Bret Weinstein

In 1964, a report was issued by the Council of Presidents of Washington State baccalaureate institutions stating that another college was needed in the state to balance the geographical distribution of the existing state institutions. This report spurred the 1965 Washington legislature to create the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education to study the need and possible location for a new state college.

In 1965-66, the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education (assisted by Nelson Associates of New York) concluded "at the earliest possible time a new college should be authorized", to be located at a suburban site in Thurston County within a radius of approximately 10 miles (16 km) from Olympia.

Evergreen's enabling legislation – HB 596 (Chapter 47, Laws of 1967) – stated that the campus should be no smaller than 600 acres (240 ha), making it then the largest campus in the state as well as the first public four-year college created in Washington in the 20th century.

On January 24, 1968, The Evergreen State College was selected from 31 choices as the name of the new institution. On November 1, 1968, Charles J. McCann assumed the first presidency of the college. McCann and the founding faculty held the first day of classes October 4, 1971 with 1128 students. McCann served from 1968 until stepping down to join the faculty June 6, 1977 when former Governor Daniel J. Evans, who signed the legislation creating Evergreen, assumed the presidency. Evans left the president's office abruptly in 1983 when he was appointed to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Henry M. Jackson. The largest building on campus is named in honor of Evans, the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. The entrance to the campus bears McCann's name, the Charles J. McCann plaza. In 2004, the college completed the 170,000-square-foot (16,000 m²) Seminar II building, and a significant remodel of the Daniel J. Evans Library is now complete.

In 1999, Mumia Abu-Jamal was invited to deliver the keynote address by audiotape for the graduating class at the college. The event was protested by some.

2017 protests

Every April since the 1970s, Evergreen has held a daylong event called Day of Absence, inspired by the Douglas Turner Ward play of the same name, during which minority students and faculty members stay off campus to raise awareness of the contributions of minorities and to discuss racial and campus issues. As of 2017, approximately 25% of Evergreen students belonged to racial minorities. Since 1992, the Day of Absence has been followed by the Day of Presence, when the campus community reunites.

In 2017, the Day of Absence was altered: the event for 200 white students, staff, and faculty was held at an off-campus churchwhile the event for students of color were held on the Evergreen campus. Bret Weinstein, a professor of biology at Evergreen, wrote a letter in March to Evergreen faculty explaining his objections to the change in format. In late May 2017, student protests—focused in part on the comments by Weinstein—disrupted the campus and called for a number of changes to the college. Weinstein says he was told that campus police could not protect him and that they encouraged him not to be on campus, which caused Weinstein to hold his biology class in a public park. Weinstein and his wife later resigned and reached a $500,000 settlement with the university after having sued for failing to “protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence". Meanwhile, some students, staff, and faculty supporting equity and diversity programs received numerous racist messages and threats, and likewise left campus.

A June 1 threat to "execute" people at Evergreen led to an evacuation and two-day closure of the campus. Vandals with sticks and baseball bats caused approximately $10,000 in damage to the campus and forced closure of the school for an additional day. A June 15 protest on campus by the "alt-right" group Patriot Prayer led to campus being closed early. The following day, Evergreen's 2017 commencement ceremony was also moved off-campus because of safety concerns.

In response to the protests, Michael Zimmerman, a former Vice-President and Provost of Evergreen, described the school as "a place where identity politics takes precedence over every other aspect of social intercourse...where it is acceptable to shout down those with whom you disagree". Three faculty members retorted, "What about the free speech of those who are part of the campaign to create greater equity and diversity on our campus? What about their ability to do their jobs and express their academic freedom without fear of intimidation and violence?"The Seattle Times warned that The Evergreen State College has become a "national caricature of intolerant campus liberalism" and that the college fell 300 students short of Washington State's funded enrollment target despite "wide-open admission standards".

Undergraduate

Evergreen is unique in that undergraduate students select one 16-credit program for the entire quarter rather than multiple courses. Full-time programs will encompass a quarter's worth of work in everything related to that program concentration, by up to three professors. There are no "majors": students have the freedom to choose what program to enroll in each quarter for the entire duration of their undergraduate education, and are never required to follow a specific set of programs. Evergreen is on the "quarter" system, with programs lasting one, two, or three quarters. Three quarter programs are generally September through June.

