By Staff | Published on April 26, 2013 · 1 Comment
I knew nothing about birthday celebrations in my childhood, nor even of the concept of “birthday” itself. I only have one name, which is དཔའ་རྩེ་རྒྱལ in Tibetan, no middle name, and no last name. In fact, most of the ordinary Tibetans only have one name, and we don’t have a tradition of celebrating birthdays as many people do in other parts of the world, although we have a tradition of celebrating birthdays for high Lamas or Rinpoches.
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By Staff | Published on April 26, 2013 · 2 Comments
I want to share some thoughts I have about honor and how it applies to my attendance at Reed in a broad sense. Because everyone has a different interpretation of the honor principle, I speak only for myself – but for the sake of encouraging others to have new thoughts because I have benefited from others doing so for me. I hear and think much about honor’s role in more specific issues on campus, but for me, the most profound and complex engagement with the honor principle has thus far presented itself in one of the biggest and most constant questions that I wrestle with at this school: Why am I at Reed, and why should I continue attending?
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By Staff | Published on April 18, 2013 · 5 Comments
Imagine a Hum conference with dozens, instead of a dozen, participants. It can take more than an hour for a normal conference’s discussion to bear fruit. This huge conference faces a Sisyphean task. Welcome to last week’s Reed Union. While a civil, productive atmosphere adorned the Union, it was ultimately saddled with the same problems [...]
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By Staff | Published on April 18, 2013 · 2 Comments
I found last Thursday’s Reed Union quite frustrating, as I often do with these kinds of discussions, though not for exactly the same reasons as I have in the past. During the pre-discussion statements by the panel, we were told repeatedly by several panel members, SB President Ari Galper included, that the reason for the erosion of student body autonomy over the last 10-15 years is the collective failure of the student body to govern itself responsibly. The 50% attrition rate of the 1980′s, the heroin deaths, the suicides, all have been at the heart of the constant, incremental expansion of policy and bureaucracy. We should be thankful for these changes, we were told; early adulthood is a dangerous time of transition, and part of the College’s job is to hold our hands through this transition.
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By Staff | Published on April 18, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Taken alone, there is nothing problematic about the phrase “New World,” and to dismiss the Renn Fayre Theme out of a sense of naïve political correctness would be in error. Rather, as a community of critically engaged students and scholars, I believe it is our responsibility to attend to the larger histories and contexts in which words are embedded so that by invoking something like a “New World” we do not affirm and reinscribe the latent colonial and neocolonial fantasies that such a phrase inevitably dredges up. Engaging such a line of inquiry, it is crucial to ask ourselves for whom are such New Worlds for and what these fantasies erase.
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By Staff | Published on April 18, 2013 · Leave a Comment
During the 2011-2012 school year, Reed spent $1,389,150 on energy alone, that’s $1,029 per student! Not only does this take money away from many of the wonderful programs we love at Reed, it is also harmful to our planet. Let’s do something about it.
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By Staff | Published on April 11, 2013 · 11 Comments
It has been two months since Paideiagate, and we have found that we can’t quite shake ourselves of the bad feelings that the incident has instilled in us. This, we think, provides a problem for The Powers That Be, since they seem to rely on the student body’s short memory span when it comes to “controversies” – that “this will all blow over,” that we will forget their transgression once we have gotten our collective giggles out in some sort of dramatized community event (in this case, the followup Reed Union, which we see as having had a placating effect in addition to its obvious constructive ends).
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By Staff | Published on April 11, 2013 · 18 Comments
In mid-March of this year, I received an email containing a surprising letter from Bruce Smith, Associate Dean of Students for Students and Campus Life, in regards to an incident that had occurred the previous week. The letter briefly stated that I had received an AOD violation for drinking alcohol while not of legal age. It went on to list potential disciplinary actions for future violations and included a thoughtful reminder that consuming alcohol while under 21 years of age was, indeed, a violation of Reed’s AOD policy.
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By Staff | Published on April 4, 2013 · 2 Comments
The powers that be didn’t hold the Reed Union on climate change to discuss Reedies’ opinions about climate change. The Union was an attempt to address—or appease—the nascent fossil fuel divestment movement. By framing the Union as one about climate change, the Union committee, inadvertently or not, painted over new concerns with a gloss of [...]
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By Staff | Published on April 4, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Next week there will be a Reed Union discussing the topic of student body autonomy. Lots of things come to mind when anyone discusses student body autonomy. Most often, student body autonomy seems to be brought up in the context of lifestyle choices of the various members of the student body. Shouldn’t we as adult students be allowed to live our lives as we see fit? Perhaps, but I don’t think that is what student body autonomy is at all. In fact, that strikes me to be more related to the personal autonomy of students. Such issues should, to my mind, not be discussed at the union because they fundamentally miss what student autonomy is, properly speaking.
