Canyon Day

Canyon Day is the annual event where members of the Reed community join together for a day of work to help protect and restore the canyon.

Community Dance

Community Dance at Reed aims to bring together members of the Reed College and broader Portland communities through community dance as a mode of dancemaking and social intervention based on the principles of collective creation. Community Dance at Reed welcomes all bodies, with a critical awareness of how race, class, ability, gender, age, and sexuality impact the ways we relate to ourselves and one another in public. Weekly creative movement sessions—offered one semester each academic year—are free and open to the public. No previous dance experience necessary. Together, we collaboratively create dance works and perform in the Dance Department’s biannual concerts.

Faculty Speakers Bureau

Reed College facilitates a Speakers Bureau of faculty and staff who are available to address topics of interest and expertise to Portland area high school classes and clubs. We will also consider requests from local libraries, museums, and other entities that serve our community.

F.L. Griffin Mathfest

Latin Forum

Since 1987, the Reed College Greek, Latin, and Ancient Mediterranean Studies department has sponsored a forum on Rome for high school students and teachers of Latin. Each year, students and teachers from around the Northwest gather on a Saturday to explore a topic related to the culture and literature of the early Romans. Reed faculty members facilitate morning discussion groups on the keynote address and lead afternoon seminars on a related topic.

The Northwest Five Consortium for Community Engaged Learning

Supported by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this five-year program aims to enhance institutional cultures of community engaged learning that promote the Arts and Humanities as central to building knowledge and identifying and responding to endemic challenges. It also aims to foster long term reciprocal relationships between and among the NW5C colleges (Reed, Puget Sound, Willamette, Whitman, and Lewis & Clark) and our community partners.

To learn more about opportunities through this program, please contact Kate Duffly (cduffly@reed.edu), Reed’s NW5C faculty liaison.

Open Days

Open Days is a one-day event geared towards connecting Reed College's biology, chemistry, and physics departments to the greater Portland community. Open Days visitors will have the opportunity to interact with Reed’s science departments, drop in to Reed’s campus, engage with science faculty, and participate in lab experiments.

The Open Gallery Program

Open Gallery Program is the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery's visual arts education outreach initiative. The Open Gallery Program serves public and private schools within the greater Portland metropolitan area, engaging young people in rigorous, first-hand experiences with exceptional contemporary and historical works of art, free of charge.

Project Pericles

Project Pericles is a vibrant consortium of colleges and universities that promotes civic engagement within higher education. Project Pericles promotes commitments by institutions to include social responsibility and participatory citizenship within their curricula and to empower students as effective advocates and leaders. Building on the innovative vision of Eugene M. Lang, Project Pericles works in the classroom, on the campus, and in the community. Project Pericles is at the forefront of civic engagement and social responsibility in areas including faculty and course development, curricular coherence, and research into best practices.

Reed participates in programs including Debating for Democracy, Periclean Faculty Leaders, and Periclean Voting Modules. On campus, Project Pericles programs are administered through the Community Engagement Committee. To learn more about opportunities through this program, please contact Victoria Fortuna (fortunav@reed.edu), chair of the Community Engagement Committee. 

The Community Engagement Committee (CEC) supports Reed community members in active engagement with issues of community import within the curriculum, campus, and broader community. In particular, the CEC seeks to support community-engaged initiatives by faculty and students. The CEC facilitates Reed’s involvement with Project Pericles.

Research Reactor

The Reed Research Reactor was founded in 1968 and operates a 250kW TRIGA research reactor. The reactor program offers tours of the facilities to students followed by an age-appropriate lab component. During the tour, students will learn the basics of nuclear physics, radiation safety, and what it takes for our approximately 40 student operators to earn a license to operate the reactor. Additionally, they will have the opportunity to participate in a hands-on lab where they can learn about a range of topics including radioactive half-lives, radiation shielding, trace element identification, and other applications of radiation.

Read student testimonials here.

Science Outreach

Reed College's Science Outreach program creates partnerships between Reed College and local public schools to provide public school students with engaging, hands-on, inquiry-based STEM experiences, every week!

We aim to empower Reedies and K-12 learners alike to understand scientific thinking as a collaborative tool for discovery and self-determination. To achieve this goal, the program focuses on the power of liberatory education. In partnership with local elementary school teachers, Reed students facilitate inquiry-based, hands-on science experiences that connect rigorous state science standards with real world social and climate justice issues.

SEEDS (Students for Education, Equity, and Direct Service) 

SEEDS is Reed’s community engagement program focused on building and sustaining programs that foster positive, healthy, and sustainable change in the world and are mutually beneficial for Reed students, local community members, and community organizations. SEEDS programs include SEEDS@Schools volunteer program, community engagement events, community engagement credit & federal work-study opportunities, community cycling program sponsored by the Mark Angeles ‘15 Memorial Fellowship and the Reed Community Pantry. Some community organizations SEEDS works with include Lane Middle School, SMART Reading, Community Cycling Center, Blanchet House.

Theatre Symposium

The Reed Special Programs office makes available to area high school students and teachers complimentary tickets on designated dates for the fall faculty-directed Theatre Department productions at the Reed Studio Theatre in our Performing Arts Building.

Directly following the production, the department offers a “talk back” of the play to the high school students and faculty in attendance. The discussion lasts between 15 and 20 minutes and includes the faculty director, as well as members of the cast and technical crew.

Young Scholars

Throughout its history, Reed College has been dedicated to providing a challenging education for academically gifted and motivated students. The Young Scholars program, developed in 1980, extends this opportunity to selected high-school students who are ready for part-time, rigorous college study. This highly selective scholarship program allows seniors to take one college class at Reed for the full academic year while concurrently enrolled in high school. It is open to students from the metropolitan area who demonstrate outstanding academic achievement and a commitment to serious study in a particular field of interest.