Reed College Magazine June 2012

‰ June 2012

The raw, dramatic, underground history of Reed, profiling seven icons who shaped our first century.

reed’s next prez Page 6 FAREWELL, JOHN POCK Page 56 come come To reunions! Page 63

REED

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‰ june 2012

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Features

Departments

Jumpstarting Careers

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28

By Randall S. Barton

Mishelle Rudzinski ’88 works on nutrition for overseas adoptees.

32

Drawing the Line

Rep. Chris Garrett ’96 threads his way through the labyrinth of the Oregon State Capitol.

3 Letters Steve Jobs and the Westport Couch.

Class?

Dog-Eared Classics.

Diversity at Reed.

What about the Underclass?

Burning Question.

Saluting Howard Wolpe ’60.

Woodstock Tales.

The Words We Use.

Comrades of the Quest

6 Eliot Circular

ALUMNI PROFILES

By Romel Hernandez

45

After 10 years at the helm, Colin Diver takes stock.

46

Two-Wheeled Rebel Danny Kim ’02

By Chris Lydgate ’90 50

Beetle Mania

News from Campus.

Reed Names New Prez.

Performing Arts Building Rises.

Listening to 1912.

Gettin’ Frisky.

Chem Major Shatters Track Record.

KRRC Signs Off. Professors’ Corner.

Our Brilliant Students.

Bio Prof Bequeaths Fortune to Reed.

Boyles Give $1M.

Guggenheim Fellows

Astrophysicist Shep Doeleman ’86 Historian Tonio Andrade ’92

President Diver: The Exit Interview

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History in the Making.

The raw, dramatic, underground oral history of Reed, featuring profiles of seven icons who shaped Reed’s first century.

By David Volk 18

2 From the Editor

By Randall S. Barton

Lovin’ Spoonful

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From the Lion’s Den

Puon Penn ’92 survived the Khmer Rouge, came to the U.S. penniless, and went to Reed on a scholarship. Now he’s giving back.

Reed’s first Working Weekend brings alumni back to campus to network with students.

Beyond Lucky Noah Pepper ’09

Entomologist Christopher Marshall ’89 leads an army of 3 million at the Oregon State Arthropod Collection.

13 Empire of the Griffin

Connecting Reedies Across the Globe

Next Time You’re in Transylvania.

Reed on the Road.

By Romel Hernandez

40 Class Notes 52 Reediana

Books by Reedies

56 In Memoriam John C. Pock [sociology 1955–98]

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24 june 2012 Reed magazine

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‰

Letter from the editor

History in the Making The new book, Comrades of the Quest: An Oral History of Reed College, which forms the backbone of our cover story this issue, represents a genuine milestone in Reed history and Reed historiography. (And I’m proud to work at a college where I can write “historiography” in my opening line without the audience nodding off.)

No one has ever completed a comprehensive history of the college. True, sociologist Burton Clark wrote insightfully about Reed in The Distinctive College, but only tackled the first fifty years (and diluted it with swill about Antioch and Swarthmore).

Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934–84] made a valiant attempt but died before she could extend her history of the college beyond 1919. Richard Jones [history 1941–86] wrote an unpublished history of the Reed curriculum. There’s a history of the Reed physics department, a chronicle of the Reed religion department, a fragmentary (but entertaining) version of events in the Student Handbook, and an even more fanciful Reed Almanac.

Surveying the landscape, I imagine a succession of explorers scaling the bluffs and buttes that gird a slumbering volcano, eyeing the pinnacle but never attempting a direct assault for fear that the journey is too long, the ground is too treacherous— or perhaps, even, that the mountain might just blow her top.

Until now.

For more than 12 years, scores of volunteers for the Reed Oral History Project conducted hundreds of interviews with alumni, professors, and staff to bring us Reed’s underground history. This gargantuan body of raw material was shaped into a coherent narrative by John Sheehy ’82, yielding, for the first time, an insider’s view of the college’s first century, including vivid accounts of the crises that nearly destroyed Reed in its early years.

Of course, comprehensive does not imply definitive. One of the great joys of being a student of history is that fresh drafts are being written all the time. Nonetheless, Comrades is a monumental achievement, and we owe a debt of gratitude to its creators for preserving the voices, and the stories, of Reed’s past.

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Reed magazine june 2012

june 2012

www.reed.edu/reed_magazine 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202 503/777-7591 Volume 92, No. 2 Magazine editor Chris Lydgate ’90 503/777-7596 chris.lydgate@reed.edu class notes editor Laurie Lindquist 503/777-7591 reed.magazine@reed.edu graphic designer Tom Humphrey 503/459-4632 tom.humphrey@reed.edu

No one has ever completed a comprehensive history of Reed. Until now.

alumni news editor Robin Tovey ’97 valiant interns Lucy Bellwood ’12, Nisma Elias ’12 ADVISORY BOARD Diane Morgan ’77, Matt Giraud ’85, Naomi McCoy ’94, Caitlin Baggott ’99, and Jay Dickson [English 1996–] Reed College Relations vice president, college relations Hugh Porter director, public affairs Jennifer Bates director, alumni & parent relations Mike Teskey director, development Jan Kurtz

Comrade Number One. Historian John Sheehy ’82.

Just as this issue was going to press, Reed announced the appointment of a new president—late-breaking news that we were able to slip into the magazine (see page 7). Even as we salute President Colin Diver for his decade of service to Reed, we are delighted to welcome his successor, John Kroger, to campus. Look for more details on our website and in future issues of the magazine.

Reed College is a private, independent, non-sectarian four-year college of liberal arts and sciences. Reed provides news of interest to alumni, parents, and friends. Views expressed in the magazine belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent officers, trustees, faculty, alumni, students, administrators, or anyone else at Reed, all of whom are eminently capable of articulating their own beliefs.

Reed (ISSN 0895-8564) is published quarterly, in March, June, September, and December, by the Office of Public Affairs at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Boulevard, Portland, Oregon 97202.

Periodicals postage paid at Portland, Oregon.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., Portland OR 97202-8138.

—Chris Lydgate ’90

Letters to Reed Letters may be edited for clarity or length. For lengthier versions (and even more to and fro) visit www.reed.edu/reed_magazine.

Steve Jobs and the Westport Couch [In response to a letter from Richard Coit ’76 about Steve Jobs] Hello Richard—good to hear from you again after 40 years. I cannot confirm precisely the exact months Steve Jobs would have been hanging out with us Quincy occupants, but I can confirm his presence at that general time in 1972 and 1973, and his peripatetic sleep habits on sofas and attics throughout the Old Dorm Block (I believe Westport had the best couches). Also confirmed is the accuracy of your recollection that he was lost and searching, though your phrasing is (characteristically) so charitable as to approach solicitude.

Finally, confirmed is your perception of a need for prayer, and whatever you did, it seems to have worked.

—Peter Abrahams ’77 Portland, Oregon

Dog-Eared Classics In your March 2012 issue, I read of the death of one of my classmates, Tania Lipschutz ’68, who was as attractive in her photo as I remembered from 45 years ago.

I also remember the books listed by Bill Nelson ’62 in “Dog-Eared Classics” in the same issue. They are the same ones I read 45 years ago. I suppose Tania had them on her bookshelves, too. Why, though, are people reading them now? Are these the only books for sale at Bill’s “Marketplace of Ideas”?

Hesse and Asimov and Yogananda were stimulating in their time, but I’ve moved on. I discovered that there were women writers, that there were science fiction books published in the last four decades, that some minority writers published good books, too. I understand that the titles on this list are not supposed to be new, but these “classics” represent what young white men read in the 1950s.

Bohemia is a lovely place, but I wish it were more inclusive.

—Suzanne Greenfield Griffith ’66 Bremerton, Washington The purpose of that (all-toobrief) list was to show that certain titles and authors have remained student favorites for 50 years. Bill says today’s Reed students are passionate about a wide range of authors, including Emily Dickinson, Anais Nin, Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Maya Angelou, Ursula LeGuin, and Barbara Ehrenreich ’62.

Editor’s Note:

Diversity at Reed I will respectfully disagree with fellow aluma Molly O’Reilly ’64, regarding the need for increased “diversity” hiring at Reed [“Letters,” March 2012]. Although it worked for her back in the ’60s, allow me to tell you a 21st-century story of another bright young woman.

My daughter just lost her teaching job due to the color of her skin.

She studied hard in college, earning high marks. She lived in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, commuting to one of the finest urban graduate schools. She volunteered. She went deep into debt to graduate at the top of her class with a master’s in education. She student taught at an inner-city school, where the kids loved “Mizz A.” Her supervisor praised her compassion. Streetwise kids of all colors cried when she left.

My daughter couldn’t find steady work her first year out of school. She substituted, tended bar, moved back in with us. I told her, “Stick with it. You’re good at what you do; you’re passionate. You’ll get your chance.”

After hundreds of rejections, my daughter landed an 80%-time job replacing a teacher on sabbatical. I told her, “Do the great job I know you can do, and they’ll find a place for you.” As a father, I had the same dream for my daughters that Martin Luther King had for his: “I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I am proud to say that my daughter did the kind of job you see in exhilarating movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus. She inspired! Many of her students will remember her as the teacher who changed their lives. Her evaluations were stellar, and parents spontaneously wrote in to commend her work. As a bonus, my daughter is a trained musician. When the school suddenly needed someone to conduct the orchestra, she stepped in and did a great job.

A regular position opened. The administration put it out to competitive application. My daughter’s supervisor was appalled; letters of support for her poured in from colleagues. But you already know the dénouement. The one thing my daughter had no control over—the color of her skin—determined that she would not be rehired.

The school calls it diversity hiring. I call it racism. It is an excuse for judging applicants based on the color of their skin, contrary to the fundamental American principle that “all men

are created equal,” deserving to be judged on their own merits. It is based on the assumption that students cannot learn as well from persons of other races. This is false. Young people are open and without prejudice—until we teach them otherwise.

Racism is no less poisonous when turned against a white person. Affirmative action was necessarily a temporary remedy, because it punishes new generations for the sins of those that came before. It institutionalizes racism, and “group guilt.” So long as we judge people on the color of their skin, nobody is safe. Today, racial minorities benefit. Tomorrow, the tables may turn. The only real protection against discrimination for all races is discrimination against none. As King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In the 21st century, the adversity we all face is not principally determined by race. As for unconscious bias of hiring committees, it is no answer to substitute the conscious bias of diversity hiring. Most committee members are people of good faith. By setting a goal of equality, we inspire them to treat all applicants fairly. By setting a goal of “diversity,” we create a rigged game that countenances mendacity and mediocrity.

So if Reed is still committed to hiring faculty who are the best and most inspiring in their fields, I say, bravo! I don’t care what race the successful applicant is.

—Michael Schein ’76 Seattle, Washington I read with interest Ms. O’Reilly’s “Diversity at Reed” (Letters, March 2012) and the response from Profs. Williams and McDougal. All three seem to share the conviction that ethnic diversity is a good in itself and ought to be pursued for its own sake. Allow me to dissent. Reed College—at least, the Reed of my memory— was and should be utterly indifferent to race, origin, and sex, selecting faculty and students on merit alone. A quota, as suggested by Ms. O’Reilly, is the farthest thing from the colorblind ideal. And while the College seems not to have gone as far as Ms. O’Reilly proposes (yet), it clearly has bought into the logic—why else create a dean for institutional diversity?

This decision by Reed has caused me to rethink (read: reduce, and by quite a bit) my donations to the college. Perhaps quota advocates like Ms. O’Reilly will make up the shortfall.

—David S. Bloch ’93 Tiburon, California june 2012 Reed magazine

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Letters to Reed What about the Underclass?

I am blessed my only child is a student at Reed.

It is deserved, as it was her ambition to attend a top school from the age of 11. I know this because she then told me, “Papa, I’m going to Harvard.” As far as we are both concerned she did better than that with Reed. She loves Reed and I know it is the best place for her. So I was struck by the letter whining about the cost and the lack of financial aid for a middle-class family from Hawaii. (“What about the Middle Class?”

Letters, March 2012).

I was born and raised in Hawaii and am a graduate of University of Hawaii at Manoa. I began work in the profession I followed for over 20 years while at school. Shortly after graduating I was called to work my magic for a Broadway show and so entered a successful era of employment as stage lighting designer and much more.

After I took custody of my child, it became clear that the life of a bohemian artist was not going to pay for her schooling. I then attempted to enter the academic world, as schools usually grant free (or nearly so) tuition to the children (qualified, to be sure) of faculty and sometimes staff. I instructed at two schools and discovered there was little or no connection to professional production and design within the college academic environment. As is true of Reed also, I have my standards and abandoned that environment. At that point I deliberately chose real poverty to ensure that my child would be able to attend whichever school she chose. She worked hard, I enabled as best I could, and so it came to pass.

The point is, there are ways to do this. The system does not make it impossible for a determined parent to help make a child’s dream come true. The letter outlines the case of someone who is really not in need. I gave up a lot to make this real for my only child and I have absolutely no sympathy for those who are unwilling to make any sacrifice and who then cry foul.

Especially for someone who lives where I belong.

I will likely never see my true home again, as now I am old and my choice of poverty is sticking like glue. But my child shines and that is all that truly matters now.

—Gordon Garland Dundee, Oregon

Burning Question I was enjoying reading the alumni magazine last night, in bed, about to drift off to sleep, when I came upon the letter “Burning Question,” from Richard Daehler-Wilking ’73 [Letters, March 2012] about the fire in the SU in 1969.

He writes in part: “I stood next to a pumper talking to the fireman in attendance. He took the time to answer my questions, and I distinctly remember being told that with higher 4

Reed magazine june 2012

Michael Levine ’62 (see letter below) was one of the contestants representing Reed on the TV quiz show College Bowl, broadcast February 7, 1960. His teammates were Virginia Oglesby Hancock ’62, Peter Stafford ’60, and Bill Jarrico ’61. The Reedies lost to Purdue in a cliff-hanger that accumulated the highest combined score, 230-220, in any match to that date.

pressure (pounds per square inch), the rate of flow (gallons per minute) decreased. I did not know Bernoulli’s principle at the time, so his statement caught me by surprise. I’m sure I doubted it until I next encountered it when teaching physics many years later.”

Well, that woke me up, because as a landscape architect one of the things I do is design landscape irrigation—that’s water flowing through pipes. I think Richard should have kept doubting, because higher pressure does not cause lower flow. Here’s a concise description from Golf Engineering Associates Technical Help Series: “Higher pressure will cause greater flow through any given pipe size, but as the flow increases, the pressure will decrease downstream due to friction loss because water velocities increase as well.”

—David Widelock ’69 Oakland, California

band of loyal supporters in New York for what we hoped would be a celebration of political liberalism. Unfortunately, Howard’s defeat seemed a dismal sign of where the country was heading.

Howard’s public service continued after he left Congress and it was always a pleasure to read about his current activities in the newspapers.

—William Bernhardt ’60 New York, New York

Woodstock Tales Now Online

Saluting Howard Wolpe ’60

If you never got a copy of The Woodstock Tales, recounting the saga of the ill-fated Westport Cupids, a new edition is now available online (www.westportcupids.net) in Word and pdf formats, with new graphics and an epilogue telling what’s happened since the original was published. There’s also a corresponding version of “CupidsNotes,” explaining the obscure—and some not so obscure—references in the text.

—Kelly Pomeroy ’61 Kamuela, Hawaii

Hearing of Howard Wolpe’s death brings to mind the few times when our separate lives crossed, the first of which was when I was chosen over him as the Oregon candidate for the Rhodes Scholar competition in the fall of 1959.

I was myself defeated in the final round. When Bill Clinton became president, many years later, I could not help wondering if a victory

by Howard back then would have eventually led him to the White House! Having grown up in Washington, D.C., well aware of the intellectual vacuity of most elected officials, it was a matter of considerable pride for me when my Reed classmate was elected to Congress and continued to serve for so many terms. I was happy to contribute to his many campaigns and attend events in his honor, including during his unsuccessful run for governor of Michigan. On election night in that contest, I joined a small

There comes a time, in even the most backward, to finally step forward, to acknowledge those who helped out along the way. That time for me is now, and the person to be acknowledged is my former University of Southern California (USC) law professor Michael Levine ’62.

If you can imagine, he returned to his Reed undergraduate roots to recruit, found an unprepossessing senior, and said, from one Reedie to another, “You will not be disappointed if you come to the USC Gould School of Law, where some of the finest faculty in the nation are teaching, many of them recent Harvard law grads,” and he was right.

I have to say that of all my professors, undergrad and law, Reed and Harvard law alumnus Michael Levine stands alone, head and shoulders

Michael Levine, Thank You

above the rest. Even now, when I dare to remember what it was like to be in his classroom, I am filled with a mixture of excitement and dread at his dominating intellect, fear and awe at his deep, booming voice, and complete respect for his well-earned, commanding academic presence.

He taught what was perhaps my most fascinating course ever taken, a law and economics class on opportunity costs, one of those small, upper-class specialty courses that few law students venture into, at their peril, and he taught it well.

And he did more than that. For reasons I will never understand, he somehow selected the undersigned to be one of two USC students to join with two more from each of a half dozen other universities, in what was called the Pacific Southwest Universities Air Pollution Association Consortium, a sort of student think tank for developing innovative approaches to the air pollution problem choking the Los Angeles basin. Never has a more impressive professor chosen a more undeserving student.

It seems strange that it has taken all these years to realize how vital it is to thank this man, while I still can.

—Roger Andriola ’69 Fair Oaks, California

The Words We Use when People Pass Away Reed reported recently that two classmates from my undergraduate days had died. They were my age, naturally, so I was brought up short.

Seventy-five is a respectable age for dying.

Most of life’s experiences have been sampled: a career, marriage, family, and friends. Still, it is unsettling to read about the lives of acquaintances written in the past tense. “She lives in Pasadena,” and “She lived in Pasadena,” isn’t a matter of style; it’s the distance traveled between existence and nonexistence. That little “ed” at the end of a verb is a reminder to squeeze as much joy and adventure into every 24 hours as we can . . . while we lie above ground and not under it.

I don’t say living is easy. Disease and natural disasters are what flesh is heir to, not to mention the catastrophes we bring upon ourselves, like war. But Marcus Tullius Cicero grasped the essence of existence centuries ago (106–43 BC): “While there is life, there is hope.”

Connecticut lobsterman James Arruda Henry knew that truth as well. Illiterate all his life, he learned to read and write at 91. At 98, he has written his memoir, In a Fisherman’s Language, which will be published later this year.

James Arruda Henry is a man very much in the present tense.

—Caroline Miller ’59, MAT ’65 Portland, Oregon

COME EAT FROM THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OFFER EXTENDED UNTIL JUNE 1!

Order the two books together and save. $45.95.

COMRADES OF THE QUEST An Oral History of Reed College

By John Sheehy ’82 Hardbound. 575 pages.

Oregon State University Press. $34.95.

Promotional price (through June 1) $29.95.

Constructed from the oral histories of past presidents, professors, alumni, and trustees, this book charts the colorful—and often dramatic—evolution of the Reed community over the college’s first century.

THINKING REED

Centennial Essays

by Graduates of Reed College Edited by Professors Roger Porter and Robert Reynolds Hardbound. 400 pages. Reed College. $19.95.

In this collection of essays marking the college’s centennial, thirty-three alumni reflect on their careers as they look back at Reed and the intellectual community that helped shape their accomplishments.

CENTENNIAL POSTER Created and produced by David Lance Goines 16.5” x 24”. $50.

Renowned poster artist David Lance Goines visited campus and experienced Reed classes firsthand before designing and printing this limited edition commemorative poster. All proceeds from poster sales will directly support student financial aid.

Reprinted from the blog Caroline Miller Write Away that was picked up in the April edition of the Oregon Women’s Report.

To order, visit centennial.reed.edu/shop/.

Explore 100 years of Reed at centennial.reed.edu.

Eliot Circular news from campus

Kroger Named President

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Reed magazine june 2012

leah nash

John Kroger, Oregon’s attorney general, was named Reed College’s fifteenth president by the board of trustees in April.

“John impressed us with his brilliance and clarity, advocacy for the primacy of the liberal arts education, and his commitment to the mission and vision of Reed College,” said board chair Roger Perlmutter ’73.

“We are very excited about his arrival on campus this summer.”

Kroger, who taught law at Lewis & Clark and majored in philosophy at Yale, is a passionate defender of the liberal arts.

“Reed College is a remarkable institution with an unparalleled commitment to the life of the mind,” he said. “It possesses a brilliant faculty and a thoughtful, creative, highly intellectual student body. Reed has fostered independent thought and expression for more than 100 years. I am honored to join the Reed community and look forward to joining Reed’s faculty, students, staff and alumni in advancing the cause of the liberal arts education.”

Kroger, 46, was selected after an extensive national search. He met with faculty, staff, and students as part of the process, and made a strong and positive impression.

“The committee was impressed by his commitment to diversity while at the Attorney General’s office and at Lewis & Clark Law School,” said professor Gerri Ondrizek [art 1994–]. “He understands the benefit a diverse faculty brings to the academic program. John had many attributes the committee admired, but one of the things that really clinched it for us was that he went to Yale on scholarship.