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By Staff | Published on April 4, 2013 · 22 Comments
By Huazejia ’13 Nicholas Kristof’s talk was scheduled at 7 p.m. in Reed Kaul auditorium this past Monday. The talk was open to the public, and a lot of well-dressed folks started showing up even before 6:30. Of course, people would come early to his talk because he is not only the author of the [...]
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By Staff | Published on March 28, 2013 · Leave a Comment
TW: Discussion of Sexual Assault Excerpt from Jezebel: “Last month, former University of North Carolina assistant dean of students Melinda Manning, three students and one former student filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on behalf of themselves and 64 other unnamed sexual assault survivors, alleging that university officials pressured Manning into [...]
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By Staff | Published on March 14, 2013 · 1 Comment
I left the Reed Union on climate change feeling about as frustrated as I usually feel when I engage with Reed as a thing. The event was advertised as “a forum for important issues of relevance to the Reed community,” which meant to me that we would be acknowledging and discussing our role in the “important issue,” our culpabilities and responsibilities.
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By Staff | Published on March 7, 2013 · 15 Comments
My wife and I walked through your beautiful campus recently. During our stroll I perused the various placards on the student union building. One of the posters depicted in a lionizing way Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, all socialists and/or communists. This caused me to think. I understand higher education ought teach all views, I understand students are idealistic and enthusiastic and I understand that much of academia’s bent today is liberal and collectivistic. What I wondered was whether Reed College’s professors were offering alternative views for students to ponder.
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By Staff | Published on February 21, 2013 · Leave a Comment
We, the student members of the Honor Council, wish to express to the Reed Community our appreciation for your commitment to honorable, reasoned, and respectful discourse. All members of the Honor Council were present for the Community Forum with President Kroger, and we appreciated the (generally) respectful and genuine expression of your ideas and opinions. [...]
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By Staff | Published on February 14, 2013 · 8 Comments
Though I would be insane to disagree, I always feel somewhat uneasy when important community discussions end with extended remarks about how great it is that we can discuss these sorts of issues as a community. I suppose it’s because this is precisely the sort of conclusion one applauds when there is an overall sense that nobody can change what happened or what will likely happen again…
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By Staff | Published on February 14, 2013 · 6 Comments
I am addressing this email to the President’s office, the Development office, and The Quest, regarding the recent report that the President’s office has overreached its mandate to censor classes at Paideia, as reported in the Daily Caller. I will not be giving any more money to the college, and I will actively discourage my [...]
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By Staff | Published on February 8, 2013 · 4 Comments
This semester, Greenboard is launching a campaign asking Reed to divest their endowment from fossil-fuel companies. The campaign will join hundreds of others across the country, taking part in a national movement of people who believe it is neither honorable nor wise to profit our education is likely subsidized in part by the profits of the very fossil-fuel companies that, if allowed to continue unhindered, will make that education useless. There are no jobs on a dead planet, as the saying goes.
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By Staff | Published on February 7, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I grew up in the “Just Say No” ’80s, and I went to a Jesuit high school. While I spent most of my high school years avoiding alcohol and drugs because I had been told they were morally wrong and I could die if I were to use them (and the idea of disappointing my [...]
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By Staff | Published on February 7, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I know I’m not the first to write you on this subject, and I shan’t be the last. In fact, I imagine that several of you have received some rather testy notes from students or alumni. In short, you’re getting yelled at. Probably a bit. But it’s hardly fair. You haven’t done any of this. [...]
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By Staff | Published on February 6, 2013 · 17 Comments
Hello! My name is Rebecca Ok. I met several of you during the retreat in San Diego in 2008. I’m writing today to express concern over the increasingly disappointing way in which the Reed College administration has been approaching the fact of drug experimentation and underage drinking at Reed. Mr. Kroger’s censorship of a handful [...]
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By Staff | Published on February 1, 2013 · 4 Comments
I am the alumnus who was going to teach Adroit Anticipation of Awesome Altered Adventures 201. I’m not that bothered by the cancellation of my class, mostly because I titled it poorly and I am sympathetic towards the administration needing to distance themselves from anything that looks remotely like advocacy for breaking the law. I should [...]
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By Sal Rodriguez | Published on December 6, 2012 · 16 Comments
Wow.
