Claude Steele

Claude Steele is a preeminent social psychologist and dean of the Stanford School of Education. The lecture draws from his book, Whistling Vivaldi, which provides an essential roadmap for understanding the link between identity and performance and how those involved in education can make significant strides in mitigating the effects of negative stereotypes in the community. This is the first event in Reed’s Community Reading Project. Cosponsored by the institutional diversity office, the multicultural resource center, and the Student Senate.

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Christopher Newfield ’80

Why is the American university system in crisis? A central reason is the financial pressure put on colleges and universities by the "innovation economy," pressure which has led to rising student debt, less personalized instruction, and growing research funding deficits. The lecture shows that the leading response at public universities to this pressure—large tuition increases and other attempts to replace public with private funds—has made the budget problem worse. Newfield teaches American Studies in the English department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His current research focuses on higher education history, funding, and policy, culture and innovation, and the relation between culture and economics. He is the author of Unmaking the Public University: The Forty Year Assault on the Middle Class (Harvard University Press, 2008), chairs the Innovation Group at the NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society, runs a blog on the current crisis in higher education, Rethinking the University. Sponsored by the Division of Literature and Languages.

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Richard J. Danzig ’65

Former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig questions the premises underlying our current national security policies—characterized by national insecurity—and offers a set of principles and policies for the future.

Danzig, who served as the 71st Secretary of the Navy, is the chairman of the board for the Center for a New American Security. He is also a member of the RAND Corporation’s board of trustees and of the Defense Policy Board, a federal advisory committee to the U.S. Department of Defense. Danzig earned a BA in political science from Reed and BPhil and DPhil degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He then earned a JD from Yale Law School and was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Byron White. Danzig has taught at Harvard and Stanford, and spent two years as a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Danzig served as a senior adviser to Senator Barack Obama.

In 2011, Danzig was selected as the first recipient of the Thomas Lamb Eliot Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Reed College Graduate. T. L. Eliot, Reed’s founding board president, was a Unitarian minister who encouraged the original funding for the college from Portland transportation magnate Simeon Reed and his wife Amanda. Eliot also worked for temperance and women's suffrage, founded the Oregon Humane Society, and helped to develop the public library. Danzig's extraordinary contributions to his field and his deep commitment to public service exemplify the spirit of intellectual rigor, independence, and integrity for which Thomas Lamb Eliot was known.

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Evan Dawley

State Department historian Evan Dawley takes us back in time to explore the career of George Bernard Noble. Noble, who taught at Reed for 26 years, then served as a historian in the State Department for 16 years during the early years of the Cold War, exemplifies the connections and tensions between academia and U.S. foreign policy.

In his role at the Department of State, Dawley studies the history of U.S. relations with East Asia and the relevance of past relations for present diplomacy. He spent a year as a visiting professor of history and humanities at Reed College and has taught classes at Georgetown University and George Washington University. He completed a PhD in modern Chinese history at Harvard and a BA in history at Oberlin.

Supported by the Elizabeth E. Ducey Lecture Fund and by Reed’s history department.

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Malena Mörling

Malena Mörling was born in Stockholm and grew up in southern Sweden. She is the author of two books of poetry, Ocean Avenue and Astoria. She has translated several Swedish poets and is editing the anthology, Swedish Writers on Writing. She is an Associate Professor at The University of North Carolina, Wilmington, Core Faculty in The Low-Residency MFA Program at New England College and a Research Associate at the School For Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007 and in 2010 she received a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship.

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Madeline DeFrees

Madeline DeFrees has published two chapbooks and eight full-length poetry collections, including Spectral Waves (Copper Canyon, 2006) and Blue Dusk (Copper Canyon, 2001), which was awarded the 2002 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. DeFrees spent 38 years as a nun with the Catholic Congregation of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. She entered the community after high school and later requested release because, in her words, “religious life and poetry both demand an absolute commitment.” As Sister Mary Gilbert, Ms. DeFrees earned a BA in English from Marylhurst College (1948) and an MA in Journalism from the University of Oregon (1951). She studied poetry briefly with Karl Shapiro, Robert Fitzgerald, and John Berryman. She taught at Holy Names College, the University of Montana, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Since she retired in 1985, she’s held residencies at Bucknell University, Eastern Washington University, and Wichita State University. Madeline DeFrees has received fellowships in poetry from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Amina Gautier

Amina Gautier is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for her short story collection At-Risk (University of Georgia Press). Over sixty-five of Gautier's stories have been published, appearing in Best African American Fiction, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, and Southern Review among other places. Her work has been honored with scholarships and fellowships from Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, Ucross Residency, and Sewanee Writer’s Conference and has been awarded the William Richey Prize, the Jack Dyer Award, the Schlafly Microfiction Award, the Danahy Fiction Prize, and a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Gautier teaches at DePaul University.

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On September 23, 2011, President Colin Diver invites the Reed community to a celebration of the college's first 100 years. The evening begins with a reception in the Quad, followed by a formal program on the Great Lawn, at which Richard Danzig '65 will receive the first Thomas Lamb Eliot Award for Lifetime Achievement by a Reed College Graduate. Expect performances by Northwest Dance Project, Chamber Music Northwest, and Reed's Centennial Chorus, as well as speeches by Portland Mayor Sam Adams, Reed College Chairman of the Board Roger Perlumtter '73, Reed College Trustee Suzan DelBene '83 and remarks by Reed faculty, alumni, and students. The program is to be followed by live music in the Quad, featuring Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

Colin Diver

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Richard Danzig

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President Colin Diver

Welcoming remarks

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Dean of Admission Keith Todd

Welcoming remarks

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Kenneth Brashier
Professor of Religion & Humanities

Odyssey lecture

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Dr. Lynn Riddiford
Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology

The Howard Vollum Award presented by Suzy Renn, Associate Professor of Biology

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