There were three of us armed with an Evergreen BA in Liberal Arts in the graduate program I attended at the UW. This was out of a class of about 80. The number who actually survived long enough to receive their masters degrees two years later was much smaller, but all three of us Geoducks prevailed.

This was in spite of the fact that we viewed our UW instruction as patronizing and regressive. One of my fellow TESC grads led a revolt when the Graduate School decided to let go of their best teacher. The Grad School changed their mind and kept her.

But the event that really defined us as Evergreen grads was during the closure crisis. Reagan and the Republicans took over during our first year and higher education immediately started getting clobbered. Our program was on the chopping block. In other schools around the country, they were closing down grad schools in my field, so the threat of shutting down the whole works was very real. So while the other students were freaking out, the three of us from Cooper Point looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "Here we go again."