Outreach Programs
Faculty Speakers Bureau
Reed College facilitates a Speakers Bureau of faculty members who are available to address topics of interest and expertise to Portland area high school classes and clubs. High School teachers should contact Barbara Amen, director of special programs (503-777-7259), to submit requests for a faculty speaker. The director wil take the teacher's information, contact the faculty member about availability, and then notify the teacher accordingly. While we will accommodate as many requests as possible, schedule conflicts and demands upon a faculty member's time make it difficult to complete all requests. Generally faculty members arrange no more than two presentations during the academic year. Fall break (October 15-19), January, Reed's spring break (March 17-21), and late May are times when Reed faculty often have the most flexibility to leave campus during high school hours.
High School teachers interested in having a Reed faculty member come to their class or after school club can facilitate the request process by providing the following information when making initial contact with the special programs office:
1) Name of teacher requesting a speaker
2) High School
3) Phone number and best time to reach teacher (including home number,
if appropriate)
4) Reed faculty member requested
5) Topic to be addressed
6) Class/group to be addressed
7) Year of students and size of class/group
8) Date and time frame for faculty member to address the class
(flexibility works best!)
2007-2008 list of available faculty members by department. It also may be possible to accommodate requests for other Reed faculty members, or requests for topics other than those listed.
Art
Presentations on current gallery exhibits on-site at the Cooley Gallery or at the schools.
October 8—December 7, 2008 Paintings of David Reed
January—February, 2009 Photography of Liza Ryan
March—June, 2009 Chinese Contemporary Art
Biology
Professor Jay Mellies
1) Spinach on the side: E. coli in our lives
Classics
Professor Walter Englert
1) Greek Tragedy
2) Homer (Iliad and Odyssey)
3) Greek and Roman literature and philosophy
Economics
Professor Denise Hare
1) Economic growth in China: what does it mean for China and the rest of the world?
English and Humanities
Professor Michael Faletra
1) Any medieval topic: Chaucer, Beowulf, King Arthur
2) Shakespeare
History
Professor Margot Minardi
1) Historical memory, commemorative culture, and the American Revolution
2) American social reform (18th and 19th century)
3) Slavery and the American Revolution
Mathematics
Professor Irena Swanson
1) Calendars and modular arithmetic (history of calendars; the usual and unusual
arithmetic behind them; on what day of the week were you born?)
2) Perspective drawing and projective geometry
3) Tessellations of the plane (with group theory or quilting)
Music
Professor Virginia Hancock
1) Choral or small singing group rehearsal/coaching
2) Discussion of current Portland Opera production (if class is attending)
Physics
Professor Lucas Illing
1) Light and Optics
Professor David Griffiths
1) Special relativity
2) Elementary particles
3) Quantum mechanics
Political Science
Professor Tamara Metz
1) Current debates on marriage and the family
Professor Marcus Schaper
1) Environmental politics
2) European politics
3) Transatlantic relations
Psychology
Professor Kristen Anderson (also a trained special educator and clinical psychologist)
1) Adolescents and stress/coping
2) Adolescent alcohol and drug use disorders
3) Eating disorders
4) teacher in-service workshop
Professor Derek Lyons
1) Child development; cognition and learning in infancy and early childhood
2) Primate cognition
3) Children's media
Professor Kathy Oleson
1) Social psychology
2) Stereotyping and prejudice
3) The self
4) Interpersonal perception and relationships
Spanish
Professor Iliana Alcántar
1) Mexican literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
2) Latin American film
3) Mexican and transnational performance
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