Letter to the Editor: Union of Reed College Housing Advisors
Dear Reader, We hope this letter finds you well. As a group of dedicated Housing Advisors (HAs) working diligently within Reed College’s ResLife, we would like to bring several pressing issues to your attention. These concerns revolve around the constant changes in HA role responsibilities and job descriptions, as well as several other matters impacting…
Letter to the Editor: Reed and Holistic Admission
By Milyon Trulove, Vice President and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Reed College Even before the release of the 237-page Supreme Court ruling in June, Gallup and Pew data show most Americans, including Americans of color, agreed that Affirmative Action in college admission was a bad idea. So when the Supreme Court banned…
Letter to the Editor: Staying Safe During O-Week
[Trigger warning: This letter concerns mentions of non-consensual intoxication and sexual assault, which may be triggering for some readers. We advise all those reading to prioritize their own wellbeing, and to feel free to stop reading or take breaks at any time if you foresee this topic may be personally distressing for you. You may…
Letter to the Editor from SHARE’s Policy and Accountability Committee: Reed’s Need for an AOD Amendment
CW: This amendment concerns the issue of non-consensual intoxication, which may be triggering for some readers. We advise all those reading to prioritize their own wellbeing, and to feel free to stop reading or take breaks at any time if you foresee this topic may be personally distressing for you. You may also consider returning…
Letter to the Editors: Wi-Fi Expansion
Howdy, I saw y’all had some questions in Senate Beat about Wi-Fi expansion. I’m the student representative to the Computing Policy and Planning Committee, at present, and I can report on what I’ve learned about the Wi-Fi from recent communications regarding the project. Feel free to format this in whatever way works for further communication…
Senate Responds to Judicial Board Co-Chairs’ Statement
Anoushka and Sage (and the Quest!), Thank you for your concern. It is important to hear from the Chairs of our Accountability groups, and we appreciate your feedback. However, we would like to share some information regarding the situation with the Restorative Justice coalition. We apologize for any strain placed on the working relationship between…
Judicial Board Co-Chairs’ Statement on Senate’s Defunding of Restorative Justice Coalition
We as Judicial Board (J-Board) co-chairs wish to express our concerns about the decision to defund the Restorative Justice Coalition (RJC) mid-year. We as the current J-Board chairs were never consulted about the grievances against RJC, or the plan to defund RJC in an official capacity. To our understanding, the previous J-Board co-chairs expressed concerns…
Letter to the Editors: David Comfort (’71)
Editor’s note: As with all Letters to the Editor submitted to the Reed College Quest, this letter does not reflect the views or positions of the Quest, its writers, or its editors. We understand the journalistic pitfalls of sensationalism, and our intentions are not to provoke a response, especially around such a serious and painful…
Missing Narcan: It’s Not About the Money
Taking doses of Narcan from the overdose emergency boxes on campus without telling Community Safety may cost someone their life. That’s a harsh and jarring statement–and it is true. Community Safety collaborates with Reed’s Health & Counseling Center (HCC) to provide two doses of Narcan nasal spray to every residence hall on campus, as well…
Letter to the Editor: Emergency Contraceptives Available at the Bookstore
Dear Reedies, Emergency contraception (aka “Plan B”, morning-after pill; generic name: levonorgestrel) is now available at the Bookstore/Homer’s Hut for $16! Since the beginning of the year, Jessica Valeske, the bookstore director, has been working with the HCC to locate a supplier for over-the-counter emergency contraception (the bookstore already had the required drug outlet licensing).…
Letter to the Editors: Restorative Justice’s Response to Last Week’s Senate Public
My name is Robin Hart, and I have been one of the co-chair’s of Reed’s Restorative Justice Coalition (RJC) for over two years. We were recently given the surprising news that the Student Body Senate had made the decision to revoke our funding for the coming semester. I will start with a summary of our…
Letter To The Editor: Imperialism in HUM 110
Co-authored by Claire deVroede and Lydia Mead On Thursday, February 10th, we gathered in the GCC to discuss an upcoming Humanities 110 paper. We, a freshman Humanities 110 student (Aakash) and a senior writing tutor (Claire), reviewed the prompts, one of which shocked us: Some scholars argue that the Tira de la Peregrinación remains unfinished,…
Letter To The Editor: A Response to the OpEd 3/21
Before I get started, I recommend pulling up and reading Lennox Reeder’s OpEd on 3/21 side-by-side with my response to follow along. I would like to applaud Lennox for their exposition on the subject of individualism from the perspective of a Black student at Reed College. Lennox critiques the “progressively racist” environment students harbor by…
Opinion: WHOSE JUSTICE? WHICH RATIONALITY?