The last two weeks have been plenty strange. From accusations that I’m a misogynistic, racist homophobe to (presumably) intelligent and thoughtful Reed students attacking speech regardless of context, the hysteria over the Nov. 17 comedy show has been quite a spectacle.
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By Staff | Published on December 4, 2012 · 5 Comments
The following editorial is not as cynical as it first appears. Bear with us. Elections Assembly this evening may have been an eye-opening introduction to Reed politics for the newer students in attendance. But upperclassmen saw it fit into a similar pattern to previous assemblies: First-time senatorial candidates take the podium with fire in their [...]
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By Staff | Published on November 29, 2012 · 4 Comments
By Neil Anderson About a week after his Saturday night display in the Student Union, a significant portion of the Reed community holds the belief Sal Rodriguez did not violate the Honor Principle. Although the question of Rodriguez’s potential violation is by the definition of the Honor Principle open for discussion, I find our hesitant [...]
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By Stella Jones | Published on November 29, 2012 · 35 Comments
This article addresses the closing question, posed by Sal Rodriguez, in the Quest article about his performance on Nov. 17. As a member of FSU, I immediately mobilized around Sal’s act because his words caused immediate and dire harm to survivors and allies at Reed by triggering many people who both saw and heard about the show.
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By Staff | Published on November 21, 2012 · 27 Comments
For many, I think, last Saturday’s comedy performance in the SU was a reminder that free speech is not always an easy freedom to affirm. I’m referring specifically to Sal Rodriguez’s performance, which outraged a good portion of the audience and ended with one audience member coming up on stage, taking the microphone, and confronting him.
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By Staff | Published on November 21, 2012 · 3 Comments
As a student who worked hard to help bring Dr. Mary Poplin to campus, I was disturbed by Thomas Willingham’s response to your article, “Is Secularism An Obstacle in the Search for Truth?“. I believe it was an unfair extrapolation of a fairly short article into a religious straw man argument. Thomas, while I understand that [...]
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By Staff | Published on November 15, 2012 · Leave a Comment
The subject of smoking on campus in closed rooms can’t be a new subject, as I observed nonchalant smoking and flipping the live butts to the floor in the pool hall during the recent’s parent weekend at Reed. Then, sure enough, speaking with current students, I found that smoking there is common.
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By Tristan Nieto | Published on November 8, 2012 · 5 Comments
This past week while many of us sat ready to launch various criticisms (constructive or otherwise) at guest speaker Meghan McCain, I was in Eliot 314 taking part in a panel discussion facilitated by Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. The panel consisted of one Reed alumnus and White Bird paramedic, Garth Hope-Melnick, two professors [...]
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By Staff | Published on November 8, 2012 · Leave a Comment
The way The Quest covers the Reed Student Body Senate is changing. Don’t worry, we’ll still be covering everything newsworthy that happens at Senate. But we won’t be doing weekly Senate Beat articles. Instead, we’ll run individual news stories on each particular thing that Senate does. The editorial board feels it is no longer useful [...]
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By Staff | Published on October 11, 2012 · 1 Comment
To the Quest: As people who do a lot to promote performances by off-campus groups on campus, and to make free attendance possible by members of the community, we would like to call your attention to a situation that disturbs both of us. FACT: 62 students, faculty, and staff members signed up to attend last [...]
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By Staff | Published on October 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
By Kathy Oleson, Melissa Osborne, and Crystal Williams Dear Reed Community, In a couple of weeks, you’ll receive an invitation to participate in the Reed College Campus Climate Survey. You’ll see flyers posted around campus and you’ll hear your professors, colleagues, and friends talking about the survey. And, we hope, you will be among those [...]
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By Staff | Published on October 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
by Peer Health Advocate Torrey Payne Two weeks away from fall break, as the summer weather dims and the leaves prepare to change colors, the Reed College Peer Health Advocates are putting their first month’s work on the shelf and preparing to embark on another project. After wrapping up Sextember with HIV Testing Day on [...]
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By Staff | Published on October 5, 2012 · Leave a Comment
In a school where traditions go extinct in a week and the ways of last term are dismissed as “Olde Reed,” the continuing existence of Canyon Day is something akin to a miracle.
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By Staff | Published on September 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment
The intended purpose of Reed’s Honor Principle was to suspend the college in a state of perpetual tension. By choosing not to codify it, as other schools had done, Reed’s founding president, William Trufant Foster, sought to make it more a tool of freedom than a machine of authoritarian enforcement.