At the end of the program the professor writes a one-page report ("Evaluation") about the student's activity in the class rather than a letter grade, and has an end-of-program Evaluation conference with each student. The professor also determines how many credits should be awarded to the student, and students can lose credit.

In order to obtain a Bachelor of Arts, a student must complete 180 credits.

In order to obtain a Bachelor of Science, a student must complete 180 credits, 72 of which need to be in science, with 48 of those noted as upper division. This requirement can be satisfied by one year of upper-division science.

Evergreen's Evening and Weekend Studies Program makes it possible for students who cannot attend full-time, day classes to get a Bachelor of Arts degree by attending on a part-time basis through night and weekend interdisciplinary programs.

Graduate

Unlike the undergraduate programs, the graduate programs require that students have taken a certain rotation of courses. Evergreen graduate studies consist of the following three programs:

• Master of Environmental Studies
• Master in Teaching
• Master of Public Administration

According to U.S. News & World Report's 2017 college rankings, Evergreen is ranked #32 in Regional Universities West, and #4 in Regional West Best Undergraduate Teaching. US News ranked Evergreen as 33 in the nation for offering first-year experiences to freshmen, which entails building into the curriculum first-year seminars or other programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty and staff on a regular basis. Author and former New York Times education editor Loren Pope cites Evergreen as one of two public colleges in the United States in his book Colleges That Change Lives.

The Evergreen State College has an admission rate of 98%.

The campus contains a large tract of undeveloped land along the Puget Sound waterfront, much of it being second growth evergreen forest, which is of use to the students and faculty of the campus as a research and natural area. The entire campus comprises about 408 hectares (1,010 acres), much of it forested land. This total includes 11 hectares (27 acres) of southern Puget Sound tidelands. In addition to the main campus, there is also an organic farm as well as an urban campus located in Tacoma, Washington.

360° panorama on the campus of The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. This panorama features the Daniel J. Evans Library and the clock tower set in a brick courtyard lined with trees.

Daniel J. Evans Library

The main library on The Evergreen State College campus is the Daniel J. Evans Library, named after the former governor that signed the legislation that founded Evergreen, and was also the school's second president. The library is home to some 428,000 volumes and 750,000 print and media items overall. The library hosts a number of small viewing rooms and also maintains special collections of rare books, archival material, and government documents. The Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center (QuaSR), a tutoring center for the sciences, is located on the first floor of the library. The library is located in the Information Technology wing of the Daniel J. Evans Library Building. This wing is also the home for Media Services and a large Academic Computing center.

Environmental reserve and beach

The Evergreen State College has 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land that is mostly second growth forest. The entire campus serves as a natural laboratory for scientific field research and provides inspiration for creative work. Throughout the 1,000-acre (400 ha) forest there are multiple trails leading to a variety of locations throughout the reserve and to Evergreen Beach. The coastal habitat is characterized by steep bluffs, gravelly beaches with many washed-up logs, and the marine intertidal zone which extends up to 150 feet (46 m) out into Puget Sound's Eld Inlet during low tides. Evergreen has approximately 3,300 feet (1.0 km) of untouched beach. Students use the beach for scientific study and as a place to get away from their studies and relax. There are multiple trails leading to the beach and a small road that leads to the only building at the beach and small boat ramp. The bluffs range from 15 to 60 feet (5 to 20 m) in height.

Organic farm

The Evergreen Organic Farm annual crop bed space comprises 38,000 square feet (0.35 ha), slightly less than 1 acre (0.40 ha). The farm also produces apples and other perennial food crops, and tends to a flock of hens. Produce is sold to the Evergreen community through CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) shares, or from a farm-stand on Red Square every Tuesday and Thursday from 11am to 5pm during the growing season. Produce is sometimes sold to campus food services Aramark and the Flaming Eggplant Cafe. Excess produce is available to students in the interdisciplinary program, titled "The Practice of Sustainable Agriculture."

