Commencement - audio

Reed's 101st commencement was held Monday, May 18, 2015.

Reed's 101st commencement will be Monday, May 18, 2015.

Reed's 101st commencement was held Monday, May 18, 2015.

Reed College's 100th Commencement was held on Monday, May 19, 2014 at 11a.m.

Reed College's 100th Commencement was held on Monday, May 19, 2014 at 11a.m.

The 99th Reed College Commencement Ceremony took place on Monday, May 20th, 2013, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus.

The 99th Reed College Commencement Ceremony will took place on Monday, May 20th, 2013, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus.

The 98th Reed College Commencement Ceremony took place on Monday, May 14th, 2012, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus. National Public Radio's Robert Smith '89 will be this year's Commencement speaker.

The 98th Reed College Commencement Ceremony took place on Monday, May 14th, 2012, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus. National Public Radio's Robert Smith '89 will be this year's Commencement speaker.

The 97th Reed College Commencement Ceremony took place on Monday, May 23rd, 2011, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus.

The 97th Reed College Commencement Ceremony took place on Monday, May 23rd, 2011, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus.

Remarks of President Colin S. Diver. The 96th Reed College Commencement Ceremony will take place place on Monday, May 17th, 2010, at 11 a.m. on the front lawn of the Reed campus.

Larry Sanger, Reed class of 1991, began changing the way people share and find information while working on Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia to which the public was invited to contribute. Sanger was editor-in-chief of Nupedia until 2002. While there, he cofounded Wikipedia, which has become the largest encyclopedia in the world. Sanger graduated from Reed with a degree in philosophy and went on to earn a PhD in the same discipline from Ohio State University in 2000. In addition to his work with Nupedia and Wikipedia, Sanger has taught philosophy at the university level and was Director of Collaborative Projects for the Digital Universe Foundation from 2005 to 2006. He has written and lectured extensively on the role of knowledge in society and the problem of quality control in user-generated content websites, such as Wikipedia and YouTube. In March 2007, Sanger launched Citizendium, another online encyclopedia project. Sanger believes that by adding expert oversight to submitted content, the new model will prove a more reliable resource for information than Wikipedia. Citizendium currently hosts 121 expert-approved articles with claims of quality and accuracy that rival the best, printed encyclopedias. Sanger is executive director of WatchKnow.org, a non-profit educational video service. The site references more than 15,000 videos hosted elsewhere on the Web and categorizes them by subject matter, education level, and field of study. WatchKnow.org is free to use and intended as a resource for students, parents, teachers, librarians, and everyone interested in the education of children. When Sanger is not changing the way we share knowledge, he likes to play the Irish traditional fiddle and read to his little boy.

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Eric Westervelt, Reed College class of 1991, has reported on conflicts and their repercussions across the Middle East region including fighting in Iraq, the Gaza Strip, Afghanistan, the second Lebanon war and the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel. Westervelt’s coverage at home and abroad has helped NPR win broadcast journalism’s highest honors, including contributions to a 2002 George Foster Peabody Award to NPR for coverage of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the US and its aftermath; a 2003 Alfred I. DuPont - Columbia University award for NPR’s coverage of 9-11 and the war in Afghanistan as well as duPont-Columbia University top honors again in 2004 and in 2007 for NPR’s coverage of the war in Iraq, among other awards. Before joining the foreign desk, his work for NPR’s national desk included some of the biggest domestic stories in recent memory including the Columbine High School shootings, the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800, the Florida presidential recount, among many others. Additionally, he has reported on national trends in law enforcement and crime fighting, including police tactics, use of force, the drug war, racial profiling, and the legal and political battles over firearms in America. He contributed to a 2001 Peabody award for NPR’s series on the most influential American musical works of the 20th century. He began his career in news as an intern and freelancer reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting after graduating from Reed in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies. He later served as a news director and reporter at New Hampshire public radio before joining NPR. He recently wrapped up a multi-year assignment covering Israel and the Palestinian Territories. He takes up his new position as a Berlin-based European Correspondent for NPR this month. His wife Lisa is a singer and performer.

Remarks of President Colin S. Diver. The 94th annual Reed College commencement ceremony took place on Monday, May 19, 2008.

Michelle Nijhuis ’96 is an award-winning science and environment journalist who writes for newspapers, magazines, and public radio. Nijhuis is a contributing editor of High Country News, and her work also appears in publications including Smithsonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Audubon, and Orion. She is the winner of several national journalism honors, including the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism, an AAAS Science Journalism Award, and selection for the anthology Best American Science Writing. In 2006, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Nijhuis traveled to Southeast Alaska to gain first-hand perspective on climate change. She joined legendary glaciologist Maynard Miller and his research team for 10 days on the Juneau Icefield, where she reported on evidence of global warming. Nijhuis majored in biology at Reed. With her husband, Jackson Perrin, she lives off the electrical grid in Western Colorado.

The 93rd annual Reed College commencement ceremony took place on Monday, May 14, 2007.

The 93rd annual Reed College commencement ceremony took place on Monday, May 14, 2007. Mr. Hohengarten '84 is a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Jenner & Block, concentrating in Supreme Court and appellate litigation. At the request of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, he was one of the leaders of the legal team that successfully challenged state sodomy laws in the landmark 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas. Hohengarten majored in history at Reed, studied in Germany on a Fulbright, obtained a Ph.D. in philosophy at Northwestern University, then attended Yale Law School. He was a notes editor on the Yale Law Journal and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter before entering private law practice. He is an avid wilderness camper and has run seven marathons.

The 92nd annual Reed College commencement ceremony took place on Monday, May 15, 2006.

The 92nd annual Reed College commencement ceremony took place on Monday, May 15, 2006.