April 7th Reed Union Missed You (and your prof!)
The Reed Union is a tradition dating back to 1947 (check out the history on Reed’s website), but which hasn't occurred with any regular frequency since Covid. It seeks to bring together all members of the Reed (students, staff, faculty, alumni, and admin) to dialogue on salient issues facing the community. This year there have been three Reed Union events, the third of which was held on Tuesday, March 7, in the Student Union (SU), with considerably smaller turnout compared to the Union on February 27. Despite this smaller turnout, the conversations were no less valuable and interesting as the conversation turned towards the role of staff and faculty involvement in student life, clubs, and events.
One of the stories that Reed tells about itself is how we have a strong community where academic cooperation is fostered, where students, staff, and faculty treat each other as friends, and where the community is strong because everyone is actively involved. However, alumni, staff and faculty, and many current students feel as though in the current era of Reed, this tradition of faculty/staff-student integration has eroded significantly. Many alumni noted that, in the past, staff, faculty, admin and alumni were much more heavily involved in student affairs in a social way, which they believed was a significant part of why Reed had such a strong and distinctive community.
For example, Reed has had a longstanding tradition of professors inviting students into their homes for Senior Symposiums, one-off class visits, or just for fun to discuss academic matters. Beyond that, in the early days of Renn Fayre, faculty were heavily involved with the various projects that made Renn Fayre magical. As recently as 2014, Students and faculty collaborated to build a giant griffin float for the Portland pride parade. In the current Reed climate, community events where faculty are present are much less common.
The ideal version of student/faculty interaction would be constructive volunteer projects which benefit the community of Reed and beyond. For example, Canyon Day stands as perhaps the only current large-scale voluntary collaboration between students, staff, faculty, alumni, and even Reed neighborhood members to provide a positive service to the community and forge stronger relationships.
In the opinion of many at the Reed Union, we should focus on fostering more non-academic connections between students and faculty. Now, it is important to acknowledge that there can be inappropriate relationships between students and faculty. While inappropriate relationships do occur, they are not a reason to try to keep faculty and students in their own silos and have all relations be purely academic. Of course, some student events should remain student-only, but the idea is that, for PG events, faculty and staff should be made to feel welcome.
In modern Reed, the Gray Fund events to get off Reed campus were brought up as an excellent (and underutilized) way for students and faculty to connect. According to one source at the Reed Union, Gray Fund events have a certain number of spots designated for staff and faculty, which are only given to students if no faculty sign up. That is, staff and faculty are given priority to go on Gray Fund trips because the events are perfect to meet and get to know students you normally wouldn’t have the chance to interact with.
Another resource mentioned is the Vollum Endowment Fund, which is a total of $100 every professor has access to per class per semester. (if you’ve ever gotten free food or doughnuts from a professor on the last day of class, this is likely where it came from) This fund presents an opportunity (albeit somewhat small) for the class to be taken outside of the classroom to places like a park, cafe, or museum.
On an institutional level, we could also support faculty mildly altering curriculum to reward community engagement and make it an intrinsic part of the academic process. Perhaps one day’s worth of reading could be dropped in exchange for some time spent with a local organization. An essay topic could be provided as to how the topic applies to community engagement. In minor ways, Reed academia could be modified to point students towards community building without making it an extracurricular activity.
This last note points to a large question alumni had for students during the Union, which was whether students feel like their community engagements (like attending events, clubs, volunteering, etc), felt like a time to relax and step away from the daily grind, or an extra workload they were taking on. Responses were, of course, a mix of both. In general, how community building can be incentivised and how extracurricular hard work can be acknowledged on an institutional level was a major question of the Union.
When it comes to institutions, the mind often turns to Admin and how they fit into all of this. The discourse in the Union did not focus much on how admin would play into this (ideally, it would be a faculty-student connection more or less independent of admin). However, one thing that caught my ear is that in the past Admin was much more open and interactive with the students. For example, Colin S. Diver (president from 2002-2012) hosted annual ice cream socials in his own home.
The other main subject of discussion was Reed’s clubs and student run events in general. Although they are currently a great part of campus life, there is always room for improvement, and the Reed Union wondered if there are some ways in which clubs could be supported so that they might be better suited towards creating community. Some questioned posed were:
1) What role could faculty have in student clubs? At the moment, there is almost zero surface-level faculty engagement with student clubs. In some cases (HOE, Giant Worm, etc) this is quite reasonable. However, in some situations, people voiced that they might appreciate a guest-star appearance during a terrarium making event or cheese tasting. Staff and faculty at the Union noted how they always give the utmost priority to attending student events when invited, and always considered it an honor. The participants of the Reed Union wanted to express that students always have the option to invite professors along, if they believe the event is appropriate, and that professors are frequently happy to oblige!
For another, more practical, example it was recommended that staff and faculty could provide a much needed permanent presence to keep some of the more complex clubs running against the high turnover rates of college students. A Lewis & Clark graduate (where they have a policy that all clubs must have a faculty signator and accept the risks of the club’s actions) noted how when he was a student the professors that signed off on their fire-twirling club was initially uninterested, but tried it once and is still helping maintain the club ten years later. That kind of institutional preservation and faculty backing could be helpful in certain situations.
It should be noted that all members of the Reed Union acknowledged that preserving student autonomy and control over their clubs was top priority.
2) How can clubs best generate a sense of belonging for participants and the community as a whole? As before, the strengths, needs, and potential problems with clubs vary wildly on a case by case basis. Some concerns (re: MC 445) surfaced that some clubs get cliqueish as time wears on and the base draws closer to a closed friend group. This makes it hard for new students to get involved, limits how strong clubs can be, and generally hurts the community as a whole.
Participants noted that (nowadays) almost all student oriented one-off events are put on by OSE (Office of Student Engagement), CLBR (Center for Life Beyond Reed), or SEJ (Sustainability and Environmental Justice), which are primarily institutional less run by students. While many of the events they put on are great for community building (see the Dance workshops hosted by OSE), desires were expressed for students to take back the means of (event) production.
Additionally, an idea was floated to start a student-run ‘Academic Support Club’ which would help students cope with the academic challenges of Reed over all four years of their experience, but particularly targeted towards freshmen.
Finally, the Union organizers concluded by expressing their hopes to put some of these ideas into practice and bringing the dialogue beyond the semi-infrequent Reed Union meetings.
If you have thoughts about anything in this article, be it passionate ideas or scathing criticism, you are more than welcome to attend the next Reed Union and make your thoughts known!