About this Issue
As the August issue went to press, editor Paula Barclay went off to a new life in New
Mexico. Her successor, Mitchell Hartman, arrived in October just in time to proof the final
copy of this edition. He is at work on the February 2006 issue. In nearly a decade, Barclay
saw the magazine through a major transformation, adopting higher standards for writing
and design without forsaking the magazine’s proud tradition as a sounding board for
Reed alumni. She never forgot whom this magazine is really for and about, and that is a
lesson for those in her wake to remember.
One of Barclay’s innovations — the occasional grouping of feature stories
around a theme — is deployed in this transitional issue. The idea germinated after
a parent, Minnesota-based engineer Randy Wedin, submitted an introspective
recollection about dropping his son off to start at Reed. With so many alumni who
are (or soon will be) parents (and grandparents) of collegians, Wedin’s essay struck
a chord. When the Wall Street Journal did a story on “helicopter parents,” who
hover over their students at college, we realized this really is a topic of broad interest
and approached Alaska attorney Susan
Orlansky ’75 and University of Minnesota administrator and author
Marjorie Savage for added perspective.
Two other subjects are worthy of note in this issue. Veteran reporter Todd Schwartz offers
a profile of Don James ’50, a key
player in the defense of Oregon’s
voter-approved assisted suicide law in the face of a federal legal assault. Schwartz found
James fiercely insistent on his right to end his life on his own terms, yet ever-more fervently
clinging to life in the face of terminal illness.
And Alex Golub ’95 has generously contributed an essay reflecting on the life
of Gail Kelly ’55, a famously demanding (and often acerbic) Reed anthropology
professor who died in August. The appreciation appears in our new quarterly feature Endpaper,
and is adapted from a longer version posted on Golub’s
blog.