Washington as an associate professor in 1955. During his academic career, he was a pioneer in artificial intelligence and computer engineering and brought the new fields of digital computing and computer science to UW. As a Fulbright Scholar, he conducted seminal research into dolphin learning. David also worked with Jim Howe, a leading AI researcher at the University of Edinburgh, and helped to develop the graduate program in engineering at the university. After retiring, he traveled extensively with his wife, Corinne; loved reciting the works of A.A. Milne and Lewis Carroll to children and adults; and cherished the outdoors. Spending summers at Priest Lake and Eliza Island, he believed wholeheartedly that “there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Corinne survives him.
Arthur P. Wilson ’45
March 7, 2017, in Monroe Township, New Jersey.
In his own words, Arthur taught “music as the piano” to children and adults, with occasional per for mances with serious singers. Born in Portland, he graduated from Reed with a BA in mathematics and wrote his thesis, “The CentroSurface of a Hypocycloidal Surface,” with Prof. Frank Griffin [math 1911–56] advising. His favorite class was History of Modern European Thought with Prof. Rex Arragon [history 1923–62, 70–74], and throughout his life he favored history as reading material, for which he thanked Prof. Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934–84]. “Being widely read is a good background for a musician,” he said, “but at the time I attended Reed there was no music instruction available. The broad subject matter at Reed was a beginning of life-enrichment.” Arthur studied music at Westminster Choir College and the New School for Music Study in Princeton. From 1949 to 1966, he was an accompanist for soloists and groups in San Francisco, where he founded the Repertory Opera Workshop. He was a consultant to piano teachers for National Keyboard Arts Associates and headed its regional office in Millbrae, California. He partnered in operating Keyboard Arts Studio in West Windsor, New Jersey, where he taught piano for many years. In the ’90s, he found a mentor who encouraged him to perform as a soloist. “One’s life keeps beginning over and over again,” Arthur said, “I love what I am doing. In this field, one does not retire.” Arthur was predeceased by his wife, Doris.
Kurt Nelson ’48
November 7, 2016, in Tigard, Oregon.
Born in Helsingborg, Sweden, to Harry and Anna Nelson, Kurt moved with his family to the United States when he was four months old and eventually settled in Portland. As a chemistry major at Reed, he wrote his thesis, “Preparation of Pure Silver for Atomic Weight Determinations,” with Prof. Arthur Scott [chemistry 1923–79] advising. During World War II he was decorated with the Bronze Star for his service in Europe. After the war, Kurt was a respected analytical chemist. His wife of 67 years, Sylvia Ruth LeValley, and children, Donald Nelson, Ann Olive, and Debra Sewell, survive him.
september 2017 Reed Magazine 51
In Memoriam Roger Newhall ’51 February 26, 2017, in Portland.
supported those he knew with musical aspirations. He was fond of animals and grew up with dogs, but in the second half of his life, he was close to a few cats that either lived with him or stopped by for meals. Throughout his life he enjoyed recreational outings, drives to the beach and through the Columbia River Gorge to the Hood River valley, where he had fond memories of spending time with family and friends. His final request was that his ashes be laid to rest in the shadow of Mt. Hood.
James Robertson ’51
October 31, 2016, in Ashland, Oregon.
