Mattea Kline

About Me

matteak@gmail.com 607.227.7571

I am a transfer student from Ithaca, New York in my third year at Evergreen. I studied at Sarah Lawrence College in 2008, before taking two years off to work and live.

I have focused on several different areas at Evergreen including linguistics, writing, and education. I have felt weary about committing to one field of study because I am not convinced that there will be a job at the end of the long haul, as well as believing that humans are meant to be renaissance men/women, meaning we should not be tied down to one thing. Instead I decided to focus on educating myself as an individual, investing into my own intelligence because that is something that cannot be lost or appropriated. I feel a strong drive to understand the human condition at this point in time, as well as historically, so that I might be a part of change. I have a strong faith in people's ability to innovate and work together in a civicly intelligent way.

I am particularly passionate about everything to do with food. I love to cook and think all people should have access to beautiful, nutritional food. I am very interested in the study and practice of alternative agriculture systems, I am particularly curious about the feasibility of institutionalizing an alternative model in the US.

Interests

• Sustainable Agriculture
• Food Access and Quality
• Politics
• Economics
• Art for Social Change
• Linguistics

Thoughts on Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives that are important to me are:

• Building leadership/facilitation skills
• Developing capacity to do in-depth research
• Participating in a community of learners
• Increased understanding of policy-making
• Useing existing frameworks to build the capacity to develop new ones

Issues I'm Interested In

• US food system
• Economic injustice and monetary systems
• Civic intelligence as a catalyst for change
• Promotion of human innovation
• Conscious evolution

Contributions

• In winter 2012, I wrote an analytical case study on Cuba's sustainable agriculture system, this research was very exciting, and is a motivation to me to continue researching in this area. You can find it at Cuba Case Study

• I have been involved with the Food cluster, and made initial contact with GRuB, a collective community garden organization and CSA. Here is the Food site where you can find memory of winter quarter developments

• I have also worked in the Home Office to develop a shared vision for CIRAL and have participated in work to improve group dynamics and communication

• I hope to contribute much more!