An Interview with AAG Executive Director Gary Langham (Part 1)

While the AAG membership elects some of its governance (i.e. president, vice president, Council), the temporal constant in leadership is the Executive Director (ED). Historically, his tenure spans multiple presidents and many dozens of councilors. Since COVID-19 has prevented our new ED, Gary Langham, from meeting the membership and vice versa, I decided to interview him as an introduction into learning a bit about his perspectives, goals and personal history that led him to AAG.

We met on Wednesday, Aug. 19, which not coincidentally is the one-year anniversary of his first week in this role—half of which has been during the coronavirus pandemic. The interview lasted for over an hour, generating far too much to publish as a single column. So, I will cover the interview in two columns beginning with this piece as a summary of his path that led him to AAG. I have edited my questions and Gary’s comments below for brevity and clarity.

AMY: Let’s just start with some basics, like your background, the area of your formal training, and your experiences that led you to AAG.

GARY: I grew up in Sacramento, CA, within an academic family. My dad was a Ph.D. botanist and his father had a Ph.D. in plant genetics, so acquiring my own Ph.D. seemed natural to me. Looking into the future one could never know, but in hindsight this makes sense.

My dad and grandfather had interesting backgrounds. My grandfather, originally an Iowa farm boy, had to find a new path when the family farm was lost during the depression. Eventually, he ended up at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, in the early 1930s where he was the first Ph.D. recipient in plant genetics. Upon graduation, the government of Venezuela asked him to move there and lead a program for crops and genetics. He agreed and asked my grandmother, then a nurse, to marry him. They decided to go, despite speaking no Spanish at the time, and had four children there over the next 20 years.

During this time, he also became known as the father of the sesame seed. Sesame lays down its seed in pods that shatter when ripe, making it very time consuming to harvest. My grandfather was the first to find a variety that would open enough for machine harvesting, but not enough to lose the seeds. This side of the family continued researching and perfecting varieties of sesame for many years.

In addition to his scholarly abilities, my grandfather had an entrepreneurial spirit. Soon after he got there, oil production was booming in Venezuela, leading to a massive economic boom. He founded four large plant nurseries, supplying the growing numbers of businesses, hotels and factories around the country.

My dad was born and raised in Venezuela working in his dad’s plant nurseries. When my dad was 15, he went to the United States for the first time to finish school and later attend college. Inspired by what he learned from my grandfather, he sought his Ph.D. in plant biology and ecology. My father then taught at California State University in Sacramento for 38 years. He preferred teaching much more than research. I had the good fortune of growing up accompanying him on his botany and ecology field trips. We were around college students all of the time. During the summers, they would visit one day a week, so I grew up immersed in his love of teaching.

When I was seven years old, my dad discovered birding. He had been playing semi-pro ice hockey for fun, but he was getting too old and he wanted something else to do. He was also tired of the students asking what all the birds were on the field trips. So, he took this bird watching class. And it sounds silly to go from hockey to birding, but there is a whole world of competitive birding. Who knew?

What that meant for me, because he was so competitive, is whether I felt like it or not, I was in the back of a car going to look for birds every weekend from age seven to 13, and going all over the country traveling a lot with my parents. It was a lot of driving though, and I didn’t always love it. And of course, when you’re a kid, you absorb everything that you’re exposed to. So, now I was getting exposed to people, showing slides about birds and these professors would come over and they talk about their trips around the world. And, it was a great way to grow up. When I was 15, I started going back to Venezuela with my father. That was the first time my dad had been back in 30 years, and I kept going back for at least a month every year for the next 20 years.

Soon, he and I started leading birdwatching tours. Surprisingly, many people want to see birds bad enough that they will hire experts to show them all the species. Because I had spent so much time doing this, by the time I was 18 I was able to do it professionally. That’s how I put myself through college, leading trips all summer and over winter break. And, I did that for many years. When I came to my own schooling, I started off as an English major, finished that coursework and thought I was going to go to law school and do environmental law.

