The Riffin' Griffin – A blog by and for Reed College alumni. Find posts by category listed below!

Oh My Renn Fayre

As commencement and graduation draw ever closer so does the grandest celebration of the year at Reed College: Renn Fayre! You can read more about the history of Renn Fayre in a series of articles published through The Grail, a student-run creative magazine. I’m not here to tell you the history of Renn Fayre itself, but a short history of some of its best previous themes–all leading up to the reveal of this year’s theme, of course!

The first decades of Renn Fayre were Renaissance themed, or without a theme entirely. In the year 2000, an article in The Quest led to the first themed Renn Fayre:

Our magical weekend of joyous mayhem and drug-induced glory is only the beginning. The forces of Good and Evil are upon us […] There is only one answer. SUPERHEROES.

— Mistress of Costumery, The Quest, April 4, 2000

The success of a themed celebration took off, and in 2002, the Czars made the theme a riff of a classic film with: Bill and Ted’s Excellent RF. The campus came alive with creatures for the apocalypse theme of ’03.

The entrance to the library, decorated for the apocalypse

’05 was graced with a hot air balloon and a Ziggy Stardust theme!

The view through the Sallyport of festivities in 2005

The Body was the theme for 2009, which featured a giant vagina and a “boob room,” where the bean bag chairs had nipples. In the aughts, theme reveal videos became all the rage. During a ball held a few months before the semester’s finale, a Czar-made video would play to reveal the theme for the spring’s celebrations. The earliest one I can find is the reveal for 2010, where they blasted Daft Punk and revealed the Final Frontier theme.

In 2012, the Czars took a page from the HUM 110 syllabus and themed Renn Fayre: “Genesis”, although the theme was more broadly about the origins of creation, not limited to its namesake required reading. The great lawn was filled with little plastic flamingos in 2015 for the Miami Boom Boom Renn Fayre, which was surely a blast wilder than Spring Breaking in Miami proper.

Elvis Presley (impersonators), balloon arches, and gaudy decorations peppered Reed’s campus for the Sin City Renn Fayre of 2018, accompanied by the Vegas Chapel that was set up all weekend, pictured below. Rumor has it that some of the weddings performed were never formally annulled, and some of those Reedies are still married to this day…

A wedding ceremony in the Sallyport, officiated by Elvis

For 2019, the theme was Lucid Dreams (not the hit single by the late Juice WRLD, but the concept itself)! Student art projects for this Renn Fayre featured lights and colorful psychedelic iconography.

Jellyfish in the grove on the Great Lawn

I might be biased, as this was my first Renn Fayre, but I think the Pandemonium theme of 2022 was truly a sight to behold. A student put together a montage of thesis burnings, where the outfits and whimsy around campus are on full display.

While all of the themes listed above were amazing in their own right, I’m most excited for this year’s theme (and it’s definitely not because I’m a senior). This year’s theme is, drum roll please……. Cosmic Resurgence! The theme reveal video features intergalactic iconography of all sorts. I hope to see an abundance of aliens, astronauts, planets, moon dust, retro futuristic outfits, and disco gogo boots!

Did Renn Fayre in your time have themes? What were your favorites?

Preparing to burn my thesis,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Hail, Alma Mater, Reed

Reed College has an abundance of niche and quirky traditions and lore, but we also partake in some of the more standard college traditions. One such tradition is that of the Alma Mater anthem, Fair Reed. An often forgotten aspect of Reed culture and history, the Reed College song Fair Reed was proposed by Reed’s first president, William Trufant Foster, in 1910 or 1911. He also wrote the lyrics. The tune is to an old Scotch melody, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms”. I employ you to keep the tradition alive by reading the lyrics and maybe even giving it a sing, for without our collective memory this tradition may fade away.

~♪

Taliah Churchill ’25

Fig Tales at Reed

Deep in the Reed College canyon lies the orchard, home to various fruit trees. But the orchard is not the only place on campus to forage fruit. Below is a tale from Tracy Poe ’91 about the old fig tree by the Reed College Apartments (RCA) and her endeavors to care for it.

