Early Evergreen did not have any required classes, or tests, or grades. The only degree available was a BA in Liberal Arts, even for those studying the sciences. There were no athletic teams. Super Saturday had yet to be invented. We basically had 4 buildings: Library, Lecture Halls, CAB, and Rec Center-- the rest were under construction. So when I think of the campus atmosphere when I first enrolled, I recall dust, mud, and the sound of pile drivers, bulldozers, and dump trucks. Hardly the pastoral setting it is today. The school still felt like an experiment and the feeling was electric.

The evaluation process was one of those experiments, where we had self-evaluations in essay form. When I went to grad school at the UW they didn't know what to make of them, so from the standpoint of throwing a monkey wrench into other institutions, I rather enjoyed that. We also had to write evaluations about our faculty members. On one occasion after my evaluation conference with a faculty member who is still at TESC today, I remembered I had to add my signature or something like that to the document. When I returned to her office to get it back, she sheepishly reached into the trash can to retrieve it. I think even at the moment it happened, I laughed.

I had another teacher, long since gone from this world, who was a brilliant and entertaining lecturer, but when it came to evaluation time, all of us in his class got the very same eval, except for the first word, where our name had been added. But like all experiments, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. If you think about it, it is better preparation for the real-world workplace. Most of us have to deal with essay type evaluations in our jobs. We don't give grades.