So, I was doing these birding tours, often with lawyers, and they’re like, “yeah, don’t do law school. Don’t do what I do. You should do birds or something like that. You should do ecology or conservation.” And, so I stayed on in college for a whole other major in biology. And, because I was putting myself through school with these tours, I could. I wasn’t in a hurry because I was getting paid to travel four months a year. In your twenties that’s really fun. Then I went back to college and took a class in, say, mammalogy, and then went all over the Americas seeing the mammals in the field. We were working all over the Americas: Canada, Costa Rica, and California in summer, and seven different trips in Venezuela that would rotate three per year over winter break.

This was an awesome way to grow up and go to college. But, eventually, I thought I’m just going to get a Ph.D. too. And what was great is because I had so much experience in South America already, it was easy to convince my advisers that I could go off and do research in South America because I’d already been doing it, essentially, for years. And it didn’t sound like a big risk. So, I got lucky and got into, arguably, the best ornithology program in the world at Cornell University. That was just a great experience. Although my Ph.D. is in ecology and evolutionary biology, I studied birds in South America.

Ecology spoke to my wide range of interests. And, just like with geography, you can never get bored with it because there’s so many different facets to it. After seven field seasons in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru, I wanted to go somewhere else. So, I did an NSF bioinformatics postdoc through UC Berkeley, with two years in the field and Queensland, Australia doing climate change research in the Wet Tropics and then a year back at Berkeley. Finally, I started working at Audubon, bringing birds, biology and policy together in conservation. Audubon was my job for 12 years before I started at AAG.

AMY: Actually, that was great. As you were relaying your story, I kept thinking about how your path seemed to be laid out for you. And, I feel like I just fell into geography. I spent my early life walking around in circles trying to figure out what I was going to do until I found this magic thing called geography. It just basically landed in my lap in college. And, then it transformed me.

At this point, our conversation transitioned to AAG, Geography, and higher education. I’ll continue the interview in a later column in which Gary will highlight his vision and goals for AAG.

—Amy Lobben
AAG President and Professor at University of Oregon
lobben [at] uoregon [dot] edu

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0078

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News from the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF), September 2020

Update 9/15/2020: In response to concerns raised by members of the AAG, the NSF has clarified its announced changes to the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences program (HEGS), formerly known as the Geography and Spatial Sciences program (GSS). 

AAG appreciates the time many of our members have taken to bring  questions and concerns about the program changes to light. The NSF’s Program Officers are available to provide answers and assistance in preparing proposals (email for the program and program guidelines are at the end of this clarification). 

Clarification from National Science Foundation: The repositioning of the Geography and Spatial Sciences program (GSS) to the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences program (HEGS)

Over the past several years, NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) has repositioned several programs to better reflect the science supported by those programs and to make their value more apparent to a broader audience. Nearly all NSF program names draw attention to what researchers do or why it matters. As a result, most programs are no longer named solely after disciplines. These changes bring SBE into closer alignment with long-held program naming practices at the rest of NSF. This provides more opportunities for researchers to conduct innovative and valuable work and for NSF to more effectively communicate the value of the research that it supports.

The name change from Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) to Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) represents a more holistic perspective that considers the broad range of topics that enhance fundamental geographical knowledge, concepts, theories, methods and their application to societal problems and concerns. With the increase in convergent programs across NSF directorates such as Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES), Coastlines and People (CoPe), Sustainable Regional Systems (SRS) and Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), geographers stand uniquely situated to participate in such endeavors. At the same time, the inclusion of the term “Geographical Sciences” in the new program title signals the sustained and continued support of geography. In line with NSF’s mandate to support basic scientific research, HEGS-supported projects are expected to yield results that enhance, expand, and transform fundamental geographical/spatial theory and methods, and produce broader impacts that benefit society.

