Awardees

AAG Announces 2021 Grant Recipients

The American Association of Geographers congratulates the individuals and entities named to receive an AAG Grant. The AAG will confer these awards at a future event to be determined, once the travel and in-person meeting restrictions have been lifted.

The 2021 Anne U. White Grant

This grant enables people, regardless of any formal training in geography, to engage in useful field studies and to have the joy of working alongside their partners.

Erik Johanson, Florida Atlantic University, will conduct paleoenvironmental research in Guayaquil, Ecuador with partner Jessie Johanson, and will lead a coring team with Florida Atlantic University (FAU) students associated with the FAU field school.

Max Woodworth, Ohio State University, will study historical urban geography with partner Namiko Kunimoto, in Tokyo for a project titled: Colonial Modernism in Datong, Shanxi.

2021 Dissertation Research Grant recipients ($1,000/each)

The AAG provides support for doctoral Dissertation Research in the form of grants up to $1,000 to PhD candidates of any geographic specialty.

Shamayeta Bhattacharya, University of Connecticut

Alicia Danze, University of Texas at Austin

Brandon Finn, Harvard University

Gengchen Mai, UC Santa Barbara

Scott Markley, University of Georgia

Sophie O’Manique, The Graduate Center, CUNY

Ruchi Patel, Pennsylvania State University

2021 Research Grant recipients ($500/each):

The AAG provides small Research Grants of $500 to support direct costs for fieldwork and research.

Ryan Burns, University of Calgary

Mei-Huan Chen, Pennsylvania State University

Jennifer Greenburg, Stanford University

Wenliang Li, University of North Carolina Greensboro

Anna Van de Grift, Texas A&M University

Qi Zhang, Boston University

2021 AAG Darrel Hess Community College Geography Scholarships

Outstanding students from community colleges, junior colleges, city colleges, or two-year educational institutions who will be transferring as geography majors to four-year universities receive support and recognition from this scholarship program, including $1,000 for educational expenses.  The scholarship has been generously provided by Darrel Hess of the City College of San Francisco to 29 students since 2006.

Devon Michelle Borthwick, transferring from Front Range Community College to the University of Wyoming,

Constance Connors, transferring from Sinclair Community College to Arizona State University

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Annual Meeting

Social Media at #AAG2021

We’re getting closer to the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting! Whether you will be attending the meeting all week, for a few days, or catching up with recordings of presentations between other obligations, there are plenty of ways to get involved using social media. Social media is a great way for seasoned conference goers and newcomers alike to network, report on new research, engage in lively debate with those inside and outside of the discipline, and find out what’s going on during the largest geography conference in the world. Start planning your #AAG2021 social media strategy today with these helpful guidelines:

Twitter

One of the most frequently used social media sites for live events, Twitter is a great place to start scoping out the annual meeting. Twitter is used by geographers to discuss research ideas, share recent publications, or connect with others. As the main social media channel, the AAG annual meeting has had active Twitter users since at least 2011 in Seattle. This year the official conference hashtag will be #AAG2021. Start using and following #AAG2021; posts are already being compiled in anticipation of the meeting. If you are new to Twitter, try these tips to benefit most from the network:

  • Follow @theAAG on Twitter. The official AAG Twitter account will be active throughout the meeting with important announcements, live tweets of events, and fun ways to virtually interact with other conference attendees.
  • Use #AAG2021 on all your meeting related communications. Sometimes it is difficult to fit your thoughts into the 280 character count, but try to include the hashtag #AAG2021 in each of your tweets. This will ensure that your tweets are being seen by others who are attending the conference or following along. If you are new to hashtags, a hashtag is a way to organize a specific topic into one feed. Click on the hashtag to see the conversations happening related to that topic.
  • Whenever possible, try to include Twitter handles. If you are tweeting about a paper, panel, or poster, be sure to attribute the research to the right person by using their Twitter handle (@[name]). Presenters and panelists should consider including their handles on an opening slide or in a poster corner. Conversely, if you do not want your research to be tweeted, please state that information upfront so the audience is aware of your desires.
  • Follow the hashtag and join the conversation! The great thing about Twitter conversations is that they can be both live or asynchronous, helpful for those communicating between time zones.

