Announcing New Faculty- Beginning Fall 2014

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Nate Bernitz

Meet the seven new regular Members of the Faculty and four new Adjunct Faculty joining The Evergreen State College in Fall 2014.

REGULAR FACULTY

Phyllis Esposito – Science Teacher Educator
Phyllis is currently an adjunct faculty member at The Evergreen State College. Her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Teaching is from the University of Kansas. She has a MiHE (Integrated Humanities and Education) from Rockhurst University and received her B.A. in Elementary Education from Rockhurst College.

Michael Lane – Masters in Public Administration (MPA)
Michael recently served as a Research Assistant with the Poverty Action Research Project at Trent University and has also taught at Trent University. He is self employed as a legal researcher, advocate, policy advisor/analyst, evaluator, and trainer. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Indigenous Studies at Trent University. He received his J.D. from Arizona State University College of Law and his B.A. is from Evergreen.

Carri LeRoy – Freshwater Ecology
Carrie has been an adjunct faculty member since 2006 and is Co-Director of the Sustainability in Prisons Project at The Evergreen State College. She received her Ph.D. in Biology (Freshwater Ecology) as well as her Master of Liberal Studies (focus in Environmental Education) from Northern Arizona University. Her B.S./B.A. in Environmental Science and International Studies is from Oregon State University.

Steven Maranville– Business/Entrepreneurship
Steven is currently a Visiting Associate Professor in the Gore School of Business at Westminster College and Principal of Maranville Enterprises. Steven received his Ph.D. in Business Administration (Strategic Management) from the University of Utah. Both his M.B.A. and B.A. in Fine Arts and Communication are from Brigham Young University.

Patrick Naughton – Masters in Teaching (MiT) Director
Pat is currently at City University of Seattle serving as Director of Instruction and Learning at the Gordon Albright School of Education and Professor/Academic Location Leader at the Tacoma campus. He received his Doctor of Education with a Curriculum and Instruction Emphasis from Seattle Pacific University. His M.B.A. is from Southern Illinois University, while his B.A. in Political Science is from Gonzaga University, Spokane.

Carolyn Prouty – Public Health
Carolyn has been an adjunct faculty member since 2009 at The Evergreen State College and recently served as a Research Scientist at the University of Washington. She received her D.V.M. from the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. Her B.A. in neurobiology is also from Cornell University.

Pauline Yu – Marine Science
Pauline is currently an Assistant Project Scientist at the Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from University of Southern California and her B.S. in Bioresources Sciences from University of California, Berkley.

ADJUNCT FACULTY

Alexander McCarty – 3-D Studio Art
Alex is currently a High School Visual Arts Teacher at the Chief Leschi Schools in Puyallup and an exhibiting artist at Tacoma General Hospital. He received both his Master in Teaching and Bachelor of Arts from Evergreen.

Doug Mah – Masters of Public Administration (MPA)
Doug is currently Owner and Principal Consultant for Doug Mah & Associates, LLC. He received both his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Sociology from Western Washington University.

Thane Taylor – Biochemistry Teaching Fellowship
Thane is currently a Graduate Research Assistant and a Ph.D. candidate in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. He also received his M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota. His B.A. in ACS Chemistry is from Concordia College.

Shangrila Wynn – Political Ecology/Political Economy
Shangrila is currently an Assistant Professor (Instructional) at Temple University. She received her Ph.D. in Environmental Science, Studies and Policy from University of Oregon. Her M.A. in International Affairs is from Ohio University. She has a B.Sc. in Environmental Science from St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu University.

All-College Graduation 2014

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Nate Bernitz

Winona LaDuke, guest speaker at Evergreen’s Class of 2014 Commencement Ceremony.
Photo Credit- The Evergreen State College Photo Services

Congratulations to Evergreen’s Class of 2014! We are thrilled to welcome Evergreen’s newest graduates into the the alumni community.

Check out photos from the 43rd Annual Commencement Ceremony.

Evergreen’s Class of 2014 includes:

• 58 students in the Master of Public Administration program.

• 27 students in the Master in Teaching program.

• 32 in the Master of Environmental Studies.

• 1,187 undergraduate students earning Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees.

The 2014 Class Theme: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”- unknown.

Here is a link to Winona LaDuke’s keynote speech on KAOS.