HEGS (previously GSS, and before that Geography and Regional Science-GRS) recognizes that geography is a broad discipline that includes the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanitiesWhile HEGS continues to consider proposals that cover research in human geography, HEGS does not fund research that engages predominantly humanistic, non-scientific framings and methods. This has always been the case and is not a new policy or a change in requirements for proposals submitted to NSF. HEGS has always stressed to PIs that their proposals must focus on the scientific aspects of a project, including clearly articulated questions or hypotheses, methods and a corresponding data analysis plan that can provide answers to those questions. HEGS program staff have noted a steady increase in predominantly non-science-oriented proposals. It is important to note that this repositioning is not a judgement on the value of such scholarship or its practitioners. HEGS will continue to accept proposals that creatively integrate scientific and critical approaches. Prospective PIs are encouraged to visit the HEGS website and explore the diverse research and PIs that have been recently funded by the program.

The repositioning of HEGS also reflects the breadth of research appropriate for submission to the programs. HEGS is situated in the Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division of SBE and thus research projects submitted to the program must illustrate their relevance and importance to people and societiesIf a proposal is not well-connected to social or human dimensions, the proposal could be more appropriate for other programs at NSF. For example, bio-physical science is supported by programs in the Division of Environmental Biology in NSF’s Biological Sciences Directorate, and physical science is supported by programs in the Division of Earth Sciences (e.g. the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program) in the Geosciences Directorate.

Potential investigators are encouraged to contact a HEGS program officer with questions about whether their proposal would be considered by HEGS. Email hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov with a two-page (maximum) attachment outlining the research question(s) or hypotheses, the intellectual merit and anticipated broader impacts of the project, as well as the methods and anticipated data and analysis.

Scott M. Freundschuh, HEGS Program Officer

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, HEGS Program Officer

Antoinette WinklerPrins, Former GSS Program Officer and current Deputy Division Director in BCS

FAQs 

overview of guidance 

detailed guideline

***
Original announcement: Announcing Staff Changes in HEGS

Scott Freundschuh continues as HEGS Program Director.

BIO: Scott M. Freundschuh holds a Ph.D. in geography from SUNY Buffalo. Scott is a cognitive geographer, specializing in spatial cognition as it relates to types of spatial knowledge and their structures, geographic scale, spatial concept development and understanding, and spatial skills development. He is a faculty member at the University of New Mexico.

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen joins HEGS as new Program Director.

BIO: Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Georgia. Her research interests include the geography of innovation, geographic implications of industrial evolution with a focus on bio-pharmaceuticals, agri-bio, and bioenergy sectors, energy transitions, foreign direct investment in the United States, and socioeconomic implications of urban-regional population shrinkage. She is a faculty member at the State University of New York-Buffalo.

Kendra McLauchlan is now a permanent Program Director in the Division of Environmental Biology and works closely with HEGS.

BIO: Kendra K. McLauchlan holds a Ph.D. in ecology from University of Minnesota. Kendra is a physical geographer, specializing in reconstructing North American paleoenvironments as recorded in lacustrine sediments and dendrochronological records. She holds an adjunct appointment as a faculty member in Geography and Geospatial Sciences at Kansas State University.

HEGS Program Director Jacqueline (Jackie) Vadjunec has returned to Oklahoma State University where she has been promoted to full professor. Congratulations Jackie!

From GSS to HEGS – Why the Change?

The change from Geography and Spatial Sciences to Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences at NSF is the result of efforts within the Social and Behavioral Sciences Directorate to reposition programs so that they align with the mission of the Directorate. Geography is a broad discipline, spanning multiple paradigms and topics ranging from purely process-oriented biophysical geography to post-modern, humanistic geography. However, not all geographic scholarship is a good fit at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The name change articulates more clearly the human, environmental, and geographical sciences that are appropriate for funding at NSF. This change reflects NSF’s mission to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense” and also HEGS’s location in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).