He reminded us so much of the brilliant students we get at Reed. His education transformed his life. It made him such a believer in the type of education Reed provides.”

Kroger has had a long and distinguished career as a public servant and educator. Elected Oregon’s Attorney General in 2008, he created new units to prosecute environmental crimes, protect civil rights, and combat mortgage fraud. He has testified before Congress

From the Department of Justice to Virgil and Augustus: John Kroger takes the helm this summer.

and argued twice before the United States Supreme Court.

Before serving as AG, Kroger was a tenured professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, where he taught criminal law and legal philosophy and won the Levenson

Book Award in 2009.

K ro g e r e a r n e d b o t h B A a n d M A degrees in philosophy from Yale and graduated from Har vard Law School magna cum laude. He has also won fellowships from the National Endowment

“ His education transformed his life. It made him such a believer in the type of education Reed provides.”

— Art professor Gerri Ondrizek Award for Teaching Excellence in 2004, 2007, and 2008.

From 1997 to 2001, Kroger was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York—serving as lead counsel in more than 200 criminal cases involving racketeering, violent crimes, narcotic trafficking, public corruption, and white-collar crimes. He wrote about his experience in Convictions: A Prosecutor’s Battles Against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves, which won the Oregon

for the Humanities, Harvard Law School, and the Aspen Institute. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and was deputy policy director of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Kroger is an avid runner, cyclist, and hiker. He has run Oregon’s Hood-to-Coast Relay seven times and biked across the United States. His wife, Michele Toppe, is the dean of student life at Portland State University. —Kevin Myers

darryl james

Stage of Construction All the world’s a stage, especially on the western edge of campus where Reed’s new performing arts building is taking shape. Here construction workers in outlandish costumes scurry across catwalks, brandish props, and excavate holes with heavy machinery (OK, the metaphor breaks down a bit here). Still, the construction of the new building, first envisioned by professor Herb Gladstone [music 1946–80] over 50 years ago, is full of drama, and you can watch the show on a live webcam at www.reed. edu/performing_arts.

Infectious Enthusiasm. Meanwhile, back in the old Mainstage Theatre, students performed Naomi Wallace’s One Flea Spare, in which five Londoners are confined together during the bubonic plague of 1665. The cast included Ariel Dooner ’13 as Darcy Snelgrave; Kenji Yoshikawa ’12 as Bunce; Amy Egerton-Wiley ’13 as Morse; and Max Maller ’13 as William Snelgrave. (Not pictured, Philip Yiannopoulos ’12 as Kabe.) Directed by Kate Bredeson [theatre 2009–] with scenography by Peter Ksander [theatre 2011–] and costumes by Corrine Larson [theatre 2011–].

m at t d ’a n n u n z i o

june 2012 Reed magazine

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Listening to 1912 jim leisy

Chamber Music NW musicians salute professor David Schiff (far right) at the premiere of “Class of 1915.”

Reed’s first students embarked on their college career during a period in Western music as momentous as any, with the crumbling of systems of form and harmony, influences from far beyond Europe, and an impending flood of new genres that would soon push the old ones into side channels and backwaters. It was ever thus, you could argue, but like the political upheavals going on at the time, the transformation put paid to the past in radical fashion and set the course for the last century right up to now.

C hamb er Mu sic Nor thwest commemorated the era in February at Kaul Auditorium with a brilliant program meant to evoke the world of 1911-15, part of both this year’s Reediana Omnibus Musica

Philosopha (ROMP!) and the college’s rolling centennial celebration.

The evening began with the premiere of “Class of 1915,” mostly arrangements of popular dances of the time, by professor David Schiff [music 1980–]. The first movement combined five foxtrots by African-American composers including Luckyeth Roberts and Will Vodery, mentors to the young Duke Ellington; the third was a rip-roaring rendition of James Reese’s “Castle House Rag.” Between them was a sultry, striding homage to W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues,” with quotes from the original and a soulful spotlight for the bass clarinet. The instrumentation lent both brightness and cohesion to the evening; the rhythms swung, giving a hint of what the first Reedies danced to

when they took a break from the books.

The program also featured Arnold Schoenberg ’s Pierrot Lunaire, which Stravinsky once described as “the solar plexus as well as the mind of 20th-century music.” Written in 1912, the piece comprises 21 settings of poems by Belgian symbolist Albert Giraud. The poems’ imagery is strikingly strange, with “black gigantic butterflies,” a bloodied communion wafer, and Pierrot smoking through a trepanned skull. Schoenberg’s instrumental writing captures their nocturnal brightness as well as their sense of the macabre.

ROMP! is supported by the Garcetti Fund, established by Sukey Roth Garcetti ’61 [tr ustee 1987–2003].

— James McQuillen ’86

Gettin’ Frisky A raft of river otters took up residence in the Reed canyon in the spring, further evidence that the college’s longstanding efforts to restore the area to its natural balance have found favor among nonhuman constituents. Although otters have been spotted here before, this marks the first time an entire family of the lutrine creatures has descended on campus (no doubt uttering trenchant comments about the Portland weather). They feast on freshwater mussels, according to canyon czar Zac Perry, who spotted the discarded shells of their nightly revels during his rounds. Find out more about the otters, coyotes, steelhead, and mink at blogs.reed.edu/reed_canyon.

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Reed magazine june 2012

daniel ku

Chem Major Shatters Track Record chris lydgate

Jon Pape ’14 spins a flexi disc in the KRRC studio.

Dashing fellows Jack Flowers ’15 and Paul Whittredge ’12 (black vest) broke Reed’s two-mile record.

Chem major Paul Whittredge ’12 shattered a longstanding Reed track record in February, running two miles in 10:21.7 seconds, demolishing the previous time by almost 17 seconds. His training partner, Jack Flowers ’15, also beat the old record, finishing just four seconds behind Paul.

With the mercury reading a brisk 45˚F, and the sky the texture of a wet towel, the two runners set off at noon on the track at Cleveland High School.

(Unfortunately, the old Reed track that used to encircle the tennis courts is no more.) The official timekeeper was David Latimer [physics 2010–]; the cheering section included Johnny Powell [physics 1987–] and a representative of the fourth estate. The small turnout was no accident—Paul did not want to jinx the day with pomp and ceremony.

On the track, he was an angular blur of determination, his brow glistening with sweat despite the chill of the gusting wind. On the third lap, the sun made a brief appearance and Paul caught sight of his shadow—a good omen that doubtless fueled him on the final stretch.

Paul and Jack gave one another a triumphant Reed bear hug when Latimer shouted out the time. “It’s a great feeling,” Paul

panted. “I can’t believe we just broke a record that stood for 56 years.”

Someone else who can hardly believe it is George Barnes ’58, who set the old record of 10:38.5 on a sunny day back in 1956. “I’m crushed,” he told us from his home in California. “I always heard that records were there to be beaten, but I never believed it.”

George’s feat took place at an intramural meet on campus. The first event was the mile—he ran it in 4:50, 10 seconds shy of the Reed record of 4:40 (which still stands) set by David Fischer ’46.

The last event was the two-mile run. George remembers that one of his competitors was a fellow student who had run for the French Olympic team. “Everyone said, ‘François is going to win the two-mile,’” he says. “But François came up to me before the race and said he thought I would get it.

And, in the end, I did.”

George was surprised to learn that his record had endured for so long and congratulated Paul and Jack for their outstanding feat.

After soaking up the glory (and the drizzle) for a few minutes longer, Paul got back to work on his thesis on the NMR spectroscopy of a zinc finger. (Kudos to anyone who can explain what this is.)

KRRC Signs Off The antenna flew at half-mast (metaphorically speaking) on November 30, 2011, when KRRC made its last broadcast on the FM dial. The move came on the heels of a yearlong struggle that ultimately ended in KRRC’s losing its frequency (97.9) to KRNQ, a commercial alternative rock station—the third time KRRC had been bumped from its perch by a more powerful broadcaster. (Reed has since donated its license to the nonprofit grassroots group Common Frequency.)

As most alumni know, KRRC has suffered from longstanding technical and financial difficulties. Station management could not pay for the legal costs necessary to comply with FCC regulations,including basic upkeep and maintenance of the station due to fluctuating student enthusiasm.

In the end, KRRC decided to forsake the airwaves and focus on online broadcasting.

“Going online is, honestly, better for the station because it will save us money and time, and will keep us from having dead space,” station manager Alexa Ross ’12 told the Quest last semester.

Although broadcasting through cyberspace seems like a leap forward for KRRC, I can’t help but feel a pang of regret that the old antenna has fallen (permanently) silent.

I’ll miss the jokes about whether the equipment is working and the existential uncertainty of whether anyone could actually be listening. Still, I suppose the prospect of reaching listeners across the globe—without the hassle of federal regulations—is too tempting to resist. —Andrew Choi ’13

—Chris Lydgate ’90

june 2012 Reed magazine

9

Professors’ Corner leah nash

Mutatis mutandis: assistant professor Sarah Schaack [biology 2011–] nabs NSF grant for work on genetic mutation.

Schaack Wins $1m NSF Grant Assistant professor Sarah Schaack [biology 2011–] has been awarded $986,000 by the National Science Foundation. Schaack received the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program grant, the foundation’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty. The CAREER Program rewards teacher-scholars who exemplify the role of mentor through outstanding research and their ability to integrate pedagogy and research.

The grant will support Schaack’s research on the genetics of mutation. Mutations, ultimately, are the source of all genetic variation; Schaack’s lab focuses on understanding the rate at which they occur and their effects on organisms in various environments. She specializes in the study of mutations brought about by pieces of mobile DNA, also referred to as transposable elements, which compose the bulk of the genome for many organisms and are a major source of genetic variation.

Schaack’s project will bring together scholars across the academic spectrum. Her basic research will involve Reed students, postdoctoral researchers, and national and international peers. In the classroom, hands-on laboratory exercises will help Reedies gain experience with expanding bioinformatic and genomic resources to answer real, ongoing questions in biology.

Schaack’s work on mobile DNA, mutation, and the evolution of the genome has been published in scientific journals, such as Science and Nature. She has a BA in biology from Earlham College, an MA in zoology from University of Florida, Gainesville, and a PhD in biology from Indiana University.

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GhaneaBassiri wins Guggenheim Kambiz GhaneaBassiri [religion 2002–] won a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to examine mosques as historical sites of the material culture of Islamic beliefs and practices. GhaneaBassiri’s most recent book is A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order.

He was named a Carnegie Scholar in 2006 and is currently a national scholar for the National Endowment for Humanities’ Bridging Cultures project on “Muslim Journeys.”

Guggenheim Fellows are appointed on the basis of impressive achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment.

Leibman wins Fulbright Laura Leibman [English 1995–] won a Senior Scholar in American Studies Fulbright Award to trace the theme of tradition and innovation, particularly between the Netherlands and the American colonies, at the Utrecht University. Her project will examine the traditions colonial Jews brought with them from the Netherlands and other European countries and the cultural and religious innovations they made while in the Americas. While at Utrecht, she will be completing Jews in the Americas, 1621-1826, a series she is coediting with Michael Hoberman ’86.

Miller wins Graves Award Mary Ashburn Miller [history 2008–] won a Graves Award administered by Pomona College to recognize “outstanding accomplishment in actual teaching in the humanities by younger faculty members.” It will be used to support her sabbatical next year.

Darius Rejali [political science 1989–] won an award from the U.S. Institute of Peace to study how best to prevent the use of torture in military conflicts.

Alan Shusterman [chemistry 1989–] was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for “introducing computational chemistry into undergraduate organic chemistry courses and for the use of quantum chemical calculations for quantitative structure activity relationships.”

Our Brilliant Students

Nick Pittman ’13 will help Vermont bounce back from Tropical Storm Irene. Molly Case ’12 will work with SOIL in Haiti.

With the flowering of the cherry trees in Eliot Circle comes the spring crop of student awards and fellowships. We salute the following Reed students for their scholarship, dedication, and inventiveness.

Two seniors in biochemistry and molecular biology, Gabe Butterfield ’12, of Sedro-Woolley, Washington, and Michael Gonzales ’12, of Round Rock, Texas, have designed a grassroots project in Djibouti this summer for Davis Projects for Peace.

Diarrheal diseases are the leading cause of death in African children under five years old. Misuse of antibiotics in the developing world is causing bacterial resistance. Doctors in Djibouti are uncertain whether the drugs they prescribe are curing their patients’ diseases or making them worse. Gabe and Michael will test for the presence and strain of two common diarrheal pathogens, shigella and salmonella.

Different strains can cause different symptoms and possess different levels of antibiotic resistance. They will then determine, the level of antibiotic resistance and the efficacy of antibiotics, sourced both locally and from U.S. suppliers.

Portland resident Lillian Karabaic ’13 is Reed’s first Udall Scholar. Lillian was one of 80 students selected for the scholarship from 585 applicants representing 70 colleges and universities. The scholarship, which provides up to $5,000 for expenses, is open to sophomores and juniors planning to pursue careers related to the environment. In her application, Lillian wrote that she seeks to create a world where it is easy, affordable, and safe—and even preferable—to live without a car. She is an advocate for bicycles, being a key to creating cities that are livable and healthy.

Two economics majors from Massachusetts have won Environmental Studies Fellowships. Nick Pittman ’13, of Cambridge, will use the grant to pursue an internship with the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to work on recovery projects related

Literature major Julia Reagan ’12, of Petaluma , Califor nia , received a Fulbright Scholarship to study the political dimension of fairy tales in Weimar Germany. Between the two world wars, political activists began writing fairy tales that were distributed in party magazines to

to the devastation of Tropical Storm Irene last August. Molly Case ’12, of Sudbury, will intern with SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods), a nonprofit cofounded by Sasha Kramer ’99 that is dedicated to protecting soil and transforming waste into resources in Haiti.

attract youth and their families. The tales range from tales of socialist and communist utopias to social critiques of current conditions. During her Fulbright year, Julia will study the Weimar fairy tales, which are archived in Berlin, with a particular interest in their attraction as a medium for political activists of the time. “In Germany, fairy tales have a storied role in the national cultural heritage and have traditionally been an important didactic tool,” she says.

Daniel Carranza ’12, of Chicago, and Sean O’Grady ’12 of Howard Beach, New York, both German majors, received Fulbright teaching assistantships, which allow them to teach English in Germany. The U.S. student Fulbright program provides recent graduates with opportunities for personal development and international experience. The program operates in more than 140 countries. Nine hundred grants are awarded annually.

Physics major Max Gould ’12, of Gig Harbor, Washington, has won a fellowship from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the world’s leading research organizations and home to three Nobel Prize winners. Open to students with scientific majors, NIST fellowships provide hands-on experience, working elbow to elbow with researchers on cuttingedge technology. —Randall S. Barton

june 2012 Reed magazine 11

Centennial Campaign

Bio Prof Bequeaths Fortune to Reed The late professor Helen Stafford [biology 1954–87] bequeathed an astonishing $8 million to Reed in her will. The bulk of the gift will provide financial aid; $1 million will support the biology department.

Born in Philadelphia in 1922, Helen attended Wellesley on a scholarship, studying botany.

She wrote a groundbreaking master’s thesis on grass seedlings at Connecticut College for Women, earned a PhD for her discoveries about plant enzymes at the University of Pennsylvania, and taught at the University of Chicago, where she caught the attention of Lewis Kleinholz [1946–1980], who recognized that Reed would benefit from her exemplary teaching and innovative research.

After coming to Reed as the college’s first female professor in the sciences in 1954, Helen and her colleagues laid the groundwork for what became one of the top undergraduate biology programs in the U.S. “Helen was a quiet but inspiring person and a very fine teacher,” says Robert McNair Scott ’61, who worked for Helen as a teaching lab assistant. “She was an incredible woman who opened many doors, both to her students and to her gender.”

Anne Wood Squier ’60 also taught labs for Helen. “Nothing got in the way of the absolute precision of Helen’s experimental methods, and she had a passion for new knowledge,” Anne says. “She found her niche at Reed, where she could teach bright students and get a lot of satisfaction from pointing them down various pathways, and continue to do her work at a very high level.”

In addition to being a Guggenheim Fellow, Helen consistently broke new ground with her work on aromatic compounds, flavonoids, and proanthocyanidins, writing more than 70 journal articles.

At a time when there were few highly recognized women scientists, Helen served as a role model. “We all knew Helen was

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exceptional,” says Pamela Ronald ’82, a professor of plant pathology at UC Davis.

“She was definitely a pioneer, and we figured if she could do it, well, then, why couldn’t we? She was one of those professors who really gripped my imagination and made me believe in the power of the individual, that one person can make a difference.”

L i v i n g f r u g a l l y, H e l e n endowed the $1 million Morton O. Stafford Jr. scholarship at Reed in memory of her brother, who was killed in World War II. She savored her work and continued advising thesis students years after she retired in 1987.

Some years later, Helen was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Mary Potts, Helen’s caregiver, remembers visiting Reed’s campus with Helen and her faithful dog, Brownie.

“Reed was her life,” says Mary. “She just loved it and came in five days a week to walk around campus.” Following her wishes, Helen’s ashes were scattered on the shore of Reed Lake near the blue bridge that she loved. Her legacy of scholarship, both as a teacher and in providing opportunities for future students, insures she will be a part of Reed’s future. —Randall S. Barton

Boyles Give $1M for Scholarship Tim and Mary Boyle have pledged an additional $1 million to a scholarship they established 12 years ago in honor of Tim’s aunt, the late Hildegard Lamfrom ’43. The scholarship is awarded with preference to students from India, with first preference given to female students from the Ahmedabad area.

“My aunt said, ‘There are very few times in life when you have no responsibilities, and they ought to be utilized for expanding your exposure to different ways to think,’” Tim says. “Any time we can help more students have that experience or make the experience richer, I think it’s good for both the students and the institution.”

A noted biochemist, Hildegard conducted research all over the world, including India, where she lived for 18 years. After graduating from Reed, she earned a master’s at Oregon State University and a doctorate at what is now Case Western Reserve University. During her career she collaborated with such Nobel laureates as Linus Pauling, Richard Feynman, and James Watson. At the time of her death at age 62, she was conducting genetic research at Harvard.

President and CEO of Columbia Sportswear, Tim has been a Reed trustee since 1995. When he was a senior in journalism at the University of Oregon, his father suddenly died of a heart attack. Tim and his mother, Gert Boyle, took over the family business and transformed Columbia Sportswear into a billion-dollar empire.

Tim believes that a good liberal arts education prepares students to make both quick and tough decisions. “Reed is a terrific institution,” he says. “It’s one of the best things that nobody knows about in Portland. It’s really good at channeling very smart students into a rigorous curriculum.”

Empire of the Griffin Connecting Reed alumni across the globe

Next Time You’re in Transylvania…

Robyn Bors Veraart ’93 has always strived for a higher standard of consciousness even before she founded Provision, a school for sustainable living in a small village at the foothills of the Carpathians.

After majoring in music at Reed, Robyn earned a master’s in music therapy at Naropa Institute, adding meditation to her repertoire and pursing an interest in EasternEuropean folk music (her father is “a full-blooded Hungarian”). She taught meditation and yoga in prisons for a time, then traveled with her Dutch husband, Lars, through Africa and Europe, where she saw the potential for a broader application of her consciousness practice, becoming intrigued with the concept of eco-villages they encountered everywhere from France to Turkey.

Three years ago Robyn and L ars boug ht a home in the Transylvanian village of Alunisu.

“Think about America during The Great Depression,” says Robyn.

“That is where Romania is now.”

Peasant culture is still viable in

the village; each house has its own barn, outbuildings, and orchard, not to mention a passel of livestock; there is a communal flock of sheep shared by the community.

Robyn was struck by the peaceful peasant lifestyle and came to believe that others could benefit from its ethic of sustainable self-reliance.

With the blessing of the local priest (who makes cheese, bread, and wine for his family and neighbors), Robyn and Lars launched Provision with the goal of teaching traditional skills, self-sufficient living, and simplicity. Romania is just coming onto the map as a tourist destination, and they aim to attract everyone from “smallholding enthusiasts” to agri/eco-tourists to those interested in Balkan culture. The inaugural session of Provision is set for summer 2012.

See details at www.provisiontransylvania.com. —Robin Tovey ’97 Do you know of a Reed-related destination in a far-flung locale? A café in Trenton? A gallery in Chicago? A disco in Mongolia? Tell us about it at reed.magazine@reed.edu.

Reed on the Road Fabergé eggs—exquisite but useless. The Model T Ford—utterly utilitarian and massproduced. They both come from the era of Reed’s founding, and they might also represent the era’s Scylla and Charybdis, according to President Colin Diver in his comments to alumni, parents, and friends at the Reed on the Road chapter events this spring that celebrated the college’s centennial and also doubled as his farewell tour. The monthlong road show began in Seattle and ended in Boston, with interim stops in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City. Attendance was strong in every city, averaging more than 100.

