reed magazine logospring2006

Spring 06

Email
reed.magazine
@reed.edu

Editor
Mitchell Hartman

Associate Editor
Amy Taylor

Alumni News Editor
Robin Tovey '97

Development News Editor
Matt Kelly

Class Notes
Laurie Lindquist

Graphic Designer
Chris Michel

Associate Graphic Designer
Laura Pritchard

Web Design
Tony Moreno

 

About this Issue

The phone rang in the Reed public affairs office one morning in April, initiating an incident that is pure Reed. Yes, we told the person on the line, we would be happy to show some folks from Hollywood around the campus to see if Reed fit the needs of a movie to be directed this summer by Sean Penn.

Not until they arrived an hour later did we realize that Penn was one of the location scouts. Dressed casually in jeans and a battered fedora, he and three associates spent 90 minutes sizing up the cinematic possibilities of the front lawn and various dorms. Emerging from Bragdon, Penn asked a member of our staff: “Do you think I could bum a cigarette from a student?” We intercepted a woman headed for the canyon footbridge, smoke in hand, and asked, “How would you like to trade a cigarette for a chance to give it to Sean Penn?” Barely breaking stride, she reached into her purse for one and said, “I love Sean Penn, but I have to get to class. Could you give it to him for me?”

Welcome back to the wonderful world of Reed. It remains a place where the unexpected is routine, something we have the privilege of illustrating four times a year in Reed. And this issue is no exception. Where else can you encounter a philosophy professor who likes to tinker with computer models and tries to create artificial life in a lab in Venice? Or follow the adventures of an alumnus who rediscovers his ancestral language and goes on to pursue Yiddish scholarship—in Kansas? Or discover that the first time a now-celebrated composer and conductor stepped onto campus to apply for a faculty position, a philosophy professor asked him why Reed should even deign to teach music, a mere performing art?

We never did get the name of the student who wouldn’t meet Sean Penn if it meant being late to class. But we think she has this much in common with the researcher on the artificial life trail (Mark Bedau ’76), the Yiddish scholar in the land of Oz (Jonathan Boyarin ’77), and the music professor who wasn’t fazed by a philosopher’s arrogance (David Schiff). They are all pure Reed.

Corrections

A photograph in the article “Architectural Gems?” in the Winter 2006 issue misidentified one member of the team reviewing blueprints for Reed’s new chemistry building in 1948. Chemistry professor Arthur F. Scott is pictured in the photo along with architect Pietro Belluschi and a partner. Scott was acting president of the college from 1942 to 1945.

In the Class Notes section of the November 2005 issue, the writer Donald Miller, who was informally associated with the college for a number of years, was misidentified as being a member of the Class of 1973.

We regret the errors.