A gentleman in dress and manner, Roger was an eccentric who took refuge in his collection of recordings, art, and books. He preferred reclusiveness, but enjoyed planning luncheons, dinners, and concerts with family and friends, and was known to brighten someone’s day by delivering an unexpected gift. Born in Portland to Roger and Ann Nichols Newhall, he had a younger brother who died at the age of two. Influenced by his mother, even as a toddler Roger was interested in classical music, opera, and theatre. At the age of nine, he received his first electric phonograph and classical record—Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite—marking the beginning of a lifelong passion for collecting, listening to, and writing about classical music and opera. He attended the Gabel Country Day School, spent a year at Lincoln High School, entered Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, and then enrolled at Harvard. After one semester at Harvard, he enlisted in the army, where he was a classification specialist, clerk, and typist stationed at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Upon being honorably discharged, he enrolled at Reed College, and focused on music history until his father passed away in 1949. Roger dabbled in record sales in Portland, and in 1955 moved to New York City, where he was employed by RCA Records, Sam Goody, Continental Records, and finally MusicMasters. In addition to writing about music and recordings, he took an interest in writing about New York City-area karate champions. Roger took in countless concerts, operas, theatre, and museums, and made long vacations in Europe. He returned to Portland every August, and in 1985 moved back to live with and care for his mother, whom he considered “the one true love” in his life. An eloquent speaker with a vast command of the English language, Roger championed the people he cared about and mentored and 52 Reed Magazine september 2017
A psychology professor at Southern Oregon University, James was a political activist who cared deeply for the environment and equal rights for women and children. He was the son of Alice and James Robertson, attending Reed for only a year, where he lunched at commons with movers and shakers during the spring earthquake of 1949—a 7.1 centered outside Olympia, Washington. “It was just about noon,” he recalled. “I was waiting in line for lunch, the place started shaking. It was like standing in a boat in choppy water. Everything was kind of rumbling and undulating, and there were exposed beams literally going back and forth, maybe three feet in each direction. My mother grew up in Southern California, and she always told me, ‘Find an archway to hide in.’ I don’t know where the rest of those kids went, but all of a sudden someone said, ‘All right, everybody, stand up and rush outside!’ They all rose up as one and rushed outside, except me. I was looking for an arch.” He completed his BS in psychology at Portland State University and got an MS and an EdD at the University of Oregon, but claimed that Reed was “the best year of college I had. It gave me confidence in my own abilities and intelligence.” He remained a longtime supporter of the college. A combat veteran of the Korean War, James also worked as a school psychologist in Longview, Washington, an elementary school teacher in Portland, and a supervisor of student teaching at Portland State University. He is survived by three daughters: Becky, Bonnie, and Barbara.
Richard D. Schultz ’55
March 25, 2017, Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
B o r n i n Po r t l a n d , Richard graduated from Reed in 1955 and earned his MD from the University of Oregon Medical School. He interned at Gorgas Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone and took his residency in
pathology at St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, receiving a specialty degree in anatomic and clinical pathology. Richard served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a doctor and captain at the William Beaumont General Hospital in El Paso, Texas. He moved to Sioux Falls in 1966, joined the Laboratory of Clinical Medicine, and served as a pathologist at Sioux Valley Hospital (now Sanford Health). Richard was the first medical doctor to serve as the Minnehaha County Coroner. After 33 years of practice, he retired in 1999. With his first wife, Karen Schultz, he had three children who survive him: a son, Mark Schultz, and two daughters, Lee Jackson and Troy Tripp. His second wife, Melba Taggart, preceded him in death.
