Evergreen State College Trying to Give Itself a Makeover After 2017 Campus Unrest

Evergreen State College Trying to Give Itself a Makeover After 2017 Campus Unrest

It looks like someone at Evergreen may have noticed all the colleges currently closing or downsizing.

Q13 FOX reports:

The Evergreen State College reinvents itself after 2017 turmoil on campus

Olympia, Wash. – For the past 52 years, Evergreen State College has offered non-traditional higher education options. Students and faculty affectionately call themselves “Greeners” and boast they get to create their own coursework to finish their degrees. You might know some of its famous alumni including Macklemore who graduated from Evergreen in 2009.

But it’s the protests, shooting threat, and overall turmoil that rocked the campus back in 2017 that brought the college to the national stage. The ‘annual day of absence’ that normally encourages students of color to leave campus to talk about racial issues changed in 2017…

Red Square now is a much different scene, but still the center of lively discussion. Kaiser says all students are welcome no matter if they identify as liberal or conservative.

“Be ready for discussion and engagement in a civil way,” said Kaiser.

But Kaiser says the past incivility on campus is part of the reason why Evergreen has been experiencing enrollment decline for the past ten years. Kaiser says that hurt funding.

“Some of those programs have been eliminated. We had to lay off a very few number of staff,” said Kaiser.

Now, the school is reaching out to lawmakers to secure state funding.

“After the turmoil of 2017, we realized it was time for us to really speak out,” said Kaiser.

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