The Living Tradition of the Rachel Carson Forum

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Nate Bernitz

The Rachel Carson Forum is one of the oldest traditions of Evergreen’s Graduate Program on the Environment offering the Masters of Environmental Studies (MES) degree, now approaching its 30-year anniversary. The event was established in 1990 as a tribute to Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and writer in a time when it was almost impossible for women to pursue careers as scientists. While Carson wrote several well-known books, such as The Sea Around Us and Our Ever Changing Shore, her legacy is largely tied to her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring. While the science of the environmental and human effects of pesticide application was outside her area of expertise, the book’s bold and impassioned arguments started inspired conversation and debate that helped spark the environmental movement of the 1960s.

Student organizers and panelists for the 2014 Rachel Carson Forum

The Rachel Carson Forum has always been organized by students of Evergreen’s MES Program. The current organizing group, the Masters of Environmental Studies Student Association (MESA), put together the 2014 panel featuring two amazing Evergreen alumni, Rhys Roth ’90, an MES graduate and Director of the Evergreen Center for Sustainable Infrastructure, and Thera Black ‘92, Senior Planner for the Thurston Regional Planning Council (TRPC). The panel also featured Richard Fealy, Senior Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Nobel Prize recipient, and Andy Haub, Planning and Engineering Manager for the City of Olympia. Such an incredible group of guest speakers has come to be expected of the Rachel Carson Forum; the event has featured true giants of the environmental community, such as the late Billy Frank Jr. and mycology pioneer Paul Stamets ’80, in recent years.

Martha Henderson, Director of the MES Program, started the conversation on April 24 by recounting the lasting legacy of Rachel Carson in helping convey and rally people to complex environmental issues through strong science and communication. The panel members perfectly exemplified that mission, and the mission of the Rachel Carson Forum’s founding faculty, who Henderson conveyed, “wanted to provide images of environmental action.” Henderson emphasized that the event wasn’t just for students, but that is was “a service of MES to the broader community.”

MES leadership has always represented that philosophy, including the likes of Oscar Soule, Ralph Murphy, John Perkins, Tom Rainey, Richard Cellarius, and now Martha Henderson. Henderson’s term as director will end in late August, when she will return to teaching full time; she will take a group of students to the eastern Mediterranean region in Spring 2015. In talking about the MES Program, Henderson recalled it traditionally as a home for “Environmental Refugees” from across the country. While today’s graduate students have many schools where they may pursue a Masters in Environmental Studies degree, Evergreen’s MES program has adapted to changing times. It has three prongs of study: Climate and Energy Studies, Ecology, and Community Sustainability. Approximately 70% of the program’s students are women, an important focus of Henderson’s work as MES Director. Another important issue is global climate change, which Henderson believes will inform a shift in the focus of MES to “to help us understand alternative ways to have constructive relationships with the environment.”

Hopefully, the Rachel Carson Forum can help students, and the broader community, do just that, for the next 30 years and beyond.

Spring Lecture Series Draws Notable Alumni in Tech World

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Nate Bernitz

The annual spring PLATO Lecture Series, which highlights innovation in computing and technology, owes its origin to the work of John Aikin and Evergreen Students in the early 1980s. One of those students, Greg Starling ’78, went on to form Starling Consulting Inc., a technology consulting firm in Olympia. Aikin endowed royalties from the computer aided instruction (CAI) courses developed by himself and his students around 1985 to fund the PLATO Lecture Series and PLATO Technology Grants in perpetuity.

Disney Pixar Monsters University

Also called the Cutting Edge Symposium, the lecture series is coordinated by different faculty members every year. This year’s theme is “Greeners on the Cutting Edge,” featuring an extraordinary cast of Evergreen alumni involved with interesting and innovative technology research and development. Organized by faculty members Judy Cushing, Richard Weiss, Paul Pham, Rik Smoody, Sheryl Shulman, and Neal Nelson, the planning for this spring’s lecture series started over a year ago. Judy Cushing, currently offering “Student Originated Software” and “Undergraduate Research in Scientific Inquiry”, remarked that “people don’t think of Evergreen as a hot spot for technological innovation,” and that with this year’s alumni panel “we are hoping to change that perception”.