Toby Gersten Quitslund ’60
February 24, 2017, on Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Toby passed away peacefully a few days after celebrating her 78th birthday with a houseful of family members. She was born in Los Angeles, California, to Lee and Lily Gersten, and graduated from Chadwick School. After attending Wellesley for a year, she transferred to Reed College. She and Jon Quitslund ’61 were a couple during their last year at Reed, and they both moved east when he began graduate work at Princeton. They married in New York City in 1962, and in 1964 moved to Washington, D.C. where Jon began his teaching career at George Washington University. Jon once commented that “Toby and I believe that Reed fosters the kind of commitment that makes an unlikely marriage good over the long haul.” They raised two sons in the city, Jesse and Gabriel, spending summers with family on Bainbridge Island. Before and after her sons were born, Toby pursued diverse academic interests, taking courses in psychology and later entering the PhD program in American studies offered by George Washington University in conjunction with the Library of Congress. Her focus was on art history and the history of photography, and this led to freelance work as a researcher and a curator of photography exhibitions in New York and Washington, and to a dissertation on the German-American photographer Arnold Genthe. Upon completion of her PhD in 1988, Toby began a career at the National Endowment for the Humanities, evaluating applications and administering grants for museums and documentary programs on NPR and PBS. A second experience with breast cancer cut short her career at NEH. Undeterred, she contacted NPR and volunteered for a series of news stories that followed her efforts to obtain insurance coverage for the bone marrow transplant
procedure, and then took listeners through the stages of her treatment and recovery. Having become interested in a career change, she completed half of a master’s program at the Smith College School for Social Work before her father’s illness and death intervened. Soon afterward, Jon decided to retire, and they moved to Bainbridge Island, where Toby was active in many facets of life. She joined the Arts & Humanities Council, serving as secretary and chairing the Public Art Committee for several years. A Buddhist meditation practice grounded her, and she touched many lives with her example and her teaching. She was also a mediator at the Dispute Resolution Center of Kitsap County and led an effort to teach mediation skills to women in prison. She is survived her husband, Jon, and sons, Jesse and Gabriel Quitslund ’97.
Alan Arey ’65
March 16, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Born in Mt. Holly, New Jersey, Alan was the son of Richard and Patricia Arey. He attended Reed and Portland State University before graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1976. Alan practiced law in Chatham, Virginia, before moving to Charlottesville. He was an active member of the Rebellious Dogs A.A. Group, the Charlottesville Stamp Club, the Monticello Coin Club, and the Shenandoah National Philatelic Society. His brother, Stephen, and his sister, Kathleen Carroll, survive him.
two years before he received his PhD in radio astronomy in 1971. He joined MIT/Lincoln Lab as a research academic and did postdoc work at Sterrenwacht Observatory in Utrecht, the Netherlands, where his first child, Christopher, was born. His daughter Annelise was born when he was a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Oulu in Finland, and after he became a research astronomer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, his third child, Kari, arrived. When he left academia to work on the staff at Lincoln Lab, his fourth child, Kristin, joined the family. Guy and his family moved to Kwajalein, Marshall Islands, in 1980 and spent three tours there, amassing many friends and memories. Upon returning to Concord, Guy worked at Lincoln Lab until his retirement in 2011, chalking up 33 years and a rocking chair. He was a sentimental soul who treasured friends and family, and took much pride in his work. Guy’s son, Christopher Tarnstrom ’95, died in 2013. Guy is survived by his wife and three children.
Russell Dubisch ’67
June 7, 2016, in San Diego, California.
Guy Tarnstrom ’65
February 28, 2017, in Concord, Massachusetts, of Parkinson’s disease.
A man of many interests, Guy loved classical music and folk dancing, carved Celtic crosses, and played the trombone with gusto. He performed in Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, made good beer and bad wine, and had season tickets to the Boston Symphony. He took his kids hiking and camping, and loved reading them bedside stories. He was born in Portland to Carl and Marjorie Tarnstrom. His early years were spent in southern California before his family settled in Blythe, California, where his father taught for many years. Guy was chosen for the prestigious NASA Math Camp as a high school junior and won science awards for a prototype computer. At Reed, he studied physics and enjoyed the participatory education of immersion, involvement, speaking up, and challenging authority. Guy was awarded a NASA Fellowship to attend graduate school at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska, where he met his wife, Dianne. The couple lived in Guy’s two-room, Alaskan-style cabin (without running water) for
astronomy courses at Siena College in Loudonville, Albany County, New York. He taught with great enthusiasm, and, of course, his students called him Dr. Dubisch. Upon retiring in 2007, he moved to San Diego with his wife, Claudia Obata, whom he married in 1998. Russ was always interested in the workings of the world; was an accomplished musician, craftsman, and woodworker; and produced highquality guitars and other beautiful objects. He is survived by his wife, Claudia Obata; his brother, Ralph Dubisch; his sister, Jill Dubisch ’65; and his sons, Robert and Michael Dubisch.