Proceeds from the sale of the crops are used to finance farm projects, as well as purchase seeds and equipment. Two of the greenhouses, the cooler, compost shed, farm fencing and orchard are just a few projects made possible from farm sales. Another use for money generated on the farm is to fund student projects. Many of these projects are related to horticultural aspects of food crops.

The farm production area is divided into sections that are used to delineate cropping areas for specific types of crops. The farm practices a strict five year crop rotation. The rotating of crops creates plant diversity over time as opposed to plant diversity in space. The rotation has four general crop categories with each category occupying a given space for one growing season.

Crop rotation is just one method the farm uses to maintain diversity in the field. Other methods employed are the use of undersown ground covers and inter-cropping different types of vegetable crops. Creating diversity in the field is one of the cornerstones of sustainable agriculture. Diversity provides non-toxic, sustainable crop protection against plant diseases and insect pests.

The Evergreen Organic Farm hosts a large composting facility that composts all compostables from the campus. It also hosts a Biodiesel facility, a community garden, demeters garden, and a large farmhouse that was partially built by students.

Public service centers

The Evergreen State College is the home of the Longhouse Education and Cultural Center. The Longhouse exists to provide service and hospitality to students, the college, and surrounding Native communities. With a design based on the Northwest Indigenous Nations' philosophy of hospitality, its primary functions are to provide a gathering place for hosting cultural ceremonies, classes, conferences, performances, art exhibits and community events. The Longhouse provides the opportunity to build a bridge of understanding between the regions' tribes and visitors of all cultures. The public service mission of the Longhouse is to promote indigenous arts and cultures through education, cultural preservation, and economic development.

It is also the administrative home for the Washington State Institute for Public Policy. The Institute’s mission is to carry out practical, non-partisan research—at legislative direction—on issues of importance to Washington State. The Institute conducts research using its own policy analysts and economists, specialists from universities, and consultants. Institute staff work closely with legislators, legislative and state agency staff, and experts in the field to ensure that studies answer relevant policy questions.

Other notable public service centers on campus are:

• Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education
• Center for Community-Based Learning and Action

Evergreen teams, nicknamed athletically as the Geoducks, are part of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC). Men's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, crew, and track & field; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, soccer, crew, track & field and volleyball. A geoduck is a clam native to the region.

Former men's soccer star Joey Gjertsen, who led the Geoducks to the 2004 NAIA National quarterfinals, has gone on to have professional success with the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer. Shawn Medved previously had success in the MLS, playing for D.C. United and the San Jose Clash. Medved scored the tying goal in the 1996 MLS Cup as D.C. went on to the championship.

Evergreen also had a strong run in men's basketball during the first decade of the 21st Century, winning the 2002 Cascade Collegiate Conference championship and reaching the NAIA national tournament in '02, '09 and '10. Forward Mike Parker from the '02 team has become one of the top professional players in Japan and several other basketball players have gone on to professional careers overseas.

The Seminar II building, completed in 2004

Student groups include The Cooper Point Journal (Student-run newspaper), KAOS-FM (Evergreen's community radio station), Evergreen Socialist Alternative (Part of the national Socialist Alternative organization), the Giant Robot Appreciation Society (Japanese animation club), a branch of the International Solidarity Movement, The Evergreen Shellfish Club, Evergreen State Permaculture, Freedom First Dance Collective (formerly known as the Evergreen Dance Co-Op), The Evergreen Players' club (Magic the Gathering), Hip-Hop Congress, The Electronic Music Collective, Abolish Cops and Prisons, and Riot to Follow Theater Productions; Evergreen Young Americans for Liberty, among many others.

Evergreen is notable for having produced a number of graduates in fields including animation, comedy, and music. Among notable alumni are mycologist Paul Stamets, cartoonists Matt Groening, Craig Bartlett, and Lynda Barry, comedians Josh Blue and Michael Richards, musicians Macklemore, Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker, Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Conrad Keely, Tay Zonday, John Wozniak, and Martin Courtney, reality television star Steve Thomas, writers Benjamin Hoff, Judith Moore, Tom Maddox and Wendy C. Ortiz. Lynda.com founder Lynda Weinman, peace activist and diarist Rachel Corrie, professional soccer players Shawn Medved and Joey Gjertsen, and United States Representative for Washington's 10th congressional district Dennis Heck.