The Quest | The Free Press of Reed College

Three New Murals Approved

Earlier this semester, Senate approved a proposal from the Art Collection Management Committee (ACMC, chaired by Dean of Faculty Pat McDougal and comprised of students, faculty, and staff) to change the on-campus murals process such that it is a more collaborative endeavor between the ACMC and the Senate mural reps. At the Senate meeting on Friday, April 5th, Senators David Azrael and Mathew Olson announced the approval of three new murals on campus—two new murals that will replace long-standing works, and one new mural in a previously unutilized space. These developments deserve a clear articulation of the new process, the new murals (and the artists behind them) and a description of what the new process means for on-campus murals in years to come. The new murals guidelines are posted on the Student Activities website.

A Crash Landing Into the New World

All retro sci-fi worlds need an unidentified flying object, and this year’s New World-themed Renn Fayre will have its very own crashed spaceship, courtesy of the Russian House and Erica Edmondson. The spaceship, which is Edmondson’s design, is one of the almost fifty projects that will be featured in this year’s Renn Fayre. This is [...]

Two Math Professors Hired: A Look Inside the Professor Selection Process

The Mathematics Department received 770 applications for two tenure-track professors in pure mathematics. Angélica Osorno,  who received her Ph.D. from MIT and currently teaches at University of Chicago will teach at Reed in the fall semester, and in the spring of 2014 she will participate in a semester-long program in algebraic topology, her specialty, at [...]

Student Body Elections Candidate Profiles

The profiles of this semester’s candidates for Senate and Quest Board, accompanied by photographs of said candidates.

Communism, Atheism, and Daycare

Campus may soon be bolstered by the addition of a Child Development Center by spring 2014. The center would provide daycare with an educational focus for children ranging in age from infancy to four years. After 40 faculty members went to the Physical Plant committee in November 2011 to assess the feasibility of a child [...]

The Pool Hall Cleans Up

Smoking in the Pool Hall has finally stopped, and the Pool Hall managers have led a thorough cleanup effort to erase its remains. “About 12 people came to the pool hall the Wednesday of Spring Break to assist in the clean up effort,” says Pool Hall Manager Molly Kimball ’16. They weren’t necessarily regulars, Kimball [...]

Reedies for Reedies Encourages Student Philanthropy

With expectations of raising between $8,000 and $10,000 this year, scholarship fund Reedies for Reedies says that financial goals are not the committee’s priority, encouraging philanthropy at Reed College is. Reedies for Reedies replaced the Class of 2010 Scholarship in spring 2010 and stresses, according to their mission statement, that “In recognition of the value [...]

Alumni Board Votes to Drop Paideia Issue

The Alumni Board voted on Saturday, April 13 to not pursue further action regarding President Kroger’s canceling several Paideia classes in January. Alumni Board President Chantal Sudbrack ’97 says that “the motion had roughly 75 percent support for no further consideration as a body.” The Board first discussed the Paideia controversy during their February 2 [...]

Unsatisfied with Union, Divestment Movement Turns to Transparency

Unsatisfied with last month’s Reed Union on climate change and denied a list of the college’s investment managers by the Board of Trustees Investment Committee, Fossil Free Reed, Reed’s nascent divestment movement, has set its sights on a new target. Before the group, spearheaded by members of Greenboard and founded as part of 350.org’s national [...]

Hum 110 to Begin with Gilgamesh Instead of Homer

The epic of Gilgamesh will replace the Odyssey as the first book discussed by freshman in Hum 110. The faculty committee overseeing the Hum 110 syllabus is revising the syllabus, which is in its final stages of completion, in order to provide a more holistic approach to the ancient Mediterranean world. Hum 110 will not [...]

Arts and Politics Zine Praxis Begins Anew

Music and dumpster donuts drew students last week to the HotBoxx, where a house show celebrated the reincarnation of the arts and politics zine Praxis. This year’s first issue of Praxis includes poetry, political analyses, and art – all by Reed students. While the zine will be published monthly, originally Praxis was simply a weekly [...]