Facebook

Do you prefer Facebook over Twitter as your social media site of choice? While there will be less live coverage of specific sessions, Facebook is a great way to share videos and news about the annual meeting with your friends, family, and colleagues.

  • Make sure you like the AAG Facebook page (www.facebook.com/geographers) and set the page so that you see it first in your News Feed by clicking on the “Following” dropdown menu on the AAG Facebook page itself. This will ensure that you receive the latest meeting related announcements as soon as you open the Facebook app or website.
  • Check on the page each morning for reminders of the day’s schedule of events.

Instagram

Instagram is a fun place to share your photos of your daily life as a geographer and where in the world you are participating from for the AAG Annual Meeting.

  • Follow @theAAG on Instagram for visual representations of programs currently underway at the AAG.
  • Share your photos of your personal experience of the annual meeting with other attendees using the conference hashtag #AAG2021.

Linked in

The AAG has recently expanded its presence on the professional networking site, Linked in. New features, such as the ability to write and publish short blog-style posts, has recently set Linked in apart from other social networks. With the ability to share content using hashtags, Linked in is a great network to share research, ask for feedback, and hear from industry thought leaders.

  • Are you following the AAG’s page on Linked in? Be sure to hit the follow button to ensure that anything posted by the AAG shows up in your feed.
  • Use #AAG2021 on Linked in as you would with Instagram or Twitter. Hashtags on Linked in work similarly to those on Instagram or Twitter, giving users a chance to follow a long with conversations about a particular topic, in this case, the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting.
  • Share upcoming professional development events or other items of interest to your Linked in feed using relevant hashtags. By adding hashtags to your posts, more people are likely to see your content.

General Communications

Because the AAG social media channels will be busy during the annual meeting, AAG staff may not be able to provide a timely reply through these mediums. The AAG Annual Meeting Website is a good place to start for conference information with regards to technology related questions, session times, and abstracts. If you have questions or concerns and need to contact a staff member, the best option is to email meeting[at]aag[dot[org].

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Emily Fekete
Emily Fekete
Awardees

2021 AAG Award Recipients Announced

The American Association of Geographers congratulates the individuals and entities named to receive an AAG Award. The awardees represent outstanding contributions to and accomplishments in the geographic field.

2021 AAG Presidential Achievement Award

The AAG Past President recognizes individuals who have made long-standing and distinguished contributions to the discipline of geography.

Michael DeVivo
After a career in the military and in the merchant marines, Mike DeVivo began a new life as a geographer. Since then, he has defined the value of the community college as a nurturing ground for new geography students by singlehandedly managing the geography program at Grand Rapids Community College. In his 30 years as an instructor, DeVivo has turned many students into geographers, several of whom have gone on to careers in the field.

Beyond teaching and advising, Mike has chronicled the field of geography. His book, Leadership in American Academic Geography: The Twentieth Century, looked at how geography chairs made a difference in the success of many prominent geography departments. His Conversation with a Geographer oral history series has enabled us to hear from these leaders directly. Mike has also reflected on the role of geographers in community colleges, many of whom stand alone in their institutions.

Prof. DeVivo maintains a steady involvement with the AAG and with higher education in general. He serves on the Healthy Departments Committee, he is active in the International Geographical Union Commissions on the History of Geography and on African Studies, and he has long demonstrated a passion for the field, typified in Mike’s motto: “Geography Lives!”

Jacqueline Housel
There are many opportunities found in a community college education, and Prof. Jacqueline (Jacquie) Housel has demonstrated these as a teacher, a mentor, and an advocate. Jacquie spent most of her career at Sinclair Community College, near Dayton, Ohio, where she has taught the value of a geographical perspective to students, many of whom have gone on to spread geography themselves.

Prof. Housel’s graduate work examined racialized patterns in urban areas. As a professor, she continued to publish on the role of race and refugees in journals such as Urban Studies, Urban Geography and Social and Cultural Geography. But her more recent works – in the Professional Geographer and other outlets – have focused on documenting the role and challenges inherent in community colleges. In these pieces, Jacquie shows just how pivotal two-year colleges are in shaping future geographers, and how community college professors and stand-alone geographers need to forge collaborations to maximize their impact on the curriculum.

