The Evergreen State College

[Abe Sargent]

I just came back from an interview here. Interesting and definitely unique. Anyone here go to that school? From Olympia? Have light to shed? I think it is very liberal, but unlike a lot of liberal school (like U of M) the people appear to be very genuine, friendly, and authentic. Students seem to really matter there, so I think i could work there, despite the far left nature o the institution. Does this jive with your experiences?

[oliegirl]

Is The Evergreen State College anything like The Ohio State University?

Never heard of it, sorry...but that was the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title.

[Young Drachma]

Go Geoducks!

[Young Drachma]

All I know about them is that they're a really highly regarded public liberal arts college. They don't give grades, faculty do student evaluations. Oh and apparently Tay Zonday went there. Not sure how that has anything to do with anything, tho.

Oh and on the last bit about the school being too liberal, I too work at a school that's too liberal and it's really not all that bad. I mean, it's mostly the students who are wacky about things like that. The staff are generally agnostic about such things and the faculty aren't, but even then, most are more focused on producing great work and leaving the other stuff up the in air. I generally know not to get into political discussions with them or I just let them rant if they feel like talking about Obama ad nauseum.

[molson]

Matt Groening went there too.

I wonder how the "no grade" thing works for students who move on to law school/graduate school. Law schools have a pretty rigid GPA/LSAT combined scale that determines who gets in.

Intellectual liberals can be the most close-minded people on the planet. Dark Cloud has the right approach - don't get involved and let them rant.

[billethius]

All I can tell you is that they're very well known for weed.

[Izulde]

I seem to remember being recruited by them coming out of high school, because I remember seeing the no grade clause and filed it away in the Don't Even Consider pile.

[GoSeahawks]

One of my brothers graduated there. Another one of my brothers used to go there to buy drugs.

Hippies in the Oly area are all called Greeners.

[molson]

I'm just dissapointed that you apparently have to "go somewhere" now to get weed in the Pacific Northwest. You guys are slipping.

[Abe Sargent]

Yeah, I know about the whole liberal thing, but Ann Arbor and u of M is very liberal, and blatently arrogant and pejorative. I didn;t get that at Evergreen.

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by GoSeahawks

Hippies in the Oly area are all called Greeners.

...and beyond Oly. I remember that term used liberally (pun intended).

[scooter]

This incident was food for thought on the local talk radio station for a while:

Riot at Evergreen State College damages deputy's car
By The Associated Press

TONY OVERMAN / THE OLYMPIAN VIA AP

Authorities secure a Thurston County Sheriff's patrol car that was destroyed by rioters at Evergreen State College in Olympia, early Friday morning.

OLYMPIA — A concert at The Evergreen State College ended in a disturbance in which a Thurston County sheriff's patrol car was overturned and looted.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Brandy Kessler said officers were pelted by rocks early today but there were no serious injuries.

A campus police officer responded at about 1:30 a.m. after a report of a fight inside the College Recreation Center, where the hip-hop group Dead Prez was performing, Kessler said. The officer arrested a man for investigation of misdemeanor assault.

Kessler said a crowd of about 200 surrounded the officer's car, demanding that the man be let go, so the officer called for backup.

"Some people blocked the police car that was trying to take the student away," said Dan Hilden, a 20-year-old Evergreen student who attended the concert.

Sheriff's deputies responded and removed the campus officer and her car and released the man, since they knew his identity and he could be summoned later to court.

A deputy's car was disabled and when it wouldn't start, the crowd overturned it, broke out the windows and wrote graffiti on it. Kessler said the deputy's laptop computer and a radar gun were stolen. No weapons were lost.

Troopers and a Thurston County SWAT team dispersed the crowd with no more arrests.

Samples of saliva and blood from people who cut themselves on the overturned car were being tested for DNA evidence that may help identify those responsible, Kessler said.