There’s this fig tree, see, down at the RCAs. When I was a kid living at 36th and Knapp in the 70s/80s, before RCAs or even many of the Canyon-adjacent parcels even belonged to Reed, I used to forage from that tree in the summers. Summer-time in Portland was a child-forager’s dream, from the crawdads in Johnson Creek to the old orchards that used to surround the Canyon, yielding plums, cherries, apples, quince, and of course blackberries.

Reed has a lot of legacy trees from the days when the surrounding area was all homesteads and truck farms. 40 years ago they were still harvestable, but it was the beginning of the end of anyone looking after them on any kind of regular basis. Development and neglect encroached on a lot of our old foraging territory over the years. Reed campus still has some thriving black walnut trees, and the remnant of the old orchard just below 39th at the south end of the Canyon. When I was a student, the Grove Dorms were a giant community garden.

Fruit trees are domestic plants, and they need care in order to keep giving food, but sadly a lot of those caregivers are gone and the trees just get old and die if no one attends to them.

Anyway: the ReedFig was still bearing beautiful fruit well into the early 90s. As a Dorm Mom at the RCAs, just a few years after it was acquired by Reed for student housing, I was still harvesting grocery bags full of fruit every September/October.

I graduated in ’91, left for grad school on the East Coast, where I live now, and didn’t think about that tree until many years later, when I attended a Reunion and decided to go give the tree a visit. That must have been 2015 or so …

When I did, I discovered that the tree had at some point been hacked way back. Not pruned, but chain sawed down, so that it was being choked by undergrowth and blackberry runners. I was very sad to see this, and was sure the tree would die.

The undergrowth of the Reed fig, choked out by other plants

But I kept visiting, and what do you know, that tree just kept sending out new growth, and searching for the sun. It was too weedy and starved to give much fruit, except in the very upper story where it was only good to feed the birds. Invisible, probably, to anyone who happened by. Every year, I thought, if that tree doesn’t die, I should find someone who cares enough to prune it properly and give it a new life.

In the meantime, I did a little research. The tree has a sister, across 28th Ave behind the farm stand and food trucks. Both of them were planted by the Japanese immigrant family who owned the farm that used to cover the whole curve of the road from Bybee to the Rhododendron Garden, sometime between 1900-1920, from what I’ve been able to gather.

That tree is huge—almost 40 years older than it was when I was harvesting it in my Reed days. And it still produces beautiful fruit in the late summer/early fall. Both sisters are 100, maybe 125 years old now. Standing so near to one another, and yet so different in their fates.

The sister fig tree behind the fruit stand

So I put the word out on a Facebook page: Reed Culinaria. And to my surprise, a lot of people remembered the RCA tree and wanted to bring it back to life.

So we got some folks together —alum Hilary Trzynka ’91 agreed to teach a Paideia class about pruning and taking cuttings from the tree. We did that in January. Ten people showed up, but we made cuttings for a bunch of alums around the country who plan to pick them up at Reunions this year. Amanda Waldroupe ’07 helped us get funding to pay for the supplies from the Portland Alumni Chapter.

For now, we are posting on Reed Culinaria and hoping we’ll be able to continue to care for the tree. Our long term goal is to get a group in to clear the understory and prune it back to a place where it can begin to flourish and produce fruit again. We’d love for current students to take an interest and help us re-establish the tree’s health. We’ve been keeping it lowkey, but we’d be really happy to have other caretakers.

It’s been a cool journey to get other people involved, and I’ve been moved by the level of enthusiasm my fellow alumni have shown. I think just for its connection to the historic farms around it and its sister tree, it deserves to be noticed and commemorated by the community in some way.

I haven’t met anyone yet who doesn’t think that is a good idea.

I don’t have Facebook but that story just might make me create an account to join Reed Culinaria…

Feeling inspired,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Honor at Reed

A core aspect of Reed that sets it apart from other institutions is the existence of the Honor Principle. While many colleges and universities have honor codes or statements clarifying the expected behavior of their community members, Reed leaves the interpretation of honor largely up to its community members. While the honor principle has no formal definition, the most common interpretation of the Honor Principle mentions that any action that causes unnecessary pain or discomfort to any member of the Reed community, group within the community, or to the community as a whole, is a violation of the Honor Principle. The Honor Council attempts to re-encapsulate what the Honor Principle means to the community at large every 20 years.

