Things kick off on campus at 1PM, I recommend taking the bus out there to avoid the traffic and parking mess that is graduation day.

The guest speaker is exciting this year, it's Dr. James W. Loewen who wrote the book, 'Lies My Teacher Told Me'.

OLYMPIA — Four people charged with felonies for violence at a February concert at The Evergreen State College have been accepted into a diversion program.

Charges will be reduced to misdemeanors if they complete the program and pay $45,000 for destroying a patrol car.

Thurston County court papers say criminal charges against a fifth person who hid a seat stolen from the car will be dropped if he completes the diversion program and pays $541.

Read the story here.

The TESC Administration met on May 5th to discuss some rather interesting things, as revealed by an Agenda found in the garbage today just outside the police office on Evergreen College's campus. Check out the people attending - including at least one person from the Dispute Resolution Center. This meeting evidently led to the opening of confidential negotiations between several community organizations, TESC, and the City of Olympia to create an event - some kind of discussion - which would address the recent incidents of police use of force and responses to that violence.

Check out this story on KPLU's website about a group of TESC students who are building bridges to Iraq:

OLYMPIA, WA (2008-05-23) It's been called the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of algebra, modern medicine and astronomy.

Yet modern-day Iraq can no longer educate most of its young people. A group in the U.S. called the Iraqi Student Project is trying to help - by securing tuition waivers at colleges and universities here.

And it looks like The Evergreen State College in Olympia will be one of the first state schools in the nation to take part.

A group of students there has been working hard to make it possible for a counterpart from Baghdad to start attending Evergreen this fall.

Goal is to eventually gather most everything on OlyBlog concerning The Evergreen State College here in one place.

For more follow tags such as Evergreen, also run searches on terms such as TESC, The Evergreen State College, and Evergreen.

SYNERGY presents: Paul Stamets

Today - 5:00 P.M. - The Evergreen State College, Lecture Hall 1 - Free!

Learn practical methods for using fungal allies in gardening, mycoforestry, habitat restoration and human health, and how they can reduce pollution and provide immune-enhancing fungi for communities from Paul Stamets. This presentation will unveil new horizons for using fungi as allies for helping people and planet.

An Evergreen graduate (class of '79), Paul has received several environmental awards, and recently has been awarded a breakthrough patent for replacing chemical pesticides using naturally occurring fungi. He is active in protecting the genome and a strong advocate for exploring natural remedies resident within the biosphere.

Synergy: The 7th Annual Sustainable Living Conference kick's off tomorrow, May 19th, at The Evergreen State College. Some of Monday highlights include:

• Native Story Telling Kickoff with Pauline Hillaire of the Lummi Nation.
  10:00 AM - Lecture Hall Rotunda
• Thurston County Environmental Health Workshops
  11:00 AM - Hazards on the Homefront
  1:00 PM - Toxins in Personal Care
  Lecture Hall Rotunda
• Dan Daniels, Director of Olympia Waste ReSources
  3:00 PM - D1105
  Cullen Stephenson, Deputy Director of Puget Sound Partnership
  4:00 PM - D1105

All Synergy events are FREE of charge and open to the public, all are encouraged to attend. A full schedule for the weeklong event as well as bio's and event descriptions can be found at:

http://www.evergreen.edu/synergy

More detailed information, speaker bios and event times and locations can be found at

http://www.evergreen.edu/synergy

Synergy: The 7th Annual Sustainable Living Conference is being held at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. The dates for the 2008 conference are Monday, May 19th through Friday, May 23rd. This conference has grown to be a powerful platform to engage and address the intertwining themes of Ecology, Design, Culture, Health, and Social Change.

Synergy is organized by a non-profit coalition of student organizers. The title of the event reflects our belief that the solutions to the world’s problems can only be solved though collaboration, where the whole becomes more then the sum of it’s parts. This year’s conference will include presentations by notable leaders in their respected fields.

Dr. Mitchell Joachim of New York based non-profit Terreform, will be presenting a keynote lecture on the future of ecological urban design at 6PM on Thursday May 22nd in Lecture Hall 1. Dr. Joachim, a MIT Media Lab graduate, is best known as being the creator of the Fab Tree Hab. He won the History Channel and Infiniti Design Excellence Award for the City of the Future, New York and Time Magazine Best Invention of the Year 2007, Compacted Car with the MIT Smart Cities Group.

Native American performance artist James Luna will be visiting the TESC campus and presenting his show on Friday, April 26 at 8:00 pm. This event is free of charge to Evergreen students. Students may reserve seats (one seat per student) by putting their name on a reserved list at the COM Building box office from 12-3 M-F or by calling 867-6833. Faculty may reserve seats for their entire program by emailing their class list to me with the request. Tickets are not handed out in advance. Students may pick up their tickets on the evening of the performance beginning at 6:30 by showing their current Evergreen ID card. Tickets not picked up by 7:45 are released to the general public. Students may also just show up at the Longhouse for the performance and received a free ticket as available on a first come first serve basis. Non-Evergreen students may purchase a ticket for $5.