Evergreen's main campus, which includes its own saltwater beach, spans 1,000 acres of forest close to the southern end of Puget Sound.

This report spurred the 1965 Washington legislature to create the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education to study the need and possible location for a new state college.

[12] In 1965–66, the Temporary Advisory Council on Public Higher Education (assisted by Nelson Associates of New York) concluded that "at the earliest possible time a new college should be authorized", to be located at a suburban site in Thurston County within a radius of approximately 10 miles (16 km) from Olympia.

McCann served from 1968 until stepping down to join the faculty June 6, 1977, when former Governor Daniel J. Evans, who signed the legislation creating Evergreen, assumed the presidency.

[13] In the 1992–93 school year, students chose Leonard Peltier to give the address at commencement, which was the first with a graduating class of more than 1,000.

[16] In 1999, Mumia Abu-Jamal was invited to deliver the keynote address by audiotape for the graduating class at the college.

In 2015, George Sumner Bridges became the sixth president of Evergreen State College, not counting interim appointments.

[19] Earlier that year, a white male faculty member was given an annual review that referred to his race and speculated whether students of color in his class were able to freely participate in discussions; however, ultimately the College agreed that a teacher's race and gender should not be mentioned in performance reviews, so it was changed.

Every April from the 1970s until 2017, Evergreen held a daylong event called "Day of Absence", inspired by the Douglas Turner Ward play of the same name, during which minority students and faculty members voluntarily stayed off campus to raise awareness of the contributions of minorities and to discuss racial and campus issues.

[23] In 2017, some students of color voiced concerns about feeling unwelcome on campus following the 2016 US presidential election and a 2015 off-campus police shooting.

[22][31] Protesters occupied the office of Evergreen’s President George Bridges, without permission; exits to the campus library were blocked with furniture.

[33][34] Weinstein and his wife, professor Heather Heying, later resigned and each received $250,000 in a settlement with the university, after having sued for $3.8 million for failing to "protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence".

[42] A report from the college suggested protests may adversely affect Evergreen's enrollment, which has been declining over the last decade.

[47] Evergreen is unique[48] in that undergraduate students select one 16-credit program for the entire quarter rather than multiple courses.

The library hosts a number of small viewing rooms and also maintains special collections of rare books, archival material, and government documents.

The entire campus serves as a natural laboratory for scientific field research and provides inspiration for creative work.

Throughout the 1,000-acre (400 ha) forest there are multiple trails leading to a variety of locations throughout the reserve and to Evergreen Beach.

The coastal habitat is characterized by steep bluffs, gravelly beaches with many washed-up logs, and the marine intertidal zone which extends up to 150 feet (46 m) out into Puget Sound's Eld Inlet during low tides.

Evergreen has approximately 3,300 feet (1.0 km) of untouched beach and 27 acres (11 ha) of southern Puget Sound tidelands.

With a design based on the Northwest Indigenous Nations' philosophy of hospitality, its primary functions are to provide a gathering place for hosting cultural ceremonies, classes, conferences, performances, art exhibits and community events.

Other notable public service centers on campus are: The Evergreen State College athletic teams are called the Geoducks.

The college is a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), primarily competing in the Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) since the 1999–2000 academic year.

Evergreen also had a strong run in men's basketball during the first decade of the 21st century, winning the 2002 CCC Championship and reaching the NAIA National Tournament in 2002, 2009 and 2010.

Student media include student-run newspaper The Cooper Point Journal,[54] the literary magazine Slightly West, and Evergreen's community radio station KAOS-FM.

[56] Major works released by the press include fieldguides like Writing American Cultures (2013) and Vascular Plants of the South Sound Prairies (2016).

[57][58] Among notable alumni are cartoonists Craig Bartlett, Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, and Matt Groening;[1] art historian and theorist Douglas Kahn; comedians Josh Blue and Michael Richards; entrepreneurs Paul Stamets and Lynda Weinman; Oscar-winning film producer Audrey Marrs; musicians Carrie Brownstein,[1] Martin Courtney, Kimya Dawson, Phil Elverum, Steve Fisk, Kathleen Hanna, Conrad Keely, Macklemore,[1] Lois Maffeo, Myra Melford, Corin Tucker, Tobi Vail, Kathi Wilcox, John Wozniak, and Tay Zonday; Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt; Calvin Johnson, founder of K Records;[59] photographer Michael Lavine; politician Yuh-Line Niou; reality television stars John Taylor and Steve Thomas; writers Benjamin Hoff, Judith Moore, Tom Maddox and Wendy C. Ortiz;[1] activist and diarist Rachel Corrie; professional soccer players Shawn Medved and Joey Gjertsen; Washington Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck;[1] Oscar-winning director Byron Howard; and artists Nikki McClure, Cappy Thompson, and Molly Zuckerman-Hartung.