Dr. Thomas L. (Les) Purce
Dr. Thomas L. (Les) Purce has served as president of The Evergreen State College, a nationally recognized, public liberal arts college, since July 1, 2000. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Extended University Affairs and Dean of Extended Academic Programs at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. He had been with WSU since 1995.
Accepting the Evergreen appointment was something of a homecoming for Dr. Purce. He was Executive Vice President at the college from 1992 to 1995. He also served as Interim President of Evergreen for two years before that. He came to Evergreen in 1989 as Vice President for College Advancement.
Before coming to Evergreen, Dr. Purce was at Idaho State University as Special Assistant to the President and Director of the Research Park and Economic Development. Dr. Purce's career in the state of Idaho spanned 15 years in both the public and private sectors. He was the first black elected official in the state, serving as city councilman and then mayor of Pocatello. He later served as Director of Idaho's departments of Administration and Health and Welfare under Governor John Evans.
In the private sector, he served as partner and chief operating officer of Power Engineering Inc., one of the fastest growing electrical engineering firms in the Northwest.
Dr. Purce holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology, a Master of Arts degree in Education, and a Doctor of Counselor Education from Idaho State University. He also attended Harvard University's Institute for Educational Management.
Dr. Purce is President of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (2001-2002), serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and serves on numerous boards. At Evergreen, Dr. Purce oversees a $70 million annual budget, approximately 300 full-time and part-time faculty, and more than 400 staff members and administrators.
The Evergreen State College serves more than 4,000 students from its main campus in Olympia, at a satellite campus in Tacoma, and through a unique reservation-based program for Native American students at five locations around the Puget Sound. Since opening its doors in 1971, it has become a national leader in the development of interdisciplinary learning communities that combine and coordinate several academic subjects that are traditionally taught separately. More than 400 colleges and universities across the country now model parts of their curricula on Evergreen's innovative approach to interdisciplinary study in the arts and sciences. The high quality of Evergreen's programs has been recognized by national media, including U.S. News and World Report magazine, which in 2000 rated Evergreen first among public regional liberal arts colleges in the West and fourth among all Western liberal arts colleges. The Association of American Colleges & Universities selected Evergreen last year as one of the top 16 schools in the country that provide a liberal arts undergraduate education with vision and innovation. The 2000 National Survey of Student Engagement ranked Evergreen in the 90th percentile for level of academic challenge among seniors and in active and collaborative learning among first-year and senior students.