The public is invited to a vibrant and meaningful celebration of Juneteenth at The Evergreen State College’s Tacoma campus from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 11.
This year’s celebration will feature Evergreen’s Executive Vice President, Dr. Dexter Gordon as keynote speaker, and music by Owour Arunga.
The event celebrating freedom is occurring a week before the actual Juneteenth holiday and will honor the day in 1865 when Union troops finally freed enslaved African Americans from Galveston Bay and across Texas, two and a half years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
“This celebration will serve as a platform for community connection, celebration and education,” explained Dr. Dexter Gordon. “We hope that community members will come and help us as we honor the past, celebrate the present and work towards a future that’s rooted in equality and justice for everyone.”
Washington state passed legislation in 2021 to make Juneteenth a legal state-paid holiday – in 2007, the state’s legislature had designated Juneteenth as a day of remembrance. After years of advocacy, President Biden signed legislation, also in 2021, that made Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. Both landmark pieces of legislation signify a crucial step in recognizing the long struggle for freedom and equality endured by African Americans in the U.S.
Evergreen’s Tacoma Campus is located at 1210 6th Avenue in the heart of the Hilltop Neighborhood. For more information about the Tacoma campus and its programs, visit evergreen.edu/Tacoma.
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Governor Jay Inslee has appointed Pamela MacEwan to Board of Trustees for The Evergreen State College.
MacEwan recently retired from her role as CEO of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange where she helped lead the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Washington state, standing up a unique health exchange for consumers and making health care available for thousands of previously uninsured Washingtonians. Under her leadership, the Exchange launched the first public option health insurance program in the nation and won federal permission to use the Exchange to cover undocumented workers.
“I’ve always wanted to have the opportunity to reinvest some of what Evergreen invested in me as a student,” MacEwan said. “Enrollment numbers are continuing to move in the right direction and serving on the Board during such a time of reawakening for not only the college but everywhere, is an honor.”
“Pam is the epitome of who Evergreen students are,” said Dr. John Carmichael, “She took what she learned during her days as a student at the Olympia campus and turned it into a lifetime of public service – a service that continues even after her retirement. We are excited to have her return to the college as a Board of Trustee member.”
She was previously Senior Vice President for Public Affairs and a member of the executive leadership team at Group Health Cooperative for 16 years, where she led policy, governmental relations, communications, media relations, consumer governance, and government programs strategy. Her prior roles in health care included serving as a Commissioner on the State Health Services Commission and leading a statewide coalition effort to pass comprehensive health reform legislation.
She is a proud graduate of the Evergreen State College, class of 1976. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching from Brown University and studied public administration in the MPA program at the University of Washington. She lives in Seattle with her husband, John (Spider) Burbank, a 1977 Evergreen graduate. They enjoy biking and cross-country skiing and spending time with their two adult children - Megan, a journalist, and Owen, a software engineer.
For more information on Evergreen's Board of Trustees, visit the college's Board webpage.
The Evergreen State College announced they have been selected as an education partner for Amazon’s Career Choice program, providing Amazon’s hourly employees' access to undergraduate degrees.
“The Evergreen State College is excited to become a part of Amazon’s career choice program,” said Evergreen's President John Carmichael. “This program removes barriers to education and provides pre-paid tuition for Amazon employees to learn new skills for career success. Providing a pathway for expanding an employee’s educational path is an amazing investment.”
The Evergreen State College is a place dedicated to empowerment, collaboration, creative problem solving and making unlikely connections that change the way we see the world. It is a place flexible enough to adapt to society’s challenges and prepares people to confidently meet their futures. The college offers unique programs and schedules for adult learners as well as internships, individual learning contracts, the Professional and Continuing Education Program and a new Early Childhood Education program at the Tacoma campus.
Amazon’s Career Choice program is an educational benefit that empowers employees to learn new skills for career success at Amazon or elsewhere. The program meets individual learners where they are on their education journey through a variety of education and upskilling opportunities including pre-paid college tuition, industry certifications designed to lead to in-demand jobs, and foundational skills such as English language proficiency, high school diplomas, and GEDs. In the U.S., the company is investing $1.2 billion to upskill more than 300,000 employees by 2025 to help move them into higher-paying, in-demand jobs.
Amazon’s Career Choice program has a rigorous selection process for third-party partner educators, choosing partners focused on helping employees through their education programs, assisting them with job placements, and offering education that leads to career success.
