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Frederick, an architect and software developer, embodied the intellectually adventurous spirit of Reed throughout his life.

Frederick Arthur Dushin ’86

March 20, 2024, in Boxborough, Massachusetts.

Fred, an architect and software developer who embodied the intellectually adventurous spirit of Reed throughout his life, died in hospice care near the home he shared with his wife, Marguerite (Margot), and son, Alexander, in Boxborough, Massachusetts. He was 60 years old.

Raised on a horse farm in the forests of New York’s Hudson Valley, Fred was the son of Leona Hauff Dushin, an equestrian, and Frank Edward Dushin, an architect. While Fred considered emulating his father by enrolling in an architecture college, he ultimately picked Reed and chose to study philosophy and religion, sparked by his fascination with mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.

“One day, Fred looked unusually animated, and before I could ask, he told me he was reading Whitehead’s Process and Reality,” remembers Fred’s friend Steve Halpern ’85. “In a few minutes, Fred excitedly distilled Whitehead’s metaphysics in such a clear, concise way that even I could understand it.”

Whitehead’s work featured in Fred’s thesis, “Toward an Ethnography of Furniture,” written under Prof. William Peck [philosophy 1961–2002], but he was equally eager to test his mind and his body. He could be found at Quaker and anti-nuclear proliferation meetings, yet was also known to hitchhike to Government Camp and snowshoe on the slopes of Mount Hood.

After graduating from Reed, Fred earned an MA in philosophy and an MS in computer science at Syracuse University, where he met Margot. He eventually settled in Massachusetts, where he cultivated his careers in architecture and software, all while coaching soccer, advocating for the environmental stewardship of his town, tinkering with his vintage Land Rover, and creating microcircuitry for miniature electronic devices.

Fred’s Reed friends experienced him as an articulate, soft-spoken, warm, inquisitive, and consistent companion. “Fred was a kind of presence—a presence of kindness, of empathic understanding,” says Stephanie Guyer-Stevens ’86. She remembers Fred’s “sideways smile” and notes that he taught her “how to be a true friend, how to enjoy the company of other human beings, and how to find the cosmic joke in most situations.”

Fred is survived by his loving wife of 24 years, Margot, and their son, Alex.

Appeared in Reed magazine: Fall 2024