Talk:Reed College/Archive 3

Alumnus Vs Drop out

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html here Jobs himself says that he is a drop out. more over, http://web.reed.edu/alumni/about_the_alum_association.html here Reed College states that, you can be a alumnus only if you attend the college for more than a yr. But Jobs state that he dropped out in 6 months in the prev link. Either way, he cannot be considered as a alumnus. Please discuss here before reverting back...Mugunth^{(ping me!!!,contribs)} 16:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

The college seems to list him as an alumnus: [1]. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll look into it, but my understanding is that they changed the definition of an alumnus from one semester to a year quite recently (since I graduated in 2006, certainly). I don't know where that leaves this whole debate if he was considered an alumnus and now he's not. Thatjenn (talk) 17:10, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a reasonably distinct recollection of being in Paul de Young's (Career Office honcho) office when someone came in asking for job placement help, citing the one-semester rule. This would have been sometime in the midst of Fall '83. I would often read The Oregonian in the Alumni Office foyer (tussling over the Sports section with my good buddy Chuck Svitavsky), and I'm pretty sure I heard Florence Lehman state the one-semester rule at least once.

As I've commented elsewhere, I don't think Jobs qualifies as an alumnus even under the one-semester rule, strictly speaking. But once the college officially embraced him as an alum--for whatever reason--such debate is moot.

--Wabobo3 (talk) 03:16, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Endowment

Reed Magazine's article on the college's bond rating indicates an endowment of $443 million as of April 2007. I revised the page accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.208.72 (talk) 13:05, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Junior Qual, Senior Thesis & Orals Board

I think a major distinctive trait of the Reed curriculum is the junior qual. I am not aware of any other undergraduate program having a similar qualifying examination. I think perhaps the 'qual' should be added to the first paragraph of distinctive traits, perhaps linked to the senior thesis. It should be emphasized that the qual + thesis at Reed approximates MA work in the intensity of focus and the time required. The optional honors theses at other schools simply can't compare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.208.72 (talk) 14:46, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. If you are considering going to Reed, whether as a regular student or a transfer student, it's important to understand that what undergraduates undertake there is a course of study that, if completed successfully, gives them the equivalent of a respectable M.A. or M.S. in their major at most universities, but compressed into four years. One can get through Reed with something less than this amount of work, and some do. But what you work toward at Reed is really a solid M.A. or M.S. disguised as a B.A. I've heard Reed faculty characterize the Reed B.A. in this way, although it is not something you'll find advertised in the College's literature. If you visit Reed, be sure to spend some time in the Thesis Tower at the library and sample some of the recent theses. Then, look at some recent Master's theses in the library of another institution. A good Reed thesis is not the equivalent of an undegraduate "honors thesis." It is a serious Master's thesis under another name. Working on a thesis at this level and being qualified to do so is part of what it means to be a successful senior at Reed. Once completed, it's something to be very proud of. But do be aware of the kind of work you'll be doing if you decide to attend Reed.

---

Whoa now, let's not forget about the orals board. The eye of the needle one must navigate in order to obtain a Reed College degree is a definite trifecta. My thesis advisor turned against me in the midst of my orals, the lecherous, Pommy bastard! Visiting faculty, mind you, but I was damn sure relieved when Ottomar Rudolf stuck up for me.

When I was volunteering for the Admissions Office, I mooched around to see if any other American baccalaureate program required a junior qualifying exam, senior thesis and orals board review such as Reed. Didn't want to oversell the ol' alma mater, y'know. Not only couldn't I find a standard, "everyone through the hoops" program, I couldn't find an honors BA/BS program with those requirements. To be honest, in my time at the ranch the junior quals for some depts. weren't really that tough, and if you turned in a rock-solid thesis your orals board was probably a skate...provided you hadn't been stupid enough to invite Gail Kelly or John Pock to sit your orals.

Anyway, as to the "Reed BA/BS = [Generic Institution] MA/MS" assertion, my data point is thus: I have talked my way into graduate seminars at Cal (historically a Top-Five graduate program for English Lit.) as an extension student. Twice. And both times the professor was noticeably blasé that I already held an MFA (ostensibly a terminal degree), but when I mentioned that I was a Reed grad, I was in. And when i was "earning" that MFA, I found that I'd already read 30% to 95%, on average, of the assigned syllabus for every graduate-level academic class I took.