The format of the event featured comments from Diver, an entertaining excerpt of the recent OPB documentary on the college, cleverly titled Reed, and alumni speakers who wrote entries for the recent collection Thinking Reed. Each evening concluded with a tribute to Colin (and Joan) and the significant accomplishments the college has made during his presidency. Beyond any metrics or milestones, most moving was the frequent observation that his daily commitment to improving life for students and protecting the essence of the place was evident even to the casual observer.

In Boston, Colin and Joan’s hometown and the place where they will settle after he retires, an emotional Colin commented that, like Odysseus, he was coming home. He clearly navigated a course for Reed between that Scylla and Charybdis. As Reed moves into the next century, the centennial generation of Reedies should be justly proud.

—Mike Teskey If you missed these events, you will have one last chance to honor Colin and Joan at Reunions/Reedfayre. Register at reunions.reed.edu.

Camp Westwind The weekend retreat at Camp Westwind for alumni and their families, sponsored by the Portland alumni chapter, will be October 19–21, 2012. Join alumni from a variety of eras and swap Olde Reed stories and songs in a beautiful forested setting on the Oregon coast. A limited number of reduced-rate spaces are available for kitchen and cleaning crew people. For details and registration, see www .reed.edu/alumni/westwind.

june 2012 Reed magazine 13

Jump-Starting Careers “Working Weekend” brings alumni and students together for networking.

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jonathan hill

Scores of alumni traveled from across the country to participate in Reed’s first Working Weekend, an event featuring speakers, panels, and synergy designed to help students and recent alumni get a jump start on internships, contacts, and careers.

Sponsored by alumni and parent relations and career services, the event took place the first weekend in February and brought together 134 alumni—including 71 presenters and others involved in program planning—who shared wisdom about their career paths with more than 230 students.

The event began as the brainchild of entrepreneur Adam Riggs ’95, who originally conceived a speaker series to encourage and empower students contemplating starting up a business, and gained further momentum from the Life Beyond Reed Committee of the Alumni Association, which includes Adam, Jay Hubert ’66, Gloria Johnson ’79, John Bergholz ’83, Jody Hoffer Gittell ’84, Jon Paul Davis ’93, Eric Speckman ’93, and Chantal Sudbrack ’97.

“Reedies have a lot of the qualities that define entrepreneurs and are needed in order to build organizations and businesses,” Adam says. “These include being hard working, thick-skinned, and willing to dig deep and find what you find without having a lot of agendas.”

He established a network of alumni who put together a list of possible panels and presenters. In the process, the entrepreneurial piece became part of a larger focus on career paths and options.

“For example, graduate school is a good choice for a lot of people,” Adam says, “but it’s not the right choice for a number of people who choose to go. People shouldn’t choose graduate school because they’re unaware of other options.”

Alumni paid their own way to campus, moderated or participated in panel discussions, and met individually with students. On the first day, students attended panels in 10 subject areas, including clean technology; e-commerce and the internet; the law; culinary arts; life and physical science; the changing faces of publishing, PR, and entertainment media; innovation

“Reedies have a lot of the qualities that define entrepreneurs. . .”

—Adam Riggs ’95 in education; nonprofits; and diplomacy, statecraft, and government. Saturday’s concluding event was a panel entitled “Reedies Hiring Reedies.”

Reed powerhouse alumni turned out in number. A panel entitled “Ecommerce/ Internet: Believe the Hype” included among others, Puppet Labs founder Luke Kanies ’96, Michael Richardson ’07, cofounder of Urban Airship; and Dan Baggott ’95, principal engineer and head of search at CafePress.com.

Ingredients for a culinary arts panel featured such tastemakers as Michael Gibbons ’84, partner in Portland’s Papa Haydn and Jo Bar restaurants; Mark Bitterman ’95, selmelier and co-owner of The Meadow, a specialty food business located in Portland and New York; Kurt Huffman ’93, director of Chefstable; Steve McCarthy ’66, proprietor of Clear Creek Distillery; Amy Wesselman ’91, cofounder of Westrey Wine Company; and Sebastian Pastore ’88, vice president of brewing operations and logistics for Craft Brew Alliance.

Alison Wise ’96, who co-chairs a regional chapter of Advanced Energy Economy, moderated a panel on clean technology,

which espoused the idea, “the bigger the problem, the greater the opportunity.”

Students were invited to discover how to use their science degrees without becoming professors in the Life and Physical Sciences panel, moderated by Gloria Johnson ’79. Those considering a future in the education sector were able to learn about innovations in education in a panel moderated by trustee Jody Hoffer Gittell ’84, a professor of management at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. Other education panelists included Andrew Mason ’90, executive director for Open Meadow Schools, and Mark Chen ’95, who is helping with the Educurious project, which integrates game play into the redesign of high school biology, English, and algebra.

A particularly popular panel, moderated by trustee Jan Liss ’74, executive director of Project Pericles, provided advice for nailing a job in the nonprofit sector, including the merits of having either an MBA or law degree.

During a three-day StartUp Lab, teams of students were led through ways of presenting and marketing their original ideas to investors.

The winning team was composed of two inventors from Oregon Episcopal School who logged onto the StartUp webpage and invited Reedies Gabriel ForsytheKorzeniewicz ’12, Finn Terdal ’13, and Clemmie Wotherspoon ’12 to join them.

The team presented an invention called Emotitron, an algorithm that determines a speaker’s emotion by measuring 57 different features of an audio signal against a prerecorded signal already defined by a human listener as “angry,” “sad,” or “happy.”

Its high school inventors have already won the prestigious 2010 Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology and have been featured in the New York Times. One possible application is helping autistic children recognize and interpret emotion.

The weekend also provided opportunities for alumni from different vintages to meet and discuss their work. The demand for interaction between alumni and students already existed, says Adam, but Working Weekend created the opportunity for them to connect professionally.

“Reedies are predisposed to helping Reedies,” he says. “We don’t have 200,000 alumni in the world. We have about 15,000 alumni. The size of our community is a huge asset. That small number creates an affinity for the other people in the group.”

Meaningful career help and advice can change the trajectory of a career. While students must stay focused to get through the curricuum at Reed, Working Weekend provided an opportunity to look up from their studies and learn how others have maneuvered towards a career goal through the strength of their education, the force of their personality, or the associations they’ve made.

The weekend was judged so successful that plans are underway to repeat the event next year. Interested alumni should contact Adam at aariggs@gmail.com.

REUNIONS 2012:

REEDFAYRE May 30–June 3, 2012

Register today at reedfayre.reed.edu.

• Decorate Reed’s Rose Festival float.

• Guffaw and gavotte with more than 20 comedy and musical performances.

• Say goodbye to President Colin Diver.

• Indulge at Gastronomy Northwest, a Reedie food festival.

• Lace up for smooth skating at Reed’s Rockin’ Roller Rink.

• Rejoice in the recombinant at the bio reunion.

• Be a student again (sans the stress) at Alumni College.

See the latest schedule at reedfayre.reed.edu.

—Randall S. Barton

Go further See more about Working Weekend at www.reed.edu /career/calendar/2012/February/working-weekend.html See more about the StartUp Lab at reedstartup.wordpress.com

Email: alumni@reed.edu

Reed College Centennial Reedfayre 2012

Phone: 503/777-7589

blogs.reed.edu/the_riffin_griffin/

@reed_alumni Reed Alumni

Lovin’ Spoonful Mishelle Rudzinski ’88 set out to help one child. She wound up helping thousands.

By David Volk

As improbable as it sounds, it all started with a canine search-and-rescue mission gone wrong. Mishelle Rudzinski ’88 was working as a speech pathologist in Portland and sometimes volunteered for rescue missions because her dog, Juji, was driven by its nose and found all sorts of odd things. She and Juji were trekking through a forest looking for a missing person when she jumped over a creek and landed wrong on her ankle. As a result, she was laid up with lots of free time when she happened to spot an urgent message on a listserv for cerebral palsy about a young orphan with CP who was about to be transferred to a facility for adults if no one adopted her.

Although she wasn’t sure how she felt about motherhood, Mishelle replied immediately, and soon found herself being interviewed to find out if she qualified to adopt Bakha, a four-year-old girl from Kazakhstan.

When a video arrived a few days later, Mishelle was sobered by what she saw. The little girl could barely walk or talk. Kazakh doctors blamed cerebral palsy. Doctors at Shriners Hospital claimed muscular dystrophy. Both agreed that her condition was progressive. Even Mishelle could see clear evidence of deterioration as she watched footage of the girl at different ages.

“She was going downhill. She looked worse and worse each year,” says Mishelle, who signed a document acknowledging that Bakha might not live to the age of 18.

She also noticed something many doctors missed when she and her brother first met Bakha in person in 2006. “When I looked down at her it was obvious that her bones were bowed, which is a signature of rickets.” Of course, it also helped that a rheumatologist who saw the video suggested it as a possibility.

At first, the diagnosis of rickets brought little relief; Mishelle feared it was another

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condition to worry about on top of the girl’s existing diagnoses.

Once Bakha made it to the States, however, she was treated for rickets and responded immediately. Within eight weeks she went from walking painfully with her back hunched over to standing up straight and running effortlessly. Now 11 years old, Bakha enjoys normal posture and a full range of motion, and shows no sign of either cerebral palsy or muscular dystrophy.

The experience left an indelible impression on Mishelle. “[Rickets] is something so simply treatable,” she says. “It doesn’t take expensive medication to prevent it. She was just malnourished. She was well cared for, she just slipped through the cracks.”

Mishelle soon learned she was not alone.

A neighbor, Cindy Kaplan, had adopted a boy named Jadyn from Kazakhstan at the same time, who was misdiagnosed due to severe malnourishment. He, too, made enormous progress when his diet improved.

She and Kaplan talked to other parents who adopted children from Kazakhstan and found out “the problem was even bigger than we thought.”

It’s not a question of neglect, Mishelle says. Kazakhstan has a reputation for treating its orphans well; they just weren’t getting proper nutrition. Temporary malnutrition may seem like a minor issue, but it can make a major difference later in life, contributing to issues from physical growth to emotional development to attention span.

How to begin? Their initial inclination was to ship vitamins to Kazakhstan, but they soon realized that stockpiling minerals wouldn’t address the underlying problem. Before she knew it, Mishelle once again found herself about to plunge headlong into an undertaking even bigger than parenthood: international aid.

Five years later, the Spoon Foundation, which Mishelle cofounded with Kaplan, has an annual budget of $550,000, feeds 1,800 children in 25 orphanages in Kazakhstan, and is poised to expand into other countries.

The secret to its success lies in its approach. Instead of sending in experts who impose changes, Spoon prefers to find

local partners who can build relationships.

From there the organization studies the orphanages, assesses their practices, and helps implement change.

In Kazakhstan, for example, Spoon performed a study of the feeding, nutrition, and development of around 200 children between the ages of six months and three years in eight orphanages. Then it created menus to feature the nutrients the children lacked and provided vitamins and mineral supplements for a group of randomly chosen children at each facility. Finally, it worked with the Kazakh Academy of Nutrition and experts from the University of Minnesota to analyze the results.

The cooperative effort was so successful that the nation’s deputy minister of health is expected to ask parliament to implement the practices throughout Kazakhstan

Love and Minerals. Spoon Foundation cofounders (from left) Mishelle Rudzinski ’88 (holding Bakha) and Cindy Kaplan (holding Jadyn).

Temporary malnutrition may seem like a minor issue, but it can make a major difference to physical growth, emotional development, and attention span. this year. Before the project began, many Kazakh orphans weren’t getting enough iron because they didn’t get much meat and were fed unfortified animal milk.

“Even kids in the States who are breast fed get iron drops,” Mishelle says.

Thanks to a multiyear grant from the Joint Council on International Services, which advocates for the rights of orphans, Spoon is set to move into China, Vietnam, and Mexico this year.

Spoon’s work continues even after an adopted child comes to the U.S. The orga-

nization helps parents understand the unique nutritional needs of international adoptees and children in the foster care system. Although many international adoptees may look healthy enough when they arrive, they may have hidden nutritional issues. If adoptees are put on the same diet as their American peers, for example, they may grow so quickly that they’ll outstrip their body’s stores of crucial vitamins and minerals including iron, folate, iodine, selenium, and zinc.

For her part, Mishelle says she never

expected to get involved in international aid. She considers herself more of a logical, careful person, but Reed taught her to be willing to try different things, whether that meant saying yes to a spur-of-the-moment adoption or leaving a stable job with benefits to start her own company as a single parent. As a result, she has her hands full with an 11-year-old daughter, the Spoon Foundation, and Switchclimber.com, an online business that teaches children with disabilities how to communicate with others. In fact, the whole experience has been so rewarding that she is now in the process of adopting a three-year-old from China who is visually impaired and showing potential signs of malnutrition. You might say she has an appetite for altruism.

Find out more about the Spoon Foundation at adoptionnutrition.org.

june 2012 Reed magazine 17

Drawing the Line Rep. Chris Garrett ’96 threads his way through the labyrinth of the Oregon State Capitol.

By Romel Hernandez

It’s raining in Salem, and the March drizzle has darkened the marble of the Oregon State Capitol to a dreary shade of gray. But the third-floor office of Rep. Chris Garrett is positively aglow with energy as constituents, staffers, and lobbyists clamor for a few moments with the second-term Democrat. One visitor frets about funding cuts to a pet project. Another seeks help hammering out a compromise on a controversial bill. Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici calls on his cell phone. A newspaper reporter wants an interview.

Through it all, Garrett exudes an effortless calm. He greets everyone cordially, switches seamlessly from education to economics to small talk. After a while, you notice that he listens more than he speaks, and when he does speak, it’s usually to pose a question.

At first glance, the lanky, red-haired lawyer in the trig suit might appear more temperamentally suited for a position in academia. (The four-volume Papers of John Marshall holds a place of pride on his office bookshelf.) But Garrett has thrived in the hurly-burly of politics and is considered a rising star in Oregon’s Democratic Party.

“I love being part of the process, the give and take,” he reflects later. “I think of politics as problem solving, and I believe my value is working behind the scenes to bring people together.”

Garrett grew up in Portland, the son of two music teachers. His father taught organ at Lewis & Clark. His mother, Bonnie Garrett [director, applied music 1988–2010] taught piano and harpsichord and directed the private music program at Reed for decades. (Garrett still dabbles with piano, but says he is far from proficient.)

He spent his freshman year at Willamette University in Salem, but transferred to Reed driven by a desire for “something different” and drawn by the school’s reputation for intellectual rigor. “Reed was a place where you could be anything you wanted,

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and that atmosphere of openness and nonconformity was really attractive.”

A summer internship at the ACLU whetted his interest in politics and provided fodder for his political science thesis on the ballot measure process in Oregon.

Initially, his interest in politics was primarily intellectual. But after graduating, he volunteered as the campaign manager for Richard Devlin, a Democrat running for a seat in the Oregon House. (Devlin is now the senate majority leader.)

Garrett earned a law degree from the University of Chicago and joined the Portland law firm of Perkins Coie in 2002, but took a leave of absence to work as an aide for the powerful president of the Oregon Senate, Peter Courtney (D-Salem).

Known for his political savvy, Courtney has ser ved as Garrett’s mentor even though their personalities are vastly different—Courtney garrulous and mercurial, Garrett cool and composed. “Peter’s a statesman,” Garrett says. “And that’s what I aspire to be—not so much a politician as a statesman.”

Garrett’s legal acumen coupled with his gregarious nature make him a force to be reckoned with in the state capitol, Courtney says. “This is a business full of egos and difficult personalities, but this young man understands how to get along with everybody,” he notes.

Garrett won handily when he ran for election in 2008 in House District 38, which includes Lake Oswego and parts of Southwest Portland. His district is solidly Democratic, but he is no ideologue.

“Some people think ‘compromise’ is a dirty word. I think compromise is a beautiful thing in a democratic society,” he says.

“If you believe in progress, you have to compromise. . . . Most things are negotiable.”

Politically, it is a good time to be a pragmatist. After years of intense squabbling between Republicans and Democrats, a delicate atmosphere of bipartisanship has settled over the Oregon Legislature. The House even has cospeakers, a Democrat

and a Republican, for the first time in its history. Garrett prides himself on making deals across the aisle, and is often sought out by Democratic leaders for sensitive negotiations because he is viewed as someone who works well with Republicans.

Rep. Andy Olson (R-Albany) praises Garrett as someone who “clearly supports his own values and his own party, but believes very strongly in common-sense solutions.” On a personal note, Olson says Garrett is someone he can trust: “You don’t find these types of relationships too often in political environments, especially when you have some opposite views.”

Last session Garrett was tapped for the politically charged task of redistricting—specifically, cochairing the committee redrawing the state’s legislative and congressional boundaries to account for population shifts.

leah nash

Oregon state representative Chris Garrett ’96 took on the perilous task of redrawing the state’s political boundaries.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans at the Capitol had been at loggerheads over redistricting, with little to show for their trouble but lawsuits and bitterness.

Nonetheless, Courtney counseled Garrett to take it on. “It’s a dangerous mission, a mission most people don’t come back from,” Courtney says. “I told him he needed to go for it, but I’m not sure that’s what he wanted to hear.”

It proved to be a daunting challenge.

Garrett recalls a low point during the negotiations when the lawmakers asked themselves if they wanted to give up. “We all answered that we wanted to go forward and keep trying,” he says. “We wanted to get it done, something people didn’t think could get done.”

That decision seemed to give them new momentum. Within a few weeks, a new state redistricting plan passed with strong

bipartisan support. The landmark legislation drew its share of criticism, but the critics seemed equally divided between the parties.

Courtney says Garrett’s leadership was extraordinary throughout. “It got very, very tough,” Courtney says. “But he never lost his cool, he never lost hope. He just counter-proposed, counter-proposed, counterproposed, and never gave up.”

Quizzed about his future, Garrett demurs, saying he is happy in his job, but does not rule out a run for higher office someday. Right now, he and his wife, Lauren Rhoades Garrett, are focused on their first child, Graham, who arrived in April.

But read what you will into the framed portrait of one of his political idols, Robert F. Kennedy, that dominates his office wall.

The photograph shows a contemplative Kennedy walking with his hands in his

pockets alongside his dog at the Baker City Airport on a campaign stop in Oregon during his 1968 bid for the presidency. “He’s an example of someone whose own views of politics changed over time,” willing to break with party orthodoxy when it was the right thing to do, Garrett said. “You don’t see that in a lot of politicians.”

An aide pokes his head into the office reminding him of a floor vote he needs to get to—now. Garrett reaches for his coat and dashes out the door, calling out as he bounds for the stairs, “I’ve got 28 seconds— talk to you later!”

WEB EXTRA See a video clip of Garrett discussing his thesis at www .reed.edu/apply/tour/index.html?senior_thesis/movs /garrett.html.

See how Garrett and his colleagues redrew the political map of Oregon at www.leg.state.or.us/redistricting.

june 2012 Reed magazine 19

President Diver: The Exit Interview What’s your proudest achievement?

Far and away the most important is the improvements we’ve made to students’ health and well-being. The most obvious statistic is the improvement in the graduation rate. That’s hugely important. I’m very proud of that, although I’m not sure how much credit I deserve for it. I believe that the old approach of “trial by fire” is not sustainable—that’s a controversial belief, by the way. When I got here, some people were proud of the fact that Reed was about the survival of the fittest.

Lurking behind that statistic [improved graduation rate] are a whole bunch of things.

We beefed up academic support—things like the DoJo, the sports center, the health and counseling center. The utilization rates of these resources are just off the charts, and I believe that’s a great thing.

By Chris Lydgate ’90

20 Reed magazine june 2012

When Colin Diver arrived at Reed in October 2002, Saddam Hussein still ruled Iraq, Google was not yet a verb, and no one had heard of toxic assets.

As Diver moved into the president’s office on the third floor of Eliot Hall, he could not have predicted the extraordinary events that would change the world over the next decade, from the Arab Spring to the advent of the iPhone.

The changes at Reed have been less tumultuous, but no less significant (see “The Diver Decade”). Nonetheless, with the premise of a liberal arts education coming under fire in an era preoccupied with vocational training, Diver insisted that Reed stay true to its mission: intellectual passion, academic rigor, and creative ferment.

Diver has been an active and engaged president, serving as thesis adviser, teaching a class in constitutional law, eating in commons, and even riding in a horse and buggy disguised as Simeon Reed, with his wife, Joan, as Amanda.

The thesis parade now regularly wends its way through his office, where he receives sweaty hugs from delirious seniors as they celebrate turning in their theses. Indeed, Diver has remained remarkably popular with students, who have bestowed upon him the nickname “C-Divvy.”

Diver has also demonstrated a knack for a certain kind of offbeat pageantry. Garbed in a ceremonial gown of unrelenting fuchsia, he has regaled audiences with memorable one-liners. At Convocation 2009, for example, he proclaimed “the creed that generations of Reed students have embraced: Capitalism, Faith, and Sexual Abstinence . . . or something like that.” Celebrating Reed’s centennial in September 2011, he led a chorus of thousands in chanting the first line of the Iliad.

In the final months of his reign, we caught up with Diver to take stock and contemplate the challenges ahead.

This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

How would you respond to people who say Reed should focus on “the life of the mind” and let students figure out the other stuff on their own?

