Matt Kolan

Matt Kolan finds his home on the eastern edge of Lake Champlain. He is a dedicated naturalist, tracker, music-maker, brother, son, partner, and friend. He spends much of his time designing learning environments that attempt to strengthen relationships, reconnect human patterns with natural rhythms and cycles, and foster a sustainable and desirable future. As a faculty member at the University of Vermont, Matt teaches courses on natural history, power and privilege, traditional skills, integrated problem-solving, and designing learning environments for a sustainable future. Through his research, he hopes to better understand principles and practices that guide design of educational systems toward inclusive, sustainable, whole communities.

Matt also works as an educational and ecological consultant for a variety of organizations. He serves on the faculty for the Center for Whole Communities and works for Shelburne Farms and the PLACE (Place-based Analysis and Community Engagement) Program – creating a forum for communities to rediscover and tell the stories of their town from deep time to present.

Matt agreed with honor to attend MRCSE as a wise elder...

While I don’t particularly fit the description or image of a “wise elder,” I am honored to participate in this unfolding process. I share a passion for convening groups in service to a sustainable and regenerative future, and look forward to a transformative week.

Matt was pleased by the opportunity to share with MRCSE many of the questions he is interested in exploring...

I have many more questions than answers! These are some of the questions I’d like to explore:

• What kinds of learning environments or experiences foster deep change and strengthen/heal/deepen relationships?
• How can we convene groups of people across differences/divides in ways that recognize diversity, use tension as a generative force, are reciprocally transformational, and foster emergent new properties, patterns, and relationships?
• Who is not here who should be? What’s preventing us from convening a more inclusive regional network committed to sustainability?
• How can we tap into a more whole and inclusive approach to envisioning a sustainable future – one that acknowledges many forms of difference and allows for multiple ways forward?
• How can we redefine leadership in a way that is more ecologically oriented and doesn’t reinforce typical patterns of power, privilege, oppression, and exclusion?

Some personal questions that I’ve been working with that seem relevant to our collective work:

• How might I more fully approach my work from a place of humility and reverence – recognizing that sustainability is not achievable merely through rational intellectual forces?
• What are my blind spots? What prevents me from being present, being uncomfortable, being willing to make mistakes, being willing to be changed by my relationships with others, being open to new possibilities and new learnings?
• How can my work simultaneously support efforts to stop and heal forms of oppression and injustice while aspiring to restore ecological health and integrity?

Matt sees much value in MRCSE...