This code of conduct allows for the Reed community to develop our values together. Coming to an understanding of what honorable behavior is and what the Honor Principle means is a morally and intellectually challenging part of the Reed education. It is up to each member of the community to engage with the trust, as well as responsibility placed on them by the Honor Principle in order for the community to support everyone!

Flowchart outlining how the Honor Principle comes into play when a Reed community member causes harm

Below are some accounts about the honor principle from alum Andrei Stephens ’08 and current J-Board (Judicial Board) member Nicole Li ’25 respectively.

“The Honor Principle was a huge part of Reed when I was there. It permeated everything and was constantly reinforced. Professors would do things like give us a test on Monday and say it was due Saturday but to only spend 3 hours on it. They were able to do that because of the Honor Principle, it was understood. We all left food and electronics and anything else out in public spaces — if it wasn’t marked “K”, nobody would take it. You can test things that you can’t test in the absence of the Honor Principle. If you can’t cite sources directly or use the software that practitioners of your field would use because professors are worried about ‘cheating’, they can’t test the ability to use those tools effectively. The Honor Principle doesn’t mean never getting things wrong; it means that when you do get things wrong you did it from an honorable attempt to engage, and you take responsibility and seek to make things right. The assumption that in an argument all parties were engaging not to ‘be right’ but to probe the truth allowed us to learn more and deepen our perspectives in ways that we simply could not if we had different community expectations.

Unfortunately most of the world does not operate on the Honor Principle. I appreciate my time in the Reed community all the more because I know that we can speak openly with each other, and the assumption of good faith engagement drives our spaces.”

– Andrei Stephens ’08, self-proclaimed Honor Principle Zealot and President of the Alumni Board

“As a J-Board member and student, the Honor Principle is near and dear to my heart. It shows me how much trust we have in this community, and the immense amount of care we hold each other to. Its beauty lies in its ability to be flexible and capture not only individual perspectives of Honor, but the communities beliefs and culture. That is why it is extremely important to me that the Reed Community continue ongoing conversations around the Honor Principle, encouraging education to give incoming students the foundation to critique and reflect about their own relationships with the Honor Principle, and for older students and alumni to revisit how their understanding of the Honor Principle has changed.

In my life the Honor Principle goes beyond my role of J-Board, but thinking about the greater relationships I have with my peers, how we can support each other, and uplift the community. From an academic perspective I often think about Honor through making learning accessible and empowering for others in my other campus roles. Being able to live with the Honor Principle sparks a different type of purpose, a standard that you hold yourself to in hopes of building a strong and healthy community.”

– Nicole Li ’25, Student J-Board Member

As the Honor Principle exists only in the confines of the Reed community, I hope that this reminder of its principles and ideals encourages Reedies of all kinds to remember the values that connect us.

With honor,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Historical Hijinks

Wacky hijinks and antics are part of the Reedie lifestyle. I’ve heard rumors that in the 70s, the Yale Insider’s Guide to Colleges said, “Reedies are a strange lot and they know it.” Pranks, goofs, and straight-up oddity has often been a part of the Reed ethos for eons, but many of the April Fool’s Day pranks rule them all: toothbrush gardens, swiped owls, and geodesic domes in Eliot Circle.

These photos from ye Olde Reed highlight Reedie antics perfectly…but now that I’m thinking about it, what prompted these photos/events? No seriously, does anyone know??

Confused and intrigued,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Spring on Campus

As the winter transitions to spring, the snow (or rather, ice) on Reed campus is replaced with cherry blossom petals. The trees all blossom in an array of pinks and whites, and the students flock to the great lawn to enjoy the sunlight they so seldom see.

The trees in Eliot Circle were planted in 1973, and they are at the fullest time of their long lives.

In case you can’t make it to campus to view for yourself, here are some of my favorite photos from spring at Reed! Photo credit to Oscar Pulliam ’25.

A photograph of the cherry trees in Eliot Circle

A photo of the trees on the great lawn blossoming

Craving vitamin D,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Pi Day Comes Full Circle

The symbol π, as every Reedie knows, represents a fundamental geometrical constant—the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter—whose precise value is elusive, but which famously begins 3.14159. π has become a delightful excuse to celebrate in the spring with pizza, pie, and Euclidean tomfoolery–on March 14th, Pi Day.