“Indulgence for the royalists, cry certain men, mercy for the villains! No! mercy for the innocent, mercy for the weak, mercy for the unfortunate, mercy for humanity.” – Maximillien Robespierre When I went back home for Winter Break, I found myself feeling repeatedly frustrated while having casual conversations with friends and family. Whenever I was…
Letter to the Editors: The Stars Were Bright, Faletra
They were shining there for you and me, for humanities, Faletra Dear Reed College Quest, I am writing to express my enthusiastic agreement with Albert Kerelis’s “How to Hear the Starry Message” in your March 4, 2022, issue. The article captures well Galileo’s sense of wonder at his first telescopic observations, and Kerelis’s salutary…
Letter To The Editor: Concerning Paradox
Recently, news of Paradox and its financial situation have been a large part of Reed’s Student Senate discourse. Paradox has existed to the beat of its own drum, and without the oversight or consultation of Senate. We respect that, and up to this point, they have been able to maintain an important space on campus…
A Letter from Concerned Computer Science Juniors
We, a subset of Computer Science juniors, hope to bring to the college’s attention the issues we have faced in the major, and how these issues have a unifying cause: the understaffing of the Reed CS department. Our most pertinent concerns are with our upcoming thesis experience, our experience with grading and feedback of courses…
Chill With SHARE
With Pool Hall Formal and Daft Ball on the calendar, campus nights are coming back to life! SHARE staff (advocates, Night Owls, and sexual health educators) want to be sure students know about resources available to assist them in staying safe and getting help. Tonight (11/19) from 10 p.m. – 2 a.m., SHARE advocates and…
Letter to the Editor: Permanently Missed Connections
Regarding a permanently missed connection: I think we can all agree that Reed is a community in crisis. This is not terribly abnormal; it is an institution full to the brim with young people advancing through the most turbulent times of their lives. But critically, amid the shifting mass of administrators and a confluence of…
Honor Council’s Letter to the Student Body
Dear Reed community members, Last week, the Vice President of Student Life sent an email that discussed ongoing matters at Reed in a one-sided and condescending manner. The Honor Council would like to clarify that the definition of the Honor Principle that was used to justify scolding the student body is not what the Honor…
A Letter from SHARE Advocates
Dear Survivors, We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how difficult these last few days might have been for some of you. There has been a lot of public discourse regarding events that happened over the last fortnight, a lot of which has happened in ways that have been retraumatizing or triggering for many…
Letter to the Editor: A Reflection On Humanities 110
What was the point? As my first year in college comes to an end with a flurry of finals and essays, I have spent some time reflecting on the course that every Reedie must take – Humanities 110 (HUM 110). I find myself asking one basic question: what was the point? From the student perspective,…
Letter to the Editor: SCAPP Letter to the Student Body
Liberal Arts at Reed On March 15, 2021, the Committee on Academic Planning and Policy introduced the set of criteria which they would be using to evaluate tenure track requests this Spring to the rest of the faculty body. The announcement was followed by a flurry of questions and concerns regarding the implications of these…
An Open Letter to Audrey Bilger
Dear Audrey Bilger, As an Asian student here at Reed, I am in mourning. My friends, family, and community are grieving. As a student of color, I feel that there is a lack of compassion and support from this school. All we got was one email from you that felt like an advertisement for a…
Letter to the Editor: Less Anonymous Name-Calling, More Constructive Criticism
Submitted on March 14, 2021. Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Content Warning: Discusses suicide, mental health, opiate use and overdose, and death. Someone put a sticker on the Community Safety Honda that said “This Machine Transports Fascists.” That does not feel like constructive criticism. It doesn’t…
Letter to the Editor: A Statement from the Judicial Board
Submitted on March 17, 2021. Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. The Judicial Board is a group of twelve students that hears formal complaints of alleged violations of the Honor Principle or college policy. Judicial Board members are appointed by the Senate Appointments Committee with the input…
Letter to the Editor: Last Refuge of the Incompetent
Submitted on November 1, 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”* Most aphorisms break down at the event horizon between our ideal self and who we are in a moment of distress. Still, I find this quote from a…
HCC from Home: How to Survive Election Stress
If you’re feeling extra stressed with the impending election, you’re not alone. This past year has been wrought with tension and anxiety, especially with the ongoing pandemic, racial injustice, and countless other issues. Many of us have found ourselves at odds with family and friends over political views, and the closer we approach Election Day,…
Letter to the Editor: Uncompromising Empathy and Election Night Safety
By the time this goes to print, the 2020 presidential election will be less than a week away. Part of my role at Reed is to hope for the best while planning for the worst. This perspective has led me to consider election night as both a time of increased risk to our safety, as…
Letter to the Editor: Former Quest Editors on Role of Student Publications
To the Reed community: We are alumni and former editors of student body publications, including the Quest, the Grail, and the Reed College Creative Review. We learned from the Sept. 28 and Oct. 9 issues that the Quest’s print budget will no longer be funded as a line item by the Student Body Senate. A…
Letter to the Editors: CAPP Retains Standard Grading Policy for Fall 2020 Despite Proposed Changes from SCAPP
Submitted on October 28, 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. On October 26, 2020, the faculty Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) rejected proposed changes to the grading policy for Fall 2020 submitted by the Student Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (SCAPP), maintaining the…
Letter to the Editor: A More Complete Picture
In response to Senate’s open letter Submitted on October 14, 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Students of color deserve a publication dedicated specifically to the works that they create, and they deserve for that publication to be more than a political ploy to disenfranchise the…
Letter to the Editor: An Open Letter to the Student Body
Submitted on October 7, 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Hi everyone, We hope you all are doing well and taking care! This semester more so than any that we can remember feels really difficult — we’re living in a pandemic and living through a very…
Letter to the Editor: The HCC Failed Me
Submitted on 3 March 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. CW: Mentions of psychiatric institutionalization and suicide On a Friday morning, at 9:15 a.m., 911 was called. When the EMTs arrived, I sat on a stretcher silently, blinking back tears, my mind blank with stress, fear,…
Letter to the Editor: Calling Griffin Yearbook Editors!
