Reed College

Reed College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland neighborhood, with Tudor-Gothic style architecture, and a forested canyon nature preserve at its center. Reed requires a mandatory first-year humanities program and senior thesis. It is noted for its progressive politics, de-emphasis on grades, academic rigor, lack of grade inflation, and high proportion of graduates who go on to earn doctorates and postgraduate degrees. Reed alumni include 118 Fulbright Scholars, 67 Watson Fellows, and three Churchill Scholars. Its 32 Rhodes Scholars are the second-highest count for a liberal arts college. Reed is ranked fourth in the United States for all postsecondary institutions for the percentage of its graduates who go on to earn a Ph.D., after Caltech, Harvey Mudd, and Swarthmore College. The Reed Institute (the legal name of the college) was founded in 1908 and held its first classes in 1911. Reed is named for Oregon pioneers Simeon Gannett Reed (1830–1895) and Amanda Reed (died 1904). Simeon was an entrepreneur involved in several enterprises, including trade on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers with his close friend and associate, former Portland Mayor William S. Ladd (for whom Ladd's Addition is named). Unitarian minister Thomas Lamb Eliot, who knew the Reeds from the church choir, is credited with convincing Reed of the need for "a lasting legacy, a 'Reed Institute of Lectures,' and joked it would 'need a mine to run it.'" Reed's will suggested his wife could "devote some portion of my estate to benevolent objects, or to the cultivation, illustration, or development of the fine arts in the city of Portland, or to some other suitable purpose, which shall be of permanent value and contribute to the beauty of the city and to the intelligence, prosperity, and happiness of the inhabitants". Ladd's son, William Mead Ladd, donated 40 acres from the Ladd Estate Company to build the new college.