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123 Foot Giant Sequoia Tree

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Ralph Waldo Emerson said that the creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. Despite the worn nature of this metaphor, the absolute truth of it remains—greatness is often contained in packages small and unrecognizable.
In 1887, the graduating class of Western Oregon University (then Oregon State Normal School) planted a giant sequoia outside of the university’s historic Campbell Hall. At that time, tuition for collegiate classes was $15.00 per year—$5.00 per term—with incidental fees of $5.00; rooms were $1.50 - $3.50 per week.
Western Oregon University has grown since 1887, and has become one of the foremost liberal arts institutions in the state of Oregon and throughout the west coast. Tuition payments now go toward a thorough and well-rounded education from classes taught by only professors—no graduate students. Incidental fees pay for myriad student activities—rugby, lacrosse, theatre productions, dance concerts, a newspaper, a literary magazine, even a Frisbee club. Rooming costs go toward the college experience: immersion into a body of peers as similar as they are unique, forging the friendships that will sustain them through the half decade of education and preparation offered at Western. And that sequoia planted in 1887? It has since grown into a 123-foot west coast landmark.
As an incoming freshman, I saw Western as merely a steppingstone between high school and graduate school—a necessary footfall to prepare me for my eventual career in teaching. I was an acorn, small and hardened.
Since that first year, Western Oregon has opened up my mind and imagination to possibilities that I had never considered. I came in as a greenhorn English major expecting to take literature and writing courses that would prepare me for life as a high school English teacher; I didn’t have a plan. In my first few months at Western, I took notice of the university’s arts and letters magazine, The Northwest Passage, and saw in it something unexpected: a goal. Beginning my freshman year, I knew I wanted to have my poetry printed in that magazine. I took some samples right to one of my literature professors and he convinced me to enroll in his Fall Term poetry writing seminar. I excelled (with his help) in that class, followed by a workshop on formal poetry, and an advanced poetry seminar; I have had five of my poems published in the Northwest Passage and, starting this year (my junior year) I will be the Editor-in-Chief of that very magazine.
Western Oregon University is a small and nurturing environment. It gives opportunities to its undergraduates that bigger university students can only dream of. Not only did it give me the chance to head up a fantastic extra-curricular undertaking, but it has made sure that every step of the way, I have been under the direct tutelage of my many qualified and personable professors. This is the extra care that makes students grow into people; this is the structure that fosters excellence through hard work and application; this is the university that turns acorns into redwoods.


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