“We’re looking forward to The Evergreen State College coming on board as an education partner for Career Choice, adding to the hundreds of best-in-class offerings available to our employees,” said Tammy Thieman, Global Program Lead of Amazon’s Career Choice program. “We’re committed to empowering our employees by providing them access to the education and training they need to grow their careers, whether that’s with us or elsewhere. We have intentionally created a partner network of third-party educators and employers committed to providing excellent education, job placement resources, and continuous improvements to the experience. Today, over 130,000 Amazon employees around the world have participated in Career Choice and we’ve seen first-hand how it can transform their lives.”
For more information on Evergreen’s partnership with Amazon’s Career Choice, visit https://info.evergreen.edu/college-partnership-amazon-career-choice?hs_preview=wrIJsRYq-110007574327
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On Thursday, May 4, 2023, as part of its college-wide Forever Green fundraising campaign, champions of The Evergreen State College gathered on Tacoma’s waterfront for the annual Art of Giving Gala and Auction where together they gave $395,000 to support the college’s scholarship fund.
This year’s event-themed “Reasons to Believe,” launched with a four-week virtual scholarship drive including a $10,000 dollar-for-dollar match donated by Evergreen parents Betsy and John Donnelly and concluded with the gala on May 4. Gifts to the Art of Giving benefit the Evergreen Scholarship Fund which provides renewable scholarships that increase in size as students near graduation. In addition, the funds raised will move Evergreen closer to its $55+ million-dollar campaign goal. To date, the five-year campaign which concludes on June 30, 2024, has raised more than $49 million dollars.
“Evergreen serves students who go on to lead, to serve, to solve problems, and to build more just communities,” said Dr. John Carmichael, President of The Evergreen State College, who addressed more than 200 gala goers. “We need these students regardless of their family or economic circumstances. We need them. And they need some help from us.”
Almost 35 percent of Evergreen students identify as low-income, and 22 percent are the first in their family to attend college. One of the goals of the Forever Green campaign is to double the amount of scholarship support provided to students. Onya Robertson a senior at Evergreen’s Tacoma campus shared, “This Evergreen education has allowed me to rebirth my dreams I thought I left behind many years ago. I learned with Evergreen that I get to decide the life I want, I get to show my children and everyone else watching, that they do not have to give up on their dreams. Because of Evergreen, I know the world is mine.”
“At the recent public launch of Evergreen’s inaugural college-wide $55 million-dollar fundraising campaign,” shared Dr. Dexter Gordon, Executive Vice President for Evergreen. “I noted that Evergreen has touched all our lives…students, alums, professors, community members…we all benefit from Evergreen's commitment to inclusive excellence. As I survey my years as an educator in higher ed, Evergreen continues to stand apart as the place of learning most alive to its responsibility to democracy as part of its larger public policy.”
From the stage, leading sponsor Washington State Employees Credit Union, spoke of the value of partnerships with organizations like Evergreen, “Washington State Employees Credit Union is a proud partner with The Evergreen State College in areas of financial education, student support, and scholarships.” said Suzanne Klenk, Financial Educator and Coach with Community Relations for WSECU. “It’s partnerships like this that allow us to do more….to be more. Through this partnership, we are not just a financial institution. We are a community partner and advocate for equity in education.”
The Evergreen State College Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to building an outstanding future for students. To learn how you can make a difference with a gift, visit the Forever Green webpage or email foundation@evergreen.edu.
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OLYMPIA – The Evergreen State College’s two-day Equity Symposium took place on April 19th and 20th. Each year, this event brings the Evergreen community together with speakers, performances, workshops and social events to inspire, teach and celebrate.
Students, staff and faculty attended sessions over the two days to continue building a vision of equity, belonging and social justice across the college’s two campuses and beyond. This year’s theme was “You Are Enough: Healing Towards Belonging and Collective Liberation.”
Check out photos from this year's Equity Symposium below!
Stay tuned for additional photos from ALOK's Keynote Address. See you next year at the Equity Symposium!
The Washington state legislature ended its 2023 session on April 23, passing robust operating and capital budgets that will strengthen Evergreen and enhance our support for students.
The budgets reflect Evergreen’s energetic advocacy on behalf of our students, staff and faculty. Many of them, along with Evergreen alumni and board members, engaged directly with legislators over the session. The budgets are also strong evidence of appreciation and respect for the work Evergreen is doing to raise enrollment and improve service to students.
A few budget highlights: we received funding for positions to help students with federal and state financial aid, administer the Native Pathways program, support underrepresented students and coordinate the Early Childhood Education program at Evergreen Tacoma.