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By Staff | Published on September 7, 2012 · Leave a Comment
We approach to the illegal use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD) within our community’s as a health issue. Punitive responses, while they have their place in discussions about AOD use in the community, are not our first response. The Student Services response starts with education through dialogue, discussion, debate, and a variety of programming modes. As our approach places community health and wellbeing at its core, we feel that it is necessary to engage the community in meaningful encounters that allow for a collaborative construction of community norms and expectations.
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By Staff | Published on August 31, 2012 · 1 Comment
Dear New Freshmen, Coming as new students to Reed, you’ve doubtless already heard hundreds of versions of the liberal arts college ethos: Question everything. Never accept received dogma. Soon, you’ll be in Hum110 learning about Socrates, who showed people in ancient Greece that everything they believed was actually not based in sound wisdom. In a [...]
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By Alan Montecillo | Published on August 31, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Dear New Reedies, You’re probably overwhelmed with advice at this point. That said, I’d like to take a shot at the semi-annual “an upperclassman attempts to impart wisdom” article and address a few things about Reed that – in this humble senior’s opinion – are either questionable, counterproductive, or patently false. I hope to help [...]
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By Brian Moore | Published on August 31, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Welcome to the 2012-2013 academic year. As we begin another semester at Reed, I would like to encourage everyone to pause and reflect on what it means to apply the Honor Principle in daily life as a member of a vibrant academic community. One way of understanding the role of the Honor Principle at Reed [...]
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By Rob Shryock | Published on April 12, 2012 · 8 Comments
Rob Shryock is a former Queditor of Fall 2011. Between the time this article is written and when it is printed there will likely have been a vote on the proposal to allow members of the Quest Board to appoint their own successors, rather than have them be elected. The fact that this proposal will [...]
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By Staff | Published on March 30, 2012 · 6 Comments
The quality of The Quest has fluctuated wildly in its near century of existence. In recent years, it has published everything from coloring contests to articles on Pet Parade titled “Pawsitive Reinforcement.” Quest Board elections too often deteriorate into popularity contests and do not guarantee a high quality Quest. The method of choosing Quest Editors [...]
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By Kieran Hanrahan | Published on March 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Senate has demonstrated that it remains a sluggish bureaucracy. Student Body Wage Review Committee has failed to deliver a report on student body wages by the time it said it would. Not only do Honor Council members effectively make $1.73 an hour for their work, according to Quest research, but the Senate Secretary effectively makes [...]
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By Alex Walker | Published on March 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment
At Reed, we students are quite fortunate in that we are generally treated as adults, both by the faculty and by the administration. Our professors teach classes with zero “Scantrons” and with few multiple-choice tests, preferring to take the time to test our knowledge with more interesting and useful assignments. Even when the administration takes [...]
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By Sammie Massey | Published on March 30, 2012 · Leave a Comment
We talk a lot about where our food comes from and whether it is organic or fresh, but what about the question of who picked it? On Wednesday night, I was reminded that the apples and berries we buy and eat in Oregon are often picked by young children who have been pulled out of [...]
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By Dean Schmeltz | Published on March 23, 2012 · 4 Comments
Before spring break, a few Reedies gathered at the MRC for a brainstorming session that I co-facilitated along with Jyl Shaffer, Assistant Dean for Sexual Assault Prevention and Response, about how to respond to rape jokes on campus. We decided to follow up on that discussion in The Quest for two reasons. First, we want [...]
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By Staff | Published on March 23, 2012 · Leave a Comment
By Andrew Barney and Sita Goetschius, MRC Interns After the recent student arrests, a question was posed at the following Senate meeting about racial profiling by Community Safety. To continue the discussion, the Multicultural Resource Center hosted a Tuesday Talk on Racial Profiling at Reed and Beyond attended by students, staff, and administrators. We found [...]
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By Michael Zhao | Published on March 23, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Michael Zhao is the Senate Publicity Officer. If a Senate meets every Thursday at 5 PM in the SU, and no one is there to attend it, is progress still made? In the words of one of the greatest political thinkers of our generation, “you betcha!” Since day one, Senate has been hard at work [...]
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By Alex Walker | Published on March 6, 2012 · 20 Comments
The Quest has been in contact with those responsible for the recent “surveillance posters” that have attracted recent attention. They have made the following statement for publication. “The posters were designed by myself and my associate. We drew from the imagery of barbed wire, prisons, and surveillance and paired these photographs with slogans communicating the [...]
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Last week’s Quest reported that the Student Patrol Officer program is soon to be reinstated, and that these SPOs would have the duty to report AOD violations. In light of recent events, this betrays an unsettling trend in the campus climate around AOD issues. Much remains unknown about the circumstances of the recent drug arrests. [...]
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