Even if I accepted that proposition—which I don’t—the mind is connected to a body and is profoundly influenced by physical life, emotional life, and I would add, spiritual life. It is a scientifically demonstrated fact that 17–22-year-olds are still maturing. They may reach their cognitive peak early, but their emotional development takes much longer. Reed is a residential community, and our philosophy of education is highly interactive. Students are not like monks in a cloister copying scrolls. We treat them as scholars in a community of scholars. Part of our job is to help them make the transition from dependence to independence.

You’ve been a big advocate of the performing arts. Why? I believe that the fully educated person needs to be capable of creative work, inquiry, exploration, teamwork, and to be able to turn their knowledge into some kind of product—an essay, an experiment, an artistic creation, or a performance. These are all key elements of the performing arts, and when I got here I thought that those disciplines were some of the least well supported academically.

What about Renn Fayre?

I feel that Renn Fayre has become distorted from its original purpose. If we can return Renn Fayre to its roots as a true community-wide celebration, and channel it in the right direction, I think it can serve a valuable function. But on this campus, you can’t just wave a wand and decree things, no matter how much you might want to.

OK, if you had a magic wand . . .

The most obvious example is addressing illegal drug and alcohol use. It’s emphatically a legal obligation. I think it’s a moral one, too. I came to Reed knowing this was a community that had a lot of expectations

O p p o s i t e : s t u a r t m u l l e n b e r g , fa r l e f t : E r i c c a b l e , t o p r i g h t a n d b e l o w : l e a h N a s h

I wouldn’t have expected that from a lawyer. Have you ever been onstage as a performer?

I used to sing in a choral ensemble and do a little cameo acting. But you know, if you’re a college president, or even a law school professor, you are a performer. It’s part of your job. My dad was a technical photographer and loved classical music. He used to take me to shows when I was growing up.

When I was in law school, I can remember seeing Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Met. It was just electrifying. I also saw Pavarotti perform before he became a household name.

I’ve always enjoyed carpentry, fixing up old houses. I’ve always felt that creating things was a central part of my life.

I also felt that every college that aspires to be a genuine community has got to provide collective endeavors that create a school spirit. We don’t have fraternities or sororities. We don’t have varsity athletics. So the performing arts have a special role to play at Reed.

Clockwise from top left. Diver shows plans for performing arts building to Darrell Brownawell ’54. Describes mutant sturgeon he “nearly” caught in canyon. Rides in buggy with Joan as Amanda and Simeon Reed at Reunions 2011.

“ Students are not like monks in a cloister copying scrolls.”

—President Colin Diver about student autonomy, self-reliance, and an ingrained suspicion of authority. I’ve discovered that there is actually a very powerful authority on campus—the faculty—but only in their academic role. That’s part of the social contract here. Students accept that they are academic apprentices to the faculty. But that’s the extent of it.

The faculty retain their authority because they guard it very carefully. The rest of us do not have a lot of intrinsic authority. We have to earn it. That’s a challenge, but it’s a good challenge to have. You need to be able to say to yourself, do I have a good reason

for my beliefs and actions and does it resonate with Reed’s mission? And, if you don’t have a good answer, it’s probably time to take a step back.

What about the endowment?

We have built a first-rate development operation. It’s a powerful and professional group. To have raised $199 million in the worst economic downturn since the great depression is just remarkable. And the good news for the future is that threequarters of what we have raised has gone straight into the endowment. As for management of the endowment, for 30 years Reed benefited from the investment genius of our alumnus and board member Walter Mintz ’50. After he died early in my tenure, we went through a difficult transition, but I am happy that our investment returns have been getting steadily better.

june 2012 Reed magazine 21

The Exit Interview You have overseen a lot of physical expansion.

I’m proud of the dorms we’ve built. We’re not quite at our goal of having enough space for 75% of our students to live on campus, but we’re close. Dorms—good dorms, at least—are expensive. We are building a first-class performing arts building. We also expanded the campus footprint. We bought the old hospital and the farm. That will give us a little more breathing room.

Is Reed diverse enough?

Diversity is still a work in progress. We made a lot of progress in admission, and we have not used merit aid. But we still struggle to attract African American students. Maybe it’s my earlier involvement with civil rights issues in Boston, but I still think that the biggest piece of unfinished business in America is the position of African Americans in our society. We need to do better. I am also frustrated at the slow progress of hiring faculty of color. We have a genuine institutional commitment to diversity. That’s great. We’ve made the cake. Now we have to bake it.

What’s the biggest piece of unfinished business?

We are not fully need blind. We want to be able to admit every applicant without regard to his or her financial capacity.

To get there, we need to do two things: increase our appeal to the most talented applicants who can afford full tuition, and increase our endowment for financial aid to support those who cannot. We have made good progress on both fronts, and I hope that Reed can get to the goal of becoming need blind in the next decade.

The fact that we are not yet need-blind is not to say, by the way, that we are any less generous than our peers. If you look at other schools that are need-blind, we look pretty good. We have over 50% of the students on financial aid, with an average package of $34,000 a year. About 18% of our students are on Pell grants.

Another issue is the challenge of continuing to recruit top-quality faculty in certain disciplines, such as economics and some of the sciences. Reed has a very strong tradition of pay equity for faculty across disciplines. Preserving that tradition is very important to the faculty. But

22 Reed magazine june 2012

Back to the fuchsia: Diver stands resplendent in a robe that could drown out a 747 on take-off. Above, hoisting a shovel with professors Kathleen Worley, Carla Mann ’81, David Schiff, and Virginia Hancock ’62 at performing arts groundbreaking.

I worry that growing salary differentials among disciplines within the academic marketplace will make it harder and harder for us to recruit without either offering differential compensation in some fields or significantly raising salary levels for the entire faculty.

There’s also the ongoing struggle to combat substance abuse. We’ve made a lot of progress. We’re in good shape. But this takes time and a strong, sustained effort to change a culture. It takes 10 years to accomplish. And we didn’t get serious about it until about five years ago. We have turned the corner but we have to sustain the effort.

Is Reed too expensive?

Tuition is too high for many families—but we are able to help them with financial aid.

I’m proud of the fact that all our financial aid is based wholly on need. Unlike many schools, we do not give discounts for wealthy kids. But there’s a difference between price and cost. We are producing something special here—an elaborate package of services. It’s an artisanal product tailor-made to each student. The whole idea is that every student is the object of attention. So it’s expensive—it’s inherently expensive. Small classes taught by fulltime professional educators. The facilities, IT, library, labs are all top of the line. We’re proud of it. That’s our trademark. Yes, you can do it cheaper. You can have huge lectures, distance learning, lots of adjuncts.

Since you’ve been president, the internet has made incalculable amounts of information available to anyone with a high-speed connection.

Has that diminished the value of a Reed education?

No. But I think the biggest long-term challenge to higher education comes from the information revolution. Once upon a time, you got your news, your sports, weather, and your recipes from your newspaper— that’s the prix fixe model. But we are now living in an à la carte world. People can get their weather from the weather channel and their sports from ESPN—why should they buy a newspaper? The same thing is happening in education. You can get a first-class physics course online from MIT. You can get statistics from Carnegie Mellon. How does Reed compete in that world? We have to be the best integrator in the business. In a way, we’ve got a built-in advantage—we already have a pretty integrated curriculum. My advice to Reed is to figure out a science-andmath equivalent of Hum 110 and to reinforce its identity as a community of scholars.

Because no online course can replicate the experience of living in such a community.

Has the Honor Principle outlived its usefulness?

I think it’s fair to say the Honor Principle has never lived up to its potential. People need to accept responsibility for their behavior and understand that the Honor Principle is not about license. You can’t have a community of honor if everyone has their own view of honor. Democratically approved policies are part of the Honor Principle. So the Honor Principle is not unwritten—it is written. There are difficult practical issues in implementing the Honor Principle, but the concept of honor, I think that’s a fantastic idea. I hope Reed never gives up on it.

The Diver Decade Since taking the helm in 2002, Diver, 67, has led the college through several significant changes. Notable landmarks include: Student life Reed’s four-year graduation rate has risen from 45% to 70%. The college has built several new dorms, allowing almost 70% of students to live on campus. It has also revamped fitness, health, and wellness programs to help Reedies thrive in the intense academic environment.

Diversity The proportion of American students of color has risen from 10% to 23%.

International students account for 6% of the population, first-generation students for 12%. The college has a dean for institutional diversity and has embraced diversity as a core value.

Selectivity Reed accepted 34% of applicants for fall 2012, down from 71%, while SAT scores have climbed steadily. (Median scores for the class of ’15 were 710 reading, 690 writing, 680 math.)

Performing arts Reed has strengthened the departments, added several teaching positions, and begun construction on an ambitious performing arts building.

Professors The college has added 13 full-time faculty positions, pushing the student-to-faculty ratio down to 10.23 to 1. Faculty compensation has been strengthened across the board. There is greatly expanded support for research.

Purse strings The Centennial Campaign raised $199 million in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The college has doubled its spending on financial aid to $22.5 million a year. Approximately 52% of students now receive financial aid; the average award is $34,200 a year.

“Colin has been a really positive force on campus . . . he took us out of our complacency and pushed us to do things a little differently. That’s leadership.”

—Professor Arthur Glasfeld [chemistry 1989–]

“He is a thoughtful and articulate speaker and a wonderful writer. He is also a very moral person—he wants to do what’s right.” —Professor Virginia Hancock ’62 [music 1991–] “The more time I spent with Colin, the more his intellect, thoughtfulness, and dedication to Reed students inspired my awe and admiration.”

—Misha Isaak ’04, former thesis advisee

“What I have seen in his 10 years here has been sensitive, thoughtful leadership, as all of us examined our principles, how we do things, and why, and we have emerged intact, but only more so. Reed is now in better shape in all respects than ever in its history.”

—Steve McCarthy ’66, trustee emeritus

“Colin Diver is a New Englander, and, I thought at first, a stoic and reserved kind of guy. Not at all. He poured his heart and soul into this job. He was never afraid of tackling the difficult issues. He embraced Reed and challenged Reed to engage in an ambitious campaign, including a long-sought-after performing arts center. He succeeded. His legacy will last a long time.”

—Dan Greenberg ’62, trustee

june 2012 Reed magazine 23

e l t e e B ia Man

ogist Entomol r Marshall ’89 he Christop my of 3 million ar leads an on State eg at the Or Collection d Arthropo ndez Herna l e m o

By R unzio t d ’a n n t a m y sb photo

“This, you’ve got to see,” says Chris Marshall ’89, carefully sliding a wooden drawer out of his cabinet of curiosities.

Inside, protected by a sheet of glass, a dozen beetles, each the size of a thumbnail, lie impaled on pins. These are no ordinary backyard creepy crawlies. They shimmer with an extraordinary metallic iridescence, looking more like pieces of jewelry carved of gold and silver than winged insects that flutter through the cloud forests of Central America feasting on foliage.

Although Chris has examined them many times, the sheer beauty of these two species of scarab beetles—Chrysina resplendens and C. optima, to be exact—still takes his breath away. “They’re like precious gems,” he says.

Being the curator of the Oregon State Arthropod Collection is the perfect job for Chris. Housed on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis, the collection boasts almost 3 million specimens representing tens of thousands of species,

future researchers,” he says. “We’re not just dusting off shelves—maintaining our ties to research is vital.”

OSU entomologist David Maddison, director of the collection, says Chris brings a unique skill set to the job.

“Chris is top notch,” Maddison says.

“He’s got a really strong vision for what the collection needs to be today, but he’s also thinking about 50 years from today.”

Chris can’t recall a time when he wasn’t fascinated by bugs.

Growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts, he collected bugs he found in his backyard.

By the time he saw a 4-H insect collection at a state fair at the age of seven or eight, he was hooked—bitten by the bug, as it were. His father built him a wooden display case, and within a few years he was already specializing in beetles. He pored over books about insects, memorized the nomenclature of species, and even got a pet tarantula to overcome his aversion to spiders (which are arachnids, not insects).

“They’re like precious gems.” making it the largest and most important in the Pacific Northwest. About 70% of the species come from the western United States; the rest hail from every continent except Antarctica.

Monstrous Titanus giganteus beetles whose pincer-like mandibles can snap a pencil in half. Agrias butterflies with their showy, psychedelic wings resembling tie-dye shirts.

Dendroctonus ponderosae, weevils not much bigger than a grain of rice that, when assembled in their armies of millions, can chomp down a forest. Chris now has them all—or at least a good many of them. He happily calls studying insects a “compulsion,” adding, “I can’t walk past a stone without flipping it over to see what’s underneath.”

Every insect tells a unique story—about evolution, ecology, and even history (think the Black Plague). Insects give us insights into everything from genetics to global warming. An Illinois scientist, for example, is studying bumblebees from the OSU collection dating back decades to investigate the sudden decline of the species in the western U.S. (a pathogen is suspected).

“Ultimately, our mission is to preserve biodiversity for biologists, as well as for

26 Reed magazine june 2012

—Chris Marshall ’89

At Reed, he flirted with herpetology, doing his senior thesis on fire-bellied toads.

But professor Robert Kaplan [biology 1983–] suspected that he was always an entomologist at heart. Kaplan recalls a research expedition with students to study frogs in Korea in the mid-’80s. Sitting in a tent in the jungle going over notes with the students, he noticed Chris snatching at things in the air and stuffing them in his pockets. “He was collecting beetles,” Kaplan says. “He was very nonchalant about it—I was impressed.”

Although there was no entomologist on the faculty, Chris says, Reed was “where I got an exposure to true academia—an environment that rewarded thinking out of the box and finding creative approaches to solving problems . . . . Which is something I do here.”

After graduating, he headed to the East Coast, rekindling his interest in insects when he got a job working with the beetle collection at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology—a job he landed after visiting the museum to get help identifying some of the bugs he had collected in Korea. He went on to earn his PhD in

entomology at Cornell, followed by fellowships at the Smithsonian and the Field Museum in Chicago, until he took the job at Oregon State in 2006.

Oregon State’s collection was started around the 1860s and maintains exceptional holdings in Coleoptera (beetles), Lepidoptera (butterf lies and moths), Hymn-optera (bees and wasps), and Hemiptera (“true bugs,” including aphids, cicadas, and many other species). Chris spends most of his time on curatorial work—including the enormous task of digitizing and cataloging the extensive collection so that researchers anywhere in the world will soon be able to pull out a “virtual drawer” and examine images of any specimen in the collection.

He also pursues his own research. He has been involved in expeditions to jungles of South and Central America and has even hunted an uncommon type of fairy shrimp in the Reed canyon that had previously been known from just a handful of specimens in a museum. More recently, his work has centered on high-elevation insects in the Pacific Northwest. He has been strapping on snowshoes and a headlamp to tramp around the Cascades with Oregon State colleague Dave Lytle, looking at species inhabiting what is for most insects an unusual environment— the high, cold, and wet conditions of alpine snowfields at night. In fact, Chris believes they have encountered individuals that do not conform to species previously described under such conditions—entomologistspeak for saying they may have discovered a new species. With due scientific caution, however, he refuses to divulge any details until they can publish their findings.

What stands out about Chris is that he has never lost his sense of wonder. He judges 4-H kids’ insect collections at the Oregon State Fair, and when a collector, young or old, calls with a question about something he found that he can’t quite identify, Chris makes the time to help. “I feel I can give back, and that’s awesome,” he says. “I’ll go out of my way to help a young kid who is interested in starting a collection.”

GO FURTHER Take a look at OSU’s arthropod collection at osac.science .oregonstate.edu/images/.

Check out insect fecal defense mechanisms at academic. reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching /web_2008/ryaw_site/index.html/.

Read about another remarkable Reed entomologist, Nancy Coe Farmer ’63, at www.reed.edu/reed_magazine /june2010/features/spellbound/index.html/.

june 2012 Reed magazine 27

From the Lions’ Den He survived the Khmer Rouge. Came to the U.S. penniless.

Went to Reed on a scholarship. Now Puon Penn ’92 is giving back.

By Randall S. Barton | photos by paolo vescia

The monsoon season is nearly over, Puon Penn ’92 thinks as he travels south on Highway 1 from Phnom Penh, looking out at the swollen Mekong. But with the rains beginning to subside, the river probably won’t breach its banks.

It is Sunday, and Puon, an executive at Wells Fargo, is taking a day off from the work he has come to oversee in the crowded Cambodian capital. About 20 kilometers away is Kien Svay, a serene village where picturesque shacks rise out of the river, supported on stilts. In one of these is a restaurant where just the memory of the rotisserie chicken makes his mouth water.

Puon enters the restaurant and takes a seat on a mat at the edge of the deck. He orders his meal and, reaching over the deck, trails his hand through the river. Boat merchants move steadily past, offering homemade gifts, snack foods, and flowers. A small boat approaches with an old woman in the bow cradling a woven basket. As Puon looks into the basket, he recoils. It is filled with fried grasshoppers. The wake from the boat laps against the deck, and Puon is transported back to a time when you could be shot for eating locusts.

Puon was four years old in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia.

At first, people in his village of Don Noy were overjoyed that the long civil war— during which his father and two siblings died—was finally at an end. But the nightmare was just beginning. Newspapers,

28 Reed magazine june 2012

radio, and television stations were shut down. Money, private ownership, and religion were banned. City dwellers were forced to become agricultural laborers. You could be punished for wearing glasses or speaking a foreign language.

Droves of urban refugees began pouring into Don Noy with no idea of how to survive in the countryside, what to eat, or how to farm.

Angka (“The Organization”) controlled what people wore, what they ate, how they spent their waking hours. Puon was placed in a camp designed to transform children into fanatic communists. He silently watched other children being rewarded for revealing that their parents were only posing as peasants and were thus enemies of the state.

As the Cambodian economy collapsed, food became scarce. Sustenance was limited to a daily bowl of rice gruel. Soon people were dying from starvation. Although foraging for food was a capital offense, Puon and his family hunted for anything they could eat—even grasshoppers.

“At some point,” Puon says, “your hunger takes over any fear of consequences.”

In December 1978, the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia and steamrolled across the country. Within months it reached one of the last Khmer Rouge strongholds, the province of Banteay Meanchey, where the Penn family lived. As the Khmer army retreated, people fled into the jungle. One night Puon’s uncle, who lived in Thailand, sneaked across the border

june 2012  Reed magazine 29

Puon Penn ’92 and told Mrs. Penn that the chaos was making it difficult for the Khmer Rouge to control movements. This was her opportunity to get out of Cambodia.

“My mother had to make a difficult decision,” Puon remembers. Her elderly father was too frail to make the journey and might not survive for long without her. But her children had no future in Cambodia. “It was heartrending,” he says. “But she made the decision to leave.”

Fighting back tears and taking care to avoid land mines and Khmer Rouge patrols, the family crossed the border under cover of darkness. They were immediately picked up by Thai border guards, who held them for weeks in an open field without shelter until a refugee camp could be staged. They were transferred to a camp in Bangkok for six months, where Puon first touched a book, probably an illustrated Bible. Years later, he realized that the illustration he used to gaze at depicted Daniel in the lion’s den.

The Penns were selected for a lottery that placed refugees in a variety of countries, and by luck of the draw were chosen to go to Linden, Michigan (population 2,861), about a half hour from Flint, where a local church sponsored them. On a freezing October day, well-meaning Christians in thick quilted jackets met them at the airport. The Penns didn’t speak English, and the Americans in their down-filled coats seemed like aliens. But Puon says his family received their new blessings “like manna from heaven.”

Puon’s elder siblings worked to support themselves from the time they arrived in the United States. To support her two younger children, his mother depended on welfare and food stamps. “In spite of the fact that my mother never had a chance to go to school, she is probably the wisest person I know,” he says. “She is an excellent leader with a killer instinct to survive.

I learned all of that from her.”

In 1983 they moved to Stockton, California. In high school, Puon showed an aptitude for biology and chemistry. He got a summer job at the University of the Pacific as a research assistant to Michael Minch, a chemistry professor who suggested he apply to Reed College because it had

30 Reed magazine june 2012

“Somebody provided the resources for me to go to Reed and get a great education, and now it’s my turn to pass on that opportunity.”

Photo from the ’92 Griffin.

one of the strongest undergraduate biology and chemistry departments in the country.

Puon could barely afford the application fee and wondered how he would pay for an education at Reed. But Minch’s encouragement helped overcome his reluctance, and he applied.

“After submitting my application I was overcome with fear, more of getting in than not,” Puon says. “I had the sinking feeling that Dr. Minch or any of the great teachers I had in high school would do something foolish like raid their family savings to help a completely unproven nobody.”

He was dumbfounded to receive both an acceptance letter and a full scholarship to Reed.

He almost didn’t make it past the first quarter of his freshman year. Listening to his classmates talk abstractly about the problems of the world, Puon felt like a fish out of water. Some of his friends transferred after the first semester, and he considered doing the same. He had no money to go home during winter break. By the time Paideia commenced, he had come to the realization that it was up to him to take a stance and make each day better.