Additional funds are earmarked for helping students meet basic needs, overhauling our student-facing IT systems and further developing our corrections education programs. A long-needed renovation of the SEM I building is fully funded, as well as minor works and maintenance accounts that pay the salaries of some staff. We received funding for increases in faculty and staff compensation, and another allocation for represented student workers.
In personal visits and public testimony over the four-month session, President John Carmichael, Director of Government Relations Sandy Kaiser and others made sure to let legislators know about our progress and ambitions for Evergreen.
Senators Mark Mullet, Yasmin Trudeau (a Greener), Emily Randall and Sam Hunt, who represents Evergreen in the 22nd Legislative District offered special support. Representatives Vandana Slatter and Mari Leavitt, along with our local representatives Beth Doglio and Jessica Bateman (a Greener) worked on our behalf throughout the session. There are many others who also helped us along the way.
Over the interim, we will be continuing to meet with key legislators to update them on the college and hear their views on higher education and Evergreen.
OLYMPIA – The Evergreen State College’s two-day Equity Symposium takes place this Wednesday and Thursday, April 19 and 20. Each year, this event brings the Evergreen community together with speakers, performances, workshops and social events to inspire, teach and celebrate.
This year’s theme is “You Are Enough: Healing Towards Belonging and Collective Liberation.” Students, staff and faculty will have the opportunity to attend sessions over the two days that symposium planners aim to continue building a vision of equity, belonging and social justice across the college’s two campuses and beyond.
The symposium starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 19 with Dr. Leticia Nieto who will lead an interactive plenary session until noon at the House of Welcome. Then for the next two days, Greeners will have their choice of several different sessions on topics from how to heal our relationship with the community post-pandemic, disability justice, how to engage some of the tensions around anti-racism work, to an Evergreen beach walk and aquarium activity.
Wednesday’s events conclude with the screening of the film Rhythms of the Land about Black farmers in the United States. At the end of the viewing, attendees will have the opportunity to talk with film director Dr. Gail P. Meyers.
The keynote event at 7 p.m. on Thursday, in the auditorium, is open and free to the public and features author, poet, comedian and public speaker, ALOK. They are internationally acclaimed, and their work explores themes of trauma, belonging and the human condition. In recognition of their work, they have been honored as the inaugural LGBTQ Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and awarded a GLAAD Media Award and Stonewall Foundation Visionary Award. Over the past decade, they have toured in more than 40 countries, most recently selling out their runs at the Soho Theatre in London, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Kennedy Performing Arts Center.
Although this event is free, tickets are required for entry. Ticket availability is limited as most of the 1,000 tickets have already been claimed.
For more information about Evergreen’s Equity Symposium, please visit the website.
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The Evergreen State College was awarded the Thurston County Chamber’s Green Business of the Year for a big business at an award ceremony on Wednesday, April 12.
The program assesses an applicant’s actions in seven key areas including:
- Green Business Practices
- Energy Efficiency
- Transportation & Community Trip Reduction
- Waste Reduction and Recycling
- Water Conservation
- Social Performance
- Sustainable Product Lifecycle
Evergreen has two campuses, one located on the shores of Eld Inlet and surrounded by a 1,000-acre forest, and the other is in Tacoma within the historic, urban Hilltop community. The college was established with sustainability in mind and a commitment to environmental education.
“Since 1971, we have been intentional about our campuses, being mindful of our built and natural environment, and constantly improving,” said Evergreen’s president, Dr. John Carmichael. “From our designated LEED gold-certified buildings, forest ecology, beach and salmon restoration projects, to the sustainable values woven into our business practices and academic curriculum in the classroom, it is a distinct honor to have the hard work of the college to be good stewards of the environment recognized with this award.”
Evergreen walks its talk around environmental stewardship by generating 35,000 kWh of solar power on an annual basis; is proud to be a 100 percent green power customer for both of its campuses; hosts electric vehicle charging stations; supports an active and engaged student-led Clean Energy Committee that supports the creation of models for climate solutions through collaborative on-campus research; deploys energy efficiency endeavors, recycling and composting programs in most buildings. A team of dedicated students, staff, and faculty are continuously learning and implementing new sustainability practices.
In recent years, Evergreen established two new centers – the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and Transformational Change developing social and sustainable businesses, entrepreneurial, and leadership skills, as well as the Center for Climate Action and Sustainability which focuses on just and equitable solutions to the climate crisis and a hub where students, faculty, staff and the surrounding community can come together in search of new ideas and solutions.The two centers continue to collaborate on climate change, sustainability, business, public policy, and more throughout Evergreen’s curriculum and beyond. Evergreen’s campus has over 700 acres of preserved, undeveloped lands that students use as a living laboratory and the college’s Master of Environmental Studies program provides a learning environment that invokes creativity and prepares the next generation of critical thinkers with the research skills required for professional environmental action work.