Reed Leads with Nation’s First Tango Music Institute

Reed College will be hosting the country’s first Tango Music Institute this summer from June 23 – 30. The intensive music camp is designed to teach fifty proficient musicians to perform using the unique tango performance practice technique on their personal instrument. The Tango Institute is an inaugural event not only for Reed College, but [...]

Senate to Hire Student Sustainability Coordinator: Hopes Administration Will Follow Example

When it comes to prospies with a passion for sustainability, the Admissions Office has plenty of material for promotional mailings: a $5.4 million energy efficiency contract the college signed last fall, the ecological gem that is the Canyon, and a performing arts building with a green roof on the way. But Environmental Health and Safety [...]

Reed Reclaims Facebook Page in Social Media Push

With almost 5,000 likes, the Reed College Facebook page has blossomed in recent weeks, courtesy of the work being done by the Public Affairs Office. As unlikely as it sounds, only recently have Reed-affiliated groups regained control of Reed’s online media presence from non-Reed groups. Before, when someone searched Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook for a [...]

Bear Wilner-Nugent ‘95 Challenges Kroger to Debate Over Paideia Controversy

Criminal defense lawyer Bear Wilner-Nugent ‘95 challenged President John Kroger last month to a public debate on “Reed’s drug policies under the administration and how they do or do not relate to the US drug policy.” Wilner-Nugent, who has long been critical of Reed’s drug policy, issued the challenge after recent censorship of Paideia classes, [...]

Pudding Emerges from Pamphlette Schism

Mat Olson ’15 and Sean Howard ’13 are excited about the future, and justifiably so: they are planning the publication of The Pamphlette‘s first competitor in recent memory. Their paper, called The Pudding, is meant to be a humor paper that looks beyond the Reed bubble and reminds Reedies that laughs can be found everywhere. [...]

Senate Appoints New Treasurers

Waiting for a microphone at the start of last week’s Senate meeting, before President Kroger and students faced off on the topics of censorship and student autonomy, Appointments Committee chair Annam Swanson announced that freshmen Oliver Silverton-Peel and Alejandro Chavez-Lopez had been appointed vice and assistant treasurers. Over the course of the next three hours, [...]

Senate’s Letter to President Kroger

Dear President Kroger, As representatives of the Student Body, we wish to express our frustration regarding your decision to cancel and alter several of the classes that were offered during the week of Paideia. While opinions vary among the senators, this letter reflects broadly the sentiments shared by a majority of the Student Body Senate. [...]

Kroger Faces Backlash after Paideia Controversy: Alumni Board Director resigns

The Reed community has reacted en masse to Reed President John Kroger’s cancellation of two Paideia classes and the alteration of another. Last Friday, The Quest published an article revealing Kroger’s censorship of the classes. A day after the article’s publication, Kroger issued a statement saying he “learned about these classes right before Paideia began [...]

President Kroger’s Statement

As you know, I made the decision to cancel two Paideia classes. One involved the smoking of unregulated depressants, and the other was on how to trip on hallucinogens. The first class raised significant health and safety concerns; the second both health and legal issues. The college staff also asked a student to modify a [...]

Paideia Classes Censored at Kroger’s Request

A week before his Paideia class, Austin Weisgrau ’15 received an email informing him of a change in his curriculum. Entitled “Kombucha and Other Fermentation Basics,” the class was to focus on brewing kombucha, but would also cover the basics of fermenting sauerkraut and alcoholic beverages. However, the email, from Paideia Czar Julia Selker, informed [...]

Elusive Canyon Matriarch Captured

This week, Ms. Tuxedo Patches, the canyon’s feline matriarch, was finally spayed after over a year of effort on the part of campus staff. Throughout her tenure in the canyon, Ms. Tuxedo Patches has birthed more kittens than campus staff has been able to keep track of, posing a significant problem to environmental health of [...]

