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Press Release

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! 

 

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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.
 

Press Release

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.

Joel Pearson, Greener alum and top-notch cross country coach joins Evergreen’s athletic department beginning April 1, 2023. 
 
Pearson comes to the college from the University of Arkansas, Little Rock where he was the distance coach for the Trojans’ Outdoor Track and Field team. Before coaching at the University of Arkansas, he coached at Pratt Community College in Kansas, where he led their cross country and track teams. He came to Pratt after being the head coach for Mountlake Terrace High School’s Cross Country and Track and Field teams. He also led programs at Meridian Community College, Kennesaw State, North Carolina S&T State University and was the Director of Track and Field Operations at the University of Iowa. 
 
The list of successes under his coaching is impressive and he’s helped develop several all-Americans and National Champions.  
 
“We are thrilled to have Joel join Evergreen,” said  Zeb Hoffman, Assistant Intercollegiate Athletic Director for The Evergreen State College. “He has helped mold several all-Americans, National Champions and school record-holders in his past coaching position and his vision will help develop a world-class cross country and track and field program here at the college.”
 
Pearson is a native of Ferndale, Washington and received his undergraduate degree from The Evergreen State College and his graduate degree in sports science from Cardinal Stritch University. Running and distance is in his blood as he is the son of former American 50-mile record holder and national champion, Jim Pearson. 
 
In December 2022, Evergreen announced it would be adding a cross country team as well as men’s and women’s wrestling to its athletics program to complement the college’s men’s and women’s soccer, basketball, track and field and women’s volleyball. 
 
Entrepreneurs, Kim Kaufman and Jimmy Goldsmith, have made a $150,000 commitment to provide Evergreen with $50,000 per year for the next three years to support the new wrestling and cross country teams.  Kaufman is an Evergreen graduate and her husband, Goldsmith, has a deep experience in the sports industry. 
 
It is estimated that the expansion of Evergreen’s athletics programming, combined with other investments in existing sports teams, should yield more than 100 additional students over the next three years. 
 
For more information about Evergreen athletics, please visit www.gogeoducks.com.

A little more than halfway through the legislative session, we are now past the point where new bills can be introduced other than those necessary for a budget. This is a time where the Senate is hearing bills passed by the House, and the House those passed by the Senate.

Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for the state’s March 20 revenue forecast, which will be used by legislators to shape their budget proposals. The legislature then has until the end of session April 23 to finalize a budget for the state, which will include funding for Evergreen.

Companion bills HB 1291 and SB 5238 that allow Evergreen student employees and those at regional universities to collectively bargain like their counterparts at the University of Washington and Washington State University remain viable. Evergreen supports this legislation.

A bill which gave the Department of Corrections more concrete guidance around prison education did not make it out of the House. The bill was not necessary for Evergreen’s expanding work to assist incarcerated students in achieving their four-year degrees. We continue to engage with legislators from all parts of the political spectrum to educate about and advocate for Evergreen. Evergreen President John Carmichael, Executive Vice President Dexter Gordon and Director of Government Relations Sandy Kaiser attended the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast March 10, connecting with policymakers at one of the most bipartisan annual events on the legislative calendar.

Evergreen’s 2023-2025 budget and growing enrollment were main topics of discussion in a March 10 meeting with Rep. Steve Bergquist (D-Renton), who sits on the House Appropriations Committee.

Evergreen staff and students will be appearing to brief and testify on student fees and wrestling programs in coming days, as we await news on our next budget.

Dr. Maxine Mimms will be celebrated 4-8 p.m., Saturday, March 4 at The Evergreen State College’s Tacoma Campus. This event doubles as a Founder’s Day event and a birthday celebration for the Evergreen, Tacoma founder. 

Dr. Mimms began teaching at The Evergreen State College in 1972. She started teaching working adults college-level coursework at her kitchen table in the historic Hilltop neighborhood and it was at that table where Evergreen’s Tacoma Campus was born.  

Evergreen-Tacoma became an official campus for The Evergreen State College in 1982 and in 2001 it moved to its current location of 1210 6th Avenue.  

Dr. Mimms developed the Tacoma program with a deliberate mission to provide a college education to working and adult learners – especially those living in the inner city.  

“Dr. Mimms is the essence of community and her vision of transforming the life of the community she lives in is something that should be celebrated not just in collaboration with her birthday, but every day,” said Dr. Dexter Gordon, Executive Vice President for The Evergreen State College. “At 95 years young, she still works tenaciously to remove educational and economic barriers and make college available where and to whom, it historically wasn’t.” 

“Her work has resulted in college degrees for thousands who have walked through the doors of Evergreen, Tacoma,” shared Dr. Marcia Tate Arunga, Dean for Evergreen, Tacoma. “The faculty and staff strive every day to continue her living legacy to the students of Evergreen’s Tacoma campus and the Hilltop community.” 

Attendees at the Founder’s Day celebrations will enjoy music, spoken word and of course, be part of the birthday honors for Dr. Maxine Mimms who is turning 95.  

To learn more about Evergreen’s Tacoma campus, please visit its website.  

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