Picture the edge of one of the most intellectually serious and deliberately unconventional colleges in the United States. Reed College was founded in 1908 on the bequest of Oregon Trail pioneer Simeon Reed, and from its earliest years it defined itself in opposition to conventional higher education: no athletics, no fraternities or sororities, no letter grades on transcripts until students ask for them, mandatory humanities thesis for all seniors. Reed admits students who are genuinely interested in ideas for their own sake and produces a disproportionate number of Rhodes Scholars, Fulbright fellows, and doctoral degree holders relative to its small enrollment.
The campus, designed in the collegiate gothic style, sits in a natural canyon carved by Crystal Springs Creek and bordered by the wetland of Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. Reed has an unofficial but well-documented tradition of academic radicalism and social experimentation; it was one of the first Oregon colleges to admit students regardless of race. Steve Jobs attended for one semester in 1972 before dropping out, crediting the Reed calligraphy course he audited with influencing the typography of the original Macintosh computer.
The campus canyon at the heart of the college is a remarkable piece of natural landscape embedded in the southeastern urban grid.