Steven G. Brown ’73
January 22, 2017, at home in Niskayuna, New York.
Steve grew up less than a mile from the beach in Los Angeles and experienced the perfect 1950s childhood. He seemed larger than life—six-feetfive, with a big heart and a generous sense of humor. Fiercely intelligent and independent, he studied classics on an academic scholarship at Reed, where he said he was glad to have been able to spend two years. After serving in the army in Germany, he attended school there and traveled through Europe. A thoughtful and meticulous designer, Steve specialized in custom furniture and the restoration and repair of stringed instruments. He built his own business over 40 years and leaves behind a collection of treasured work. His interests were broad and eclectic: 1960s California surf music, target shooting, pre-1974 MGs, and the mechanical workings of the world. He is survived by his wife, Lisa Brown ’71; sons Max and Will; and his German shepherd, Junior.
Susan Hagmeier ’75
February 22, 2017, in Portland, Oregon, from metastatic breast cancer.
Russ was born in Missoula, Montana, and grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California, where his father, Roby Dubisch, taught mathematics at what was then Fresno State College. From an early age, Russ was interested in physics and astronomy, building telescopes and setting off rockets in the backyard. After high school, he attended Caltech for a year before transferring to Reed, where he majored in physics. He wrote his thesis, “An Inverted Atmosphere Model for the Martian Blue Haze,” with Prof. Robert Reynolds [physics 1963–2002]. He attended graduate school at Cornell, where he studied with Carl Sagan, serving as a coauthor with Sagan on several articles. In 1977, he received his PhD from the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh with a dissertation titled “Real Miniheavens.” Russ served as a fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1971. He married Susan Bromberg ’65, and they had two children, Robert and Michael, but later divorced. Russ was a very laid-back professor during his 27 years of teaching physics and
An advocate for progressive causes in Oregon, Sue posthumously received the Wayne Morse Volunteer of the Year Award for her political dedication and years of service to the Democratic Party in Oregon. A lifelong Portlander, she graduated from Jackson High School and started at Reed. She didn’t finish her degree, but for 13 years worked as director of mountain sports in the PE department, teaching mountain climbing and crosscountry skiing. “I tried to make the climbing class part of a liberal education rather than just a PE class,” she said. “I would give a talk about clean climbing and another one about weather science. You can just teach people how to climb, or you can instill some of the ethics involved in doing that. For instance, there was a climbing area that everybody uses for beginning climbers—Horsethief Butte out near The Dalles on the Washington side. Some of the petroglyphs in various places there are being erased by climbing shoes. I don’t think that any of my students would have done that, because we went around and looked at the september 2017 Reed Magazine 53
In Memoriam petroglyphs and kind of decried that there was tension between those who said, ‘You should climb clean and leave things the way you found them,’ and those who said, ‘If you can’t climb it without hammering a few times into it then you have to hammer.’” Sue also taught skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows, at Timberline, and for the Mazamas program, but remembered that teaching Reed students was different. “You could stand in front of them on a pair of skis, explain to them why a stem turn should work, and then they’d do it,” she said. “Those technical explanations that you usually couldn’t get away with were very effective with Reed students. I would explain the mechanics and it was what they wanted to hear! That was a piece that they had to have.” Before Reed, Sue participated in the first women’s course offered by Pacific Crest Outward Bound (now Northwest Outward Bound School), where she later became a course instructor. She was also an instructional aide in a multihandicapped program for the Education Service District and a member of the Mazamas, and spearheaded countless family hiking and camping trips. When hiking with children, she advised, “If the goal is to get to the top of something, make sure it’s the right something.” Inspired by her own children, Sue ran for the Portland Public Schools board in the 1990s, was elected, and served two terms. Thus began a political dedication that included serving for many years as the communications chair for the Multnomah County Democratic Party. She believed strongly in the power of government, as well as individual action, to make people’s lives better. Sue attended the 2012 Democratic National Convention as an Oregon delegate and worked in the state legislature as Senator Lew Frederick’s campaign chair and chief of staff. She found humor in the absurdity and daily grind of modern politics and life, and will be remembered for her dedicated service to making lives better. She leaves behind two daughters, Emily Liedel Omier and Julia Liedel.
