The Evergreen State College (TESC)
Wikipedia
The Evergreen State College is an accredited public liberal arts college and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. It is located in Olympia, Washington, USA. Founded in 1967, Evergreen was formed to be an experimental and non-traditional college. Faculty issue narrative evaluations [see below my experience] of students' work rather than grades, and Evergreen organizes most studies into largely interdisciplinary classes that generally constitute a full-time course load.
Evergreen offers a Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Bachelor of Science, Master of Environmental Studies, Master of Public Administration, and Master in Teaching. In 2012, there were 4,509 students, 4,193 of whom were undergraduates, and 240 faculty members. Read more
Unfortunately narrative evaluations (Wikipedia) work better in theory than practice. The modern online job application process is designed around numeric grade values, not narrative evaluations (TESC). See my unsuccessful letter to the college about my experience with Evergreen's narrative evaluation, and response of Don Bantz, former Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Faculty Handbook TESC
TESC Progress Report 10/1/2010
Washington Administrative Code (WAC)
- EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE, THE, Title 174 WAC
- Student Conduct Code, Title 174-123 WAC
- Social contract-College philosophy Title 174-121-010 WAC
TESC not the "antidote" to Penn I imagined
My Perfect Education: Penn/Wharton and TESC
The Evergreen State College was not exactly the "antidote" to Penn I imagined in my letter to President Amy Gutmann.
Evergreen was an introduction to liberal academia.
Prior to moving west, I was accepted as a patient of Dr. Robert W. Blakeley, Ph.D., Professor of Speech Pathology, and Director of the Craniofacial Disorders Program at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. There I met Dr. Ningyi Li, visiting from China.
At Evergreen I studied psychology, sociology and craniofacial anomalies. This was the basis for my "FaceMatters" webpage.
Public discussion at Evergreen about disability was not always well-received. One time after I presented a paper on congenital craniofacial anomalies, a student approached me after class and apologized for some of the comments from the class. Her parents were disabled, she said.
Another example played out in the school paper, the Cooper Point Journal (CPJ), in response to student Nomy Lamm's writing about living as an amputee. Nomy's left foot was amputated at age three, and she wrote about the difficulty with her leg prosthesis. Nomy is a singer-songwriter and political activist, a self-described "bad ass, fat ass, Jew, dyke amputee". A letter Nomy wrote me is framed on a wall in my office, along side her CD Anthem. Nomy wrote in part,
"…the main reason that i'm writing you is that i really wanna thank you for all the writing you did in the cpj this year, it was really great to have an ally in that fucking place. i kept meaning to write you every time i read something you wrote or some response to your writing ("what is your problem nomy and neil?" heh heh) i thought everything you said was really right-on and i'm really glad that you were so persistent about it…it was especially good for me to get yr support on the issue of disability, since that ' s something i've only recently "come out" about, so to speak, and as i said in my column, it's really hard for me to talk about. i really can't tell you how important it was to me to have your support, and i'm sorry it took me so long to try to contact you cuz honestly, knowing that you were on campus and doing shit was totally vital to my survival there…"
When I met Ronny Cooper in the Marion County Jail, a man whose leg had been amputated, I recalled Nomy's song Fly (I walked a whole block for you) about her pain and disability with a prosthetic leg. Ronny also had a prosthetic leg. Ronny was awaiting trial for taking a vehicle from a woman at a gas station. He was released too soon from a psychiatric hospital, he said. The American Civil Liberties Union would not represent Ronny. Convicted at trial without legal counsel, Ronny was sentenced to life in prison. A lawyer friend of the judge was on the jury.
Nomy Lamm, a pretty pretty princess. Liner notes to Fly (Anthem). I earned a Bachelor of Arts at Evergreen December 16, 1995.
Justice Network office, Ocala, FL
Evergreen is a progressive, public liberal arts and sciences college located in Olympia, Washington, in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.
