Expanding the Bubble: A Dive into Small Majors at Reed

For better or for worse, Reed is a small school. Yet, within this already limited sphere, major and department affiliations create further subdivisions. For students enrolled in small majors, this results in a particular academic experience that the vast majority of Reed students do not encounter. 

Every department at Reed is different, but a few distinct categories emerge when analyzing the number of students who graduate from each major. Established interdisciplinary programs tend to report low numbers of graduates, even without considering ad-hoc degrees. For the Fall/Spring Class of 2024, statistics from the Office for Institutional Research report three graduates in History/Literature, two graduates each in Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies (CRES) and Literature/Theatre, and no graduates each in American Studies and International Comparative Policy Studies (ICPS). 

World languages and the performing arts also report small numbers of majors. For languages, the Class of 2024 had no graduates in Chinese, French, German, and Spanish, with one graduate in the Russian major. Similarly, there was one 2024 Fall/Spring graduate each in the Dance and Theatre majors.

The students who do choose these majors are drawn to them for a multitude of reasons. “I was initially going to be a Russian minor and an English major and then I realized that I was more interested in exploring foreign literature and [the] intersections of history, culture, and literature,” explained Russian major Connor Nold ‘25. Sophomore French major Addie Summers ‘27 spoke to the cultural connections offered by language at Reed, saying “I’m really interested in traveling internationally… I’d love to be able to perfect the language and live in France.”

For some students, the small size of their majors can be a feature. “I love that the department is so small and tight-knit…you’re able to have really close relationships and do a lot of work one-on-one with professors,” said Nold. 

Junior CRES major Emely Cruz ‘26 also spoke to the importance of specialization as part of her experience in a small major. “I like that emphasis [is] placed on understanding marginalized communities within these bigger systems of literature, history, dance, all the other CRES disciplines,” said Cruz. “For me, that’s what’s always been the most interesting about English and I feel like I didn’t fully get that from the English department because it has such a broader scope of study.”

Major size depends on a variety of factors, not the least of which is the internal structure of each department. In the last decade, Reed has introduced several majors including Comparative Literature (2015), Dance (2016), Computer Science (2017), CRES (2018), and Film and Media Studies (2024). Newer majors can be expected to take more time to grow their program and enrollment. Still, within this cohort, Dance and CRES stand out as comparatively small, with their low numbers of graduates.

Major enrollments are also impacted by trends in minors. Students have a wide variety of choices for minors, with new minors continually being added including recent additions like CRES, Dance, and Film and Media Studies. “Minors have become much more prevalent at Reed. That’s now a structured way that people get a kind of accreditation or acknowledgment on their transcript of a certain area of focus. Depending on the year, we’ve had more students doing the minor,” explained German Department Chair Professor Jan Mieszkowski. 

Language departments in particular face unique challenges. In the broader culture outside of academia, languages are frequently not considered subjects of academic study on the same level as other disciplines, even among the humanities. “Language departments in general, but especially the Spanish department and Spanish language, because of its ubiquity in the United States, is seen as a tool to get something else, either a job or something that you can add to your CV,” said Spanish Department Chair and Professor Christian Kroll. In this light, the choice to minor in a language can be seen as more useful as an addition to another discipline than committing to a language major depending on students’ goals. 

Overall, one of the main challenges impacting smaller majors at Reed is a lack of resources, which affects both staff and faculty. Speaking about the Russian department, Nold remarked, “We only have three professors and we’re a small school in general so … there [are] not really as many classes about a specific topic as you would like.” English and CRES Professor Kritish Rajbhandari expanded on this problem in light of interdisciplinary majors like CRES: “Some departments have actually left the program because of the lack of faculty and resources. They’re not able to offer regular CRES courses because of the lack of resources,” he said. 

Along with this lack of resources comes a lack of awareness about small majors. “It’s hard to get the word out because it’s not a traditional major so it doesn’t get featured prominently in the catalog, so students don’t know about it,” Rajbhandari explained of CRES.

Despite these barriers, departments are working to expand awareness and encourage enrollment in various ways. One strategy utilized across departments is to proactively reach out to matriculated students who indicate interest in certain majors. Recent shifts in how several departments organize classes are intended to make getting involved easier, opening doors to potential majors. In the language departments, the core language sequences (Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced) shifted from year- to semester-long courses in an attempt to make them more accessible to students with previous language experience.

In the Dance department, courses have been made available for Group 1 requirements. “You can think about dance in the same way you think about literature and art. It is equally analyzable and intellectual and understandable within the kind of frameworks I see students hungry to understand and apply,” said Victoria Fortuna, Dance Department Chair. In addition to the option to take Dance classes for PE credit, electives are one way in which students can become aware of the program while not being majors.

“We have a lot of what we call honorary majors, some of those are now counted under the minor, but people who love dance and are super active and are performing in thesis shows and doing all of this work but might be a STEM major,” said Fortuna. 

Non-majors, whether they be minors or simply students taking classes for electives or distribution requirements, get exposed to these subjects in ways that can profoundly impact their academic journey. While many majors appear small on the surface in terms of enrollments, these programs are able to influence the student population indirectly, creating ties and establishing their inextricable place within the greater Reed ecosystem.