The Quest | The Free Press of Reed College

Bill Cronon: Disciplines in Dialogue

“William Cronon is the foremost environmental historian of our time,” President John Kroger said last Wednesday evening. “He put the field on the map.” Kroger had nothing but high praise for Bill Cronon when he introduced the guest lecturer in Vollum Lecture Hall. Cronon came to Reed to give back-to-back lectures through the Greenberg Distinguished [...]

Eileen Myles: Laughter and Short Poems

“If you were waiting for the poem, that was it,” said Eileen Myles after reading the two lines of her poem, “Tree,” to open last Thursday night’s poetry reading. The comment was met by laughter from 60 or so people gathered in the Eliot Chapel, and set the precedent for an unpredictable hour of poetry, [...]

A Tour of Reed’s Secret Garden

Behind an innocuous door on the top floor of the Biology building is a state-of-the-art, 1,000 square foot, climate-controlled greenhouse. The greenhouse is warm and humid, with sliding tables on which small plants are beginning to grow, and orange lights illuminate the rooms day and night. Biology Professor David Dalton has been working at Reed since 1987 and has born witness to many of the changes to the greenhouse over the years. He says the greenhouse was originally just a “south-facing room” with cement benches that was built along with the Biology building in the 1950’s. The structure stayed the same until more additions were made in 1990. In 2001, with the renovation of the Biology building came a further expansion of the greenhouse and the “state-of-the-art” setup students enjoy today. The greenhouse now has four main rooms, and the lighting, temperature, and cooling are all controlled by a central computer.

Reed Sees More Post-Docs in Past Two Years

The number of post-docs in Biology, Phycology, and Chemistry at Reed increased over the past two years, but their presence remains largely unnoticed. There are currently four post-docs, and one more is expected to arrive by April.

At Reed, Post-docs act as liaisons between students and facility, especially in the realms of research. In contrast, post-docs in research universities primarily deal with pursuing their own research to develop skills needed for their profession. While at Reed, the post-doc experience is non-traditional, as greater interaction with undergrads creates a mentor-mentee relationship.

Department Associate Gives Physics A Different Slant of Light

Winter in Portland can make the entire campus feel like a monochromatic haze. But Jay Ewing, who is a Physics Department associate, uses a D.I.Y. full-spectrum lighting fixture to combat the malaise of the darker months. All intro physics students pass through Ewing’s lab, and many leave with a greater and more practical understanding of [...]

You Have a Package at Reed Mail Services: An Interview with Ben Lund

Every time a student receives cookies from home, a book from Amazon, or new shoes, they receive an email from a mysterious man who spells his name with no capital letters. Who is the man of mystery working in the GCC’s basement? Why the cummings-esque lack of capitalization? Can the Postal Service help you convey a coconut across the country? Staff reporter Isabel Meigs found out in in this slightly edited and condensed interview.

A Semester in St. Petersburg

Picture eleven at night. Except “night” has become an arbitrary, meaningless word. The sun hangs by the horizon’s edge, dangling the false promise of darkness over the head of the city. In a few hours it will dip below the edge of the world and rise back up, the sky deepening to a blue without ever surrendering into the embrace of black night. It has been weeks since there has been any sort of true darkness, since you could go to sleep under a blanket of stars. The White Nights steal your sleep like a mischievous imp, begging you to come out and play before the eternal darkness of winter takes over. Staring out of a window on the eighth floor of a sixteen story monolithic concrete block, from a room that always smells faintly of dill, you can see the edge of the Gulf of Finland. You have forgotten what it means to feel comfortable. Living in someone else’s house, in someone else’s country, your tongue stumbling over someone else’s language, your body is your only home. Comfort is cage; you learn to do things that make you uncomfortable. You will never know the ways your body can move if you never try to stretch.

Poetry Night Opens Up

It is dark outside of the Student Union. Everyone inside sits on couches arranged in a semicircle, quiet, engrossed. The group this night is small; it is clear that poetry night at Reed College is not immune to the usual fatigues that plague other student groups. This was the scene the 28th of November, and [...]

Communism, Bureaucracy, and Tough Love: The Suede Jacket Premieres

Photo courtesy Heather Chan. The platonic form of sheep has been captured by Perry Nelson ’16 and placed in a black box. That Black Box is in the Reed College Theatre building, where The Suede Jacket by Stanislav Stratiev debuted Wednesday. It plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 pm. The question of what it [...]

The Lost Dorms of Olde Reed

The men’s dorm Sisson stood across from Chittick, near the blue bridge, where Bragdon now stands.  Buried deep in the foundations of Bragdon, lay memories of Olde Reed. From 1958 to 1997, two men’s dorms occupied the space where Bragdon now stands: Ackerman and Sisson. When these Cross Canyon dorms were first built, along with [...]