Housel has consistently advocated for the inclusion of community college professors in the academy, and especially organizations such as the AAG. She was the first community college professor to head the East Lakes Division of the AAG, she led the stand-alone geographers and the community college affinity groups, has worked on establishing an AP GIS program, and serves on the Healthy Departments Committee. Jacquie also engages in the community by improving police-neighborhood relations and in educating her neighbors on local immigrants/refugees.

2021 Glenda Laws Award

The Glenda Laws Award is administered by the American Association of Geographers and endorsed by members of the Institute of Australian Geographers, the Canadian Association of Geographers, and the Institute of British Geographers. The annual award and honorarium recognize outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues. This award is named in memory of Glenda Laws—a geographer who brought energy and enthusiasm to her work on issues of social justice and social policy.

Jen Jack Gieseking, University of Kentucky

Jen Jack Gieseking is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky whose scholarship combines critical urban theory, GIS, and digital humanities to study queer, feminist, and trans geographies.

Having received his PhD in 2012, Dr. Gieseking has amassed an impressive research record including nearly two dozen peer-reviewed articles in high-impact outlets (many of them open- access) and a defining, cross-disciplinary reference text: A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers. Dr. Gieseking’s scholarship extends beyond publications to include leadership of ACME: International Journal of Critical Geographies, where his recommenders hail the inclusive culture he fosters among editorial staff and contributors. He actively mentors junior scholars and pioneers innovative teaching strategies drawn from critical roots. Furthermore, Dr. Gieseking’s LBGTQ Heritage Initiative Theme Study for the National Parks Service demonstrates the broader societal impacts of his scholarship.

Overall, the AAG Diversity & Inclusion Committee was excited to highlight the work of a queer, feminist, and trans geographer whose work fervently promotes the visibility of LBGTQ+ individuals, spaces, and place histories.

Pavithra Vasudevan, University of Texas at Austin

Pavithra Vasudevan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her feminist-inspired, participatory action research calls attention to environmental racism in Black communities in rural North Carolina. Despite only being in her second year on the tenure track, Dr. Vasudevan’s scholarly record includes peer-reviewed publications in Antipode, Area, and Environment and Planning C, several edited chapters, and a book manuscript in progress based on her field research: Toxic Alchemy: Black Life and Death in Industrial Capitalism.

Dr. Vasudevan engages creatively with community members, community organizations, and students, fusing ethnographic methods and performance arts (e.g., theater, music, and visual arts) with social science. Her recommenders include previous advisors, students, and colleagues who all testify to the extraordinary intellectual and emotional labor she invests in her activist research.

The AAG Diversity & Inclusion Committee felt strongly that Dr. Vasudevan’s research efforts not only exceeded the criteria of the Glenda Laws award, but that her inspirational pedagogy embodied the spirit of Glenda Laws’ own approaches to research, teaching, and advocacy.

2021 AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice

The Rose Award was created to honor Harold M. Rose, who was a pioneer in conducting research on the condition faced by African Americans. The award honors geographers who have a demonstrated record of this type of research and active contributions to society, and is awarded to individuals who have served to advance the discipline through their research, and who have also had an impact on anti-racist practice.

John Frazier, Binghamton University

Dr. John Frazier has made crucial contributions to anti-racist knowledge and praxis in geography in his nearly four-decade long career. His leadership as the founder of the Race, Ethnicity, and Place (REP) Conference is a hallmark of his contributions to challenge racism in the discipline and beyond. REP, geography’s most diverse conference now in its second decade, features research across the discipline and provides unmatched opportunities for networking and mentoring. Frazier has been instrumental in bringing this conference to a wide range of universities, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, to expose geography to more diverse audiences and students. He has also served as a stalwart leader in the AAG Ethnic Geography Specialty Group. Frazier has dedicated his academic life to advancing the research and careers of geographers of color, having long lasting effects on the discipline through this conference and the professional network he has fostered.

Frazier’s research has addressed core issues in contemporary racial and ethnic geography and immigrant experiences. His publications have become key resources for researchers and instructors. Notably, he has co-edited three editions of Race, Ethnicity and Place in a Changing America, The African Diaspora in The U. S. and Canada at the Dawn of the 21st Century, and Multicultural Geographies of the United States, and co-authored Race and Place: Equity Issues in Urban America. Widely used in teaching, Frazier’s work has paved a pathway into the discipline for generations of geographers.