To learn more about The Evergreen State College, please visit evergreen.edu.
John Howard, Emeritus Professor of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London, Queer Studies scholar and author will be in Olympia and featured at two events on April 7 and 10, one of which is at The Evergreen State College.
Professor Howard will be featured at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 7 at the Olympia Film Society’s screening and discussion of “Electra,” (1964). Students showing their Evergreen ID can get tickets for $9.00.
He will then come to Evergreen’s Purce Hall at 3 p.m., Monday, April 10 for a public lecture titled, “Doing Queer History: Here and Now.”
Dr. Howard is the head of the Department of American Studies at King’s College London and is the author of eight books including his latest work, Truths of his Sleeve: The Times of Michael Cacoyannis (2022) and Men Like That: A Southern Queer History (2001).
“For the last 30 years, John Howard has shown with his work that the adage ‘we’re here, we’re queer,’ coined in 1990, really meant, ‘we’re not only here; we’re everywhere,” said Dr. Nancy Koppelman, Evergreen faculty member and sponsor of the Dr. Howard event, “Everywhere included places where no one seemed to be looking.”
Dr. Howard is interested in the historical production of human differences and their attendant inequalities. His work also assesses differences as productive mechanisms of affiliation, identity, coalition, and struggle. Informed by queer, feminist, materialist, critical race, and spatial theory, his research and teaching primarily engage with the categories now known as sexuality, gender, class, race, and region.
His work has received awards and commendations from the American Sociological Association, American Studies Association, Arts and Humanities Research Council, British Academy, Delfina Studio Trust, Fulbright Commission, Rockefeller Foundation, and King’s College London Students’ Union, among others.
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April 3 marks the 85th day of the of the 105-day 2023 legislative session. Initial House and Senate operating and capital budgets have been released, and they contain thoughtful and strategic investments for Evergreen. Compensation increases, money to renovate Sem I and some funding to expand prison education are among the highlights in both versions. Differences between them need to be negotiated and reconciled by the end of the session on April 23 to produce the final biennial budget.
The best place to view the different budget proposals is Washington’s fiscal information website, where you can go to “Latest Budget Proposals.” Click on the budget bill links. You can search the PDFs by using control-F, and then entering “The Evergreen State College,” using arrows to scroll through the documents.
These budget proposals are an important measure of how we’re doing and how we’re communicating our vision of Evergreen’s past, present and future to the state’s leaders. They reflect dozens of personal conversations we have been having with legislators about the progress Evergreen is making and our ambitions for our amazing students, faculty and staff.
On the heels of our public testimony and personal diplomacy earlier that week, the Senate Ways and Means capital budget committee voted on March 22 to strike an unusual capital budget proviso that would have mandated a group to study enrollment at Evergreen. The proviso would have complicated and in some ways duplicated the hard work already underway to raise enrollment. Senator Sam Hunt (D-Olympia), who represents Evergreen’s district, was the legislator who made the successful amendment to strike the proviso.
The additional good news is that the door is open to have some positive engagement over the coming months with the vice-chair and ranking member of that committee, Senators Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah) and Mark Schoesler (R-Ritzville). They are eager to see Evergreen continue to add students.
There is still some distance to go before a state budget is finalized. That's why we are still working hard to secure 1) additional funding for enrollment and student success initiatives; and 2) to improve the modernization of our IT systems. The House budget would provide funds for the first item and the Senate for the second.
While budgets have been the main arena for advocacy and action, there have been some highlights in other areas. Last week, the governor signed SB 5079, which requires the state to set any increase in resident tuition operating fees by October 1 each year for the following academic year. Previously, the state’s Office of Financial management provided this information in May the same year. That meant we couldn’t provide prospective students with the exact cost of tuition when we usually mail acceptance letters earlier in the year. This legislation eliminates that problem.
Last week, incoming Evergreen freshman wrestling champion Amari Brown offered his third testimony in favor of SSB 5687, which would offer grants to colleges to establish and support intercollegiate women’s and men’s wrestling. Evergreen’s women’s and men’s programs begin this fall. Legislators have credited Amari with getting this bill through the Senate and through the House higher education committee. It was passed on April 1 by the House appropriations committee and is now with the House rules committee for consideration.