Academic, Education and Student Activities
"Sustainability isn't just a bandwagon we're hopping onto. It's woven into the very fabric of our identity, and history, as an institution." President -Purce, 2007
Evergreen’s highly interdisciplinary model sets the stage for successful curricular work in sustainability. Our learning communities use whole systems thinking to approach the social and environmental aspects of sustainability. Furthermore, one of Evergreen’s core missions is to support community based learning with the goal of graduating students who are involved in creating a better world, both locally and globally.
One of the stated expectations of an Evergreen graduate is “A successful Evergreen graduate will understand that by giving of yourself you make the success of others possible. A thriving community is crucial to your own well-being. The study of diverse worldviews and experiences will help you to develop the skills to act effectively as a local citizen within a complex global framework.”
Integrating Sustainability Across the Curriculum Presentation
Curriculum for the Bioregion Report 2006 (PDF)
Curriculum for the Bioregion Web Site
Integrative Assignments (Word)
Presentation (PDF)
Sustainability Learning Outcomes (Word)
Sustainability Audits & Resources (PDF)
Sustainability and Justice Academic Planning Unit
The Sustainability and Justice planning unit (S&J) is a highly interdisciplinary clustering of faculty united by their commitment to "just sustainability", an emerging concept that reminds us to think about how sustainable practices can be developed with a dedication to mitigating inequality of disparate economic and environmental impacts, creating inclusive solutions and ensuring democratic participation. We want to strengthen the interactions between academic programs and the broader community (on campus and in the region) so that we enrich our teaching/learning experience and become more effective in the changes that are needed. Learn more:
For over 25 years, Evergreen has offered full-time interdisciplinary programs in energy studies, environmental design, and ecological agriculture. Among the highlights of these academic programs are:
Environmental Studies:
Evergreen Ecological Observation Network (EEON)
Starting in 2005, the EEON project has worked extensively with four major academic programs (IES: Land 2005/6, Field Ecology 2006, IES: Water, Energy and Forests – 2006/7, and Temperate Rainforests 2007) and four contract students to create baseline estimates of the carbon cycle within the TESC forest reserve. During summer of 2007, the EEON network completed its first measurements of annual carbon uptake by forests. This integrated student and faculty work has demonstrated important patterns in forest carbon storage. The implications of this work have widespread importance in understanding carbon offsets as they relate to global warming. Learn more:
Sustainable Agriculture Programs
The Evergreen State College offers full time, 3 quarter, agricultural programs aimed at providing students with the skills to manage a production agriculture facility and to become more knowledgeable about global and local agricultural practices, understanding agricultural systems, organic horticulture and small livestock production. Learn more...
Additionally, many student-produced initiatives have emerged through the curriculum over the last few years. A few examples include:
- Numerous citizen engagement projects in the greater community. The Suburban Studies Program “American Dream” produced a public hearing on affordable housing, which is increasingly unavailable. The Local Knowledge Program has continued to focus on arsenic and health problems in the Tacoma area.
- Faculty have designed and produced Sustainable Teaching Gardens both on and off campus.
- Sustainable Design programs have assisted with architectural design and planning for renovation of the Campus Activities Building to include a multitude of sustainable features.
- Native American Studies programs are focusing on survival/sustainability in place-locked communities and evaluating ways to increase and share knowledge in the growing challenge of climate change.
- Sustainable Futures: Transitions to the Post-Petroleum Age
- Sustainable Practices
- Sustainable Aquatic Ecosystems
- Toward a Sustainable Puget Sound
- Numerous science and Policy programs continue to focus extensively on climate change.
2007-08 End of Program Review
This year sustainability was added to the review for the first time. This is a further acknowledgement that sustainability should be an important consideration in every academic offering.
Learning Centers
- Center for Community Based Learning and Action: Established in 2004, the Center for Community-Based Learning and Action (CCBLA) supports the partnership of academic programs, students, and faculty, with community organizations. We aim to meet mutually agreed upon community needs to strengthen and enhance student learning through critical engagement.
- Curriculum for the Bioregion: a curriculum and faculty development initiative, “Curriculum for the Bioregion” is launching a five-year effort to engage 30 colleges and universities in the Puget Sound region in the integration of sustainability concepts across the general education curriculum.
- Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute at Evergreen: assists sovereign Pacific Rim Indigenous nations, the Northwest Indian Applied Research Institute at Evergreen has completed a comprehensive report on the impacts of climate change on indigenous peoples, and is taking leadership in recommending strategies, including use of the Treaty of Indigenous Nations process, to build political alliances and practical programs.