In general, research that is predominantly post-modern, post-structural, humanistic etc., is not a good fit for NSF. As noted in the solicitation, “A proposal to the HEGS Program must explain how the research will contribute to geographic and spatial scientific theory and/or methods development, and how the results are generalizable beyond the case study.” If research is more biophysical or process oriented, but aspatial and/or not well-connected to social or human dimensions, the proposal could be more appropriate for other programs at NSF. For example, bio-physical science is supported by the programs in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) directorate, and physical science is supported by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics (GLD) program. When considering the fit of research at NSF, it is useful to understand the overall institutional architecture of the Foundation.

Potential investigators are encouraged to contact a HEGS program officer with questions regarding the fit of their research in HEGS. Please send an email inquiry to hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov with no more than a two page attachment that outlines the research question(s) or hypotheses, the intellectual merit and anticipated broader impacts of the project, as well as the methods and anticipated data and analysis.

You can find the new HEGS solicitation here.

You can find the HEGS FAQ here.

Other Funding Opportunities at NSF

Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES) Program

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Program

Coastlines and People (CoPe) Program

Build and Broaden DLC

Contact information for HEGS Program Directors is hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov.

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Welcome to Clancy Wilmott, and thank you to John Kelmelis: AAG representatives on the Board of Directors of the GIS Certification Institute

The GIS Certification Institute or GISCI was established in 2002 by member organizations: Association of American Geographers (AAG), Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA), National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), University Consortium of Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), to provide the GIS community with a complete certification program, leading to Certified GIS Professionals.

John Kelmelis has completed five years as AAG representative of GISCI’s board of directors and is succeeded by Clancy Wilmott, who assumes a two-year term on the board, and will join Mike S. Scott (Salisbury University) who is currently on the board.

Clancy Wilmott is at the University of California at Berkeley where she serves as an Assistant Professor in Critical Cartography, Geovisualisation and Design in the Berkeley Centre for New Media and the Department of Geography. Wilmott received her PhD in Human Geography from the University of Manchester and also holds undergraduate degrees in Communications (Media Arts and Production) and International Studies (Italian), as well as a postgraduate degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Wilmott researches critical cartography, new media and spatial practices. She published papers in the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Big Data and Society, the Leonardo Electronic Almanac and the Journal of Television and New Media, amongst others. She is also the author of Mobile Mapping: Space, Cartography, and the Digital published in 2020 by Amsterdam University Press. This book argues for a theory of mobile mapping, a situated and spatial approach towards researching how everyday digital mobile media practices are bound up in global systems of knowledge and power.

We are impressed by her experience applying GIS to a variety of projects and by her experience teaching GIS to students from different disciplinary communities. As a member of the board, she will bring an important and needed perspective, and an understanding of the newer challenges in the profession and of the importance of training and awareness GIS Professionals require today.

We would like to express their heartfelt thanks to John Kelmelis for his service and dedication in the last 5 years. He has contributed tremendously the advancement of the GISP credential through providing guidance on important policy issue surrounding the implementation and subsequent revisions to the GISCI Geospatial Core Technical Knowledge Exam that has become a foundation of the GISP certification. John also served on the Executive Director search committee that began its work following Bill Hodge’s announcement of his upcoming retirement.

“The members of the GISCI Board of Directors will miss John’s insights, perspective, and sense of humor and we sincerely appreciate his dedication to our profession and to GISCI,” said Martin Roche, President of GISCI.

The GISCI board meets monthly to ensure the certification process is adapted to new circumstances and effectively administered. Indeed, since the establishment of the institute in 2002, we see continuous innovation to the capabilities of GIS and are still experiencing growth in the field of GIScience. Additionally, a growing number of communities and disciplines – beyond Geography, are gaining interest in the capabilities of GIS.

Learn more about the GISCI at https://www.gisci.org/.

