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A foundation for education:
the humanities program at Reed
Humanities 411
Seniors have the chance to continue humanities in this senior symposium, a half-year discussion course. They read contemporary books and meet in the evening to talk in small groups, led by three faculty members in different disciplines, some from the sciences. About a third of the reading changes from year to year to include new books that will provoke spirited discussion. This year’s books included Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, social commentary by Reed alumna Barbara Ehrenreich; Reading the Holocaust, by historian Inga Clendinnen; and Fate of the Wild: The Endangered Species Act and the Future of Biodiversity, environmental policy analysis by Bonnie B. Burgess.
Reed professors cultivate intellectual maturity in their students in all of Reed’s humanities courses. “The kind of intellectual community that we’re trying to foster is of an open, critical, but civil debate,” says Nicholson. “We’re trying to teach students to talk to each other rather than through their professor. This is hard to learn, particularly for freshmen, but it does develop over the year. When people are in upper-level classes, they take a certain pride in never looking at the professor: they’re talking to each other.
“I also enjoy seeing the students move across the year from a relatively
uncritical acceptance of things they are told to an incredibly critical reception
to anything that’s said. They come to understand the pleasure of engaging
with different people’s arguments as an equal.”