Was my experience unique? As to the second part, no. I've chatted with innumerable Reedies who had had exactly that experience, walking into their first or second year of graduate seminars and already knowing the syllabus cold. --Wabobo3 (talk) 05:32, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

John Pock passed away yesterday (and Gail Kelly preceded him by about a decade). Their contribution to oral exams was worth the price of tuition. They will both be missed.

Steinberger on the Honor Principle

As a Reed alumnus, I consider Peter Steinberger's discussion of the Honor Principle in "What is an Honor Principle?" (quoted in the article) to be well-intentioned but more than a little worrisome. I find it worrisome not so much because it is easily misconstrued as endorsing a curtailment of the civil liberties of Reed community members, but rather because it legitimates a pathological element of the Reed ethos, an element that I believe is known only too well to students and faculty alike. Steinberger's speech should of course be read in its entirety, at http://web.reed.edu/dean_of_faculty/speeches-articles/honor_principle-3-98.html. But here is the passage currently quoted in the article:

"What this means is that a community governed by an honor principle is a community not of rules and procedures but of virtue. As such, it is a community of unfreedom. There is no protected realm; one can never take refuge in, seek protection from, or hide behind a doctrine of rights. Anything that anyone does is, in principle, subject to evaluation. Was it a virtuous thing to do? Was it consistent with notions of honorableness? Does it contribute to the well-being of the community? Is it the kind of behavior that we value and wish to encourage? In the absence of rights, behavior that we do not wish to value and do not wish to encourage has absolutely no protection."

There can be little doubt that students and faculty who have been guilty of dishonorable and even destructive behavior have, at times, sought protection from the consequences of such behavior behind a doctrine of basic rights. Steinberger is of course correct to make the basic point that the Honor Principle does not license an "anything goes" approach to citizenship or community membership at Reed. He is correct, moreover, in pointing out that membership in a community governed by an honor principle entails real obligations to one's fellow community members. And he is certainly correct when he says (elsewhere in the speech) that membership in the kind of community that Reed aspires to be entails participation in ongoing discussion and debate about what our conceptions of virtue and honorableness ought to be and how those notions ought to apply in particular cases.

But why should government by an honor principle necessitate jettisoning altogether any doctrine of basic rights as a fundamental feature of the standards of conduct and of the moral and ethical attitudes of Reed community members, qua Reed community members? Why does Steinberger say this? Is not some basic notion of the right of one's self and one's fellow Reed community members to be treated as ends in themselves implicit in all the notions of honor that could realistically be in play at Reed? Surely, any conception of virtue or honorableness upon which Reed community members might agree will include some basic ideas of fairness and justice toward one another that in turn underwrite some basic procedures for conflict resolution and accountability in cases of dishonorable conduct. Reed of course has such procedures.

Perhaps Steinberger's enjoining us to do away with rights in the context of the Honor Principle reflects a desire to come down firmly on one side or another of conceptual oppositions and debates in his field.

Consider the strong language about a "community of unfreedom": "There is no protected realm . . . Anything one does is, in principle, subject to evaluation. . . . In the absence of rights, behavior that we do not wish to value and do not wish to encourage has absolutely no protection." This only makes sense, I think, against the backdrop of cases of actual dishonorable behavior that amount to violations of people's basic rights as understood within this particular academic community, as well as failures to take responsibility. Certainly, dishonorable conduct is sometimes artfully defended on pseudo-libertarian grounds. One can of course err on the side of putative individual rights at the expense of one's responsibilities to fellow community members. But surely, in respecting one another as ends in themselves, Reed community members must allow one another a certain sphere of personal freedom and privacy, a sphere marked by clear personal boundaries that they may rightfully demand to have respected.

