Is Reed Too “Far Out”?

I usually find at least one article in the magazine that interests me, but that was not the case with the most recent issue [June 2011]. The articles were eclectic, to put it mildly, and none of them were interesting to me. I looked at the picture of the parade at a reunion and I thought how different Reed is today from when I was a student in the fifties. I could not imagine myself participating in this type of what I would have to call a spectacle.

I received an excellent education at Reed, but I have to say that I feel very little attachment to Reed. I felt that Reed was a unique place, then, but judging from what I saw in this issue of the Reed magazine, it strikes me as being really “far out” today. I know I am far too conservative for the present Reed College.

—John W. Thompson ’55

Lake Oswego, Oregon

Editor's Note: Sorry you found nothing of interest in the last issue. We try hard to offer something for classmates of every vintage and persuasion, from the left of Hugo Chavez to the right of Attila the Hun (and there are alumni at both ends). We are probably guilty of playing up Reed’s quirky side—after all, bike jousting makes for better copy than biophysics. But don’t judge the college by its pageantry. Judge it by the rigor of its curriculum, the dedication of its professors, the brilliance of its students, and the achievements of its alumni. The clothes, the hairstyles, and the tattoos have changed; the essentials, I suspect, have not.