eliot facade image
Sketch of Eliot Hall facade circa 1915, by Lewis Macomber


 

Inspired by the weekly electronic bulletin board of happenings on campus . . .

WHERE’S THE SHRUB? Passersby did a double-take in June when a grounds crew uprooted rhododendrons, junipers, and other vegetation from the front of Eliot Hall. Not to worry—trees and shrubs that are more horticulturally and historically correct have now replaced overgrown foliage that was obscuring the neo-Gothic facade. “There will still be a lawn area on either side of the entry walkway,” reports facilities chief Towny Angell. “Another Cornus mas is being planted in the east corner to match the existing one near the chapel. Western Red Cedars are being planted on either end of the building in accordance with an old photo, and cherries are being planted on either side of the front door to match the ones in Eliot circle.” Alas the fountain in Lewis Macomber’s mid-1910s sketch of Eliot (above) is fanciful; there are no plans to install waterworks this time around.

MAKING A SPLASH: The biology building was outfitted with new aquaria this summer to meet the research needs of a new professor, Susan C.P. Renn, who arrives from Harvard, where she taught genomics and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Bauer Center for Genomic Research.

SAD NOTE: Shocked by the sudden death of Christa Ward, a popular employee of the Bon Appétit catering firm who added a touch of warmth to just about every sandwich she made in commons, students organized a memorial and raised funds for her husband, James Idol, also a Bon Appétit employee at Reed, and their two children. Ward succumbed to complications from pneumonia during pregnancy.

THOUGHT FOR FOOD: The Oregonian has added some highbrow coverage of haute cuisine, engaging Reed English professor and longtime Willamette Week food critic Roger Porter as a restaurant reviewer. In July, Porter wrote of a Korean cabbage soup: “It bubbles like a witches caldron, but eating it is neither toil nor trouble.”

viewbook imageA NEW VIEW: Lots of fresh images grace Reed’s new admission viewbook, mailed annually to prospective students and high school guidance counselors. It’s the first overhaul of the viewbook in a decade and draws from interviews with more than 50 faculty, students, and alumni on every aspect of the Reed experience—from Humanities 110 and the honor principle to Renn Fayre and the Reed “bubble.”

NOTABLE GRAD: Some acorns fall a bit from the tree. Michael Jared Salk ’06 won a host of honors, topped by the Class of ’21 Award, for “creative work of notable character.” Michael—grandson of polio vaccine pioneer Dr. Jonas Salk and son of Peter L. Salk, scientific director of the Jonas Salk Foundation—majored in religion. He was one of two seniors invited to outline his thesis, From Spiritual Beings to Counterintuitive Agents: God-beliefs, Cognitive Science, and the New Naturalism in Religious Studies, to college trustees. His adviser, Steven Wasserstrom, the Moe and Izetta Tonkon Professor of Judaic Studies and the Humanities, called it stunning work.

PACKING THEM IN: Reed’s Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery marked a milestone this spring with an exhibit of photographs by Gregory Crewdson and Candida Hofer from the collection of Michael and Judy Ovitz that became the first gallery show to draw more than 3,000 visitors. Crewdson also packed Vollum Auditorium for a talk on his elaborately constructed, hyper-realistic compositions, which often feature celebrity models and are printed on huge canvases.

crewdson image
Untitled (North by Northwest) by Gregory Crewdson, 2004, Ovitz Family Collection