FSU Panel Discusses Gender, Stuff

“Pretend that Reed has a gender studies program,” read the banner in Gray Campus Center advertising the Feminist Student Union’s Gender and Stuff Panel, or G.A.S.P. Although Reedies often do a lot of writing about gender, it never really sees the light of day because gender isn’t the focus of our classes, said Stella Jones [...]

Committee Explores New Ethnic Studies Program

Ethnic studies is being considered as a new major at Reed. An exploratory committee of faculty members is currently discussing questions such as the structure of the major, hiring new faculty, and cost—among other issues.

Tracking Down the Pool Hall Custodian: An Unsatisfactory Ghost Hunt

The pool hall is a different place at in the early morning hours. This is the first conclusion I reached at 4:30 AM on Thursday, Nov. 29, after I’d volunteered to write an article on a late-night custodian who plays pool in the pool hall with students on his break.

Meet Your Candidates

Get ready to vote. Read the profiles of this semester’s candidates for President, Vice President, Senate, and Quest Board.

Students to Vote on Constitutional Changes

Prepare yourself: Proposed changes to the Community Constitution would modify the process by which changes can be made to the way Quest editors come by their jobs.

Breathe. The changes. Will modify a process. The process regulates another process. That process is the one in which a darling little Quest writer kicks off the training wheels, makes Daddy proud, and becomes a Quest editor. But the appointments process is contentious.

Reedies Root Through Garbage: This Time, It’s for the Environment

As part of a larger sustainability effort that has included an energy-savings contract and a curbside composting initiative, Reed College students have performed “trash autopsies” to help assess the waste habits of campus community members. The autopsies consist of investigators looking through trash cans to catalogue the types of waste being thrown away. The particular [...]

Graffiti Struggle Raises Gender’s Ghost in GCC Bathrooms

With no easy solution to the ongoing struggle over graffiti in sight, students continue to mark up the walls in the lower-level GCC bathrooms. But between the two rooms, graffitiers’ approaches vary widely. In the left-hand room, which was a men’s room before the bathrooms were converted to gender-neutral status last year, the majority of [...]

Villain Sells Chemistry Handouts to Course Hero: Website Offers Study Material, for a Fee

Members of the Chemistry department discovered early September that their class materials were being offered for sale on the academic assistance website Course Hero. These materials, which consisted primarily of course handouts and lecture slides, had been distributed to students enrolled in chemistry courses or posted to the Reed Chemistry webpage for download. Course Hero, [...]

A Firsthand Account of the Demise of the Toaster in Commons, or: What Really Happened

The culprit was asked for their account of the incident and agreed to give it on the condition that their anonymity be preserved. Said culprit will be referred to by the grammatically, though not politically, correct “he.” Any objections should be directed to the editors of The Quest. While the event occurred on Oct. 24, [...]

“Salvation is just words too”: A Reading of As I Lay Dying

“Darl. Darl. Darl,” Lauren Nelson’s voice repeats as she stands on the altar in the chapel, dressed all in black, with glass encased tea candles burning down on the table beside her and Jimmy Curry IV, also all in black, looking on; it is a wake for Addie Bundren. Curry and Nelson, both freshmen, are [...]

Reed Signs $5.4 Million Energy Efficiency Contract

Reed has signed a three-year $5.4 million energy efficiency contract with Ameresco Quantum, the energy efficiency company announced Wednesday. The effort is expected to reduce the college’s energy costs by $2.7 million over the next decade and annual carbon dioxide emissions by 1,202 metric tons, an eighth of the 9,500 metric tons Reed emits annually. [...]

Senate Discusses Bike Theft

Junior Andrew Watson got a bike for his birthday last April—but he didn’t get to keep it long. He says the gift was recently stolen from behind Eliot Hall, where he had locked it. He is concerned that there is not enough to prevent thieves from stealing bikes on campus. “There’s no actual impetus for [...]