Evergreen is a challenging, high energy, continually evolving community founded on the values of cooperative learning, open inquiry and diversity. Evergreen is a pioneer in developing high quality innovative educational programs that bridge the gaps between academic disciplines. Students engage in the study of ideals, concepts and problems based on real-world issues and questions.
Evergreen assist students in learning how to learn. It emphasizes communication, critical thinking and problem solving. Educational programs are transformed by a set of core beliefs that flow through everything the college does:
•      The main purpose of a college is to teach, and good teaching involves close interaction between faculty and students.
•      Collaborative or shared learning is better than learning in isolation and in competition with others.
•      Teaching across differences is critical to learning.
•      Connected learning -- pulling together different ideas and concepts -- is better than learning fragmented bits of information.
•      Active learning -- applying what's learned to projects and activities -- is better than passively receiving knowledge.

"Sustainability isn't just a bandwagon we're hopping onto. It's woven into the very fabric of our identity, and history, as an institution." – Les Purce (President) Since 1971, Evergreen has built a national reputation for environmental studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels. For over 25 years, Evergreen has offered full-time interdisciplinary programs in energy studies, environmental design, and ecological agriculture.

Evergreen has set a goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2020 and is developing an institutional action plan to achieve that goal. As part of the plan, Evergreen has completed its first comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory to establish a baseline and help track progress.

Evergreen’s 1000-acre campus includes about 800 acres of woods, forest and saltwater beach used for teaching and learning, but also incorporates nature and learning within its more developed areas. The college is continuing to change its landscape for the better with green roofs, replacement of non-native plants with native vegetation, and installation of teaching gardens. Evergreen’s local, local organic and organic food purchases amount to between 28% and 38% per week. The college now purchases 18% of the food for its Dining Service from within 150 miles of the campus with a goal of expanding that percentage.

Sustainablility House is a community of students committed to a living an environmentally conscious, socially just, and sustainable lifestyle. Residents commit to volunteering for 8 hours each month on campus and in the larger community.

Evergreen students typically enroll in a single program that draws together different academic subjects while exploring a central theme. They might, for example, study health-care problems by exploring real-world issues from the viewpoints of biology, history, philosophy, sociology, economics and literature. A freshmen program generally has 70 to 90 students and three to four faculty from different academic disciplines. Evergreen students have the flexibility to design their own academic pathways.

The College's emphasis on students and educational innovation attracts some of the best teachers anywhere, hired and evaluated primarily on the quality of their teaching. Teaching is never delegated to teaching assistants.

Most Evergreen students complete one or more internships by the time they graduate. Students have worked as river rangers in the Grand Canyon guiding researchers, documented the travels of gray whales, tutored refugees, and as support staff in shelters for abused women.

Graduates carry their sense of involvement and social responsibility with them in their careers as educators, social workers, microbiologists, entertainers, lawyers, health care professionals, administrators, artists, entrepreneurs and a diversity of other occupations.