Submitted on 11 February 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. The Griffin Yearbook was a long-standing Reed tradition but does not seem to have been in existence since 2013. It has historically been a pretty chill document with seniors submitting their own pictures and/or with a…
Letter to the Editor: Calling Student Handbook Editors!
Submitted on 11 February 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. The Student Body Handbook (SBHB) is a 112-page unofficial guide to Reed written with zero oversight from administration and distributed free of charge to incoming freshmen. Serving as a vehicle for institutional memory and a source…
Letter to the Editor: Restorative Justice Coalition is Hiring / What is Restorative Justice?
Submitted on 5 February 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. CW: Mention of sexual harm. The Restorative Justice Coalition is hiring five paid positions for next year. The applications will open next Sunday in SB Info. Additionally, they have meetings every other Monday in the Pride…
Letter to the Editor: It’s Time to Divest
Submitted on 5 February 2020 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Over the past two years, tens of millions of students from over two-hundred nations have gone on strike. “How dare you?”, they’ve asked, as those they are meant to look up to, those they aspire to…
Letter to the Editor: A Tragedy of (the) Commons
Submitted on 10 December 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board Starting before 2014, so before likely anyone that currently goes to this school was even here, Commons was experiencing a massive problem having dishes returned. At this time, there were no dish return bins around campus.…
Letter to the Editor: So you want to quote Oliver Sacks? A Letter to Reed Faculty Concerning Ableism
Submitted on 10 December 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. I am a student in Hum 110. On Monday, December 9, I attended the lecture “The Virtues of Character and the Virtues of Thought ” by Nathalia King on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. The lecture…
Letter to the Editor: A Reed Makerspace
Submitted on 4 December 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Modern academics are underrepresenting a significant part of the intellectual creativity that lives in all of us. The broadcasting of information at lectures, or in the classroom, makes students passive recipients of knowledge. We sit, listen,…
Letter to the Editor: Reed’s Newly Hired Associate Dean for Student Health and Wellbeing, Carrie Baldwin-Sayre, is a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine — and That Should Make You Very Concerned.
Submitted on 20 November 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. The “Associate Dean of Students for Student Health and Wellbeing” is a new position which was created to oversee a cluster in Reed’s Student Life Division. The associate dean’s responsibilities will be to oversee all the…
Letter to the Editor: CLBR Funding Opportunity
Submitted on 13 November 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. As of right now, Center for Life Beyond Reed is funding $600 towards a Job Shadow opportunity for students who would like to spend part of their Winter Break (Dec 20 – Jan 26) pursuing a…
Letter to the Editor: Is Two-Step Verification Scary?
Submitted on 30 October 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably been enrolled in Duo Two-Step Authentication — by choice or not. The two-factor system was set up to protect your Reed Gmail, Drive, IRIS account, Moodle, and other accounts…
Letter to the Editor: Clarification Regarding LGBTQ+ TTRPG Funding
Submitted on 27 September 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. After seeing the funding results come out, I’d like to clarify that the lack of funding for LGBTQ+ TTRPG is the result of me, the signator, not being on the ball this semester, and missing both…
Letter to the Editor: Why you should Support Political Neutrality AND Divestment
Submitted 22 September 2019 Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board. Recently, Political Neutrality has gotten something of a bad rap. Reed’s trustees have blithely declared that political neutrality precludes any divestment, and in response, students have asserted that political neutrality is an ideal both outdated and harmful.…
Letter to the Editors: Why I do not Support the Climate Strike
Submitted 15 September 2019 Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board Let me first brandish my credentials: I am a card-carrying Democratic Socialist and member of Greenpeace. I am queer, disabled, and Jewish. I am also of the opinion that we should transition, as quickly as possible, away…
Letter to the Editors: Safeguard Your Bikes
Submitted 18 September 2019 Letter do not necessarily reflect the views of the Quest or the Editorial Board We are four regular cyclists who work at Reed, two staff members and two faculty members, and we were sorry to see the rash of bike thefts reported in last week’s Community Safety Blotter. Unfortunately, bike theft…