Like many Reedies before and after, Puon found solace in his studies. At Reed he honed his analytical skills and learned how to ask the hard questions. “I wasn’t the smartest, the strongest, or anything,” he says. “But I knew that if I could find really great people and learn from them, that over a period of time with hard work, the lessons I learned from those folks would eventually translate to success. You can’t control the conditions you are given, only the effort you put into things.”

He was influenced by Peter Steinberger [political science 1973–] and eventually switched his major to economics, which

allowed him to zero in on his passion: ecology. Economics, the study of how people create economic systems and survive within them, is human ecology, Puon says.

Unless people can sustain themselves, it is not possible to safeguard the environment.

In his junior year at Reed, he was awarded the Mintz Scholarship, created by Walter Mintz ’50 [trustee 1969–2002] to provide critical support for economics majors.

After writing his thesis, The Economics of Institutions: Policy Implications for America’s Schools, Puon attended the University of Chicago, where he earned a master’s degree in business administration and finance.

Puon is now a senior vice president with Wells Fargo Bank in Palo Alto, where he heads up a clean technology group. His team works with companies that manufacture, market, or develop clean technology products and services, including 8 of the top 10 Chinese solar companies.

Puon and his wife, Annie, live in Los Altos, California, with their four children. They are involved with a number of Cambodian charities, including a children’s hospital, and have adopted an orphaned girl who lives in Cambodia. “I don’t think opportunities came to me just so I could make a bunch of money and own a lot of toys,” he says. “I wanted to figure out ways to engage with the world.”

Given that his mother was illiterate and he didn’t start school until he was 10 years old, the probabilities were low for his attending a college like Reed. Having benefited from many opportunities, Puon feels it is his duty to give back.

He was the first person to pledge to fund a Reed Centennial Scholarship, which offers Annual Fund donors the option of making a

multiyear commitment to a scholarship that will carry their name. The scholarships are flexible and immediately expendable, allowing the college to allocate funds to meet students’ immediate financial needs.

“Somebody provided the resources for me to go to Reed and get a great education, and now it’s my turn to pass on that opportunity,” he says. “I’m very much middle class in the way I live, but it’s about budgeting. I’d rather give a little bit at a time than wait until I become a millionaire to give back.”

Success has many factors, he tells the young people he mentors: among them is hard work and help from people who care about us and want us to succeed. And while there are always people who are better connected, with more resources, he has discovered that these people usually welcome someone who brings rigorous thought to the conversation.

From the deck of the Kien Svay restaurant, Puon nods to the woman in the boat. He will take an order of the fried grasshoppers. She fills a paper cone, and when he takes it, he notices they are still warm from the hot oil. It is ironic, he thinks, that the taste of hardship has become a delicacy. The fried crunch gives way to notes of salt and sugar, and he is filled with memories bitter and sweet.

Read more about Walter Mintz ’50 at www.reed.edu /reed_magazine/feb2005/columns/NoC/mintz.html.

Read more about the Centennial Scholarship at www. reed.edu/reed_magazine/march2012/articles/features /campaign.html.

june 2012 Reed magazine 31

Seven iconic figures from Reed’s first century

“In every roundup, the finest steers are always outside the bunch.”

— David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, at the laying of the Reed College cornerstone, June 8, 1912

This month, Oregon State University will publish Comrades of the Quest: An Oral History of Reed College, edited by John Sheehy ’82. This magisterial volume, constructed from hundreds of interviews with professors, presidents, alumni, and administrators over the past century, traces the history of the college, from Amanda Reed to Nitrogen Day, as told by the people who worked, studied, lived, and loved here. Rather than excerpt a single passage, we chose to highlight seven figures who shaped the college in one way or another. If this sampling whets your appetite, we encourage you to check out the book at ComradesOfTheQuest.org.

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The Founders

Amanda and Simeon Reed Simeon made the fortune, but Amanda was no pushover. Inspired by Thomas Lamb Eliot, she dreamed of giving Portland—long viewed as a provincial outpost—a beacon of art, culture, and learning.

Simeon and Amanda Wood Reed in 1854, shortly after coming to Portland.

Simeon Reed: I was born in East Abington, Massachusetts, on the twenty-third of April, 1830. I married Amanda Wood on the seventeenth of October, 1850. I came to California via the Isthmus of Panama, and then to Oregon in 1852. I built a store in Rainier on the Columbia River, and engaged in general merchandising. At the time they were raising lots of potatoes and onions along the river and they were running a steamer twice a month down to San Francisco, so I thought Rainier would be a good shipping point and subsequently a good place for a store. I eventually sold out the business, and moved to Portland to take a position with William S. Ladd, who was then Portland’s mayor, in general merchandising. I remained with Ladd until he started in the banking business. While clerking for Ladd I had bought an interest in the Columbia River Steam Navigation Company, eventually buying out the balance of the company. I had about as much to do with bringing about the organization of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company as perhaps any one person.

Lloyd Lyman ’48: Simeon Reed was fussy about his clothes and tended to be a flashy dresser. On Sundays he drove to church with his wife in a smart landau behind high-stepping matched horses in silver-mounted harnesses. He also liked bourbon whiskey and was not a stranger to the wines that go with good living. But his passion seemed to be for expensive cigars that he bought in lots of five hundred and smoked constantly...

Reed showed his wife the utmost devotion and respect. Such treatment was partly engendered by her fiery disposition. Despite the appearance of a prim and docile wife, Amanda was strong willed. If the situation warranted it, she was capable of displaying a temper that her husband described as “swearing mad.”

She also possessed an astute and capable mind that Simeon trusted in both domestic and business problems. It is an irony of fate that in the midst of all the luxury and plenty that money could produce, the only barren things were Reed and his wife.

Undoubtedly it was this frustrated desire for children that prompted Reed’s interest in the education of young people.

Henrietta Eliot: Mr. and Mrs. Reed were Universalists when they came out here, but they were brought into the Unitarian church of my husband, Reverend Thomas Lamb Eliot, and became faithful members. They sang in the choir. Mrs. Reed was a woman of relatively simple tastes given her affluence.

There was nothing ostentatious about her at all personally. She did not seem to realize that she was a very rich woman. She was a person of great poise and dignity, and, in a quiet way, of leadership.

Last Will and Testament of Amanda Reed: It is my desire and intention that the institution so founded and established shall be a means of general enlightenment, intellectual and moral culture, the cultivation and development of fine arts, and manual training and education for the people. And I desire and direct that it forever be and remain free from sectarian influence, regulation, or control, permitting those who may seek its benefits to affiliate with such religious societies as their consciences may dictate.

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The Iconoclast

William T. Foster [president 1910–19] Brilliant prodigy from Bowdoin, Foster scorned the “sheep-dip” mentality of higher ed and set out to create a new kind of college dedicated to the radical notion that students should actually study.

“Born a rebel,” Foster was equally confident challenging convention and climbing Mt. Hood.

Dorothy Johansen ’33 [history 1934– 84]: To his wife, summering in Maine, Foster wired the simple message, “Elected President.” When it came to her it read, “Electric President.” There was prophecy in this error, as the trustees and the city of Portland were soon to realize.

Foster: I was born a rebel. For many years I did not know what was the matter with me. Then I began to realize that my New England ancestors made me a cantankerous nonconformist, scowling at contented men and women, and warning them that whatever they were doing, they should be doing something else. To reform the world—and quickly—I mounted my horse, spear in hand, and rode forth in all directions at once. . . . I mention the belligerent orator who shouted, “I want tax reform, I want suffrage reform, I want money reform.” And the heckler who cried, “You want chloroform!” I do not blame those who felt that way about me. I hoped, however, that Reed College would continue to

34 Reed magazine june 2012

stand staunchly — and if necessary, stand alone — for whatever Reed College considered right.

F.L. Griffin [math 1911–56]: Very few men contributed as much as Foster to correcting the imbalance in American education between educational matters and recreational activities. He fashioned Reed not as a savings-bank college, where a student would deposit some course credits and then draw out a diploma, but as a coherent educational enterprise. The student would graduate only when he could show by a satisfactory thesis and all examinations that he possessed some well-organized knowledge. Foster knew the inequalities inherent in most grading systems. He corrected the worst of these and allowed extra credit toward graduation for work of a high quality. The grades, however, were administered without disclosure to the students, so that their usual role as instruments of motivation largely disappeared.

Arthur Wood [sociology 1911–15]: Foster was an able, shrewd, resourceful man. He had no speculative interests at all. Like the Romans, he was a very good man for building roads. He was hard, practical, and opportunistic. Yet, his personality was somewhat schizoid.

He could be charming and lovable, but he could also be arrogant, morose, and domineering. Reed attracted the firstcomers on the faculty because it was a new and promising venture in education.

Foster painted the prospect in glowing colors—faculty houses, no fraternities, no intercollegiate athletics, small classes, real faculty government, and above all, a spirit of teamwork. A fine bill of goods!

Some of us had had the normal academic experience in other institutions of double-crossing, discouragement, and frustration. All of us who came to Reed came with high hopes.

Foster: The story of Reed College is fired with the zest of pioneers. . . . We live by vision and by faith.

The Tug-of-Warrior

Dexter Keezer [president 1934–42] Educator, journalist, and New Deal economist Dexter Keezer arrived on campus determined to give bookish students a taste of the outdoors and crack down on the canoodling. It didn’t always work.

Time, November 11, 1935: Dexter Keezer arrived at Portland last autumn with his wife and small daughter, sworn to become no stuffed shirt. Students made his acquaintance during the freshmansophomore tug of war when the victorious sophomores discovered that one of the “freshmen” they had been dragging through the mud was new President Keezer. Subsequently “Prex Dex” attracted even more attention by appearing in bright red duck pants. In the winter he could be seen carrying an armful of wood to heat a cold conference room. In the spring he played tennis and fished with his students, shocked bookworms when he inaugurated a carnival and skiing trips, and reminded them: “You don’t live on intellect alone.”

Cheryl Scholz MacNaughton [dean of women 1924–37, history 1938–43]: Keezer was an able, hard worker, and certainly astute in many ways. But he ran into a tougher situation at Reed than he had expected—it was a phalanx of free thinkers

who had strong ideas of what they wanted to do academically. They didn’t care to be upset by some young man from the East who didn’t know a thing about how they had done things up until that time. The faculty didn’t care to be disturbed on those grounds. It never has.

Keezer: I found the social setup at Reed strangely out of balance and coeducationally dangerous, both for too-docile young ladies and for the young men who were gaining an altogether false impression of the importance of their opinions.

Cecelia Gunterman Wollman ’37: President Keezer wanted us to be more decorous in our lifestyle on campus.

Among the many things that came up for discussion with him was whether we were going to have dorm controls, including the business of locking the doors in the women’s dorms in the evenings. “Intervisitation” was another one—whether we could have men in the women’s dorms and under what conditions and at what hours.

Clement Akerman [economics 1920–43]: Mr. Keezer seemed to feel that the students should be guided more in their conduct by the faculty. I felt that students were able to take care of themselves in most ways, and that they should be left alone in their social lives to a great extent, and allowed to form their own methods of governance and entertainment. The students themselves felt very strongly about their self-government, and they resented any efforts to be bossed. If anything seemed to infringe upon their self-government, they were up in arms.

E. B. MacNaughton [president 1948–52]: Five months slipped by before we realized there had been no inauguration for President Keezer. One day I said seriously to Reed’s new president, “You should know by now that Reed College has been credited with encouraging such unconventionalities as Communism and free love, and we haven’t yet legitimized your relationship with us and made an honest man of you.”

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The Steady Hand

Paul Bragdon [president 1971–88] Lawyer, Marine Corps veteran, and former press secretary, Bragdon came to Reed amid an atmosphere of subdued crisis. The college’s finances were in perilous condition, the faculty was divided, and the nation was being ripped apart by the war in Vietnam.

Freshly minted President Paul Bragdon walks with twelve-year-old son David after inauguration on March 11, 1972.

Nancy Bragdon: Paul and I got off a train in August of 1971 and came to see the house in Eastmoreland that we had bought sight unseen on the recommendation of Reed’s chairman, John Gray. John wanted us to live fairly close to campus.

Paul used to joke, “But not a stone’s throw away.” . . . The house was just a mess. The doors were all boarded up except for a side door. We came inside and went into the garage. Somebody had spray painted “Fuck you” on the inside of the garage door. Later, when we went to get permits for the remodeling, the immediate neighbors objected violently. One neighbor went to the city council and said that we were turning the house into a pleasure palace to entertain people from Reed College.

After stepping into the Reed presidency I reread the book and thought to myself, “My goodness, whatever made me think that I should be so arrogant to believe that I could be successful in this context?”

Paul Bragdon: Before I came to Portland I had read Burton Clark’s book The Distinctive College, which addressed the history of Reed as well the histories of Antioch and Swarthmore up until 1960. It was a cautionary tale at best, describing Reed’s financial difficulties through the years, the divisions in the college, and the fact that there had been lots of acting and interim presidents.

Richard Jones [history 1941–86]: We were concerned that if we didn’t go along with the things Bragdon wanted, if we opposed him, he was going to resign probably, and that would cause all the trustees to resign. I did not think that Paul Bragdon was an educator, nor that he really understood, or was committed to, the nature of the college.

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Dorothy Davenhill Hirsch ’52: I called him “the Sphinx” when I was serving as president of the alumni association. Paul Bragdon was a person who did not speak his mind. He listened. I just liked him.

Arthur Leigh [econ 1945–88]: Overall, Paul Bragdon’s administration was one of greater tranquility and greater progress than Reed had known in decades. But there was opposition to Paul, people who didn’t like him, though most of us did.

Paul Bragdon: From the day I arrived there was talk of an “old” Reed and a “new” Reed. There was always a suspicion that somebody wanted to change something that was a distinct jewel into something that was perhaps another institution. I had gone to Amherst College as an undergraduate, and some people would say “He wants to turn Reed into another Amherst.” Well, I didn’t, but the fact was that if I had wanted to, I couldn’t have done it. Each institution has its own history, its own culture, and its own traditions. You cannot impose things upon it or even nurse things in a certain direction.

Lena Lencek [Russian 1977–]: Paul Bragdon snatched Reed from the brink of disaster and put it on a solid footing.

He introduced a system of accountability that stood the college in good stead going forward, and he reestablished its credibility with the East Coast establishment and with funding sources. He really performed a Herculean task in moving Reed out of one league into another. He was a real mensch.

The Trophy

The Doyle Owl Ever since it was first liberated from an Eastmoreland mansion by residents of House F (later Doyle), the owl has been the object of desire, intrigue, larceny, and impostorship.

From left: Val Thorneycroft ’55, Anne Read Smith ’55, Alicia Witner, Unknown, and Dr. Carla Wolff Horwood ’54.

Five Reed women liberated the owl, moved it to an undisclosed location, and painted it pink in April, 1952.

William Helms ’23: House F (Doyle) was the largest house and it boasted a more positive image. Their emblem was a stone owl, about thirty inches in height and weighing perhaps two hundred pounds. This was perched on a parapet on their house. The newly born House G would have liked to have that owl, but it was closely guarded.

However, one of us sighted an exact duplicate of that owl on a gatepost of a fine home in Portland. It was not hard to figure where the House F owl had come from. I don’t remember just how it came about, but owl number two came to perch on the parapet outside House G. From then on it was war.

House F could not tolerate another owl on the campus and we finally lost it. Rumor had it that owl number two ended up in the bottom of the Reed lake.

Robert Rosenbaum [math 1939–1953]: One Sunday in the fall of 1941, I was involved with the preparations for an open house at the Eastport dorm, where I was resident adviser. That morning, I was working in my office in Eliot Hall when my wife, Louise, burst in, exclaiming, “The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor, and the rest of

the campus is attacking Eastport!” I ran back to the residence hall to find students swarming up the outside walls of the building, aided by ivy, hoping to break through the second-floor windows to capture the Doyle Owl, which was being held there.

One Eastport resident who was a wellheeled Anglophile had his favorite record on, “There’ll Always Be an England,” while he stood valiantly at this dorm window using a stainless steel crankshaft to rap on the knuckles of students that grasped at the windowsill trying to get in.

Ron Fox ’64: The Doyle Owl was in the possession of the Haberfeld twins, Steve ’63 and Peter ’63, along with three other guys who were all members of the football team. They were the biggest and baddest guys on the campus, and in good humor they would often show the Doyle Owl in the commons during the dinner meal, repelling all attempts to wrest the owl away. One evening after one of these failed attempts, I was walking by the library parking lot when I spotted the Haberfelds’ car. I broke into the car through an open wing window, and found the owl in the trunk. Dwight

Read ’64 and I then loaded the owl onto his motorcycle, and took it to a safe place.

Dwight eventually drove the owl down to Los Angeles and got it filmed inside a tank at Seaworld, where he had connections, with sharks and sea turtles. Some months later we secretly spliced this film into the Friday night movie on campus.

David Holinstat ’78: At Renn Fayre every year chemistry professor John Hancock used to do an outdoor show called “The Magic of Chemistry,” with all sorts of exploding powders and smoke at the end.

The first time I saw it there was a little firework and lots of smoke and then, all of a sudden, underneath the podium Hancock was using, much to his surprise, the Doyle Owl appeared. Then, just as suddenly, it disappeared. As it turned out, it was taken down into the heating tunnels underneath the college. A lot of people then dove down into the tunnels after it.

Brian Ruess ’87: We got word that a group called the Society for Creative Anachronism was going to be bringing in the Doyle Owl via helicopter as part of a softball game. . .

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The Iron Maiden

Gail Kelly ’55 [anthro 1960–2000] Rigorous, disciplined, iconoclastic, Miss Kelly (as she preferred) was the quintessential sink-or-swim professor.

She pushed her students to the limit of their ability, brooked no compromise, and suffered no fools. An implacable champion of the Western canon, she scorned any proposal that smacked of “neo-nannyism.” She sewed her own clothes, never drove a car, and was known to scold students for wearing white after Labor Day. From left: Gerald Green ’68, Jack Friedman ’66, Mike Staeheli ’66, and Peter Goldstein ’69.

The redoubtable Gail Kelly served as “mascot” of the Reed College Bowl team in February, 1966.

Ray Kierstead [history 1978–2000]: The attitudes of many of the men hired at Reed in the late 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s were those of that era. I noticed that some of the faculty titans seemed uncomfortable around intellectual women. The great exception to the rule was Gail Kelly, who inspired respect, awe, and terror in all who knew her.

Peter Steinberger [poli sci 1973–]: There were the “barons” of the faculty when I first arrived, and they were extremely impressive, very smart, but very intimidating and very tough. I feared them. In many cases I admired the fact that they were not only committed to the ethos of the college, but they also understood and lived it. They lived the idea of rigor and of quality and of seriousness: “If you’re going to come to Reed and screw around, get out! That’s not what you’re here for. You’re here to study and study hard and to enjoy it while doing it.”

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Bruce Livingston ’65: Gail Kelly was my advisor. A real tough cookie. As thesis time was approaching, she called me aside one afternoon at the end of class: “Mr. Livingston, a word please.” “Yes, Miss Kelly?”

“I have just looked at Mr. Weisner’s thesis”— Tom Weisner ’65 was the hero of the department—“Judging from the state of his thesis, I dare not imagine the state of yours. By five o’clock this afternoon, I would like to see you at my house with your typewriter and all your notes, and you will stay there until your thesis is finished.” So, I lived there at her house for the next four days. On the third day of being incarcerated, I was upstairs working away, and I heard this knock on her front door and looked out. There was a cluster of my cohorts standing outside. Miss Kelly opened the door, “Yes?” “Miss Kelly, can Bruce come out and play?” “Not yet.”

Larry Large [admin 1982–1999]: There were those who said that we shouldn’t create “neo-nannyism,” a term that I believe was coined by Gail Kelly. She was not convinced that the college ought

to invest in auxiliary services for students, that instead everything ought to be focused on the intellectual, cognitive development of the students.

Leslie Scalapino ’66: Gail Kelly had incredible fashion sense, and sewed her own high-fashion clothes. I liked her tremendously despite the fact that she was so disbelieving in women’s abilities, which was just uncalled for.

David Conlin ’88: Gail Kelly... didn’t like me very much, but I certainly admired her knowledge and her understanding of her subject, even though I was afraid of her.

She had a British affectation in her speech, and once told me that she was to be called “Miss Kelly,” because anthropologists in the British tradition are called “Miss” and “Mr.” They were never “Gail” or “Professor Kelly.”

She called her students by their last names.

“Mr. Conlin,” she said once, “you are antiintellectual.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that was code for something akin to being a fascist.

Behind the Scenes Comrades of the Quest is drawn extensively (though not exclusively) from Reed’s Oral History Project (OHP), launched in 1998 as a way to create a community history of Reed’s first 100 years. The project interviewed 352 alumni and 45 professors, administrators, and staff, transcribed 19 legacy interviews held in the archives, and held 46 storytelling sessions at Reunions, with approximately 594 participants. All this work was performed by 127 valiant volunteers.

One aspect of history that is seldom included in history is the tricky business of obtaining it. We asked Reed’s master storyteller, Cricket Parmalee ’67, to share some episodes from this epic project.

