Les Purce Biography
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 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 high quality of Evergreen's sustainability commitment has been recognized by national media, including Grist Magazine, which in 2007 rated Evergreen among the top 15 Green colleges and universities. In 2007, Dr. Purce joined 250 other college and university presidents in making the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment and formally committing to sharply reduce and eventually eliminate all of the college's global warming emissions. Evergreen also recently accepted the Governor's Award for Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Practices, the state's top environmental honor. The award highlighted Evergreen's Seminar II building, Washington 's first publicly funded education facility certified Gold by Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The building makes use of natural ventilation, recycled and sustainable materials, and green roofs.
As part of Evergreen's broad liberal arts education mission, Dr. Purce encourages community engagement, curricular innovations and academic programs that educate about social justice issues through the liberal arts and sciences. With Dr. Purce's support, The Evergreen State College vigorously promotes and pursues the values of diversity and equity. Dr. Purce is currently active in the nationwide Focus the Nation effort to achieve awareness of global warming challenges and to examine the social justice impacts of climate change. Annually, Dr. Purce hosts the college's Diversity Series, a college-wide educational forum that examines issues of diversity, social justice and equity through the lenses of the arts, sciences, and the humanities. Dr. Purce has also committed the college to sponsor the 2008 Thurston County observance of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday, and the Latino Youth Summit, an annual college recruitment and community outreach effort of the Hispanic Roundtable, which Evergreen will host in 2010.
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. Students at The Evergreen State College reported higher than average engagement on all benchmark measures of the 2007 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which included academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, student-faculty interaction, enriching educational experiences, and a supportive campus environment. 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.