In an age glutted with information, where facts and pseudo-facts proliferate in progressively briefer formats at ever-higher velocity, this kind of education is both increasingly rare and more valuable than ever.

Unfortunately, it is also extremely difficult to produce. It requires small classrooms, outstanding teachers, passionate students, top-notch student services, libraries, dormitories, laboratories, studios, and hundreds of other critical factors that make a Reed education possible.

These things cannot be bought on the cheap. Tuition, room and board for the 2009–10 academic year will hit $49,690, an utter impossibility for many middle-class families if not for financial aid. More than 51% of Reed students currently receive financial aid, and the average package totals $34,873. Even so, every year the college must turn away qualified students whose families cannot afford Reed, and the college anticipates that the need for aid will only grow stronger in coming years.

In addition, the college faces significant challenges as it enters its second century. It needs more professors to attain its longstanding goal of a 10:1 student-faculty ratio. It lacks a first-rate facility for the performing arts departments, which are currently spread over eight separate buildings. Some dorms suffer from an atmosphere that is more institutional than inspirational (Asylum Block, anyone?) and the ongoing shortage of dorm rooms still forces too many students off campus. And many alumni—who should, after all, compose the backbone of the Reed community—remain oddly disengaged from the college.

“The Centennial Campaign gives everyone who loves Reed an opportunity to invest in the qualities that have made it the very epitome of liberal educational practice and ideals,” says President Colin Diver. “Every aspect is designed to serve and strengthen the central historic mission of the college.”

The Greenberg/Steinhauser and Eddings gifts, along with many others, have propelled the college a long way towards its target. But the campaign will not be successful, Diver says, if it relies exclusively on a small group of donors. In fact, one of the college’s key goals is to broaden engagement with alumni, measured by inducators such as attendance at reunions, mentoring of students, volunteerism, and (ahem) contributions.

As an institution that is manifestly not for everyone, Reed depends especially on those who personally grasp its transformative power. In its first decade, Reed relied on the business leaders of Portland for support. Now, at the dawn of its centennial, the college looks to its own alumni for leadership.

“Reed gave us a wonderful education,” says campaign chair Peter Norton ‘65. “Now it’s time for us to give back.”

To learn more about how the Centennial Campaign will strengthen Reed and to make a gift, visit campaign.reed.edu