I think many Reed alumni and faculty will recognize in Steinberger's words here an oppressive, hypercritical, pathological seriousness that tends to efface the private sphere and make people forget how to have fun and lead a happy life. This sometimes begets destructive behavior and callous disregard for others. It also makes Reed much more of a pressure cooker than it needs to be. One can get so caught up in trying to be worthy of honor as an intellectual in the eyes of one's peers that one forgets that there are non-intellectual virtues (arguably, the most important ones) and thus forgets how to be a healthy human being who honors and respects her or his fellow beings in community.

Some of those who make this mistake are among the most adept at rigorous academic debate about honor and virtue.

Achtung.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.117.230.228 (talk) 12:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Please note that none of the above remarks were meant as commentary on Steinberger's exchange with David Horowitz. I wasn't even aware it when I wrote them. I've just read a transcript of that exchange (a poorly transcribed one, at that) and consider Steinberger to be the more civil, fair, and by far the more cogent of the two speakers. Horowitz seems blind to his own blinkered, partisan mentality. (See http://web.reed.edu/dean_of_faculty/speeches-articles/horowitz-11-05.html and http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/2210/ReedCollegeSteinbergerDebate082806.htm.) The comments above were not written in support of Horowitz's so-called Academic Bill of Rights. Furthermore, I must concede that these remarks constitute the expression of an opinion and not yet an argument for that opinion. The first sentence of the penultimate paragraph ("I think many Reed alumni and faculty will recognize . . .") is overly polemical, although I believe it does make a point that needs further spelling out. The talk of community members as "ends in themselves" and the "Achtung" allude to Kant. I'll be interested to know if anyone else out there finds some resonance with any of the above.

The irony behind the Honor Principle that I experienced while at Reed was the appalling way a lot of the students treated each other. One example is of a guy who while making ramen noodles in the house up the Hill on 39th had it dosed with some hallucinogenic drug by some guys hanging out there. He said he hallucinated for a couple hours. He was a really effeminate dippy guy, so he didn't do anything about it. So I didn't see the honor principle abused in the manner described above, though I can't say it doesn't happen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.87.1.204 (talk) 07:40, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Too many Reed Houses listed?

I think the list of Reed Houses is spiralling out of control. New users, anonymous IPs, and everybody else and their brothers seem to be adding to this list virtually non-stop and now it's clearly too long. Not only does this violate the spirit of both WP:LIST and WP:NOTDIRECTORY, being both a list in prose inside a paragraph and a quasi-directory of Reed Houses, it is virtually guaranteed to keep growing ad infinitum, since Reedies (or whoever) will keep looking up their house on the list and feeling slighted because "OMG it's not there, Wikipedia is totally biased against House X" and add it. Or they might have a less-extreme reaction like "You know what? The wikipedia article on Reed would really benefit from an added mention of my house's name alongside these n others."

Whatever the reason, adding these also clearly violates the spirit (and in my opinion the letter) of WP:MADEUP. I will quote the introduction:

Wikipedia is not for things that you or your friends made up. If you have invented something novel in school, your garage, or the pub, but it has not yet become well known to the rest of the world, please do not write about it in Wikipedia. Write about it on your own website instead.

All this being said, I would definitely argue that at least the names of some Reed Houses ought to be preserved, since they do demonstrate the college's unique character and the inventiveness of its students. I think I would prefer a variant along the lines of "…houses with names such as House A or House B" with a suitable comment in the code such as "Please don't add more house names; see discussion on talk page". The question is, naturally, which house names should be included in this, and this is not a question I feel qualified to answer. Does anybody have any ideas here? Or am I wrong about this last point, and should the whole idea be scrapped? --Makaristos (talk) 14:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Since nobody's taken up this challenge in five days, I've been bold and removed the list, replacing it with a general statement about the tradition of naming houses and the fact that some house names are somewhat long-lived. I have also added a comment to the effect that anybody wishing to take this up again should reference and participate in this discussion on this talk page here. --Makaristos (talk) 23:20, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I concur, Makaristos.--Mack2 (talk) 00:44, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Drug Death

