THE QUEST

Spring semester Student Body elections have been postponed for one week. Only two candidates had turned in petitions to vie for the six open seats on Senate in time for the original deadline, Wednesday April 11. The deadline was subsequently extended two days, but no further candidates submitted petitions.

Elections had originally been scheduled for Wednesday April 18-Friday April 20, with Elections Assembly slated for the 18^th. Assembly will now occur on Tuesday April 24 at 7:00 in the Student Union, with elections open from that day until Friday April 27.

A Title IX investigation into alleged inequitable treatment of women’s teams and facilities by the Sports Center concluded on March 23, but the Women’s Rugby team says the investigation failed to address their concerns. The investigation, which found Reed to be in compliance with Title IX, was opened in February after the Women’s Rugby team leveled complaints against the Sports Center following a controversy in which the team’s coach resigned and funding for team league play was pulled by the administration. Title IX, passed in 1972, forbids sex-based discrimination by schools that receive Federal funding.

How is President Colin Diver feeling now that his final semester at Reed is coming to an end? “Mixed emotions,” he says. It “almost depends on which hour or which minute you ask the question.”  On one hand, he is sometimes “very nostalgic and sad … I’m going to miss the people here, and the spirit of Reed.”  On the other hand, he says, “I’m not having second thoughts.”

Between the time this article is written and when it is printed there will likely have been a vote on the proposal to allow members of the Quest Board to appoint their own successors, rather than have them be elected. The fact that this proposal will likely be voted down is an extreme disservice to the community, especially given that the proposal would still have to be ratified by the student body in order to make the change.  Elections have crippled The Quest for nearly sixty years, saddling Reed with a paper that is run by the popular rather than the competent. It has made the paper unaccountable to students, restricted students’ access to information, and inhibited students’ abilities to publicly express themselves. At its best, The Quest has been mediocre; at its worst, it has been shamefully bad, especially for a liberal arts school of our caliber.

Since the financial crisis, Americans have been constantly concerned with bad loans and borrowers who are unable to pay off their debts. According to Nisma Elias ’12, this doesn’t just happen here.

Microfinance, a practice in which people in the developing world are given small loans to help them start businesses and earn an income, “has been hailed as an awesome way to get poor people out of poverty,” says Nisma, of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Nisma’s thesis, which she is working on with Denise Hare, will focus on microfinance in her home country. Bangladesh, the home of microfinance pioneer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has the highest penetration of microfinance institutions in the world, with 599 registered banks making small loans. “When I go back home,” says Nisma, “in every street there are at least three signs advertising microfinance organizations.” “We are the size of Iowa,” she registers. “That many institutions is just crazy.”

For a select number of recently accepted students, an additional treat came with their confetti and Welcome To Reed video: an invitation to stay on Reed campus for two days, eating Commons food, observing classes, and venturing out into Portland—all expenses paid by the college.

If the Presidential Finalists were on schedule, their on campus interviews are over. Read the profiles of some of the students who interviewed them.

Most people with illnesses turn to science for the cure. Some turn to religion. Hunter Kirkland ’12 turns to anthropology.

“Cancer is merely a product of the collective consciousness of Western society.”

Hunter, an interdisciplinary Anthropology-Biology senior from New London, Connecticut, believes that in his work on his thesis, he has uncovered a revolutionizing theory of a famously difficult disease. “As it turns out,” Hunter explains, “cancer is just a social construct.”