Of course a holiday like Pi Day would take off at Reed! An excuse to eat Lauretta Jean’s pie, grab a slice from Commons, and argue about the validity of mathematical concepts fits right in with the Reed ethos. Folks around campus jump in–the Library historically went all out, and one could not even dip into any of the Pi Day pies until exactly 1:59 in the afternoon; pies might be found in any number of offices in Eliot; and the SU is often filled with students competing to recite the most digits.

What many don’t know is that Pi Day itself can be traced back to Reed as well, through Larry Shaw ’61. Larry was a physics major at Reed, before going on to be the technical curator for the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. In 1988, he came up with the idea of honoring the influential constant with an annual party. The Exploratorium celebrated its first Pi Day on March 14 at 1:59 p.m.

Larry believed the best part of Pi Day was its ability to make math seem accessible and fun to folks who may have suffered through it during their school days. He was honored that it became such a national holiday. π may be an irrational number, but Larry’s celebration of it was rational, civil, and orderly.

For 38 years, he donned his red cap emblazoned with the magic digits and led a parade of museumgoers, each of them holding a sign bearing one of the digits of π. They would march in strict order, with 3 in front, the decimal point next, and then 141592653489 . . . Of course the number of sign carriers was exhausted long before the infinite digits of pi.

Larry passed away in 2017, but his memory lives on as we celebrate the holiday. Rest assured, Larry condoned all varieties of pie; per his wife, “He didn’t have a favorite, he ate everything.” Grab a slice of your favorite and join us today in toasting Larry and π.

Larry Shaw ’61, with his Pi shirt and cap

Ye Olde Reed

Photo of graffiti in the steam tunnels from 2015 that reads, “Schrodinger’s old reed is alive. Schrodinger’s old reed is dead”

“Olde Reed is dead.”

A phrase every Reedie knows, but few truly understand. This sentiment has been shared for decades, from Reedies dating back to the classes of the 60s (likely even further) to present day (guilty as charged). We repeat it back for the incoming years to hear, we post it on social media, and dedicate entire blogs (blogception!) to it, so the mantra lives on unchanged while its meaning is ever evolving. You see, everybody knows that:

Olde Reed=n-1, where n is your freshman year.

While my time as a Reedie has been comparatively short, I’ve had the honor of hearing tales of Olde Reed from many an alum. Some, like the giant snowball of ‘14, are wild but believable, but many others, like the car supposedly buried underneath the library, are more in the vein of myths. While I fear the traditions I took part in at Reed are less eventful than those aforementioned, I hope that one day they too can become “Olde Reed” lore such that I have legends of Olde to pass down to young Reedies. What are your favorite tales of Olde Reed, either from your time here or that you heard when attending Reed? Submit your stories in the comments below!

Awaiting new rumors to spread,

Nü Reedie

Taliah Churchill ’25

Love Is In The Air

‘Tis the season…of love! Many a couple has been formed at Reed college, and while not all of them make it out of the bubble intact, there are still so many others with tales sure to make even the most cynical Reedie’s heart melt.

This Valentine’s Day I want to share with you the story of (to my knowledge) the oldest living Reed couple, Eva Labby ’51 and Arnold Labby ’51. Arnold recently celebrated his 100th birthday with his wife of 67 years, Eva, in their lovely home just outside of Portland and near their mutual alma mater: Reed College.

Arnold and Eva on vacation in the French Marquesas in 2006

For an oral history project with the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, Arnold recounts their first date: “…my brother Bob had a blind date with Lorie, his wife, Lorie Carrow. She wasn’t quite sure about him…So she brought along Eva, and the next thing I knew Bob was yelling up the stairs to me, “Get dressed! You’re going out.” “Who am I going out with?” “You’ll find out when you come down.” It was Eva, and that’s how we met.”

While they attended Reed at the same time, and even went on that date before they both graduated, they didn’t really get together until years later, when they reconnected in San Francisco.