Thurston County Chief Criminal Deputy James Chamberlain said officers made the right call in releasing the man because of the unruly crowd.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Then there was the aftermath:

Evergreen State College divided after riot
By Nick Perry

OLYMPIA — The Evergreen State College is known across the country as a liberal, politically active campus where students are ready to challenge authority.

But when a riot broke out here three weeks ago in which a police cruiser was overturned and trashed, the mood changed. The campus has found itself divided over who is to blame. Already-strained relationships with police have deteriorated. And Evergreen has found itself with a mark against its name that may be difficult to erase.

On Wednesday, Thurston County sheriff's deputies arrested five suspected rioters on felony charges and were holding them overnight pending a hearing today. Four of them are Evergreen students, including two women who play college soccer and one man who plays baseball. The sheriff's office said it expects at least a dozen people will face felony charges by the time the investigation is complete.

The riot was the first in Evergreen's 37-year history and came as a shock to alumni, students and faculty, many of whom consider the close-knit school a bastion of peace. Students even agree to a "social contract" when they attend, which emphasizes intellectual freedom — as well as civility and respect for others.

The riot

Some Evergreen students have been at odds with Olympia police since last November, when dozens of people were arrested at the Port of Olympia during protests against military shipments to Iraq. Two students and a professor are among four people who are suing Olympia Police for more than $10 million, alleging officers' use of batons, pepper spray and other crowd-control methods amounted to brutality.

What's become known as the Valentine's Day Riot began peacefully enough Feb. 14 with a hip-hop concert in Evergreen's recreation center featuring the group Dead Prez. Organizers say 900 people showed up — about 500 Evergreen students and 400 other fans.

At two minutes past midnight, April Meyers, the lone college police officer on duty, got a call: Organizers had tried to toss out a man for allegedly smoking pot and groping women. But he'd thrown punches and now, half-a-dozen people were fighting.

By the time Meyers arrived, the suspect had left. But another man, who witnesses said also threw punches during the scuffle, remained. Meyers handcuffed him and led him away.

Someone in the crowd told the men on stage.

"Oh yeah? ... Say '[Expletive] the police! [Expletive] the police!' " the hip-hop group told the crowd, which chanted in response. But the group quickly changed its tone, video footage posted on the Internet shows:

"Hold up, hold up, it's not just '[Expletive] the police.' That's great. But now you've got to organize behind this here. Make sure you find out that man's name and after we organize and have some justice, right?"

Some concertgoers remained incensed at the arrest. They followed Meyers out, arguing that the man had simply tried to intervene and was singled out because he was African-American.

As Meyers led the man to her car, the crowd continued chanting and grew increasingly agitated. Meyers tried to reason with students and explain her actions but was soon surrounded by about 200 people. Several deputies from Thurston County arrived to help out, but they, too, soon felt overwhelmed.

Meyers tried, unsuccessfully, to drive away with the suspect. "Within a minute, I could hear my car getting struck," Meyers said. "The windows were getting covered in spit, and glass bottles were bouncing off the windshield."

Meyers, a former Seattle police officer, said she finds it ironic that part of the reason she moved to Evergreen is because she strives for social justice. "I wanted to be in an environment that questions authority and is socially conscious and active," she said. "I was attracted to the very thing that got me in trouble."

Meyers let the suspect go, but it went almost unnoticed by the crowd. By then, officers from the Olympia Police Department were also getting involved.

The Olympia officers moved in with batons and released pepper spray to try to extract the other officers. The situation exploded. Meyers described it as "Lord of the Flies-esque."

The officers retreated under what they describe as a hail of rocks, trash cans and branches that rioters used as spears. One Thurston County deputy couldn't start her car, so she grabbed the weapons inside and left it behind. Perhaps a dozen rioters overturned the car, trashed it and stole a laptop computer, a hand-held breath tester, even a seat. The laptop contained no sensitive data, according to police.

Nobody was seriously hurt during the riot, although at least one officer and several protesters sought medical treatment for minor injuries. Film clips of the riot soon surfaced on the Internet and became central to the sheriff's investigation. Damage to the trashed cruiser and three other police vehicles is estimated at $50,000.

