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Katie Spring `09

Hometown: 
Barre, VT

At St. Lawrence

Major: 
Environmental Studies and English
Activities: 
As a freshman, Katie served on the First Year Council, acted as the FYC Representative for the Thelomathesian Society, and was a recipient of the Bradley Evers Outstanding First Year Student Award. She was a member of Habitat for Humanity and served on two spring break trips with the group: one to New Orleans in 2006 and another to Charleston, SC in 2007. Katie was a Tour Guide for two years, an active member of the Dance Team for two and a half years, and lived in the Greenhouse for three years.

Katie was drawn to St. Lawrence for its welcoming community and incredible study abroad program.  During the fall of her sophomore year, Katie studied in the Adirondack Semester, which opened her up to a way of life that strives for balance between nature and human society. During the semester she studied under professor Mary Hussmann, who taught Nature Writing; Through Mary’s classes Katie began to learn the art of rendering the natural world through writing, and this solidified her decision to become an Environmental Studies and English major. On her return to campus, Katie moved into the Greenhouse, SLU’s low-impact living theme house, and conducted environmentally themed programs with her housemates for the campus community. 

In the spring of her junior year, Katie traveled abroad to Northern Ireland where she took time off from her major and focused instead on Peace and Conflict Studies.  While there she traveled extensively through Ireland, hiked on the weekends with the school’s hillwalking club, and was funded by a Travel Grant through CIIS to research her family history in Counties Limerick and Cork.  Her experiences abroad influenced her senior honors thesis, which was a collection of essays based on peace and the environment and looked at how one can find the balance between acceptance and advocacy.  With guidance from her thesis advisor, professor Natalia Singer, and her Environmental Studies advisor, professor Glenn Harris, Katie learned to use creative writing as a way to explore and respond to critical questions. 

Her time at St. Lawrence taught Katie the value of persistence, creativity, and community.  She is thankful for having gone to a school where professors genuinely care about their students, and where fostering community means taking care of both the people and the environment.

          

After Graduation


After graduating in May 2009, Katie worked on a diversified farm called the Green Mountain Girls Farm (GMGF) in Northfield, Vermont.  During the summer she commuted by bike and fell in love with her road bike on the thirteen-mile ride to the farm each morning.  While there she worked in the garden, tended to the goats, pigs, chickens and turkeys, and wrote for the farm’s website, vermontfarm.blogspot.com.  In October Katie traveled to New Zealand for two months with her friend and fellow SLU alum Erin Hanafin ’09, and WWOOFed (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) on a developing orchard for a month in Karamea on the west coast of the South Island.  In December Katie spent two weeks in Tasmania, where she toured and hiked, and was blessed to see the Dalai Lama speak in Hobart.  Throughout her time abroad she wrote weekly on her blog Running Barefoot, http://kathrynspring.wordpress.com.  Upon returning to Vermont, Katie went back to work at the GMGF.  She continues to write on her blog, and recently published an essay from her thesis in EarthSpeak, an online magazine.

From her time at SLU and at the farm, Katie developed a passion for food and became involved in the local food movement.  Though she loved working for GMGF, she missed her time as a camp counselor and working with kids, so she began looking for a job that would incorporate gardening and teaching, and was lucky to find one that could also quench her thirst for travel: In April 2010, Katie moved to Fairbanks, Alaska and began working for Calypso Farm and Ecology Center as a School Garden Supervisor.  During her time in Fairbanks, she will work in schools to promote local food and garden-based education.  In the summer she will lead a crew of Student Gardeners at Hunter Elementary, teaching them how to grow their own vegetables and run a CSA and farm stand.  While she isn’t working, Katie loves to run, bike, swim, cook, bake, read and write.  She is excited to be in Alaska and to explore this part of the world.