Overall, John Frazier has played a significant role in institutionalizing a critical study of race, equity, and inclusion within geography and making anti-racism part of the official, programmatic life of geographers—as found in its conferences, knowledge communities, publications, and pedagogy.

2021 AAG Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

This annual award recognizes outstanding achievement in teaching undergraduate Geography including the use of innovative teaching methods. The recipients are instructors for whom undergraduate teaching is a primary responsibility.  The award consists of $2,500 in prize money and an additional $500 in travel expenses to attend the AAG Annual Meeting, where the award will be conveyed. This award is generously funded by John Wiley & Sons in memory of their long-standing collaboration with the late Harm de Blij on his seminal Geography textbooks.

Heather Bedi, Dickinson College

Dr. Heather Bedi is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Dickinson College where her teaching and research focus on peoples, places, and environments and the many connections between them. Students and faculty colleagues recognize her passion for teaching and her dynamic approach. She not only creates fresh ways for students to engage with course material in the classroom, but also provides opportunities for them to actively contribute to the local community using tools and knowledge obtained in the numerous courses she has developed.

Dr. Bedi’s teaching and community outreach are well-informed by her research into relationships among civil society, socio-environmental movements, and natural resource and landscape modifications. Moreover, she successfully obtains teaching related grants and student-faculty-community collaboration grants to advance the work.

Dr. Bedi is already making a strong mark on geography teaching and is poised to make an even more distinguished impact into the future.

2021 Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography

The AAG Wilbanks Prize for Transformational Research in Geography will honor researchers from the public, private, or academic sectors who have made transformative contributions to the fields of Geography or GIScience. Provided there is sufficient availability of funds, the Wilbanks Prize will consist of a cash prize of $2,000 and include a memento with the name of the Prize and the recipient.

Mei-Po Kwan, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Mei-Po Kwan has had transformational impacts on how transportation specialists and geographic information scientists think about accessibility and activity-travel patterns analysis; how feminist geographers understand quantification and GIS; how geographers and geographic information scientists integrate quantitative and qualitative methods and insights from different theoretical traditions; and how health geographers, public health researchers, and scholars in other disciplines think about environmental exposure and the significance of the neighborhood.

Employing feminist perspectives, Dr. Kwan has dramatically altered geo-visualization, the inclusion of qualitative data through geo-narratives, and she has broadened geographic information science beyond a narrow “objective” standard to more humanistic standards that include perceptions, emotions, and behavior as core concerns. She has also advanced conceptualization of concepts like uncertainty and bias by promoting more dynamic perspectives that examine spatial contexts as rooted in everyday behaviors and experiences rather than as containers fixed in space and time.

Both the significant substance and impact of Dr. Kwan’s work have transformed the discipline of geography and geographic information science and infused the broader community of researchers and practitioners with more robust geospatial understanding, thereby making her a highly deserving recipient of the Wilbanks Prize.

2021 AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography

The AAG Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography is given annually to an individual geographer or team of geographers that has demonstrated originality, creativity and significant intellectual breakthroughs in geography. The award includes a prize of $1,000.

Dawn Wright, Esri

Over her career, Dr. Dawn Wright has combined her expertise in spatial data science and oceanography to make creative and pioneering contributions to geography. She has authored or co-authored more than 180 articles and 12 books on oceanography and geographic information systems, including one of the first marine GIS books, Marine and Coastal Geographical Information Systems, co-edited with Darius Bartlett. Dr. Wright is no armchair scientist. Her saltwater fieldwork began with many expeditions on the scientific research ship, the JOIDES Resolution. Through those as well as subsequent expeditions which she joined and led, Dr. Wright has brought to the surface previously unknown ocean terrain in some of the most remote oceanic regions.

Dr. Wright began her academic career at Oregon State University and then joined Esri in 2011 as their Chief Scientist, the position she currently holds. She was a key leader of the joint Esri/US Geological Survey team that developed the first truly 3-Dimensional map of the waters within the world’s ocean, also known as the Ecological Marine Units.

During her distinguished career, she has received numerous awards and recognitions, including: 25 BadAxx Women Shaping Climate Action in 2021, the American Geographical Society George Davidson Medal, the Society of Extraordinary Women Science and Innovations Extraordinary Leaders Award, and the AAG Presidential Achievement Award. Dr. Wright has also been named a fellow of several notable societies, including: the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Geological Society of America, the American Association of Geographers, The Oceanography Society, and the California Academy of Sciences.