Alex's death was tragic and newsworthy, but I doubt that such news events are encyclopedic. Comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.255.9 (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to sign in, the "Drug Death" comment is mine. Ron (talk) 16:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I might have agreed with you before I read the quotes from the college President. Those quotes and the newspaper editorial seem to address the reputation issue. Or, if it is the student's family that concerns you, the press reports say that the family wanted the cause of death publicized to help avoid future incidents. Hiro Antagonist (talk) 16:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

It's perhaps overdoing it a bit. Diver's comments are certainly relevant, but I wonder if such detail about one individual is necessary. IronDuke 16:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

What detail? The added text makes a simple statement saying he died. As for the aftermath, that was covered in The Chronicle of Higher Education as well as all the local newspapers/radio/TV and in Malibu CA. I think the big issue was that it forced a bunch of previous stuff out into the open including the listed near-death and also a bunch of previous incidents, one of which resulted in a lawsuit. You can take his name out if you think that is better but it seems arbitrary, since the whole larger issue now revolves around his death. Hiro Antagonist (talk) 16:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure I agree that it revolves around it. Wouldn't it be more fair to say it was a catalyst? IronDuke 16:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, a catalyst. Whatever. The point is that it is hard to discuss the issue without Lluch's death coming up. That's all. I lookeda teh history and am suprised it took 6 months for this to show up. Seems like a big deal. (Side comment: I keep getting database erorrs and losing my posts. Is Wikipedia always this sucky?) Hiro Antagonist (talk) 16:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Concur with Hiro. His death is an evidence item that establishes the drug problem at Reed. (Also, yes, the problem of having a non-profit run one of the world's most popular websites means that glitches often occur.) Amerique^dialectics 00:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is valid discussion in the drug topic, but there is absolutely no context given, and the only quotes are drawn from a highly contested article (look at the 500+ comments, mostly negative, toward "Higher Ed" in Willamette Week). In my opinion it should be either deleted or worked on, but the section "Drug Use" is, at the moment, an extremely shallow, superficial, and one-sided description of the reality of drugs at Reed. Wildera (talk) 23:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

If you feel that way, then please improve it by adding more content from reliable, published sources. Also, please note that our policy of a neutral point of view entails that you should add multiple and possibly opposing view points from attributed sources to create a balance. If there was controversy over the WW opinion piece that was represented elsewhere in published source material, then please note the existence of the controversy with verification. This does not mean that you are allowed to qualify certain viewpoints because you disagree with them or they were controversial. Steven Walling (talk) 23:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Steven puts it well. IronDuke 02:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The drug death story is questionably 'encyclopedic' -- I strongly doubt that this overdoes was the only drug-related death on a college campus that year. The inclusion of the story here is motivated by a hackneyed attempt to link Reed to drugs in a damaging way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.116.179 (talk) 21:06, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

For example: In May 2009, a student at University of Colorado died of an overdose -- but no mention of this is made on Univ of Colorado Boulder article in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.116.179 (talk) 21:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

As an issue of 'reputation,' the link between Reed and an experimental ethos amongst students with respect to drugs is appropriate to mention here. I continue to think that detailed information on *recent events* pertaining to drug use at Reed is inappropriate for an *encyclopedia* entry -- unless this information is also included in every other college and university article on Wikipedia (which it isn't). The attempt to tar Reed as a 'druggie school,' either here or in the pages of Willamette Week, or wherever, is problematic, as noted above and elsewhere. What distinguishes Reed from other schools is less that students use drugs and alcohol, it is that at Reed these subjects are treated in an open and mature manner, rather than simply in a puritanical and punitive manner. Students considering Reed should know this ahead of time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.157.1.184 (talk) 08:45, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Other colleges don't have the same reputation Reed does; that's what makes it notable. IronDuke 03:59, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The comment IronDuke responds to states that Reed's putative reputation with respect to drugs is appropriate to include on Wikipedia. What the comment questions is whether /news reporting/ on recent events is also appropriate; IronDuke fails to make the case that it is. Consider: many, many schools have 'reputations' for excessive drinking -- but Wikipedia rarely reports on every arrest, conviction, or death related to binge drinking on such campuses. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.52.180 (talk) 19:18, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm... that argument seems awfully familiar. IronDuke 23:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

