Another couple of tourists wander into Tom Richards’s Faux Museum and peruse the gift shop. They take in the collections of vintage books and postcards, the spinning prize wheel, the bright colors, and the jauntily angled visitor testimonials on the walls. After a minute or two, Tom tells them that there’s a museum back behind the partition. “A critical thinking museum with a sense of humor.”

“We just came from a museum,” one says.

“Oh yeah? Which museum?”

“The Portland Art Museum.”

“Never heard of it,” Tom says. “But this is the oldest museum in the world.”

There is a lot of discussion around Reed College these days about what our response to sexual assault on campus is going to look like this year and the years to come. I am a Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Advocate; I work for the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program. Hopefully, I can start answering some of the questions that the community has about our response to these incidents. Obviously, I do not have answers to all of the questions that are being asked on campus, but I do feel that providing information about our program will be helpful for campus discussions. I want the student body to be as involved as everyone wants to be because this is such a far-reaching and important topic.

I am worried about preaching to the choir,” Bill Deresiewicz says, smiling. Garnering a few laughs, this remark set the tone for the following lecture and Q & A session. Deresiewicz began his lecture with a genesis story: how his new book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life came to be. Beginning with praise for his critical essay “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education,” Deresiewicz described the letters of agreement he received from both students and faculty at schools all across America. His basic premise is this: the “Elite” academies, such as the much-bemoaned Ivy League Institutions, produce not good citizens, but anxious, unfulfilled, business professionals.

If I were to make a list of certifiable coolgirls, Annelyse Gelman ’13 would certainly be on it. During her time at Reed she could be found showing off her academic prowess in the psychology department, fervently discussing poetry with English professors, and improvising as a bunch of ducks in a human-suit in Fellatio Rodriguez shows. Since graduating, Gelman has been busy working on artistic pursuits, including publishing a book of poems, animating videos, and playing music with her band. Last Saturday night, she returned to campus to share some of her work at a poetry and music show she organized in Eliot Hall.

Aaron Maine’s first riff reverberates as I reach into my backpack. My hand dives into a vast puddle of Lagunitas, grinding against several shards. He takes an assertive step towards the microphone. Those of us standing in front glance at each other in anticipation. And then he gives us what we want. “I give you he-aaaaad / be-fore you he-aaaaad / to the-ra-pyyyy” resounds from the speakers, amplified by a chorus of boisterous audience members. Many drunkenly mimic Maine’s endearing hip-jerk and head sway. I am vaguely aware of the blood gushing from my left hand, but I haven’t the slightest impulse to relinquish my front-row standing. The guitar lulls. I swiftly unroll my knee sock, wrapping it tightly around my broken-beer-bottle-induced laceration just in time for the chorus. The SU erupts with, “what did you do when you want-ed to di-iiiiie.”