With a small annual budget to work with, panelists traditionally don’t receive an honorarium and often the speakers or their companies pay for travel. In addition, this year’s speakers aren’t coming to Evergreen’s Olympia campus simply to give a lecture; they provide reading for students in partnering academic programs and visiting their classrooms to participate in seminar or give a talk. After their lectures, many of this year’s speakers will stay on campus to work with students. Dylan Sisson ’94 from Pixar worked with students in the CCAM (Center for Creative and Applied Media) after his lecture on April 14. Select students have also had the opportunity to join the speakers and organizing faculty members for dinner after each lecture.

Notable speakers for the rest of the 2014 lecture series include Moishe Lettvin ‘03, an engineering manager at Etsy, and Lynda Weinman ‘76, Co-Founder and Executive Chair of lynda.com.

More information on the lecture series, speakers, and abstract materials can be found on Evergreen Lecture’s Blog.

Religious Studies Scholar Joins Evergreen Faculty

Posted on March 11, 2014 by R.J. Burt

Sarah Eltantawi joins the Evergreen Faculty

Evergreen eagerly awaits the arrival of new faculty member Sarah Eltantawi, a scholar of religion, writer and political analyst. Sarah has a PhD from Harvard University (2012) focusing on Islamic studies in general, with a focus on Islamic law in contemporary Muslim-majority societies. Her vita includes fieldwork and research on the “political theology” of the Muslim Brotherhood in contemporary Egypt, and an in-depth study of the notorious case of Amina Lawal, a peasant woman from Northern Nigeria who was sentenced to death by stoning in 2002.

Starting in 2011, Sarah has been a visiting fellow at the Freie Universität, Berlin, a Scholar in Residence in Religion, Culture, Gender and the Law at Brandeis University, and the Sultan Postdoctoral Fellow in Arab studies at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of CA, Berkeley.Sarah takes up her post at Evergreen later in 2014. Those eager to meet her can follow her on Twitter and read Lessons from the Egyptian Revolution, 3 years later, in Ma’an News Agency.

The Inkwell Project: Part of Evergreen’s Writing Culture

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Thane

Cover of the first Inkwell, 2006.

Editor’s Note: The Writing Center, located in the Library building just off Red Square, is the creative home of Inkwell, A Student Guide to Writing at Evergreen. In this interview, Writing Center publications editor Thane Fay, ’13 talks with Inkwell co-founders Shaun Johnson, ’07 and Victoria Larkin, ’07 about the history of this student publication.

This is the first of a series exploring the Inkwell project and how students, faculty, and alumni can benefit from its influence on Evergreen’s writing culture.

Inkwell cover 2012

Inkwell is written, edited, and designed entirely by Writing Center peer tutors, students dedicated to helping others find their voices through the writing process. Each year, authors discuss writing specific to Evergreen—such as seminar papers, evaluations, and academic statements—as well as exploring themes like developing a writing process, finding your voice as a student writer, and learning tools for academic and creative writing. With its emphasis on cultivating student voices and creating a culture of student empowerment in academics, Inkwell inspires student writers to think about how they write and invites them to become part of the Writing Center community

Inkwell cover 2008

Inkwell co-founder Shaun Johnson, ’07 reflected that “Evergreen puts incredible emphasis on writing in curriculums across disciplines, so it seemed especially appropriate to draw a map for students to navigate.” Inkwell was created to be this kind of map.

The Writing Center distributes over a thousand free copies of Inkwell annually, both on campus and to the wider community. Inkwell co-founder Victoria Larkin ‘07 sees the publication as providing “a common ground, a jumping off place for conversations,” inspiring writers to “go into and beyond their preconceptions of the writing process, of writing in general, and of their own abilities.”

Learn more about The Writing Center. Read digital copies of past editions of Inkwell.

Continue reading →

Learning Opportunity on Campus: A Bee Fair – Where Are the Bees Going and Why Does it Matter?

Posted on February 24, 2014 by R.J. Burt

beee A Public Event at The Evergreen State College:
The Olympia Beekeepers Association and Evergreen Academic Programs present a Community Bee Fair, featuring “More than Honey,” an internationally acclaimed film describing the looming, world-wide crisis of disappearing bee colonies.
March 8, 2014, 6:00 – 10:00 pm
A Film, Community Bee Fair and Student Displays
The Evergreen State College, Lecture Hall 1 and Lecture Hall Rotunda
Program:

6:00 pm – Informational displays and student art show in the Rotunda.
7:00 pm – A short film, created by Evergreen students, on the bee crisis.
7:30 pm – A presentation of the “Pollinator Protector Award” will be given to local business owner Robert Thompson, Jr. of Lincoln Creek Lumber.