The Evergreen State College has had a large influence on the culture and economy of Olympia as well as its surrounding areas. Read more
Cooper Point Journal, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy NW, Olympia, WA
President John Carmichael
The Evergreen State College
Dr. John Carmichael was appointed as Evergreen’s seventh president in 2021. John has deep ties to the college, having earned Bachelor of Arts and Master of Public Administration degrees from Evergreen. He joined the college’s staff in 1998 as a secretary and served in a variety of roles for over more than 20 years, including chief of staff and secretary to the Board of Trustees and as vice president for finance and operations. John earned a Ph.D. in Education and Human Resource Studies from Colorado State University and attended Harvard’s Finance for Senior Executives program. John is a lifelong resident of Washington state and lives in Olympia with his husband, Michael Partlow. Read more
Link to my Rachel Corrie page
Tribute to Niels Skov, Danish Resistance Fighter
In Memoriam
Niels Skov
Faculty emeritus Niels Skov, who taught at Evergreen from the 1970s until the 1990s, and led a life distinguished by heroism, adventure, and accomplishment, died on January 5 at the age of 95.
A Danish resistance fighter during WWII, Skov survived capture by the Nazis to become an engineer, oceanographer, author, businessman, and teacher to many Evergreen students.
Born in Ribe, Denmark, he actively opposed the 1940 Nazi occupation of his country and was among the earliest participants in the Danish underground movement. Arrested at the age of 24 by the Gestapo, he was tortured and imprisoned at a series of German concentration camps before escaping and joining American forces for the remainder of the war. His 1997 memoir, Letter to My Descendants, chronicles his experiences during this harrowing period.
In peacetime, Skov returned home, earning a mechanical engineering degree from the Teknikum of Copenhagen in 1947. Soon after, he immigrated to the U.S. He initially pursued a business career, co-founding and managing a consulting firm that ultimately operated in 10 countries. In the 1960s, he changed course, re-entering school to be become an educator, and he completed his master’s and doctoral degrees in physical oceanography.
Skov, who was fluent in four languages, joined Evergreen in 1972. Over the next two decades, he instructed students in many different subjects—from agriculture, energy systems, and oceanography to business, writing, and the philosophy of science. Faculty member Drew Buchman described him as "a real Renaissance man."
Evergreen’s trustees conferred emeritus status in 1994 recognizing Skov as "an enthusiastic, creative, committed, intellectually energetic colleague who provided faculty and students alike the benefit of his keen insight, rigor, judgment, and experience over a broad range of disciplines and thought."
He is survived by his wife, Diane ’83; six children, and five grandchildren. To commemorate his life, donations can be made to Evergreen’s Niels Skov Scholarship, established in his honor.
Evergreen’s Founding President Charles McCann Dies at 89
Evergreen News
July 10, 2015
On Wednesday, July 8 founding President of The Evergreen State College Charles McCann passed away at his home in Olympia. He was 89 years old. McCann was appointed to the
Evergreen presidency by the college's Board of Trustees in 1968 after the Washington State Legislature passed a bill in 1967 authorizing the college. He served as Evergreen’s president until 1977,
when he stepped down to join the faculty and turn over the presidency to former Washington Governor, Daniel J. Evans. McCann continued to be involved with Evergreen after he retired from the faculty
in 1991, teaching classes and establishing an endowed scholarship at the college, the Barbara and Charles McCann Scholarship.
Prior to working at Evergreen, McCann earned a Ph.D. in English from Yale University. He first joined the faculty at Central Washington State College (now Central Washington University) in 1956, where he progressed from an associate professorship to Chairman of the Department of English. He became assistant to the president in 1965 and later, Dean of Faculty. Read more
David Rutledge, Evergreen faculty 1988 to 2012
Native American House of Welcome, a/k/a the Evergreen Longhouse
David Rutledge
David Rutledge obituary
December 31, 1946 - June 19, 2019
David Rutledge, beloved husband and father, passed away on June 19, 2019. He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Amy, and their children, Dana, Ellen, Annagrace, Cedar, and Benn.
He was born on December 31, 1946, in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Don and Beth (Van Druff) Rutledge. His family moved to Weeping Water, where, even though he was a child, David was impressed by his grandfather’s collection of Indian arrowheads. Grandpa Glen Rutledge walked in fields each spring where the freshly plowed earth exposed the artifacts. He then mounted the arrowheads on a large piece of plywood, which he had hung on his living room wall. Glen was displaying his own Native American heritage.