The last four edits in the drug use section, as of 8/3/2010, were reverts back and forth. Editors, please discuss the disputed phrase. IronDuke, please read Wikipedia:Edit warring and make sure you don't get blocked.--Thelema12 (talk) 14:55, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

This section was started a banned user, if memory serves, with multiple socks of his participating. It would be a highly in competent admin who blocked me for reverting them -- not to say that couldn't happen! IronDuke 23:16, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Addressing the previous string of back and forth revisions, I feel as though both lines that IronDuke is continuously removing both contain pertinent information. The first contested line notes that the schools reputation as a "reefer madness" school is being cited from a article over 10 years old. The second contested line makes the important point that despite Renn Fayre's reputation as a drug fest, police were unable to make even a single arrest during the event. While I believe that the inclusion of the Willamette Week article is inappropriate in an encyclopedic entry, barring it's removal I believe the inclusion of these two qualifying sentences in the Drugs at Reed section are an important addition that makes the entry more balanced. As such I am reverting the article to it's previous state. Mvandenberg12 (talk) 16:40, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

You think it has less of a reputation as a druggie school now than ten years ago? And the second thing is pure OR. IronDuke 23:07, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Princeton Review seems to think so, http://www.princetonreview.com/Schoollist.aspx?type=r&id=743.Mvandenberg12 (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Mvandenberg, why not cite a source for your information? The first line you keep adding mentions an actual magazine; why not add a reference?--Thelema12 (talk) 01:30, 11 August 2010 (UTC) This newsweek article http://www.newsweek.com/2010/05/04/college-threatened-with-crack-house-law.html seems pertinent; it ends with the line "Apparently that won’t be a necessary step: last weekend’s festivities led to no drug-related arrests."--Thelema12 (talk) 01:38, 11 August 2010 (UTC) Thank you for finding this reference Thelema12 Mvandenberg12 (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is not a platform for spreading around reputation. As far as I can tell, nobody has done anything to objectively ground any claim about drug use at any college. The topic seems to be, not drug use at Reed, but the reputation of drug use at Reed. This logically implicates thousands of living people, i.e. Reedies, and perhaps ought to be subject to some modified BLP restrictions. In any case, if this is nothing but gossip, i.e. there is not a shred of research to back the weight given to this subject at Reed, Wikipedia should not be propagating it to such a degree that it gets its own section. That violates due weight requirements.

An encyclopedia is also not supposed to be focussed on recent events that are no more important to the subject as a whole than older events. There was heroin overdose/death while I was at Reed, in 1987. Is it less important than the most recent one? The entire section is dubious. I removed the more obvious violations of policy and guidelines--the over-emphasis on recent events, and the violations of due weight that come from doing nothing but repeating reputation without research. Mindbunny (talk) 04:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Source for expansion of campus items

• The Council of Independent Colleges has building and campus plan info. Aboutmovies (talk) 17:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

source for expansion for founding of college

[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B01EFDC153AE433A25756C1A9629C946696D6CF This New York Times article (from 4/15/1917) is a feature-length article about the college a few years after it was founded, and may be an excellent source of info for expansion of this article. -Pete (talk) 20:20, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Class of 2013 statistics

Added the word "admitted" to the line about the class of 2013. The above-4.0 average, high SAT scores, etc., is taken from the pool of students admitted to the school for the fall of 2009. The average for the students who actually end up coming is likely to be lower. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.10.200.147 (talk) 23:45, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Why would the averages for students who enroll at Reed be lower? Why not suppose that they are actually higher? You provide no support for your claim. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.157.1.184 (talk) 08:51, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Highly selective

why was the "highly selective part" removed?

Per WP:BOOSTER and WP:NPOV. Alanraywiki (talk) 04:00, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

In the article on Reed College, under the "Unofficial mottos and folklore" section, the second paragraph states that an alternative motto first appeared on shirts in 1976 as "Capitalism, Avarice, Free Beer." This is erroneous. The alternative motto that appeared in 1976 was "Hedonism, Capitalism, Free Beer." 69.168.48.110 (talk) 16:26, 7 November 2010 (UTC)