James Horan ’80
March 18, 2017, in Chicago, Illinois, in a car crash.
James enjoyed a stellar 34-year career as an English, Latin, and Greek teacher at Loyola Academy and Hinsdale Central High School, both in the Chicago area, where he also coached basketball, baseball, and golf. He died in a car accident nine months after he retired, and more than a thousand people attended his memorial—including family, friends, former students, players, and coaches who had competed against him. He grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago with five siblings—two sisters and three brothers. With his energy, charisma, 54 Reed Magazine september 2017
baguettes. He ran the Chicago Marathon and did the Chicago Triathlon. After his retirement, he got a hole in one and saw his cherished Cubs win the World Series. Reed has a tendency to attract larger-thanlife characters, and to nurture that bigness in them. Jim certainly fit the bill. The big-shouldered spirit associated with his hometown of Chicago mixed perfectly with the expansiveness of mind and mountain view that makes up the best of going to Reed. Jim is survived by his wife, Ellen; his daughter, Lisa Coonan; and his son, Robert Horan. —ORRIN WANG ’79
Niloufar Mobasser ’81
February 2012, in Caversham, England, of heart failure.
and intelligence he could have accomplished anything he desired. For Jim, that meant pursuing his lifelong love of the classics, begun when he took a language course at Reed with Prof. Fred Peachy [classics 1956–82] one summer. Jim had studied the great books at Shimer College in Illinois before transferring to Reed in the late ’70s. He thrived at Reed in and out of the classroom. The quintessential city kid transplanted to the Pacific Northwest, he made the most of his time—fashioning a happy marriage out of his urban street smarts and Reed’s countercultural proclivities. Equally at home explaining the intricacies of a Chicago Bears running play or identifying the flora and fauna one might encounter during a backpacking trip in the Cascades or on a Chicago city street, Jim modeled an openness to the world that relied on a sharp mind, alert eye, athletic grace, and incredibly quick sense of humor. After graduating from Reed, he returned to his beloved Chicago, where he earned his master’s in classics and began his teaching career. His boisterous, friendly nature made him the kind of teacher and coach that impressed countless students and players. In a number of ways, he communicated to them that they belonged, had worth, and could find a place in this world. In his actions and words, he showed them how to use their minds, attend to others, and cultivate whatever talent they had within themselves. He looked forward to his retirement and spending time with his adored wife, Ellen. Jim knew that completing a career only meant new adventures, large and small. A lover of all types of music from blues to rock to reggae, Jim started the band Jambone, which played at a number of bars and small gigs in Chicago. Inspired by the writing and baking exploits of his Reedie friend Sam Fromartz ’80, Jim also perfected the bubble structure in his
Softly spoken and intensely private, Nilou was “freedom’s translator.” “Translating was more than a job for her,” said her brother, Bahman. “It was her passion.” Translating the works of censored Iranians, Nilou gave voice to a complex culture—particularly in the United States, where some of the authors she translated were published in English for the first time. She translated work of Persian scholar Abdolkarim Soroush and dissident journalist Akbar Ganji, as well as Ghazi Rabihavi’s Look Europe, a play based on a 16-page fax smuggled out of Iran by detained journalist Faraj Sarkohi. From 1988, Nilou worked for the BBC Monitoring Service, and, as a Persian media monitor, translated the official pronouncements of the Iran regime. She served as an editor for the Arabic monitoring team during the Arab Spring, and her work was highly regarded by news agencies and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the CIA, now the Open Source Center. She translated Ehsan Naraghi’s memoirs, From