REED ORAL HISTORY TRAINING

Interested in learning the techniques of oral history? Reed alumni are invited to attend a six-hour oral history training, to be held at Reed on Sunday, October 6. Laura McCreery, from the University of California–Berkeley’s regional oral history office, will lead the workshop.

The training is sponsored by the alumni board of directors as part of an ongoing effort to document the college’s history in time for its centennial in 2011. The project seeks to interview 250 selected alumni, faculty and staff members, and friends of the college, with an initial focus on those affiliated with Reed before 1960.

Volunteer interviewers will be asked to prepare for, conduct, and edit at least two interviews a year. The tapes will be professionally transcribed. The tapes and transcripts will be deposited in the Reed College archives and will be used as the basis of articles for Reed magazine, as well as a centennial publication.

The first set of completed transcripts were presented by alumni board president John Sheehy ’82 to acting Reed president Peter Steinberger. Volunteers are now interviewing in the Seattle area, Portland, and the Bay Area. Training sessions have recently been held for the Chicago and New York chapters.

The October 6 workshop will be free, but attendance will be limited to allow for hands-on exercises. To reserve a place at the training, please email Richard J. Parker ’75, Portland chapter oral history chair, at rjp@pbl.net, or call the alumni office at 503/777-7589.

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