Why Study Environmental Humanities at Reed?
Located in Portland, Oregon, Reed is a liberal arts college that offers a demanding academic program to approximately 1,500 bright and dedicated undergraduates. A liberal campus in a liberal city, Reed is also home to many vocal and organized activists for social and environmental causes.
Our campus spans a watershed shaped by decades of habitat restoration, exemplifying Reed’s growing commitment to sustainability. The canyon surrounding the Crystal Springs headwaters at the heart of the campus is rimmed with walking trails, alluring and accessible to even the most cerebral and bookish.
Our intellectual culture has nurtured several luminaries who speculate through the literary imagination for environmental and social change (Pulitzer prize-winning poet/deep ecologist Gary Snyder '51 wrote his senior thesis on a Haida swan-maiden myth here). Reed has taken significant steps toward fostering a campus culture dedicated to serious and open intellectual inquiry, in which community members from every background and identity can thrive.
The college has invested in infrastructure to identify and address systemic racism, improve academic department climates, provide resources to support inclusive pedagogy, and increase support for all students, especially those from underrepresented groups.
Driven by a commitment to teaching and academic excellence, our humanities faculty work closely with students to encourage critical thinking in the classroom and beyond, connecting complex fields of study to urgent questions of social and environmental justice.
Reed’s recent strategic plan (April 2022) stresses that “curricular developments are tied to pressing societal issues and opportunities,” and highlights the college’s “commitment to inquiry, research and discovery and to clarify the connection between our academic work and contributions to the greater good.”