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"Hum 110"

The Dipylon Analogy

By President John Kroger on September 07, 2012 10:48 AM

Dear Reed Alumni:

The academic year is underway! The campus looks beautiful, the Paradox Café is packed, and the mood on campus seems excellent. My enthusiasm for Reed, and my conviction that the college is in great shape, have only grown deeper in the last two months. I look forward to my formal inauguration on September 21 and the accompanying Alumni Leadership Summit. I hope to meet many of you at these celebratory and informative events.

Continue reading The Dipylon Analogy

"Libations!" They Cried

By Chris Lydgate '90 on August 27, 2012 09:40 AM

Monday morning, 8:45 a.m. First day of class. As the new crop of freshlings streamed towards Vollum for their first real Hum lecture, laden with backpacks, and clutching coffee cups and water bottles, they were greeted by an unusual spectacle: a veritable pantheon of Greek gods hooting and hollering on the steps outside the lecture hall.

"Libations!" cried the gods. "Libations to honor mighty Zeus!"

Continue reading "Libations!" They Cried

Convoking the Muse

By Miles Bryan '13 on August 24, 2012 04:55 PM

Students, parents, and professors descended in their multitudes upon the Great Lawn on Wednesday for Convocation 2012. Under the billowing big top, 358 newly-minted Reedies were formally inducted into the tribe by an equally fresh president: John Kroger kicked off the ceremony with his first public address as head of the college. Kroger remarked that what he has been struck most by in his first eight weeks cannot be conveyed in a brochure: "Reed is one of the warmest kindest, most welcoming institutions I have ever experienced," he said. "It feels like home."

Home may now be Anna Mann or Foster-Scholz for new students, but they came from all over the globe to get here. Keith Todd, dean of admission, laid out the impressive pilgrimage; students hailed from China, Kenya, New Mexico, and Jakarta, among others. They include more Texans than Minnesotans, several Nicholases and Katherines, not to mention a Thor and a Zeus.

Continue reading Convoking the Muse

The Pelting of the Freshmen

By Chris Lydgate '90 on April 27, 2012 12:09 PM

Eliot Circle erupted in a flurry of snowballs this morning as upperclassmen enacted a relatively new tradition, the Pelting of the Freshmen, after the final Hum 110 lecture of the academic year.

Unidentified upperclassmen (rumored to include Seth Douglas '13 and Jeremy Lawrence '12) drove a pickup truck to Mount Hood, loaded the bed with snow, and lay in wait for the unwary freshlings to emerge from Vollum. Cheers rent the air as the youngsters streamed down the steps and the icy fusillade commenced.

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"The Last Great Conservative College"

By Chris Lydgate '90 on August 29, 2011 03:12 PM

An article in the latest edition of Portland Monthly describes Reed as "America's Last Great Conservative College." And yes, the author is a Reedie.

Citing Reed's demanding requirements and classical curriculum, history major Ethan Epstein '10 makes a persuasive case that most Portland residents are looking at Reed through the wrong end of the microscope.

"As a Reedie, I long ago accepted that most Portlanders consider my alma mater a hybrid of Haight-Ashbury and Keith Richards's medicine cabinet," he writes.

Continue reading "The Last Great Conservative College"

A Song of Two Syllabi with Prof. Wally Englert

By Lucy Bellwood '12 on June 12, 2011 05:09 PM

The first lines of Homer's Iliad reverberated to the carved rafters of the chapel on Friday as Reedies of all generations were reunited in the shared experience of reliving their first Hum lecture during Centennial Reunions. However, there was a twist. On the back of the lecture handout (distributed by a beaming President Colin Diver, who marched up and down the aisles brandishing copies) was a timeline that began, not in Greece, but in Egypt. And the Homeric epic of choice for the semester was not the tale of Achilleus and his anger, but that of Odysseus and his quest to return home. As professor Wally Englert [classics 1981-] explained, the Hum syllabus has undergone some significant changes in the past year...

"We used to say 'The Greeks were strange,'" Englert noted, while discussing the inclusion of new material from other Mediterranean cultures on the reading list, "But I'm going to do something a little radical here and say: Ancient cultures were strange."

Continue reading A Song of Two Syllabi with Prof. Wally Englert

Bringing the Humanities to Portland

By Chris Lydgate '90 on May 16, 2011 04:53 PM

By Romel Hernandez

Shanaquewa Finney admits the reason she signed up for the class was because the flyer advertised that it was free.

Continue reading Bringing the Humanities to Portland

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