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Participatory Forum on New Requirements for Ethical Geographic Science in Rapid Research

COVID-19 calls upon researchers to navigate a fast-paced scientific inquiry process under enormous public scrutiny. The rapid funding mechanisms, abundance of geographic data from emerging technologies, and the “real-time” expectations and needs of governments have posed new challenges to traditionally accepted research methods and timelines, collaborative relationships, parameters for data sharing, and public expectations of research outcomes.

All of these challenges carry ethical questions and human rights-related dilemmas. The American Association of Geographers (AAG) as a member of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition is coordinating a “Participatory Forum” on October 1, 2020 at 1:00 PM (ET) that engages both memberships across disciplinary practice to ask, “At what cost are we advancing science when the stakes are high and the pressure on normal timelines is intense?”

What is a Participatory Forum?
It is not always easy to have a true “conversation” when the set-up is a panel of experts accessible through a Q&A chatbox. So instead, the AAG identified three areas of inquiry deserving of focused discussion. With help from moderators for each question, forum participants will be able to contribute their critical thoughts with other participants directly and connect with them on these topics. This forum will explore new virtual spaces for academics to collaborate and participate in the process of scientific inquiry given the “virtual” normal.

Forum participants may choose to join a discussion of questions such as:

  1. Who is considered a human subject in research in a time of automated location tracking and facial recognition, and how do they consent to participate in research? How should scholars safeguard confidentiality of human subjects in research when re-identification of anonymized data becomes possible and when geographic representation (or interpretation) is flawed?
  2. Collective Rights of “places” during fast-paced and global research: How do we foster genuine research and other partnerships so that people impacted by decisions in certain places are part of the conversation and search for solutions?
  3. Who is carrying the burden of rapid COVID-19 science (who are the human subjects or places in research), and who is benefitting from rapid COVID-19 findings? What burdens are added to Human Subjects in Research and to Places when science is not taken into account for important decision making?

Registration for the workshop is required. Please click here to register.

 

The AAG would like to thank the volunteer moderators: Libby Lunstrum (Boise State University), Junghwan Kim (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Ranu Basu (York University), Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach (University of Texas – Austin), Emily Fekete (AAG), Coline Dony (AAG)

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Participate in AAG’s New Career and Research Mentors Program

Within AAG’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force, members proposed the creation of a mentoring program in a time when students and colleagues may have limited access to previous peer and professional contacts and mentors, while also facing new challenges. In response, the AAG has created a new program with the goal of facilitating more connections in our community and keeping students and early career geographers energized and engaged with their geography education, research, and careers. While this program is in response to the pandemic and the related disruption of activities, the availability of volunteer mentors helps to serve those who at any time have limited access to geography mentors and professional support.

How does it work?  AAG members may volunteer to be a mentor by signing up online and providing information about their areas of expertise and interest. Students and early career geographers seeking a mentor can view the current list of volunteers and reach out through the provided contact information to start a dialogue. An active AAG membership is required for volunteer mentors only, not those seeking a mentor.

While the program only recently launched, over 40 AAG members have already signed up as mentors. Their specialty areas range the breadth of geography, and their interests and experiences can speak to diverse circumstances and challenges of students and early career geographers. Current volunteers note personal and professional experience with underrepresented groups, non-traditional students, switching careers, work/life balance, English as a second language, non-academic career paths, and more. Among all mentors is the shared desire to support our discipline and help others benefit from positive mentoring experiences like those that have helped them:

  • “It’s important to build community and capacity within our discipline. Mentoring helps to pay it back for all those who paid it forward.”
  • “I got where I am today because of the guidance and help of others.  I would love to give that back to our discipline.”
  • “It’s so important to have support networks, and I have also found that passing it forward helps me to sustain my own well being.”

For more information, to sign up as a mentor, or to view the list of volunteer mentors, visit aag.org/mentorship. For questions, contact us at mentoring [at] aag [dot] org.