In recognition of her extraordinary contributions to science, pioneering and synthetic thinking about oceanography, geography, and GIS, and for her years of leadership, the American Association of Geographers confers the 2021 Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography to “Deepsea Dawn” Wright.

The 2021 AAG-Kauffman Awards for Best Paper and Best Student Paper in Geography & Entrepreneurship

This award identifies innovative research in business, applied or community geography that is relevant to questions related to entrepreneurs and their firms as well as to practitioners and policymakers. Award winners and runners up will be invited to present their research in a session highlighting geography and entrepreneurship at the AAG Annual Meeting on Thursday, April 9, 2020.

2021 Best Paper Award

Qingfang Wang, University of California Riverside – Fostering Art and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Underserved Communities: A Case of Newark, NJ

2021 Best Paper Award Runner-Up

Örjan Sölvell, Stockholm School of Economics – The dark side of agglomeration, sustained wealth and transposition of trading institutions—the case of Bordeaux in the 18th and 19th centuries

2021 Best Student Paper Award

Nicole Bignall, University of North Carolina at Greensboro –
Self-Employment by US County: Key Predictors

2021 Best Student Paper Award Runner-Up

Elina Shepard (Sukaryavichute), University of North Carolina at Charlotte – Opportunities and Challenges for Small Businesses in New Transit Neighborhoods

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President's Column

Want a Thriving Department? Focus on Undergraduate Success

I cannot think of a person in higher education who has not felt the pressure of maintaining and growing undergraduate enrollments. Undergraduates, who make up the large majority of the student body, are the people we devote most of our instructional efforts toward, and—as administrators constantly point out—are university’s primary source of revenue through tuition and fees. At public institutions, undergraduate success is also the primary focus of state legislatures looking at higher education metrics and state funding. Geography departments may literally live or die depending on their ability to maintain robust undergraduate enrollments and recruit majors.

I don’t think it’s pessimistic to suggest that a geography faculty member can’t control national economy, demographics, or tuition costs. So, what is a geography professor or department to do? The answer is simple:

Focus on undergraduate student success.

While many faculty seem to intuitively know how their programs can adapt to changing student needs and are able to naturally connect with undergraduate students, some of the rest of us get stuck in the culture and traditions of how we approach undergraduate education and interaction. So, I sought some pointers from the experts: undergraduate advisors (especially Dr. Leslie McLees, Undergraduate Program Director in Geography at University of Oregon). We identified some key ways in which faculty can address changing needs of students, through curriculum, advising, and experience. I don’t have room to adequately address overall student experience, so I’ll focus on the two areas in which faculty and undergraduate students formally interact.

Curriculum for a Changing Discipline

Students want to know that their degrees matter, and rather than dismissing the question of relevance, we need to embrace it. If we cannot justify why our degree matters, how can we expect students to do so, much less parents and legislators?

To prove relevance, we should teach students about geography and how to be professional geographers. We can continually adapt curriculum to the changing discipline and needs of students through modernized geography classes and sequences, professional development courses, and flexible, personalized major tracks.

Like it or not, a current trend seems to be the blurring of traditional discipline boundaries in favor of problem-based programs. A modernized geography curriculum represents current and future trends in the discipline, the changing physical and human landscapes of our planet, and ways to be professionals addressing the problems and opportunities posed by those changes.

One of the things that frustrates me is holding on to previous curricular sequences and class names. There has recently been a robust conversation about this on the AAG listserve that challenges holding onto course names such as: Human Geography, Geomorphology, GIS… The anthropology department on my campus has an introductory course titled: Pirates and Piracy. What do you think sounds more interesting to an undergraduate student, Pirates and Piracy or Introduction to Human Geography? When my sons were UO students, they took the anthropology version.

A focus on undergraduate success is vital for geography departments. [image: Tamarcus Brown]
Another way to translate the need for a four-year degree is to integrate professional development or career management into the curriculum.

Don’t bristle. We’re not talking about vocational training.