The aftermath

Evergreen has been nursing the hangover since. At a campus forum, a shaken Evergreen President Les Purce told students that the college would pay the costs for the vehicles, and that campus concerts were banned until further notice.

"The range of emotions that I have gone through — from just being flat sad, to disappointed, to angry, to violated — have just swung back and forth," Purce told students. "Because I think about ... the promises that we made to you and your parents about what this place was and what we strive for it to be. And to have that kind of event occur in our house has caused me great pause."

But soon after the president finished talking, Peter Bohmer, a professor of political economy, spoke out with a different message.

"I really urge people here not to cooperate with campus police and administration," he said to raucous cheers and boos. "We need to deal with this among ourselves rather than use a police state, what appears increasingly like a militarized police state that is more and more restrictive."

Bohmer, an MIT graduate who took part in the port protests, said he made the comments because he was worried that students could implicate each other and face felony charges when the matter should be dealt with in-house.

"The police came in swinging. They were the original aggressors," he said.

Since the riot, there have been a number of campus demonstrations and meetings.

"I saw a sign yesterday that said, 'All cops are bad cops,' " sophomore Rebecca Papageorge said last week. "I just disagree with that. I feel like it poorly represents us."

Another student, who didn't want to be named, said he admired the rioters for taking a stand.

"Everybody's been talking about it," said Belinda Man, a freshman and the photo coordinator for the campus paper, the Cooper Point Journal. "People are still venting their emotions."

Some say it's time to think again about having campus police carry weapons on all patrols, the policy since 2003. There are seven patrol officers in the Evergreen force, which is stretched thin covering 24-hour shifts. But others say the riot only reinforces the need for tight campus security.

The healing

Student leaders and administrators hope that continuing forums and discussions will help the campus heal. Trevor Kinahan, a representative of the Geoduck Student Union, said it may be time to review the social contract, reassess police protocols and perhaps set up meetings with Olympia Police and the Olympia community. He said the riot may become a point of discussion in classes. And a student group has formed: Greeners for Truth and Reconciliation.

The man who was arrested at the concert, Kaylen Williams, 24, has been charged with misdemeanor assault. He is not an Evergreen student.

Purce said he will put measures in place "to make sure nothing like this ever happens again."

"We are relatively quiet here in the woods, but we ended up with a wake-up call," Purce said. "Sometimes, events come together in ways that no one expects."

Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or [email protected]

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

[Young Drachma]

Dead Prez causing riots. Why am I not surprised?

[WSUCougar]

Time to call out the Cossacks.

[Abe Sargent]

Yeah, I know about the riot, but every student I talked to was concerned about how I could get the anti-establishment crowd to plugged in, not ranting and raving themselves.

[path12]

Originally Posted by billethius

All I can tell you is that they're very well known for weed.

This is very true. I used to drive the 50-odd miles to Olympia to score from a guy who went to Evergreen.

Around here it doesn't seem to be regarded either particularly highly or poorly, just a solid liberal arts college. It doesn't get made fun of the way it did say twenty years ago.

[path12]

Originally Posted by molson

I'm just dissapointed that you apparently have to "go somewhere" now to get weed in the Pacific Northwest. You guys are slipping.

Is it hard to get weed anywhere these days? I've lived up here my whole life. The only time it gets remotely difficult now is when a good source quits selling. Little tougher to bring up the conversation to your fellow forty-somethings.

EDIT: But that's enough threadjack. Getting back to the subject, I had forgotten about the riot entirely. Local news is something I tend to avoid though.

[chesapeake]

Evergreen does have a problem with a handful of professors that are focused more on recruitment and indoctrination to their cause celebre than on educating the kids to ask their own questions and make their own decisions. Of course, this happens on every college campus, but the unstructured nature of Evergreen gives these professors a freer hand than they would, perhaps, have at another institution.