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Minutes from AAG Specialty Group call on August 25, 2020

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AAG Council Earmarks $900,000 to Support Geographers

COVID19taskforcepbnr

As the COVID-19 pandemic grew in severity, the AAG Council recognized that the work of geographers is more crucial than ever, yet the teaching and practice of geography is at risk. While the impacts to public health affect every geographer around the world, the economic impacts also threaten the institutions and businesses that support our discipline as a whole.

COVID19RapidResponseTaskForceprojectfactsheetbabyIn response, the AAG Council formed the COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force. This group consisted of more than 60 AAG member volunteers on five subcommittees, each focused on a facet of AAG membership (i.e., students, departments, regions, members, and virtual connections) charged with developing proposals that answer this question: What can the AAG do to address the systemic crisis facing geographers and geography?

Proposals were evaluated by a Blue Ribbon Panel, composed of former AAG presidents, AAG fellows, students, and others covering a wide-ranging set of expertise and perspectives, which then recommended the most feasible and impactful projects to the AAG Council. Of the original 34 proposals, nine were chosen to receive nearly $1 million in funding. Some projects launched immediately, while more complex plans will take longer to roll out. All will strengthen and benefit geography and provide means of support to AAG members most affected by the pandemic.

Highlights include: supporting vulnerable members with dues assistance, expanding jobs and career resources, funding new mentoring and internship opportunities, providing aid for computer equipment needed for virtual learning, and reinforcing regional and national annual meetings. Other relief will include various degrees of support for the AAG’s regional divisions, specialty and affinity groups, and academic departments. At this critical time, the AAG will continue to raise awareness of the relevance of geography to both decision-makers and to the public.

Diversity and inclusion is a key focus when implementing these proposals. For example, the AAG will donate funds to faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities to provide their geography students with laptops, internet service, and software through its Bridging the Digital Divide project.

More details on projects will be announced as they become available.

If you would like to help support the membership renewal fund and our other COVID-19 rapid response initiatives, please consider making a donation.

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COVID19 Rapid Response Task Force project fact sheet

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COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force

Enlarged microscopic view of COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic grew in severity, the AAG Council recognized that the work of geographers is more crucial than ever, yet the teaching and practice of geography is at risk. While the impacts to public health affect every geographer around the world, the economic impacts also threaten the institutions and businesses that support our discipline as a whole.

COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force project fact sheetIn response, the AAG Council formed the COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force. This group consisted of more than 60 AAG member volunteers on five subcommittees, each focused on a facet of AAG membership (i.e., students, departments, regions, members, and virtual connections) charged with developing proposals that answer this question: What can the AAG do to address the systemic crisis facing geographers and geography?

Proposals were evaluated by a Blue Ribbon Panel, composed of former AAG presidents, AAG fellows, students, and others covering a wide-ranging set of expertise and perspectives, which then recommended the most feasible and impactful projects to the AAG Council. Of the original 34 proposals, nine were chosen to receive nearly $1 million in funding. Some projects launched immediately, while more complex plans will take longer to roll out. All will strengthen and benefit geography and provide means of support to AAG members most affected by the pandemic.

Highlights include: supporting vulnerable members with dues assistance, expanding jobs and career resources, funding new mentoring and internship opportunities, providing aid for computer equipment needed for virtual learning, and reinforcing regional and national annual meetings. Other relief will include various degrees of support for the AAG’s regional divisions, specialty and affinity groups, and academic departments. At this critical time, the AAG will continue to raise awareness of the relevance of geography to both decision-makers and to the public.

Diversity and inclusion is a key focus when implementing these proposals. For example, the AAG will donate funds to faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities to provide their geography students with laptops, internet service, and software through its Bridging the Digital Divide project.

More details on projects will be announced as they become available.

If you would like to help support the membership renewal fund and our other COVID-19 rapid response initiatives, please consider making a donation.