The family moved again. This time to Seward. After graduating from Seward High School in Seward, Nebraska, in 1965, he attended the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He got his B.A. in Liberal Arts in January1970. After working for a few years as a psychiatric aide, and then a teaching assistant, he went back and got his Master’s of Science in Developmental Psychology from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1975.
David relocated to Seattle (1975-1977) and worked as a teaching assistant at the University of Washington, Seattle, in the Department of Educational Psychology, where he trained in counseling. Then further travels took him to The Ocean Park Project in Venice, California, where he taught from 1977 to 1979. For a few months in 1979, he lived in Port Orford, Oregon, where he managed an apartment building and wrote grants.
During this time, David thought about what he wanted to do with his life and felt the strong memory of his grandfather’s display of arrowheads. The Native American heritage was not only his grandfather’s, but his as well.
Then David made the move to San Francisco, California, in February 1980, where he met Amy. They married in October 1980. He attended UC Berkeley from 1981 to 1987 and was the first in his class to graduate with his Ph.D. in Psychology. He wrote his dissertation on an interpretation of the Oglala Sioux Emergence Myth with its implications in psychotherapy.
David and Amy had their first two children, Dana and Ellen.
All in 1987, the family of four moved from Berkeley to Gold Beach, Oregon, then to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, for David to work on post-doctoral research. At the University of North Carolina, David worked with Dr. James L. Peacock in the Anthropology Department, doing more research into the Native Culture of North America.
In 1988, the family moved back out West. This time the destination was Olympia, Washington, where David simultaneously continued his post-doctoral research and began his teaching career at The Evergreen State College.
The next year, 1989, they had another child, Annagrace, and bought a house. Two years later, the house was too small and they relocated to a larger home with some acreage for homeschooling and two more children, Cedar and Benn.
Homeschooling was something David wanted for his children so they could learn at their own pace and have each person’s interests encouraged. He also bought tapes and books of Native American stories to share with his children.
David worked as faculty at The Evergreen State College (TESC) from 1988 to 2012. He taught many different courses with a number of different faculty, as is the standard at TESC. For many years, he taught in Native American Studies, where students used the lifestyle of Native Culture as the way of learning. He spent two years as faculty in the Master’s in Teaching course, training future teachers. He taught psychology courses. He taught math. And he even taught a summer school course for a number of years where students prepared to hike and camp for two weeks around the Wonderland Trail at the base of Mount Rainier.
He loved teaching. Over 24 years at TESC, he had nearly 2,000 students. It was the career he worked so hard to have.
He retired at the age of 65 in 2012 and spent time reading, his favorite pastime. He loved traveling around Washington State, where there are beaches and mountains. He traveled with his family and went to San Francisco and Phoenix as well.
David was also a part time consultant to a couple of local counselors, advising one how to state the intent of the type of counseling she would do in her new career, and to the other gave insight on how to treat clients who were a challenge for him, as David had a different perspective from his in-depth knowledge of Sigmund Freud’s and Carl Jung’s theories and principles.
Throughout his adult life, David ran for exercise. He loved the West Coast for less extreme weather than the Nebraska weather he grew up in. The Pacific Northwest was his favorite place. "Rain," he explained about enjoying the wet winters, "doesn’t need to be shoveled."
David is survived by his wife, Amy Rutledge; and children, Dana Rutledge, Ellen Rutledge, Annagrace Rutledge, Cedar Rutledge, and Benn Rutledge.
To anyone who would like to share memories of David, know his family would appreciate them.
Tribute to David Rutledge by Neil Gillespie
Tribute to David Rutledge by Neil Gillespie
David taught at The Evergreen State College where I was his student in September, 1995 in a Jungian Studies Program. I liked David and his style of teaching. The class was held in the Native American House of Welcome that had just opened at Evergreen. The program explored the languages of the inner life. Today I was going through my papers from David's class that I still have from 30 years ago. That shows how much I valued David as a teacher, and my time at Evergreen. My condolences to his family. David had a good life, well lived. (March 26, 2025)
David Rutledge eval, Gillespie Jungian S[...]
Adobe Acrobat document [1.1 MB]
Print