- The Labor Education and Research Center: The Center provides a place to think about what a movement for positive change in society should or could look like. The Center develops educational programs in collaboration with organized labor and labor support groups to address relevant issues to worker's unions and work lives.
- Organic farm and Center for Ecological Living and Learning: teaches sustainable agriculture in a hands-on environment
Community Outreach
- Evergreen collaborates with the Sustainable Community Roundtable of South Puget Sound
- Evergreen fosters and values its relationships with local community colleges
- Engages in numerous sustainability related community projects through its Center for Community Based Learning and Action (including the placement of sustainability interns throughout state and local government)
- Evergreen is part of a working alliance with the Governor’s Office to assist with Gov. Gregoire’s priority goals for sustainability
Student Led Sustainability Initiatives:
Clean Energy Initiative
In the winter of 2005, Evergreen students voted in favor (91% of those who voted, voted yes) of a self-imposed clean energy fee. As a result, every student currently pays $1.00 per credit, every quarter, in order to purchase Green Tags from Evergreen’s energy providers (Puget Sound Energy and Tacoma Public Utilities). Because of this student vote, Evergreen now offsets 100% of our electricity purchases with green, renewable sources. In 2006, the EPA recognized Evergreen as the 8th largest purchaser of green energy in the country. Ten-percent of the money collected from the Clean Energy Initiative goes into a Clean Energy Fund. The sole purpose of the Fund is to provide financial support for on campus renewable energy projects as determined by the Clean Energy Committee. Four of the Committee’s seven members are students.
Public Transportation
In partnership with Intercity Transit, student fees pay for and allow all students at Evergreen to ride the bus in and around Olympia and Thurston County an unlimited number of times each quarter by showing their student ID.
Bus Shelter Improvement Project
This project received funding from the Clean Energy Committee for the installation of solar powered lighting in each of the shelters at the McCann Plaza Loop, providing a safer waiting area and a learning lab for the community.
Late-Night Transit
The late-night transit program is designed to provide students with an alternative to driving, walking or bicycling, especially when it may be unsafe to do so at the end of the night. It is the mission of the late-night shuttle to provide basic, safe, and convenient transportation to Evergreen students. The program began in Spring of 2008 on weekends, and is paid for through a $3.00 per quarter student fee. The program is a joint venture between the Geoduck Student Union, Commute Trip Reduction, Parking Services, Student Activities and Police Services.
Flaming Eggplant Café
Will begin operation in 2008. The Flaming Eggplant Café will be student-run and use seasonal recipes based on food that is locally available and organically grown in order to provide more enjoyable, nutritional, tasty, and ecologically sound food to the Evergreen community. Students voted in favor of a one time $2 per credit fee to pay for the start up of this initiative.
CAB Green Building Redesign
Students voted in favor of a $5.75 per credit fee in order to ensure that the CAB redesign is a “green” building. Proposed features include:
- LEED Gold standards
- Sustainable Dynamic Atrium
- Edible Landscaping
- Solar Hot Water through the building, captures it, and uses it to reduce
- A photovoltaic solar demonstration project (being proposed)
- Composting Toilets
- Outdoor Performance Space
- Green Landscaping & Stream
- Rainwater Harvesting: will capture rainwater and use it to reduce domestic water consumption and irrigate outside gardens
- "Evergreen Stream"
- Natural Ventilation
- On-site Waste Water Treatment
Evergreen students affiliated with WashPIRG
- Helped pass the Clean Energy Initiative
- Traveled to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to aid in the relief effort. They raised money and purchased needed supplies to help with the reconstruction of the city.
- Worked to keep college affordable by rallying students to make phone calls to Congress in opposition to a $13 billion cut in federal financial aid funding. Evergreen students created a task force to ensure continuing involvement with the student aid campaign.
2007 National Survey of Student Engagement
Students at The Evergreen State College are more likely than those at comparable schools to say they get plenty of chances to work with peers and professors, according to the eighth annual National Survey of Student Engagement. The survey at 610 public and private schools nationwide, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, measures five benchmarks of student interaction — level of academic challenge, active and collaborative learning, interaction with faculty, chances for internships or travel, and a supportive campus environment. Randomly selected freshmen and seniors are asked a series of questions meant to measure various benchmarks, survey administrators said. In each, Evergreen got a higher score than other schools its size, according to the survey results. According to results shared by the college, as compared with other students in the survey, Evergreen students said:
- They more frequently asked questions and contributed to discussions in class and gave class presentations.
- They more often worked with other students on projects during class and outside of class.
- They were more likely to discuss ideas from reading and classes with others outside of class.
- They more often discussed ideas from class with faculty members outside of class.
- They more frequently received prompt feedback about their work than students at other institutions.