President’s speeches, letters, and articles
Subject: Together, We Can Meet the Moment
October 5, 2026
Dear Reed Community,
We are thrilled to announce the public launch of Meet the Moment: Together, with Reed, a $350 million comprehensive campaign to fortify the people, programs, and experiences that make a Reed education so remarkable.
For more than 115 years, Reed has inspired students to think: to ask difficult questions, engage deeply with complexity, challenge assumptions, and imagine new possibilities. Meet the Moment will ensure that the college continues to fulfill this mission.
The campaign is centered on three commitments:
Advance Academic Excellence by investing in the exceptional faculty, programs, research opportunities, and spaces that make Reed’s rigorous academic experience possible.
Nurture Student Success by ensuring that talented students can come to Reed, thrive while they are here, and carry their Reed education into lives of meaning and purpose.
Cultivate an Inclusive Community by strengthening a community where people with a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can learn from one another and where robust inquiry can flourish.
Together, these priorities sustain the kind of education that will inspire future generations to improve our world.
Because of the extraordinary generosity of Reed alumni, parents, families, students, faculty, staff, friends, and other supporters, we begin this public phase of the Meet the Moment campaign having already raised $280 million toward our $350 million goal.
Reaching $280 million is an extraordinary achievement, and we are deeply grateful to our community members whose generosity has brought us to this point. The remaining $70 million represents more than the distance to a fundraising goal. It represents opportunities still ahead: more students whose Reed education can be made possible, more faculty whose teaching and scholarship can be sustained, and more investments in the community and academic experience that distinguish Reed.
We write to provide an invitation to alumni to invest in the education that helped shape them. We invite families to help create that experience for future Reed students. And we invite every member of our community to participate in Reed's future.
At Reed, we hold fast to the belief that education can transform the world. We have more than a century of experience confirming that critical thinking, the close reading of texts, and the freedom to dream provide an essential foundation for a better life.
This is our moment to sustain the promise that has made Reed College such a vital force for good. Together, we can meet the moment.
With gratitude and excitement for what lies ahead,
Audrey Bilger
President
Reed College
Roger M. Perlmutter ’73
Meet the Moment Campaign Committee Chair