Howard Vollum and the Vollum Award
Howard Vollum was born in 1913 in Portland and graduated from Reed with a B.A. in physics in 1936. He helped found the company Tektronix, Inc., which became the foremost manufacturer of precision oscilloscopes in the world. Over the years, Vollum and his wife, Jean, gave millions of dollars, most of it anonymously, in support of education, research, social programs, and the arts. He died in 1986.
The Vollum Award was created by Reed College and endowed in 1975 by a grant from the Millicent Foundation, now a part of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Winners are selected for the perseverance, fresh approach to problems, and creative imagination that characterized Vollum's career. The award winner receives $5,000 and a silver medal encased in a walnut triptych. Past recipients include Linus Torvalds, Leroy Hood, James Russell, Jane Lubchenco, Russell J. Donelly, Edwin G. Krebs, Adele Goldberg, Brian W. Matthews, Lynwood W. Swanson, Jerry F. Franklin, Steve Jobs, Michael L. Posner, Gertrude F. Rempfer, David Powell Shoemaker, Bill Gates, George Streisinger, Paul Lutus, M. Lowell Edwards, Paul H. Emmett, Linus C. Pauling, Arthur F. Scott, and Douglas C. Strain.
Reed in the Media
Oregonian story about the Jess exhibition at Reed's Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery.
Brian Kassof, Reed visiting assistant professor of history and humanities, contributes to an OPB story on the origins of May Day.
Former President Bill Clinton responding on ABC News to the questioning of Hilary Clinton's campaign strategy by Paul Gronke, Reed political science professor.
Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen's April 27 follow-up article to "Drugs on Campus."
Marat Grinberg, Reed Russian literature professor, comments in the New York
Review of Books on the "problem of evil" in postwar Europe.
A public statement by Carlos Lluch and Louisa Callery about the death
of their son, Alejandro Lluch, printed in the Malibu Times.
Insider Higher Ed asks how Reed will change its drug and alcohol policy while remaining consistent with its cultural mores.
Darius Rejali, Reed professor of political science, interview with Democracy Now!.
Oregonian columnist Susan Nielsen's article,"Drugs on Campus."
Paul Gronke, Reed political science professor, is part of an OPB panel discussion on the Democratic primaries.
Reed student dies of apparent accidental drug overdose, as reported in
the Oregonian
President Colin Diver contributes to the Chronicle of Higher Ed article on public perception of politics in the classroom.
The Oregonian explores the successful Reed canyon restoration effort.
Kimberly Clausing, Reed professor of economics, contributes to a USA Today story questioning if the U.S. tax code is responsible for exporting jobs.
Darius Rejali, Reed professor of political science, takes part in the NPR Intelligence Squared debate, “Are Tough Interrogations Necessary?”
The Oregonian explores Tracing the "Untraceable." Reed’s Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery director, Stephanie Snyder, is featured as curator.
President Diver is featured in an Oregon Public Broadcasting story on the impact that changes in tuition policies of colleges such as Stanford and Harvard are having in Oregon.
Reed President Colin Diver contributes to The Insider Higher Ed story that questions the relevance a senior thesis should play in later life.
Paul Gronke, Reed political science professor, contributes to the Boston Herald story on early voting in the Texas primary.
The Oregonian reports on Reed's discovery of the earliest known recording of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." The “Howl” story has been picked up extensively throughout the US, and has spread to London’s Guardian Newspaper.
Darius Rejali, Reed professor of political science, is featured in Harper’s Magazine No Comment.
Paul Marthers, Reed Dean of Admission, writes on the rising cost of attending college for Inside Higher Ed.
TASHI’s historic musical reunion at ROMP! featured in the Los Angeles Times.
Paul Gronke, Reed political science professor, contributes to these New York Times and Washington Post stories on how early voting is changing Presidential campaign strategy.
Read more media stories.
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“Mathematician’s Mathematician” honored by Reed College
The Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology was presented to Daniel Bump ’74 at Reed convocation
PORTLAND, OR (August 24, 2006) -- Daniel Bump, a Reed College alumnus and professor of mathematics at Stanford University who is a key figure in multiple Dirichlet series, received the Vollum Award for Distinguished Accomplishment in Science and Technology from his alma mater.
The Vollum Award, established in 1975 as a tribute to the late C. Howard Vollum, a 1936 Reed graduate and lifelong friend of the college, is presented each year at opening convocation ceremonies for incoming students and their families. Winners are selected for the perseverance, fresh approach to problems and solutions, and creative imagination that characterized Vollum's career. This year, convocation ceremonies took place on August 23 on the Reed campus.
Bump is “an industrious, selfless, steadfast mathematician’s mathematician,” said Joseph Buhler, Reed professor emeritus of mathematics. “He is able to bridge chasms between different mathematical fields and personal temperaments to contribute to the broader discipline of mathematics as a true team player.”
Bump, who grew up in Forest Grove, Ore., graduated from Reed in 1974, earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago, and joined Stanford faculty in 1986. He is the 5th alumnus among 31 Vollum Award winners.
His research is in automorphic forms, representation theory, and number theory, and he was one of the organizers of the first conference on multiple Dirichlet series in 2005.
In 1989, his work in L-series mathematics yielded a major breakthrough when, in conjunction with others, Bump proved that certain infinite sums of imaginary numbers do not vanish, thus solving an instance of the Birch-Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture, a mathematical gauntlet laid down by the Clay Mathematics Institute.
Bump is the author several books, including the well-received
Automorphic Forms and Representations (Cambridge University Press, 1999), and has published over 65 papers in various publications, including
Annals of Mathematics and
Inventiones, which is perhaps the most prestigious mathematics journal in the world.
Apart from his academic career, Bump is also one of the original, central programmers for GNU Go, an artificial intelligence project to create a computer program that can play a moderately competitive game of Go (Wei-Chi, Baduk), the ancient and complex Japanese board game featured in the opening scenes of the film “A Beautiful Mind.” A collaborative effort that Bump still contributes to in his spare time, GNU Go is free software, available for download on the Internet.
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Reed College
Reed College, in Portland, Oregon, is an undergraduate institution of the liberal arts and sciences dedicated to sustaining the highest intellectual standards in the country. With an enrollment of about 1,360 students, Reed ranks third in the undergraduate origins of Ph.D.s in the United States and second in the number of Rhodes Scholars from a liberal arts college (31 since 1915). For more information, visit web.reed.edu.
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