As the D.C. coordinator for the OHP, I dispatched Sarah Murphy ’93 to interview Christian Freer ’36 in Arlington. But after parking near his highrise building and unloading her equipment, she realized she had locked her keys in the car.

AAA said they would come in an hour, but she had to be waiting by the car. Though nearly 90, Christian, a gentleman of the old school, offered to wait with her. (I should add that two years later, he was still a world traveler.)

Sarah had been forewarned by our training manual that people often feel awkward about repeating a story for the tape, so she wanted to

forestall him from saying anything of interest.

This was her first interview, and she didn’t feel comfortable explaining this, so she proceeded to prevent him from talking about himself by talking about herself. For an hour.

Christian thus did not provide the most riveting ending to an interview I ever heard. After two hours of his speaking about his life and time at Reed, Sarah thanked him. And as she leaned forward to turn off the tape, he said, “Now . . . tell me about yourself.”

What They *Really* Said One of the many challenges of oral history is transcribing interviews. Here’s a sample of phrases transcribed from a group interview with the Class of ’54, followed by what a second pair of ears deciphered:

As transcribed

What they Really said

forerunner informer

business physics

questioning freshman

checker

Alan Dean ’41, who was a trustee and an important figure in federal government, mentioned to his interviewer, Tchad Wallace ’92, that he had memorized “great chunks” of Goethe, which he could still recite. Tchad invited him to do so, which explains why his interview includes 14 sparkling lines of Faust—in the original German.

Richard Conviser ’65 interviewed Will Sibley ’51 at his home near Annapolis, where he repairs sailboats. After graduating, Will wound up as an anthropologist, but he’d always been a good mechanic and loved to tinker. In fact, this perspective seemed to permeate his experience of Reed. Asked about President E.B. MacNaughton, he remembered Mr. Mac “as an interesting and brash person who had a very heavily dented car.

I don’t know what was the matter with his eyesight, but I think he frequently inflicted his car on things.” Which demonstrates the value of oral history: the glimpse of someone you wouldn’t have gotten from anyone else.

Cecelia Gunterman Wollman ’37, known as Tete, was my first interview. I was nonchalant. I did not foresee that after two hours I would feel like a member of Tete’s family—and that I would be hooked on the project. Done with our work, I would send her a postcard of the Oregon coast when I went out to Portland. A few years later I had occasion to visit her again. That was when I learned that she was being treated for cancer.

At 89 she was remarkably independent and was driving herself to her chemotherapy treatments.

I had had a brush with cancer myself not long before, and asked her the favor of letting me drive her. “After all, Tete,” I said, “We are having a heat wave.” Afterwards we went to her favorite coffee shop and talked for hours. At that point in her life, with so many gone, I think it was a treat for her to have a new friend. And by connecting, we were fulfilling the project’s profoundest purpose.

Ann Shepard

horseshoe unfortunate

any reference to homosexuality

made one laugh seriously

any open display of homosexuality made one liable to being seriously damaged

instead I’m here

but I spent a year

political environment

being open-minded

environmental school

Harvard Medical School

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Reediana Books by Reedies

Mary Klevjord Rothbart ’62 Becoming Who We Are: Temperament and Personality in Development (The Guilford Press, 2011)

An emerita distinguished professor o f psycholo g y at the University of Oregon, and the winner of the Amer ican Ps yc h o l o g i c a l Fo u n d a t i o n ’s 2009 Gold Medal Award for life achievement, Mary Klevjord R o t h b a r t i s c o n s i d e re d b y many to be the world ’s foremost expert on temperament. In 1982, she introduced the Infant Behavior Questionnaire, based on parents’ reporting on their own children, which is now among the most widely used measures of infant temperament.

Rothbart encapsulates what she calls “the learning of a lifetime” in this treatise on inborn personality traits and how they persist, develop, or diminish in the face of varying parenting styles, social mores, and

other life circumstances. As any observant parent knows, even newborns vary in how readily their emotions, motor activity, and attention are aroused (which Rothbart calls “reactivity”), and in how much control they exercise in dealing with this arousal (which Rothbart calls “self-regulation”). Rothbart describes these infantile temperamental differences as the building blocks of future personality traits such as conscientiousness, sensation seeking, agreeableness, openness to experience, and shyness.

Recent decades have seen a wealth of longitudinal studies of temperament from infancy to adulthood. Drawing on research from China, Australia, France, Greece, Japan, the U.S., and half a dozen other

countries, Rothbart cites evidence that some traits show strong persistence over time, including extraversion and social inhibition. The ability to delay gratification at age four (“you can have one cookie now, but if you wait, you can have two”) turns out to be highly predictive of future academic competence and adult goal-setting skills, regardless of intelligence.

Intended for researchers and students in clinical psychology, Becoming Who We Are deals forthrightly with the methodological challenges involved in charting human behavior, and also includes a brief survey of the neurological research into human and primate temperament. At the same time, it is sufficiently nontechnical to offer rich insights to any reader, but especially to parents and teachers.

—Angie Jabine ’79

Richard Abel ’48 The Gutenberg Revolution: A History of Print Culture (Transaction Publishers, 2011)

Historians from Francis Bacon to Karl Marx have ranked the printing press (along with gunpowder and the compass) as one of the three inventions that ushered in the modern world. But apart from Elizabeth Eisenstein’s groundbreaking The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, published in 1979, studies of print and its social impact have been bafflingly scarce.

In this brief but extremely dense histor y, lifelong publisher and bookman Richard Abel begins by identifying the key manuscripts that were available to Western scholars before the 15th century, with all their handwritten haphazardness. Cleaving almost obsessively to Karl Popper’s model of falsifiability as the means

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by which faulty hypotheses are discarded and replaced by better ones, Abel makes the basic but essential point that scholarship can’t advance if its practitioners are arguing past one another.

Whether in medicine, law, theology, mathematics, cartography, or astronomy, access to faithful reproductions of the same printed texts literally put them all on the same page for the first time in history.

From the start, Abel asserts, publishers were not merely printers and distributors; they were advocates for untrammeled scholarship, defying both church and state in their quest to disseminate what they considered to be definitive texts. Of course, there were also purveyors of astrology and superficial

entertainments, but Abel is speaking of what he calls “authentic publishers,” whose devotion to the “true and the good” still serves as a model.

Abel takes as his epigraph John Milton’s celebrated remark that books “do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.” For a work that idealizes publishers as gatekeepers of quality, The Gutenberg Revolution is marred by a surprising number of typos and solecisms. Still, it is thrilling to view Western history afresh through the prism of printed books as the engine of knowledge. As we try vainly to predict the social and epistemological consequences of the Internet, Abel’s history not only limns a still-neglected history, it stands as a rare tribute to his forebears in publishing. —ANGIE JABINE ’79

Can’t come to Reunions?

Reunions can come to you!

Linus Rollman ’96 Jousting Armadillos & Other Equations: An Introduction to Algebra (Arbor School of Arts & Sciences, 2011)

Why is algebra hard? For that matter, what is algebra? At first glance, we might think of it as the arithmetic of letters— variables like x and y— but if we take a closer look, there is something more going on. Algebra intro duces a le vel o f abstraction, a way of thinking and reasoning not about particular numbers, but numbers in general. In Jousting Armadillos, Linus Rollman surveys the basic skills and techniques of algebra and explores the underlying concepts that give them their power.

Ostensibly a middle-school textbook, the book eschews the traditional form. The style is conversational and collaborative. Problems and exercises are often designed to be engaged by students in groups and often appear embedded within the exposition. Short writing prompts encourage students to reflect on and write about their strategies and thoughts.

The end result is an exploration of algebra that appeals even to the “nonmath” student.

To be sure, Linus includes exercises for practicing skills, and by the final chapter, the studious reader will surely be proficient in the practice of algebraic manipulation. But the real gems here are the problems and activities that break from the standard mold.

To introduce inductive reasoning, they build pendulums and observe the relationship between the length of string and the time to complete a swing. The game of 20 questions introduces the notion of deductive reasoning.

Throughout the book, students must wrestle with problems that do not have tidy answers; they create their own puzzles and problems; they reflect on results and make conjectures about generalizations. In short, they do mathematics. —Chris Hallstrom ’92

Visit bookstore.reed.edu to order Reed goodies, gifts, and centennial memorabilia.

REED COLLEGE BOOKSTORE bookstore.reed.edu • Jules Wright • 503/777-7757 • wrightj@reed.edu

Reediana Patricia Wallace Garlan ’48 has published Sea Change: The Uncertain Realm of the Married (Summerland Publishing, 2012).

The story, set in November 1963, focuses on Katherine Somerset, an educated, cultivated woman in her 30s, who appears to have it all. She is, however, unaccountably dissatisfied with her life, which leads to a search for a deeper experience during her vacation in Hawaii. The events in the U.S. are an undercurrent of the story, and as Katherine challenges her customary, “customized” world, she is perhaps an embodiment of the changing times and a new generation of Americans.

Reculer Pour Mieux Sauter, by AnneMarie Levine ’61, is available in a signed and numbered edition, through info@annemarielevine .com and Amazon.com. The book is chapter one of a 12-chapter artists’ book. (See Class Notes.)

Homer’s Trojan Theater: Space, Vision, and Memory in the IIiad, by Jenny Strauss Clay ’62, professor of classics at the University of Virginia, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011.

Jenny suggests new ways of approaching ancient narratives— not only with one’s ear, but also with one’s eyes—and argues that the loci system of mnemonics, usually attributed to Simonides, is already

54 Reed magazine june 2012

fully exploited by the Iliad poet to keep track of his cast of characters and to organize his narrative. Jenny suggests that Reedies may also be interested in having a look at the book’s accompanying website, www. homerstrojantheater.org.

Melanoma Mama: On Life, Death, and Tent Camping, by Connie Crooker ’69, was published in April. The book describes the cross-country, solo tent-camping trip Connie took to celebrate her recovery from stage four melanoma diagnosis and treatment. “I gradually discovered that I could begin to enjoy my former activities, even if in limited form, so I have been adding them back into my life,” she writes. “One thing I have loved is marathon, cross-country tent-camping trips; just me and my overpacked car, my AAA maps, and my wanderlust. So, six months after my last radiation treatment, when I had mustered enough energy to conceive of it, that’s what I decided to do.” Connie is working on two additional Melanoma Mama books, Avoiding the Tuscan Sun: Melanoma Mama in Italy and Life in the Slow Lane: Melanoma Mama as Caregiver. Ten percent of the profits from the sale of Melanoma Mama’s books (www.melanomamama.com) will go to melanoma research.

A first collection of poems, Conversation with a Skeleton, by Edward Fisher ’69, was published this year by Trafford. Described as at once passionate and lyrical, Conversation is both a lament for and a defense of a lost Bohemia.

In it, Edward plumbs the depths of a mood of disquietude, defiant in the face of certain trends in American culture—its unchecked militarism, its imperial propaganda, and the corporate colonization of consciousness—all of which show little sympathy for poets and tend to marginalize them, dismiss them, or even steer them toward martyrdom. In his second collection, Darwin’s Circus, childlike joy and wonder accompany Edward’s spiritual wrestling with the meaning of love and death in a celebration of our earthly paradise.

Lorna Cutts Martens ’69 has published The Promise of Memory: Childhood Recollection and Its Objects in Literary Modernism (Harvard University Press, 2011). In this first sustained look at childhood memories, as depicted in the works of Marcel Proust, Rainier Maria Rilke, and Walter Benjamin, Lorna opens a new perspective on early recollection—how it works, why it is valuable, and how shifts in our understanding are reflected in both scientific and literary writings.

Lorna is professor of German and comparative literature at the University of Virginia.

M. Boyd Wilcox MAT ’69 has published Two to Four, a personal documentation of a significant third place in downtown Corvallis, Oregon.

“Third place,” says Boyd, “represents that broad array, down through cultures and across time and geography, of informal public places where many people experience a chunk of their social life.” (First and second go to home and work, respectively.)

“Familiar third place examples include German beer gardens, hair salons, bookstores, French bistros, and, of course, coffee houses.” Boyd’s book includes interviews with 20+ patrons, and sections covering quirky subjects such as overheard conversations; music, noise, and aural ambiance; the conundrum of the restroom light switch; table vulture; and see and be seen. “The book is arranged in journal fashion, as the experience of writing this unfolded before my very eyes, as I spent over four years sitting, sipping, watching, listening, and writing about the social dynamics of this established place.”

Interested readers may obtain copies by going to www.createspace. com/3754878. (See Class Notes.)

Jeffrey Kovac ’70, professor of chemistry at the University of Tennessee, is coeditor of the book Roald Hoffman on the Philosophy, Art, and Science of Chemistry (Oxford University Press, 2011). Though known best for his 50-year career in chemistry, Nobel laureate Roald

Hoffman also wrote extensively about the relationship of chemistry to philosophy, literature, and the arts. In this book, Jeff and coeditor Michael Weisberg present 28 of Hoffmann’s most philosophically significant essays and lectures, many of which are not widely accessible. Organized under the general headings of chemical reasoning and explanation, writing and communicating, art and science, education, and ethics, these stimulating essays provide invaluable insight into the teaching and practice of science.

Jeremy Popkin ’70 published two books in 2011, La presse de la Revolution: Journaux et journalistes, 1789–1799 (Odile Jacob) and A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution (Blackwell/John Wiley). His book on the Haitian Revolution has been praised as a beautifully executed account of one of the most fascinating events in modern history—the only successful slave revolt in world history and the first time people of color overthrew a European colonial regime to establish an independent country. (See Class Notes.)

Robert Slavin ’72, professor of education at Johns Hopkins University and at the University of York, has published Damp Yankees: Another American Gobsmacked by England (iUniverse, 2011). What is it really like to be an American living in England? Robert provides an informative and provocative insider’s glimpse into the heart of England, allowing for a fresh perspective for Americans who want a better understanding of the lovely island of Britain and its people, exotic customs, and ancient traditions.

(See Class Notes.)

Old-school noir meets the new millennium in Confessions of a Sex Maniac by David Sterry ’78. This is a story of obsession, murder, and the underbelly of San Francisco, with a low-level underling bagman sex maniac, who will stop at nothing to get the thing he longs for most—a prize as beautiful as she is deadly—the Snow Leopard. His search takes him deep into the seedy groin of San Francisco’s notorious Polk Gulch, where he must choose: sex or death? “Coal eyes with glowing embers in the center made my breath syncopate, and I could almost feel her long red claws at the end of her paws digging into the small of my back.” A Henry Miller Award finalist, Confessions is a tribute to Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, and all those hard-boiled, tenderhearted noir writers David holds near and dear to his heart, brain, and other essential organs. The New York Times reports, “Sterry writes with comic brio... eye-opening, astonishing, brutally honest, and frequently funny... graphic, politically incorrect, and mostly unquotable in this newspaper.”

New Israel/New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America, by Michael Hoberman ’86, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2011. The New England Puritans’ fascination with the legacy of the Jewish religion has been well documented, but their interactions with actual Jews have escaped sustained historical attention. In New Israel/New England, Michael tells the story of the Sephardic merchants who traded and sojourned in Boston and Newport between the mid-17th century and the era of the American Revolution. He also explores the complex and often contradictory meanings that the Puritans attached to Judaism and the fraught attitudes that they bore toward the Jews as a people.

(See Class Notes.)

Sarah Wadsworth ’86 is coauthor of Right Here I See My Own Books: The Woman’s Building Library at the World’s Columbian Exposition (University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). On May 1, 1893, the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago opened its gates to an expectant public eager to experience its architectural beauty, technological marvels, and vast array of cultural treasures. One of the most popular attractions was the Woman’s Building, a monumental exhibit hall filled with the products of women’s labor—including more than 8,000 volumes of writing by women.

Right Here examines the progress, content, and significance of this historic first effort to assemble a comprehensive library of women’s

texts. Sarah is associate professor of English at Marquette.

Navigation, a first collection of poetry by Brittney Corrigan (McElroy) ’94, was published by the Habit of Rainy Nights Press (rainynightspress. org) in April. Navigation describes an arc of passage guided by the uncertain stars her grandfather revealed to her and those he kept hidden. She enters the uncharted waters and unmapped lands where she must establish the way not only for herself, but also for her child with autism.

The collection is a fluid narrative not only about generations, but also the act of generating one’s own life both inside and outside of the boundaries laid by family. Poet Maxine Scates [English, 1989–2006] says: “The

pulse of every day is made extraordinary as she chronicles the struggles and joys of family in a voice all too aware of a difficult world made all the more dear by our precarious place in it.” (See Class Notes.)

A Guide to the Birds of San Juan Island

by Monika Wieland ’07, was published in 2011

by Orca Watcher.

Over 300 species of birds have been documented on San Juan Island, drawn to the variety of habitats found in its shorelines, farmlands, forests, and prairies. This book provides visitors with a quick entry into the experience of bird watching in this lush environment. A biology major at Reed, Monika now lives in Friday Harbor, Washington.

REED

Eliot Society

100 100 years of reed.

years of giving.

make your mark.

Amanda Reed’s bequest founded the college.

As Reed celebrates its centennial, we invite you to make a bequest commitment of your own.

Contact Kathy Saitas at 503/777-7573 or plannedgiving@reed.edu to make sure Reed can accept your gift as written. plannedgiving.reed.edu

june 2012 Reed magazine 55

In Memoriam Organization Man John C. Pock [sociology 1955–98] February 18, 2012, in Portland.

A legendary professor who influenced generations of social scientists, John Pock died at the age of 86, having taught at Reed for 43 years.

A native of Chicago, John served in the U.S. Army as a combat infantryman and sergeant in the Philippine Islands during World War II. He returned to Chicago after the war and studied at three universities in the area, earning degrees from each: University of Chicago, Roosevelt University, and the University of Illinois. He and his wife, Helen, arrived at Reed in 1955, intending to spend just a single year at the college. “One of the reasons I stayed was that I encountered undergraduates who behaved like students in graduate seminars,” John said. “They asked all the right kinds of challenging ‘stupid’ questions and were more interested in actively producing their own education than in collecting the bookkeeping notations of ‘schooling.’”

John found the Reed conference method particularly conducive to his teaching style. “The conference is a conversation, so that the student does the work. I used to try to get ‘hold of someone who was adamant about something, and I would challenge them with some evidence they had ignored.” He was interested in students who were curious, ambitious, and intellectual risk takers. More than 70 of John’s students went on to earn doctoral degrees and to establish professional careers as sociologists. “There is no single undergraduate teacher that has had such an effect on the discipline,” said Neil Fligstein ’73.

John’s students nominated him for the American Sociological Association’s Contributions to Teaching Award, which he won in 1982. At the 1995 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, a special session, “Contributions of Reed College to the Discipline of Sociology,” chaired by Mark Gould ’67 and David Grusky ’80, was presented in honor of John.

The first sociology reunion in 1996, organized by Ruth Leeds Love ’58 to celebrate John, culminated in the presentation of a Festschrift, Social Differentiation and Social Inequality: Essays in Honor of John C. Pock, edited by Jim Baron ’76, David Grusky ’80, and Don Treiman ’62.

Reed reported that the 45 alumni who attended the reunion agreed that John’s “gruff exterior” masked a great compassion. His analytic understanding of society and insistence on empirical work fascinated and challenged his students, and his ambitions for them raised their own professional expectations. Bill Tudor ’65, now 56 Reed magazine june 2012

emeritus professor of sociology, who studied under John, added that it was rare for an undergraduate teacher to receive a Festschrift.

It was John’s ability to connect with students and channel their energy to learn the tools that would help them understand the social construct of the world that attracted many students to the field of sociology.

Martina Morris ’80 remembered how John would challenge students and say “things that very few faculty members would have the temerity to say. You often learned things about yourself that, on the one hand, were very painful to learn, and on the other hand, allowed you to move past them.” Matthew Bergman ’86 remarked that John treated his students as graduate students. “There was no coddling involved. At the conclusion of my thesis-writing process, I foolishly asked John what he thought of it. He said it was ‘boring shit.’ John was right: it was. But that kind of unsparing honesty and intellectual integrity helped me—working through John—to develop additional academic work and get several articles published.” Richard Conviser ’65 noted: “It was in John Pock’s class that I first realized that as a scientist, I could select issues for study whose scientific

answers would inform policy decisions.”

John taught courses and conducted research in general social science, social demography, stratification and class, organizational analysis, and quantitative methods in history. He was a visiting professor or lecturer at the University of Illinois, the Johns Hopkins University, University of California, Irvine, and the Naval War College. His professional associations included the American Sociological Association, the Pacific Sociological Association, the Population Association of America, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and the Society for the History of Technology. He served as editor of Sociological Perspectives, the journal of the Pacific Sociological Association.

He also worked on program evaluation and organizational studies at Oregon State Hospital; Oregon Health Sciences University; the Office of Economic Opportunity’s VISTA, Community Action, and Model Cities projects; and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. He was a consultant in advertising, polling, and marketing research and on work organization and management issues for domestic and international companies engaged in heavy construction and metal fabrication.

He delved into the methodological problems

involved in the study of poverty and in measuring the consequences of welfare reform.

