Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

Tags


"paradox"


Kroger Takes the Helm

By Chris Lydgate '90 on July 02, 2012 01:52 PM

Thumbnail image for _LGN0196.jpg

Reed's new president, John Kroger, took office today and has already been spotted at strategic campus locations like Eliot Circle, commons, and the Paradox Café, leather satchel in hand.

Personally, I'm excited about Kroger's presidency for three reasons. The first is his book Convictions, a look at his career as a federal prosecutor fighting mobsters, drug kingpins, and Enron executives. It's provocative, philosophical, confessional, and a cracking good read.

Continue reading Kroger Takes the Helm

Students Build Bench out of Fallen Doug Fir

By Nisma Elias '12 on June 11, 2012 09:56 AM
stumpgroup_alexi.jpg

As the sun sets on a wet Friday afternoon, students painstakingly finish sawing the archaic log in half. Photos by Alexi Horowitz '13.

Check out the video by Alexi Horowitz '13

Sawdust flew, chips piled up on the ground, and a sweet piney scent permeated the air as the crosscut gnashed its way through the log. The tree was a Douglas fir that had presided over the Great Lawn, right behind the softball backstop, for 130 years. As the story goes, the 100-foot tree fell during the snowy winter of '09, exposing the decayed roots that caused its downfall.

But the tree's story was not over. Marie Perez '12 got the idea to craft a bench out of a giant section of the trunk. She and other Reedies undertook the mammoth task of using a four-foot crosscut saw (old-timey two-person logging saw) to cut the log in half. Students were invited every evening of finals week to put their studying on hold and come out to the west parking lot to help slice the wood. Over 40 students and staff members turned out to help fashion the trunk into a (very) solid bench for all to sit on. It took about 17 hours of solid sawing to completely halve the log.

Continue reading Students Build Bench out of Fallen Doug Fir

Paradox Embraced: A History of Reed Presidents

By Alexander Blum '13 on June 08, 2012 09:15 AM
Reed President Richard F. Scholz, ca. 1920;

Reed President Richard F. Scholz, ca. 1920.

Reed's presidential history, like that of the college itself, is a history of paradoxes.

This was the argument of trustee and historian John Sheehy '82 in his lecture "The Presidents of Reed" at Reunions 2012. The central paradox of Reed, he said, is the combination of academic conservatism with cultural progressivism. This has given birth over the years to such quandaries as Reed's historically high attrition rate (as students struggled to impose the self-discipline required for intellectual freedom) to ongoing debates like faculty pay equity or marijuana use on campus.

These conflicts, though, have by no means held Reed back. Instead, Sheehy said, "the only way to move forward was to work within the paradoxes." The Honor Principle was one example of this, occupying the "middle ground" between rules and anarchy. In the end, it has been how well each president has embraced the Reed paradox that has determined his success.

Continue reading Paradox Embraced: A History of Reed Presidents

Home Page

Archive of Posts