Palace to Prison: Inside the Iranian Revolution, from the French (1994) and until her death was a translator for the Index on Censorship. Born in Tehran, she attended an international school, became fluent in English and French, and, in 1977, moved to Portland, where she earned a bachelor’s in political science from Reed. She wrote her thesis, “Liberty: A ‘Good’ or a ‘Right’? A Critical Study of a Theory of Justice by John Rawls,” with Prof. Stefan Kapsch [political science 1974– 2005] advising, and went on to earn an MA in economics from Manchester University. Soon after, she published the essay “Marx and Self-Realization” in the New Left Review. She
met Abdolkarim Soroush in 2002, when he lectured at Oxford University, and translated his interviews, his lectures, and his 2009 book, The Expansion of Prophetic Experience: Essays on Historicity, Contingency and Plurality in Religion. At the time of her death she was working with him on his autobiography. Nilou was found at her home in Caversham on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 after having failed to return to work on Monday, February 13, following a period of annual leave. When police entered the home on Wednesday, they found her “passed away on the floor.” A subsequent postmortem examination noted that Nilou’s small coronary arteries were a possible cause of heart failure. She is survived by her brother, Bahman, and her sister, Soussan.
FRIENDS
Prof. David V. Wend [math 1949–51]
January 23, 2017, in Bozeman, Montana, at home in his sleep.
Prof. David Wend lived his long life in his own way, and along the way enjoyed the bounties of the American West to their fullest. He was born in Poughkeepsie and grew up in Albany, New York , and as a child barely survived meningitis and severe secondary infections that subsequently deprived him of much of his eyesight. He graduated from the Albany Boys Academy and Hoosac School, and matriculated at the University of Michigan. During World War II, he volunteered at the Lake Placid Club, running the canoe and boat dock for convalescing veterans. Wend was a student of American pianist Stanley Hummel and a lifelong student of classical music. He found his true home in the mountains, especially after his career led him west. During his time as a visiting professor at Reed, he hiked and skied his way across the Cascades and the Rockies, including a portion of Mount St. Helens that no longer remains. Returning to Michigan, he completed his dissertation, “Branched Regular Curve Families and Finite Asymptotic Paths of Analytic Function,” in 1955. During this sojourn he met and married his partner for the next 63 years, Alice Virginia Burke. They moved to Ames, Iowa, where he took up a mathematics post at Iowa State. In 1955, Wend and his family moved to Salt Lake City so that he could teach at the University of Utah. Among his memories of his time there was his ability to teach morning classes and then go up to ski in the afternoon. “I got in more runs in two hours than I could during an entire weekend,” he recalled. He also
loved to regale his family and friends with stories of camping in the mountains in Utah and viewing meteor showers in the crystalline night sky. After visiting Montana State University in Bozeman in 1966, he returned home and announced that he had found paradise, a place with more cattle than people. Wend taught at Montana State from 1966 until his retirement in 1991. He authored numerous academic papers, particularly on linear and nonlinear differential equations. In the 1990s, the Wends split their time between Alice’s family home in North Manchester, Indiana, and Bozeman. However, Wend always made sure to leave Indiana, as he put it, “when it stopped being human weather and started becoming corn weather.” Supremely uninterested in accumulating material wealth, David Wend was a humane, compassionate, and brilliant man, whose
inexhaustible store of patience, good humor, and even temper helped him successfully raise his children in the generational maelstrom of the 1960s and 1970s. He is survived by his wife, Alice, and his children, Chris, Eleanor, and Henry.