John championed public education and even ran for the Portland school board in 1966. He wrote about the role of education in offsetting social problems. Making a financial commitment to improve education would always be money well spent, he argued. “The quality and range of a person’s educational opportunities directly determine his lifetime income and our nation’s economic growth. You get what you pay for in any field of our economy. Education is no exception, and it is the best investment we can make.”

In “Some Comments on Academics,” John further addressed the challenges to education.

“There can be no assurance that all or none of the students will utilize the opportunities available to them. No institutional structure or curriculum can guarantee anything more than the opportunity of choice. But one guarantee can be made: the pursuit of one path over the other will display the nature of individual conscience and personal integrity.”

In 1998, at the time of his official retirement from the college, John planned to submit a graduate course on the foundations of social science, to examine why social science developed rather than consider the issues social science examines.

“I don’t intend to retire, whatever that means. I still have a lot of loose ends to take care of.” To the end of his days, he maintained a warm and visible presence on the college campus.

In 2007, John’s students established the John C. Pock named professorship, to be given to a faculty member with a specialty in innovative social science quantitative methodology and theoretically based empirical social research.

Dorothy Johnson Campbell ’40 January 20, 2012, in Vancouver, Washington.

Dorothy transferred to Reed from the University of Washington and earned a BA in psychology. On the day that she graduated, she married Laurence C. Rodgers ’29 [comptroller 1937– 41]. She accompanied Laurence as he traveled around Oregon for his work in labor relations and was a full-time mother, with a daughter and son. When the couple later divorced, Dorothy went to work for the Oregon Employment Security Department as an interviewer and employer relations representative. In 1958, she married Robert W. Campbell; they had one daughter. Dorothy was a member of the Reed College Women’s Committee and volunteered for the Oregon Symphony and the Oregon Zoo. In the 1970s, she moved to a houseboat on Sauvie Island. She was a proficient powerboat operator and canoeist, and taught water safety to her grandchildren, including grandson Timothy W. Atwill ’89. She enjoyed hiking the trails of the Pacific Northwest and swam and walked daily. She also traveled in the U.S. and abroad, including to Somalia, Afghanistan, Iran, Nepal, Morocco, Cambodia, and China. As one of the first female dispatchers for Portland’s waterfront, Dorothy worked for Shaver Transportation and Foss Maritime until retirement in 2003. Survivors include her children, nine grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. Daughter Sally Rogers, who provided the details for this memorial piece, said that her mother loved Reed.

Bernard Ross ’37

Walter Clarence Ihl ’41

Ricky attended Reed for two years and then transferred to the University of Oregon, where he earned a BA in psychology and sociology. He said later that his experiences at Reed influenced decisions he made throughout his life. At the University of Pittsburgh, he studied social administration, earning an MSc in 1941, and was a director for fair employment practices in the Roosevelt administration. In 1958 he completed a PhD in social welfare and adult education at the University of Michigan and served as dean of the graduate school of social work at Bryn Mawr. He returned to Portland to be dean of the graduate school of social work at Portland State University, later becoming dean and vice provost of graduate studies and research. In 1989, he received the distinguished alumnus award from the University of Pittsburgh for his endeavors in the field of social work education and research. With his wife, Eileen, Ricky had two sons and a daughter. Survivors include his wife, JoAnna Henry; his children; a stepson; and two grandchildren. “Equal parts social justice and port wine, he had a kind word for strangers and a bon mot for every occasion.”

Born in Portland, the only child of Swedish immigrants, Walter found his way to Reed through an inspirational high school history teacher, Beatrice Stevens, who was familiar with the college, Walter said in an interview in 2001. “Things were very lively in the world during that time. This was the time when Hitler came to power. So we not only studied history or politics, but also kept up with the issues that were going on in Europe and Asia. I always regarded my Reed experience as an opportunity to learn a great deal about the world.” Walter attended classes as a day-dodger for three years and then spent a year working for his father and writing his thesis, The Popular Referendum on War, with adviser George B. Noble [political science 1922–48], before taking additional coursework in a fifth year.

Walter had a beautiful tenor voice. He sang with the Reed chorus and performed in statewide competitions. In the ’40s, he was engaged as a

December 19, 2011, in Portland.

December 17, 2011, in Ukiah, California.

professional soloist at the Episcopal cathedral in Portland, where he met Erma I. Broughton. They married in 1949 and went to live in the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, where Walter was employed as a social worker. After he earned an MSW at the University of Washington, they moved to Ukiah in 1959, where he worked at the state hospital and she took care of their home.

When the hospital was closed by then-governor Ronald Reagan, Walter got involved in managing aftercare for those who had been discharged. In 1982, he worked for the Mendocino County conservatorship office doing clinical evaluations of individuals with mental disabilities. At the same time, he was a panel member with the state department of social welfare and evaluated applications for social security disability. “I felt that my Reed experience helped me do my job better, because I had a greater knowledge of people, and a greater knowledge of the world as it is.” Throughout his life, Walter loved music. He performed as a soloist with the Ukiah Masterworks Chorale and the Ukiah Community Chorus. He hosted a classical radio program for a number of years, relying on his extensive record collection, and wrote music and theatre reviews for the Santa Rosa Herald, the Ukiah Daily Journal, and the Mendocino Grapevine. He also was a member of the Cultural Arts Commission in Ukiah and cheered on the San Francisco Giants. Erma shared Walter’s commitment to the community and to their church, First Presbyterian. They both enjoyed opera and traveled to San Francisco to attend performances. She died in 1998 following an extended illness.

“I haven’t ever forgotten her. Wonderful girl. Just a wonderful girl.” Survivors include Walter’s nephews David, Eugene, and Jim, and niece Carol. One nephew, Jack, predeceased Walter. We thank David’s wife, Sharon K. Jelinek, for providing many details for this memorial piece.

Vieno Miriam Annunen Beasley ’43 December 9, 2011, at her home on the Clackamas River, Oregon.

Miriam grew up in north Portland, bilingual in Finnish and English, and with a great appreciation for her Finnish heritage. After studying at Reed for two years, she left to marry James Beasley and to raise a family of four in their home on the Clackamas River. Miriam completed a BA in education from Portland State University in 1964 and taught first grade for 20 years at Clackamas Elementary School. In retirement, until she was 89, she assisted at Park Place School in Oregon City. Though teaching and helping others was her mainstay, Miriam enjoyed activities in the great outdoors. She climbed Mount Hood, did tent camping with her family, gave many Clackamas County residents swimming lessons at local pools and on the river, and reveled in vacations at the Oregon coast. Survivors include two daughters and two sons, 12 grandchildren, and numerous great- and great-great-grandchildren. june 2012 Reed magazine 57

In Memoriam

and served on the board of the Southwest Portland neighborhood association. Survivors include her sons, Gilbert and Granville (who now operates the Brownell Holly Farms); six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Her son, Gary, died in a mountain-climbing accident in 2008 and Prentiss died in 2010. “She was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, neighbor, and friend. All who knew her will miss her dearly.”

Mark Schindler ’45

January 2, 2012, in Los Angeles, California.

Patricia Brownell Lee ’43

February 11, 2012, in Portland, from cardiac arrest.

Patty grew up on a farm, south of Milwaukie, Oregon, where her father bred poultry and propagated hollies from all over the world. She came to Reed, along with brothers Barry C. Brownell ’43 and Robert P. Brownell ’46, and earned a BA in education. During summers, she worked as a playground director at Peninsula and Sellwood parks.

Her interest in fitness and health led to her thesis, A Study of the Reed College Physical Education Program for Women, and to a teaching position at Jefferson High School after graduation. In December 1944 she joined the WAVES, serving as a personnel supervisor for a naval base in San Francisco. When she returned to Portland in 1946 she taught physical education at Reed. At a folkdancing event at the college, she met G. Prentiss Lee ’39, who was doing a surgical residency at the Portland Veterans Hospital. They married in 1949 and moved to Helena, Montana, where Prentiss completed his medical certification. Back in Portland, they built a home on two acres, and Patty enjoyed landscaping and maintaining the gardens on the property. She became a full-time mother, supporting the schools and extracurricular interests of her three sons. She also devoted time to community service, doing fundraising and heading up organizations. She volunteered with the March of Dimes, the YWCA Building Fund, St. Helen’s Hall, and the Oregon and American Heart Association. She served as president of local and national medical auxiliary organizations. She was an active member of Reed’s alumni board and Foster-Scholz Club, and volunteered for Reunions. In 2003, she was awarded the Foster-Scholz Club’s Distinguished Service Award.

She also was honored by the Portland Chamber of Commerce, and was recipient of the Oregon Journal Woman of Achievement Award and the Mayor’s Spirit of Portland Award. She helped write bylaws for her neighborhood association and served as its president, and was elected to 58 Reed magazine june 2012

Mark was the son of architect Rudolf M. Schindler and musician Pauline Gibling Schindler. His father emigrated from Austria, worked with Frank Lloyd Wright, and is identified today with the Schindler House in Los Angeles, which he built for his family. The house is internationally recognized as the prototype of the California patio house and is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places due to the efforts of Mark and his family. Mark transferred to Reed from Black Mountain College. He earned a BA in mathematics from Reed and an MS in physics from the University of Southern California. He was a physicist and a consultant in electronic design, and he contributed to U.S. spacecraft projects from the Redstone project through the shuttle program. He also manufactured sound equipment. Mark and Mary DuPont married and had two sons and a daughter; they later divorced. Survivors include a son and daughter and three grandchildren. “He cherished animals, music, yoga, cultural diversity, and ideas. He believed in human rights, a healthy planet, and an exciting universe.”

Alfred David Fell ’46

December 9, 2011, in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1923, Fred emigrated to the U.S. as a young teen, arriving alone and completing high school in New York. He was reunited with his parents and sister, Alice Fell Rene ’53, in Portland. At Reed, he earned a BA in chemistry, and then completed an MD at the University of Oregon Medical School, followed by a residency in California. He also served in the Air Force Reserve and was called to active duty during the Korean War. Returning from the war, he married Virginia (Ginger) Selten; they raised a daughter and two sons. Fred opened a medical practice in Marina Del Rey, California, specializing in cardiology and internal medicine, which he maintained for 50 years; his patients adored him. He also found great pleasure in vacationing in Hawaii, attending sporting events, and playing tennis. Survivors include his wife and children, seven grandchildren, one greatgrandchild, and his sister.

Alva Ray Huckins ’48

November 24, 2011, in Ojai, California.

Growing up in Portland, Ray decided early on to become a physician. He worked in a shoe store at 13 and enlisted in the navy reserve as a high school senior. He worked his way through Reed as a lab technician, tow-truck driver, and janitor.

In his junior year, he was called to active service as a pharmacist’s mate at Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where he met Elizabeth Larsen. The couple married in 1942, and Ray was then sent to a mobile naval hospital in the South Pacific, where he developed a new, lifesaving procedure for quick blood typing. He returned briefly to the U.S. to do research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York and helped establish a naval medical research station on Guam to investigate tropical diseases. After the war, he came back to Reed to earn his BA in chemistry. He went on to earn both an MS in physiology and an MD from the University of Oregon Medical School, where he coauthored a book on congestive heart failure.

Ray and Betty settled in Ojai, where he worked as a family physician until 1996. He also headed the Ventura County Medical Society and was a driving force behind the establishment of the Ojai Valley Hospital. He served on the Ojai planning commission and city council and as mayor in the late ’60s. Survivors include two daughters and a son, four grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Betty died in 2009.

Lewis Frederick Leber ’50 January 17, 2012, in Seattle, Washington.

Lewis grew up in Seattle with brothers Bruce E. Leber ’48 and (Ralph) Ted Leber ’44. “ We used to walk down to the university [of Washington] on Saturdays when they had movies for the kids, with all kinds of science and exploring. We would watch pictures of Admiral Byrd going to the Antarctic. Every Saturday there was something different and unusual and new,” Lewis said in an interview in 2006. Their father ran his own business, Ralph Leber Company, selling newspaper, engraving, and printing supplies; Lewis and his brothers worked at the company. During World War II, when all other employees were being drafted and sent off to the armed services, teenager Lewis learned to run roller mills and to grind ink, and made millions of pounds of paint for use as camouflage. At Reed, he majored in chemistry—which would prove to be a boon to his 58-year career with the Leber Ink Company in Tukwila, Washington, and his later work as vintner. He also met Mary Jean Piper ’50. “I was drafted in May of ’51, and went to basic.

Then I came back to Seattle. Mary and I had been dating. I remember going down to Portland, and

I had an engagement ring for her. I had been assigned to go overseas, and I wanted to ask her to marry me.” They married in 1951, and Lewis received a commendation ribbon for his service with the chemical corps in Korea. Lewis and Mary built a home on Mercer Island, Washington, in 1955. They raised a family of four—a daughter and three sons. They traveled to nearly every state in the U.S. and abroad—for business, for pleasure, and to stay connected to family and friends. Lewis read extensively and broadly. For recreation, he learned to crew for sailboat races with friend and expert sailor George Gunby ’51. Sailing led to connections with those who would join Lewis as charter members of the Washington Association of Vintners. “We bought five acres over in eastern Washington and planted the first vineyard of vinifera grapes in the state of Washington. We didn’t make lots of money, but we became the foundation of the Columbia Winery.” He is remembered for his honesty and concern for others, his feisty wit and charm, his skill in conversation and in investment, and his prowess as a cook and pie maker. Survivors include Mary, his children and five grandchildren, and his brother, Ted.

a third son, Joel, arrived in Portland, where the couple had moved for a teaching opportunity at Catlin Gabel High School. Jesse’s career in academia led to a PhD from Northwestern and tenure at Chicago State University, where he taught for 26 years. He was professor of English, speech, and modern languages, chaired the English department, and taught “just about every course offered in English.” He also taught English at Nanjing University in China in 1986–87.

Jesse published his poetry, academic articles, and three books: Zuñi: Selected Writings of Frank Hamilton Cushing (1979); Cushing at Zuñi: Correspondence and Journals of Frank Hamilton Cushing, 1879–1884; and Wrestling with Old Heroes— Again (2008), a reengagement with some of his favorite writers from a lifetime of reading and teaching—Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. In retirement, he took up pottery and made many beautiful and fanciful objects. Jesse is remembered for his courage, love of reading, warmth, and wry humor. Survivors include Nancy and their three sons and two grandsons.

Barbara Elizabeth Richards ’51 December 13, 2011, in Stockton, California.

Barbara earned a BA in social sciences from Reed, writing her thesis, The Effect of Interpersonal Influence on Fashion, and then earned an MSW from the University of Denver. She was a medical social worker and public assistance consultant for the state of Nevada. In 1966, she moved to Stockton to be director of medical social services for San Joaquin General Hospital and remained in the position until her retirement in 1987.

Nancy B. Wilson Tanner ’52 November 24, 2011, in Portland.

Jesse Dawes Green ’51

November 3, 2011, in Seattle, Washington, from pulmonary fibrosis.

Born in Stanley, Wisconsin (population 1,873), Jesse went to high school at Robert Hutchins’s Great Books college at the University of Chicago, followed his favorite teacher to Black Mountain College in North Carolina, grew his first beard, and eventually enrolled at Reed. There he met his soul mate and future wife, Nancy B. Stewart ’50, and earned a BA in general literature.

Jesse and Nancy went to Europe on Fulbright scholarships in 1952—Jesse to Italy and Nancy to England. On their return, Jesse earned an MA at UC Berkeley. Two of the couple’s sons— Brad and Duncan—were born in Berkeley, and

Nancy was born in Portland and graduated from Washington High School. She earned a BA from Reed in biology. “ Thanks to my roommate, who was going to college on the GI Bill, I was turned on to biology. Otherwise, I’d have been completely lost.” Nancy earned an MEd from Framingham State College and an MS in biology from Clark University. She had a career teaching biology at the college level and had a lifelong interest in science. Survivors include her husband, Walter (Gale) Tanner; her children; seven grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and a brother.

Carolyn Van Vliet Wade ’52 December 24, 2011, in Morristown, New Jersey.

Carolyn was born in Yakima, Washington, and attended Reed for two years before transferring to the University of Washington, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. She spent her adult life in New Jersey and was secretary of the board of education in Glen Ridge and a secretary in the social services department at Morristown Medical Center. She married Harland A. Wade, who predeceased her. Survivors include her son and daughter.

Mary Nichols Arragon Spaeth ’53

November 22, 2011, at home in Corvallis, Oregon.

Mary was the daughter of legendary Reed professor Rex Arragon [history, 1923–62; 1970– 74] and Gertrude Nichols Arragon [honorary alumna and quondam leader of the Faculty Wives Club], and the sister of Margaret Arragon Labadie ’43. The Reed legacy they shared would later include her husband, Joe L. Spaeth ’53, and their sons, Donald Spaeth ’78 and Alan Spaeth ’84, as well as Margaret’s husband, James H. Labadie ’43, and sons, Marc Labadie ’69 and Matt Labadie ’72. “My memories of Reed are too numerous to list, from riding my tricycle on campus as a small child to working in the Reed library when in grade and high school to attending Reed to seeing my two sons, Donald and Alan, graduate. As for what stands out the most while attending Reed, it is starting to go with Joe in April 1951 . . .” Except for a year in England, Mary spent her childhood in Portland, graduating from the Catlin School. She earned a BA in literature at Reed and an MLS from Columbia in 1954; she and Joe married that same year in the Eliot Hall chapel. Joe was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, and Mary worked in the Chicago Historical Society library until her sons were born. She remained a full-time mother until 1967, when she became editorial director at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. She was later named honorary life member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research. In 1971, she and Joe moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where Mary was editor and librarian (with a variety of titles) in the Survey Research Laboratory; she retired in 1992. Joe retired the following year, and they moved back to the Pacific Northwest and settled in Corvallis. Both took up golf; they played at the Corvallis Country Club and at courses they encountered during their travels throughout the West. Survivors include Joe, Donald, and Alan. june 2012 Reed magazine 59

In Memoriam Evadne Ammen Hilands MAT ’56 January 16, 2012, in Portland.

Evadne earned a BA in English at Wellesley College and a master’s degree at Reed. Twenty years later, she completed an MLS from the University of Oregon and worked as a school librarian. She also was a member of the First Unitarian Church and was coauthor of the church’s centennial publication, A Time to Build: The First Unitarian Society of Portland, Oregon, 1866–1966. Survivors include her son and daughter.

Thayron A. Sandquist ’56

January 14, 2012, at home in Parksville, B.C., Canada.

Born and raised in Longview, Washington, Sandy became, at the age of 12, the youngest licensed ham radio operator in the U.S., building much of his own equipment. He won a scholarship from his hig h school to attend Reed. Deborah Hughes ’59 recalled sharing classes with Sandy under Richard Jones [history 1941–86]. “He was a very bright student of history and politics.” Sandy earned a BA in history from Reed and won a Fulbright to study at the London School of Economics. He completed an MA and PhD at the University of Toronto, where he taught until he retired in 1995. Sandy had a lifelong interest in bicycling.

His cycle shop in Toronto, now operated by one of his sons, remains integral to the Toronto cycling community. Sandy introduced his wife, Stella Meades, to cycling and they made several trips in France and Spain; he completed the 1999 Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle ride in 90 hours.

Sandy was a master craftsman and woodworker and an inventor and tinkerer. In retirement he designed and built a freestanding workshop, where he crafted model ships, toys, furniture, and other projects. Sandy and Stella designed and built a craftsman-style home and garden.

Survivors include Stella and her three daughters, Sandy’s two sons and daughter, nine grandchildren, and his brother. His first wife, Geraldine Davis, and a daughter predeceased him.

Marva Louise Frost Hutchins MAT ’63

September 26, 2011, in Bend, Oregon, from complications related to Alzheimer’s disease.

Marva was an infant when her family moved from Missouri to Oregon. Generations of Frosts had been violin players, as was she, and she also played piano, ukelele, and guitar. She did her undergraduate work at Lewis & Clark College, and earned a master’s from Reed and a JD from Lewis & Clark’s Northwestern School of Law. In addition to teaching, practicing law, and 60 Reed magazine june 2012

putting her husband, Douglas Graham, through medical school, Marva served in the Oregon State House of Representatives for one term and was appointed head of the Oregon Department of Health by Governor Tom McCall. She and Douglas had a daughter and son, who survive her, as do a sister and family from her marriage to Miles Hutchins.

Michael M. Wilson ’63

January 5, 2012, in Longmont, Colorado, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

Michael studied at Reed for four years, focusing his degree work on sociology. After he left Reed, he entered the U.S. Army’s Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, taking an intensive course in Mandarin Chinese, and completed undergraduate studies with a BA in Chinese history at the University of Southern California (USC). He then traveled to Taiwan— mainland China was not open at the time— where he taught conversational English and immersed himself in studying Chinese. Says his sister, Mary Wilson Callahan, who provided the details for this memorial piece, “A high point of his time there occurred when Michael, along with his parents, was part of the second tour group of Westerners to visit various cities on the mainland; the group attracted much curious attention wherever they went.” Michael earned a master’s degree in Chinese studies at USC and an MBA at the Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. He did additional graduate work at the University of Washington.