 


Projects in progress

  • Membership Renewal Dues Assistance: AAG’s most vulnerable current members’ renewals were extended from August 2020 for those who applied. Those eligible are: current undergraduate students, graduate students and postdocs, developing regions, and/or who receive income at or below $25,000/year and whose membership expires by May 31, 2021.
  • Mentoring Program: The AAG Career & Research Mentors program launched in August 2020. Current AAG members were encouraged to sign up online to volunteer as mentors and are then were added to the online database. As of September 2020, there were 40+ mentors listed with a wide variety of backgrounds and expertise.
  • Bridging the Digital Divide: Nearly $250,000 was awarded to minority-serving institutions towards laptops, software and connectivity for students to continue their studies within hybrid or virtual settings.
  • Career and Leadership Resources: Two projects featuring refreshed and new resources are AAG’s Jobs & Careers web pages and a fall professional development webinar series, adding an interactive aspect to the website as well.
  • AAG COVID-19 Internship Assistance Program: Faculty with internship opportunities for 2021 are encouraged to apply for assistance and identify qualified geography students for a limited number of openings within each regional division. Interns will receive a grant for their semester’s work and will attend their regional division conference. The funds will be split equally among the nine regions.
  • Methods Training for Students: A series of webinars and workshops will help students with research methods, including the possibility and versatility of geography, and adapting methods or processes challenged by the pandemic. These online workshops will enable students to connect with experts and with one another. Although students are the focus, these resources are available to all members.
  • Stabilizing AAG Regional Divisions: Two projects in this area will provide funds for regional divisions and their meetings affected by the impact of the pandemic, including three recorded keynote sessions from fall regional division meetings.

SWAAG 2020 keynote

Middle States 2020 keynote

MAD 2020 keynote

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Lauren Sinclair – Middle School Teacher, Oregon

Photo of Lauren SinclairPosition: Middle School GIS Teacher! It’s my dream job!

What was your favorite class in K-12? I loved it all. I think that’s why I’m a teacher. But in undergrad my favorite classes were all geography… so I asked my favorite geography professor for advice on learning more. Because of his awesome advice I tried my first GIS and ended up at PSU studying geomorphology and GIS for my master’s.

How did you first learn about and/or use GIS? My first GIS experience is freeze-framed in my memory, which is exactly why I love recreating that magical experience for my students every semester. It was an exploration of the Ring of Fire on an early version of ArcMap in 2005 or so… what I remember most was following the directions and turning on the volcanoes layer, the earthquakes layer, and then the plate boundaries layer… and I felt like I had discovered plate tectonics myself! My immediate thought was “kids have got to try this!”

Name one thing you love about GIS and/or geography: GIS has evolved to be more intuitive and user friendly every year. It’s already at a point where my 6th-8th graders learn how to use ArcGISOnline independently over the course of about 30 hours in one semester… and some of my 8th graders are honestly better at spatial analysis than I am by the end of the semester. That’s powerful. That tells me that we need to give youth more opportunities to use this technology earlier… we shouldn’t wait until an undergraduate program to introduce people to GIS!

Why did you want to volunteer as a GeoMentor? I guess I see myself as a GeoMentor advocate. When I started turning the technology class at my middle school into a GIS class, I had no idea what to do, so I reached out to the GeoMentor network and connected to some of my PSU professors. They got me from crawling to running in no time! I’ve since invited dozens of GIS professionals to my classroom and encouraged them to become GeoMentors. It’s important for my students to meet GIS professionals in person and see the huge range of applications for the technology. They’ve met people from Esri, MapBox, Quantum Spatial, Extensis, Portland State University, Portland Community College, and more! There are so many more classrooms out there that will never experience GIS without the encouragement and support of a GeoMentor, which is why I’m always encouraging GIS professionals to visit a classroom!

If someone asked you why they should learn about GIS and/or geography, how would you respond in one sentence? The kids in school right now are the meme generation; they communicate visually. That means they’re primed to communicate with GIS! I want the world to catch on to this perfect match and put GIS in as many classrooms as possible.

WebsiteFAIS ArcGIS Online homepage

Twitter@MrsSinclairMaps

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