In San Francisco, they were only “buddies” at first, as Eva called it. One day, Arnold mentioned he was going back up to Portland to visit family and offered Eva a ride if she wanted to come along. She ended up forgetting about his offer….until the next morning, when he showed up at her door with a pot of hot coffee. He told her “If you want to go, I’ll wait,” and that he did. They drove to Portland together and later in the week even attended the same party. On the way back down to San Francisco, Eva realized she suddenly saw Arnold in a new light.

Some time later, after a night in with a home cooked dinner, the pair was watching The Maltese Falcon and Arnold proposed! Three days later, Eva accepted, and the rest is history. The happy couple has since spent the last 6 and a half decades together, with their three children.

You can read more about these sweethearts and others here in the Winter 2007 edition of the Reed Magazine.

Are you a #Reedie4Reedies person? Refuse to ever date another Reedie? Married four times but just keep coming back to other Reedies? Tell me about it and give me hope?

Awaiting my reed romance,

Taliah Churchill ’25

Reedies Volunteer!

In Greek, “Xenia” embodies hospitality between a host and a guest, centering generosity and reciprocity. In this spirit, we celebrate the volunteer and community work done by Reedies throughout this past year through the Alumni Board’s Xenia Initiative. We’d like to share a few of our favorite photos and comments from this year! Comments have been edited for length and format.

Tina Le ’08 writes:

“Over the past 12 months, I led Nasdaq’s Green Team, a supportive employee group for people with environmentalist values. We invited speakers from nonprofits like The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Voter Project, Climate Voice, etc. and carried out local volunteer activities around the world. We also held an Environmental Justice series in collaboration with another support group called GLOBE (Global Link of Black Employees), because minority groups are almost always victims of environmental destruction.”

Tina Le, class of 2008, picture second from the left, poses with fellow volunteers for Nasdaq's Green Team during a local volunteer cleanup event. — Tina Le ’08 leads Nasdaq’s Green Team.

Lawrence Sherman ’86 (BA); ’87 (MALS) writes:

“I have been a volunteer manager and coach for Southwest Portland Little League or other Little Leagues since 2005 when my kids played baseball/softball, and after they moved on continued coaching softball every year. I also have been a volunteer coach and manager for a travel softball team for the past six years (the players are now seniors in high school), and even managed to get the players through the pandemic, providing them with an opportunity to get outdoors and play the sport they love.”

Lawrence Sherman, class of 1986, pictured center, poses with his Southwest Portland Little League team. Lawrence has been a volunteer coach for Little League since 2005. — Lawrence Sherman ’86 (BA); ’87 (MALS) has coached for Southwest Portland Little League since 2005.

Duncan Parks ’92 writes:

“[I am the] Team Director and level 3 coach for youth mountain bike team (Portland Metro Composite), part of the Oregon Interscholastic Cycling League and National Interscholastic Cycling Association.”

Duncan Parks, class of 1992 pictured center, fist bumps a member of the Portland Metro Composite youth mountain bike team. Duncan volunteers as a team director and level 3 coach. — Duncan Parks ’92 coaches the Portland Metro Composite Youth Mountain Bike Team.

Sharon Toji ’58 writes:

“I represent the Hearing Loss Association of America as a voting delegate and Co-Chair of the Communications Task Group on the American National Standards Association (ANSI) A117.1 Committee on Accessible and Usable Buildings and Sites.”

Sharon Toji, class of 1958, works to represent the Hearing Loss Association of America and the Communications Task Group on the American National Standards Association (ANSI) A117.1 Committee on Accessible and Usable Buildings and Sites. — Sharon Toji ’58 is a leader on Hearing Loss representation and Accessible and Usable Buildings and Sites.

Barbara Bates ’67 writes:

“JourneySongs Hospice Choir where I run the Google Workspace for the group and also sing at the bedsides of folx in hospice; Newton Conservators (a land trust preserving open space in Newton) where I maintain the website (Newtonconservators.org) and their Google Workspace, as well as lead nature walks in Newton, give nature talks, and tech host webinars on nature.”

Barbara Bates, class of 1967, pictured on the left, leads a nature walk for Newton Conservators. Barbara also spends time volunteering for a hospice choir. — Barbara Bates ’67 leads a nature walk for Newton Conservators.

The world needs more Reedies!

Love Reed,

The Prexy Ghost