Pending Thomas J. Coad ’42, William Dichtel ’42, Judith Ware Dodson ’42, Alfred Eipper ’43, Frank D. Vincent ’43, Rosemary Eliot Brodie ’48, John L. Phillips, Jr., Lucien Smartt ’48, Arnold Westerman ’48, Geotta Whitney ’48, Waldo Brighton Jones ’50, Thomas O. Williams ’50, Rosalie Libbey Swanson ’51, Byron Bair ’52, Kent Delano Kitts ’52, Thomas Livingston Hall ’53, Kent R. Smith ’53, Robert J. Hardy ’56, Alvin F. Oien ’57, Daniel Caldwell ’58, Barry Spector ’59, Gerald Suttles ’59, Elizabeth Ann Thomas ’61, Alexis B. Long ’65, Joann Osterud ’68, Marie Rering Witt ’69, John Pokorny ’71, Dave Barrett ’79, Roger Kautz ’80, Jonathan S. Austin ’82, Rebecca Marshall Brewster ’03, Kevin D. Hodges ’03, Alanna Lynn ’13, Anne Whitacre ’18, Prof. Lawrence Germain, Prof. Arthur Leigh, Prof. Scott Smith
Parent & Family Weekend November 3–5, 2017
Parents and family members of Reed students are invited to campus for Parent & Family Weekend 2017. ♦ Connect with your student and experience Reed campus life together. ♦ Learn important information about declaring a major, the junior qual, the thesis process, and resources available at the Center for Life Beyond Reed. ♦ Meet President Kroger, faculty members, and student services staff. ♦ Immerse yourself in the Reed experience by touring campus and Portland.
Schedule and registration: reed.edu/pfw
september 2017 Reed Magazine 55
Object of Study
Molecular Seduction All chemists are beset by the same hobgoblin: the need to visualize the molecular structures they work with. In the old days, they built models out of balls and sticks. Today, of course, they use computers. The resulting models are gorgeous— but deceptive. “Models themselves are inherently fragile,” says Prof. Arthur Glasfeld [chemistry 1989–], because they represent only one possible way of interpreting imperfect experimental data. So how can you gain insight from a model without being seduced by it? In his Structural Biochemistry class, Prof. Glasfeld and his students examine this model of the iron-dependent regulator (IdeR) protein extracted from the deadly tuberculosis mycobacterium. First published in 1998, the model shows a central zinc ion (the red sphere) connected to arms composed of carbon (white), nitrogen (blue), sulphur (orange), and oxygen (red). Beyond the frame of focus, the protein chain coils into spiralling ribbons. A lone molecule of water (yellow) peeks out on the lefthand side. But this model is only an approximation—the arms may exist anywhere inside the blue mesh indicating the zone of uncertainty. Glasfeld then challenges the students to refine and improve the model, based on current data. This is more than a theoretical exercise. IdeR is an essential part of the germ’s ability to elude the human immune system through its interaction with metal ions. The better we understand it, the better our chances of finding ways to defeat it. —CHRIS LYDGATE ’90
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What we’re looking at in class
NEW DATE: SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2017
9 A.M. RACE START
REED COLLEGE QUAD, 3203 SE WOODSTOCK BLVD, PORTLAND, OR 97202 FREE PANCAKE BREAKFAST AND OTHER FAMILY-FUN ACTIVITIES FROM 9:30 TO 11:30 A.M.
100% of registration fees and sponsorship dollars go to Portland Public Schools. • Registration ages 12 & under: $20; ages 13 & over: $30; week of race (September 9–16): $35. • Packet pick-up is Friday, September 15, noon–6:30 p.m., the day before the race, at Foot Traffic Sellwood 7718 SE 13th Ave, Portland, Oregon. • Race t-shirts are not guaranteed for day-of-race registration.
Learn more and sign up to run, sponsor, or volunteer at: reed.edu/5k. Thank you to our generous sponsors! PLATINUM
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REED COLLEGE
3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard Portland, Oregon 97202-8199
Periodicals Postage Paid Portland, Oregon
tom humphrey
A PARLIAMENT OF OWLS. Western Screech-Owls (Megascops kennicottii) converge outside the psychology building to discuss behaviorism.