Over the years, he worked as an auditor, an accountant, a wealth manager, and a consultant to small Chinese businesses starting up in the Los Angeles area. He was a voracious reader of both literature and nonfiction, including history, politics, and social sciences. His favorite sports were chess and bridge, but he also enjoyed following the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dodgers. “Although Michael was born in Washington, D.C., and lived in Longmont for several years before his death, he was a southern Californian at heart.” He is much missed by his sister and her husband, Joe Callahan, of Longmont, and his brother and sister-in-law, Francis and Francesca Wilson, of Acton, California.

Gwendolyn Lorita Lewis ’65

February 8, 2012, in Rockville, Maryland, from cancer.

Gwen was born in Sweetwater, Tennessee, where generations of her family had resided.

Her father’s work, supervising the installation of generators and other machinery, placed her in classrooms in Arkansas, Nevada, Puerto Rico, and Tennessee, before she concluded her schooling in New York. She earned a BA in mathematics

from Reed and an MS from San Jose State College and a PhD from Princeton in sociology. She joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in sociology and won a Fulbright-Hays research fellowship in 1976, which led to 18 months of travel and research in Turkey and to the publication of a groundbreaking work on the employment of Turkish women. Her career moved on to Cornell University, where she was senior research associate, and then she became director of the Premedical Education Project at the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. In 1984, she moved to Washington, D.C. There she met David Montgomery, an administrator in higher education, whom she married in 1987. In his memorial for Gwen, Dave wrote: “Because of business commitments, Gwen and I took a quick honeymoon after our wedding before our more substantial ‘second honeymoon’ a week later. The idea of multiple honeymoons was so appealing that we scheduled honeymoons at every opportunity thereafter.

Our honeymoons hit not only Turkey, of course, but also Uzbekistan, Scotland, Hungary, Australia, Egypt, Jordan, and Tanzania, to name a few spots. Our trip in June 2011 to eastern Oregon was our 81st honeymoon.” Gwen worked for the National Research Council, the College Board, the University of Maryland University College, and the National Science Foundation. Then she shifted her career to the Department of Agriculture, where, as director of higher education programs, she oversaw the federal funding of programs in agriculture and renewable resources at state universities. She also served on several committees of the American Sociology Association, published in professional journals, and contributed to publications in student aid and to a series of annual almanacs of the National Education Association. During this time, Gwen also founded Reed’s alumni chapter in D.C. and was a member of the alumni board. She received the Babson Society award for outstanding volunteer work in 1989 from the alumni association and was elected an alumni trustee for 1994–98. In 1998, she took a sabbatical and discovered her passion for blackand-white photography. Her work appeared in more than 100 exhibitions in the D.C. area. She served as editor of the Brookdale Bugle, the neighborhood newsletter of the Brookdale community of Montgomery County, overseeing all areas of its production. She also saw to the planting of trees on neighborhood streets and in a local park and volunteered time for committees and campus ministry related to the River Road Unitarian

Universalist Congregation. Gwen was a volunteer tutor and photographer and a dedicated “weed warrior,” who helped rid Montgomery County of invasive species. Her cancer, of indeterminate primary origin, was diagnosed in August 2011.

Survivors include Dave and Gwen’s brother. We learned from Bennett Barsk ’82 that attendance overflowed at the memorial service for Gwen in February. Bennett was there, along with Judith Bell ’63, Earl Metheny ’73, and Will Sibley ’51.

“Gwen was an outstanding individual, and a real sweetheart to boot. She died far too young, and will be missed.” She was always grateful to Reed for the opportunities that the experience provided for her life.

Frederick Charles Dunbar ’66 February 1, in New York, from brain cancer.

Born in Seattle and raised in the Portland area, Fred majored in mathematics and economics at Reed—an experience that positively affected every aspect of his life. He earned a PhD in economics at Tufts University, and taught there and at Northeastern University before moving on to be program manager in urban development studies with the Charles River Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Feeling a need for his work to have “more immediacy,” he specialized in law and economics and took a position in 1979 with the National Economics Research Associates (NERA), where he worked in environmental economics, deregulation, and financial risk management for utilities. He founded the firm’s securities practice in the late ’80s. During his career at NERA, Fred was considered a leading economic expert, particularly in the field of securities, and provided influential testimony in U.S. federal and state courts and in arbitrations. “He was retained to provide economic analysis and testimony in hundreds of cases by many of the top law firms and corporations in the U.S. and around the world.” In 2009, he was appointed economic fellow in the economic analysis office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Fred wanted to gain the perspective that he felt being at the SEC would provide—“to get this experience and the satisfaction of public service.” In addition, he taught at Fordham University School of Law and Columbia University Law School, served as president of the Transportation Research Forum, and coauthored the book Estimating Future Claims: Case Studies from Mass Torts and Product Liability. Fred

relaxed by running and listening to jazz, and he was a passionate art collector. He is remembered for a sharp intellect and keen sense of humor, and his deep humanity and soft-spoken nature.

Survivors include his wife, Helen Mangano, and two daughters.

Renee Diana Berg Bergman MAT ’66 November 21, 2011, in Portland.

Renee and her beloved brother, Irving, were raised in Queens, New York City. Through Irving, she met Arthur M. Bergman, whom she married in 1945. A year later, Renee completed undergraduate studies in premedicine and literature and graduated with a BA from New York University. As an accomplished cellist, she performed in the university’s chamber orchestra. Renee and Arthur moved to northeast Portland after the war, and, in 1957, to West Linn, where they raised a daughter, Julie, and two sons, Barry F. Bergman ’71 and Marc. Renee completed a master’s degree in teaching at Reed, and taught physics, chemistry, and math at Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Adams high schools in Portland until retiring in 1988.

“My year at Reed was a wonderful and challenging experience,” she wrote. Renee was a community volunteer with B’nai B’rith and the Multnomah County Library, and was instrumental in the founding of Clackamas Community College.

She continued to play cello and enjoyed attending Oregon Symphony and Chamber Music Northwest concerts, as well as opera and theatre performances. She also was adept at ballroom dancing. Renee is remembered for her intelligence and wit, her independent spirit and initiative, her interest in innovation, and her passion for underdogs. For over 20 years, she made her home on a moorage on the Columbia River. She was also the owner of a number of unusual automobiles, including an Amphicar. Survivors include her sons and daughter and six grandchildren.

Carolyn Stuart Russell MAT ’66 December 16, 2011, in her home by Horseshoe Lake, Washington, from lung cancer.

Carolyn left college to help support her young family while her husband finished his law degree, and later completed undergraduate work at Portland State University and earned a master’s degree in art education at Reed. She treasured classes with Lloyd Reynolds [English & art 1929–69], her thesis adviser, who was a wellspring of encouragement. Carolyn taught elementary through junior college students in Washington and Oregon for most of her career. She helped found the Deer Park Art Commission near her Washington home and was occasionally the subject of news articles showcasing her teaching

innovations, her art, and her mentoring of special-needs children and senior adults. Carolyn produced artistic creations in many media. Her favorite medium was clay, some of which she dug and processed herself. “Being a potter, and sharing her joy and discoveries about pottery production with other potters, was a seminal part of her selfexpression,” wrote daughter Kitty Russell ’69, who provided the details for this memorial piece.

After her retirement from full-time teaching, Carolyn discovered a philosophy of applied artistic form in the writings of R. Buckminster Fuller.

When a fire destroyed her gallery and log home, situated by Horseshoe Lake, she let the home site and her mind settle for a few years before she rolled up her sleeves, engaged friends and family, and with them built a dome overlooking the lake. It remains a light-embracing home and art gallery. What Carolyn did exceptionally well, Kitty says, was to act as a lightning rod for the creativity of others. She loved to host guests for outdoor meals and afternoon swims at her lakeside home. Afterwards, she would set all attendees to creating something: baking cookies, building clay pots, cracking glass for window designs, sewing a stained-glass-design tablecloth, or planting new flowers in her tiered rock gardens. “She lived and encouraged the chi spirit that was her thesis topic, finding no barriers for her artist’s mind.” In a second career, Carolyn served as a substitute teacher in local public schools and an adjunct instructor for home school groups until she was 79. She is remembered for her challenging lesson plans and recruitment of working artists to teach special topics in unique and remarkable ways. Her mantra, says Kitty, was always “learn by doing . . . and you can do it!” Her will leaves a bequest to Reed College with fond regards for her time as a student there. Survivors include her daughters, Kitty, Christy, and Connie; 9 grandchildren; 11 great-grandchildren; and her sister, Mary Stuart Steinle MALS ’71. Carolyn’s ashes reside in an urn she crafted herself, featuring bas-relief carvings of a potter, a kick wheel, and clay vessels. june 2012 Reed magazine 61

In Memoriam

Robert Pattison Tidd ’68 December 2011, in Walnut Creek, California, following a long illness.

Bob earned a BA in physics from Reed. His recollection of his Reed years included memories of folk dancing in the student union and watching the sun set over the west hills—“I still keep track of nature, the season, and phases of the moon,” he wrote years later. After graduation, he worked as a computer programmer at the University of Oregon Medical School. In 1978, he was appointed senior programmer at UC Berkeley and was the principal author of the INP database system. He balanced his technical side with recreational interests such as mountain sports, sailing, kayaking, and windsurfing. He played recorder and accordion and practiced Vipassana Buddhist meditation. He was a ham radio operator, call sign KJ6CS, and performed amateur and emergency radio services in the U.S. and in 30 countries. In 1981, he married educational consultant Debra H. Eglit; they had a son and daughter. Bob was an early member of the Bay Area Country Dance Society. “Longtime Berkeley dancers will remember Bob as a beautiful dancer and charming person,” wrote dance society member Mary Luckhardt. “Bob loved the beautiful dances like ‘Easter Morn,’ dances he called floaters because they made him feel he was floating a few inches off the floor. He also delighted in our wonderful music. We will miss him very much.”

Ann Helen Farber Baldwin ’70 November 22, 2011, in Chinook, Washington.

Born in New York City, Ann spent her early years in Queens, moving to Seattle when she was eight. She earned a BA in philosophy at Reed and spent a year studying at the London School of Economics.

While living in Portland, she became familiar with the Mist Mountain Farm community in Clatskanie, Oregon.

She taught in the Mayger School Head Start program there for several years before accepting the position of Head Start administrator for the northern Willamette Valley. She was also a licensed massage therapist and co-owner of the Evergreen Massage Clinic in Portland.

62 Reed magazine june 2012

In 1985, she married Ron Baldwin; they had one son, Alexander. The family moved to Chinook in 1993. Ann and Ron operated Lido Caffé Espresso in Astoria for 10 years and Aunt Clara’s Greenhouse, a retail nursery in Chinook.

Ann taught a class, Massage for Relaxation, for 20 years at Clatsop Community College. She performed as a pianist for dances and played the banjo and guitar with a number of groups and in theatrical productions. Ann is remembered as being generous of spirit, time, energy, and compassion. “Our world is smaller with this loss.” Survivors include her husband and son and her brother and sister.

Robert Roland Miner ’86

Chad Lindner ’03. Despite the brevity of her Reed education, she greatly valued the academic experience and considered it a compliment to inform instructors at other institutions that their classes were “Reed-like.” Lily earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. She received a master’s degree in public health in 2008 and a nursing degree from Northeastern University in 2009. Until just before her death, she worked for Martha’s Vineyard Community Services. She is survived by her parents, Fred and Lois Kanter; her sister, Lindsay Kanter ’01, who provided the details for this memorial piece; her brother-inlaw, Chad; her dog, Addie; and many loving friends and family.

December 6, 2011, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from cancer.

Robert earned a BA from Reed and a PhD from the University of Maryland in mathematics.

He studied at Oxford and Universität Bern and taught at the University of Oklahoma before joining the University of Minnesota’s Geometry Center, where he pursued interdisciplinary research in mathematics and electronic communication. He was cofounder and director of Geometry Technologies and worked on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) initiatives to standardize XML markup language for mathematics. He joined Design Science in St. Paul, Minnesota, as vice president for research and development when the company acquired the WebEQ product line from Geometry Technologies in 2000. He worked to develop the MathPlayer and MathFlow products, wrote and spoke extensively on the impact of MathML on technical publishing, and initiated a research program on adding value to electronic math content, including an NSF research grant awarded in 2003 to develop math-aware searching. Survivors include his wife, Emily West, and his son, William. Emily wrote: “The outpouring of cards, letters, phone calls, and emails from friends from every period of his life was extraordinarily meaningful to Robert, and was a large part of the peace he was able to find in being taken from us so soon. He remained calm and witty to the very end and was adored by the hospital staff.”

Lily Hilfiker Kanter ’07

October 12, 2011, at her home on Martha’s Vineyard, after a long and courageous struggle with anorexia nervosa.

Lily grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. She attended Reed for a year in 2002–03, during which time she served as lab partner and occasional chemistry tutor to her future brother-in-law,

Levi Goodrich Duclos ’15

January 9, 2012, while hiking in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

Freshman at Reed.

Lively rugger running back.

Outreach science teacher—“Do your best,” they said he always said.

Budding banjoist.

Skier. Hiker. Proud owner of flimsy bike.

Thrift store shopper.

Intrepid traveler.

Found his tribe on the first floor of Scholz Hall.

Humorous, hilarious, uproarious.

Kind, casual, confident.

Stubborn.

Easily intrigued. Easily engaged.

Easy smile.

Red curly hair you could spot in a crowd.

Baggy shorts, dusty flip-flops.

Beautiful hands seeking music from his Fender guitar.

Best brother to his only brother.

Beloved son of his father, deceased, and his mother, living in Vermont.

Journal keeper. Letter writer.

Enjoyer of yelling.

Couch-on-the-roof sitter. Saltine-cracker collector.

Loved people. Loved possibilities. Loved life.

Ashes scattered in Reed’s canyon, the place which first won him over, 3,000 miles from home.

Donations in Levi’s memory to the Biology Outreach Program at Reed.

Staff, Faculty, and Friends

Alfred Morton Bork

December 18, 2007, from lymphoma.

Al taught physics at Reed from 1963 to 1967.

He earned his ScB and a commission in the U.S. Navy at Georgia Tech, and graduate degrees in physics at Brown. He was also fascinated by the history and philosophy of science. Nick Wheeler ’55 [physics 1963–] wrote: “I attended Al’s lectures, which were Socratic exercises of a purity I have never been able to approach. Standing in his typical pink pants and green shoes (!) before a class of 80 students, he would ask a simple-sounding question (“What is length?”) and then wait—patiently, 5 or 10 minutes, if necessary—for some brave student to venture a response. To which he would respond with an implied question . . . and another wait. He managed by this method to coax some remarkable statements from those students. I remember the time when he was discussing (in his inimitable way!) the three-dimensionality of space, when a student ventured the thought (a thought very much alive in the physics of 40 years later!) that perhaps space only seems three-dimensional. Al’s presumptions were (1) that such students are much more comfortable with language-based material than with material that requires some mathematical skill, but (2) that as high school students they did generally do well in geometry, that it was to algebra that they took exception, and of calculus that they remained largely ignorant. So he approached basic physics as an exercise in language. Newton’s De motu corporum in gyrum (written in 1684, just prior to the Principia Mathematica) was at the time available only in Latin. Al had a student with knowledge of Latin prepare an English translation, which the class took as its initial text. It contained certain Latin words with no obvious English equivalents, so they remained in Latin; class had to figure out their evident meaning from the physics into which they entered. De Motu is concerned mainly with planetary motion, which Newton approached by cunning geometrical analysis (since he could not at the time expect his readers to know calculus). The geometry gave rise to an algorithm that served to increment a planet

along on its orbit. Al had students use the algorithm to work out the motion of a planet—a tediously routine business concerning which students (not unexpectedly, actually by Al’s intention) complained. So, he had them write programs that would serve to instruct a secretary how to do the work. Reed had, at the time, just acquired its first computer—an IBM 1600 that together with its card readers, etc., filled a large room down the hall from our office. Al knew some Fortran, taught the students enough Fortran (again: a language!) to enable them to program the computer (rather than the secretary) to generate planetary orbits. And, by analysis of those orbits, to follow Kepler’s path to discovery—now their own discoveries!—of Kepler’s laws (which had served as Newton’s primary motivation). Reed’s NatSci students were, by spring, doing things that Reed’s fourth-year physics majors were unable to do! And were aware that they had been led by Al on an intellectual adventure of the first order.”

After Reed, Al went to UC Irvine where he held joint appointments in physics and and computer science. Passionate about the use of computers in education, he pioneered the development of computer-based learning material for science and mathematics and founded Irvine’s educational technology center. He was a National Science Foundation Chautauqua Lecturer and won the Robert A. Millikan Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers. Al was an outdoor enthusiast, an avid gardener, and loved classical music, art, and literature. Survivors include his wife of nearly 60 years, Annette; and three daughters, including Ellen, who provided the details for this memorial piece.

Deborah Lynn Smith Martson

December 9, 2011, in Molalla, Oregon, after a “gritty and graceful” battle with ovarian cancer.

Debbie earned a BA in English from Duke, graduating with honors.

During her junior year abroad at the University of Edinburgh, she met Rick Martson, a student from Washington and Jefferson College. They married in 1969 and lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, while Rick completed a JD from the University of Michigan.

They moved to Oregon, where Debbie worked in public relations for Gary White Advertising and Rick began his law practice. They purchased a farm in Molalla, restored and renovated the 1852 farmhouse on the property, and raised American Saddlebred horses, Suffolk sheep, and Scottish Highland cattle. In 1974, Debbie got a job in publicity and publications at Reed and was appointed vice president for college relations two years later; she was the first female vice president at the college and the youngest

member of the president’s staff. She also was a member of the Reed College Women’s Committee. After leaving Reed in 1983, she worked part time for Marylhurst University. She was a tireless volunteer and served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the World Affairs Council, Chamber Music Northwest, Young Audiences, the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility for Women, and the United Way. Debbie is remembered as an intelligent and determined individual, full of fun, and engaged fully in life. Survivors include her husband, two sons, three grandchildren, mother, brother, and many friends and admirers.

Howard Jules Waskow

January 13, 2012, at his home in Portland, from cancer.

Howard earned his doctorate at Yale and taught at the University of Pennsylvania before joining the faculty at Reed in 1964 as a specialist in American literature and the humanities. “He was a person who evoked enormous inquiry of the heart and mind simultaneously,” recalled Betsy Dearborn ’68. Howard was awarded tenure at Reed in 1972 but chose to resign and lead the Learning Community, an intentional community centered on education. He also worked for civil rights and peace movements, acted as a consultant for educational reform, established a counseling practice in Gestalt therapy, and wrote three books: Whitman: Explorations in Form; Becoming Brothers, written with his brother, Rabbi Arthur Waskow; and Homeward Bound, which Arthur described as “a remarkable guide to the journey of healing our families,” and which reflects Howard’s experience as a teacher, critic, and healer. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Howard was a lifelong Orioles fan and also rooted for the Portland Trail Blazers. He married Betty Ann Round in 1959; they had three children and later divorced. In 1986, he married Grey Wolfe. Survivors include Grey, their combined families, and his brother.

pending: As Reed went to press, we leaned of the deaths of the following classmates; please contact us if you have memories you’d like to share: Helen Peters Sloss ’36, Howard Morgan ’40, Dorothy Dewey Greer ’41, Nedra Gray Firestone ’42, Spencer Gill ’42, Mary Nelson Murray ’42, Frederic Shorter ’44, Ersel Evans ’47, Anna Lou Melson Dehavenon ’48, Wesley Henwood ’53, Carla Wolff Perez ’54, Thomas Fujita ’56, Winifred Lockwood Marsh MAT ’57, Huguette Bach MAT ’64, Indira Hale Tucker ’65, Michael Moffatt ’66, Roslyn Dupler Fitch ’79, Scott Hirozawa ’83, and John Baba ’90.

june 2012 Reed magazine 63

Feel the Reedie love!

REUNIONS 2012: REEDFAYRE

May 30–June 3, 2012 reedfayre.reed.edu Harris Dusenbery ’36 leads the all-class parade at Centennial Reunions 2011.

Register today at reedfayre.reed.edu.

Come be a part of the culmination

of Reed’s year-long 100th birthday revelry. Fun, whimsy, and knowledge await you!

• Decorate Reed’s Rose Festival float.

• Guffaw and gavotte with more than 20 comedy and musical performances.

• Say goodbye to President Colin Diver.

• Indulge at Gastronomy Northwest, a Reedie food festival.

• Lace up for smooth skating at Reed’s Rockin’ Roller Rink.

• Rejoice in the recombinant at the bio reunion.

• Be a student again (sans the stress) at Alumni College.

See the latest schedule at reedfayre.reed.edu.

Email: alumni@reed.edu

Reed College Centennial Reedfayre 2012

Phone: 503/777-7589

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leah nash

Fiendish questions about Plato’s Republic and the Hebrew Bible loom over Kit Werner ’12 and Phoebe Young ’14. In fact, the questions were left over from a previous conference—these students are tackling equally complex issues in History 336, Gender and Consumer Culture, with professor Jacqueline Dirks ’82.