The feature film “More than Honey” will be followed by a Q & A with a panel of local bee experts and the filmmaker via Skype from Berlin.

Please Note:

Seating is limited.
Admission is free with Evergreen I.D.
For non-Evergreen attendees, tickets are $10 each, available at Traditions and Radiance in Olympia, Gordon’s Garden Center in Yelm.
For more information: www.olympiabeekeepers.org

Sponsored by:

The Olympia Beekeepers Association
Evergreen Student Groups: The Community Garden and The Bee Club
The Evergreen State College academic programs: Seeds, Beads, Bees and other Biodynamical Processes; Ecological Agriculture: The Science and Policy of Food Systems; Political Economy through Food, Culture and Social Movements.

Japanese Americans Remember Wartime Incarceration

Posted on February 14, 2014 by R.J. Burt

Tom Ikeda, founder and executive director of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, to speak at Evergreen February 27

Event Notice: Don’t miss this talk by Tom Ikeda, founder and executive director of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, on Thursday, February 27th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Longhouse Cultural Center on the Evergreen campus in Olympia. Admission is free and open to the public. This presentation is part of Evergreen’s Willi Unsoeld Seminar Series.

The stories of local Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in Idaho concentration camps during World War II are the subject of a talk by Tom Ikeda, founder and executive director of Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project, on Thursday, February 27th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Longhouse Cultural Center on the Evergreen campus in Olympia. Admission is free and open to the public.

densho

Ikeda’s presentation, “When Citizenship Didn’t Matter: Personal Stories from Japanese Americans Incarcerated during World War II,” will explore issues of democracy, intolerance, wartime hysteria and civil rights, based on hundreds of oral histories conducted by Densho over the last 18 years.

Ikeda was born and raised in Seattle. His parents and grandparents were incarcerated during World War II at Minidoka, Idaho. A former manager at Microsoft, Ikeda graduated from the University of Washington. He has received numerous awards for his historical contributions, including the Humanities Washington Award for outstanding achievement in the public humanities, the National JACL Japanese American of the Biennium award for Education, and the Microsoft Alumni Fellows Award.

Ikeda’s presentation takes place under the banner of the Willi Unsoeld Seminar, a speaker series honoring Unsoeld, a founding faculty member of The Evergreen State College.

“Each year, faculty, staff, and students focus on a theme linked to the college’s core values,” said Evergreen faculty member Nancy Koppelman. “This year, the theme is ‘listening’, and why listening is essential to education.”

Evergreen launched the academic year by assigning NPR Story Corps creator Dave Isay’s book, Listening is an Act of Love, to all students, and he spoke on campus in September 2013. Ikeda’s presentation continues and elaborates on the theme.

Evergreen Provost Champions Liberal Arts Education

Posted on February 7, 2014 by R.J. Burt

Evergreen Provost Michael Zimmerman

Note: Provost Michael Zimmerman and Arts Advisor Pablo Schugurensky ’84 will facilitate an Evergreen Traveling Seminar in Seattle on March 14, titled Pushing Back Against the “STEM” Tide: The Value of A Liberal Arts Education. If you are in area and wish to attend, reserve your seats soon. Participation is limited to 25.

‘Long before Michael Zimmerman joined Evergreen as Provost, he was a nationally respected voice in the often strident conversation about the value of a liberal arts education in an increasingly technology-driven world. Michael chairs the Washington Consortium for the Liberal Arts, a role that allows him to champion the restructuring of the conversation from the oppositional – liberal arts versus STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) – to a nuanced discussion of curricular balance on a continuum of knowledge. It starts with a respectful insistence on accurate definitions. Continue reading →

Brittany Gray Thriving in Class and on the Basketball Court

Posted on January 27, 2014 by R.J. Burt

Brittanyx

At age 15, Brittany Gray was on top of the high school basketball world in Washington State. The Bainbridge High School sophomore had been recruited to prestigious Gonzaga University as part of the women’s basketball program and was, according to her coach, “one of the best rebounders the state has ever seen.” Then Brittany walked away from it all.

Five years later, she is back in the game and back in the classroom – at Evergreen.

Read the story in The Olympian.

The Evergreen Mind

The official alumni blog of The Evergreen State College

Category Archives: On Campus