Rather, we’re suggesting professional development through traditional routes such as internship or research experiences. Or, streamlined and direct experiences through a professional development course geared towards geography students. We have such a course in our department at the University of Oregon and it has been popular and successful. Moving beyond simply writing resumes and cover letters, it requires critical reflection on skills that students develop at college, training on how to tell their stories about developing those skills, practice in reaching out to people in the workforce, and development of a portfolio that forces them to articulate their proposed career paths. Think of it as a new-age capstone course that requires students to translate the sometimes lofty and theoretical content taught and learned in traditional geography courses into thinking about what it means to BE a professional, paid geographer.

And choices! Our undergraduate students have grown up with more choice than I could have even imagined. Recently, my husband Andrew and I were discussing network TV. Specifically, we were both complaining that our parents never let us stay up late enough to watch the entire episode of Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday night (turns out we both had to go to bed by 8:30pm). What’s half of the Wonderful World going to do for us? So, we both opted out. Our 8-year old minds couldn’t even imagine on-demand TV. And, yet, that’s how our kids have grown up.

That availability of choice has translated to demands for flexibility in our majors and curriculum choices.

Many colleges and universities are responding and offering programs with: enhanced flexibility, personalization (almost a design-your-own-major), and the absence of bottlenecks (i.e. removal of intense vertical integration that keeps students from completing specific required courses).

Advising and Experience Go Together

Approaches to advising vary considerably, but there has been a national trend towards centralized campus advising, which offers an opportunity to connect students to the many resources available on campuses, ranging from mental health and spaces for minoritized groups to financial aid, as well as classical guidance on major choice and requirements to obtain their degree. However, generating excitement about a relatively unknown discipline—which is unfortunately where geography usually lives—is difficult for a central advisor who lacks knowledge in the discipline and understanding of how a specific student’s interests can integrate with the major to provide skills that help them beyond their degree.

That level of advising takes place in departments.

Many geography programs designate an Undergraduate Director who is the face of the program for undergraduates. This UD is the ambassador and advocate both around campus and within geography. Maintaining strong connections with centralized advising not only helps those central advisors learn more about geography, but also helps identify our majors early, which means less time-to-degree, better within-major advising, and earlier connections with faculty and peers. Within the department, the UD not only understands the curriculum in-depth, but also moves advising beyond the checklist of classes to take. They are able to help students translate their course experiences into real-world relevance.

For many, the advisor is one of the closest relationships students will develop with faculty. Advising is more than classes. It is listening to a student and to students in general, hearing their concerns, and communicating with them to empower them to take charge of their learning and their future.

More than any other discipline, geography represents the dynamically changing physical and human planet. But, faculty and academia have…a bit of a pace problem. If we want geography to continue and thrive, we must keep up. We may have to let go of our ideal traditional geography program and the way we have always advised students.

In exchange, we may find ourselves building rather than simply teaching. And…launching alumni into the world who can think critically, engage responsibly, connect synthetically, and question routinely.

In other words, they’ll become geographers.

But, there is no “they” out there who will do it for us. As one of my senior colleagues once told me,

We are the They.

 

I’d like to thank Dr. Leslie McLees for providing ideas for this column (particularly in the area of advising). Contact her if your department is interested in learning more about integrating professional development into your geography program or discussing the possibilities of supporting a strong undergraduate program. lmclees [at] uoregon [dot] edu

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

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0086

 

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at lobben [at] uoregon [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

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Amy Lobben
Newsletters

Newsletter – February 2021

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Want a Thriving Department? Focus on Undergraduate Success

By Amy Lobben

tamarcus-brownI cannot think of a person in higher education who has not felt the pressure of maintaining and growing undergraduate enrollments. Undergraduates, who make up the large majority of the student body, are the people we devote most of our instructional efforts toward, and—as administrators constantly point out—are universities’ primary source of revenue through tuition and fees. At public institutions, undergraduate success is also the primary focus of state legislatures looking at higher education metrics and state funding. Geography departments may literally live or die depending on their ability to maintain robust undergraduate enrollments and recruit majors.

Continue Reading.

FROM THE MERIDIAN

In Kansas, an Early Warning for Higher Education and Geography

By Gary Langham

Late last month, a bellwether event took place in Kansas, threatening higher education’s ability to support post-COVID recovery. Citing the extreme budget constraints caused by the pandemic, the nine-member Kansas Board of Regents unanimously approved a new policy giving public institutions the power to remove faculty, including those with tenure, through 2022. The new policy sidesteps one already in place that addresses financial emergencies while preserving transparency and faculty participation in termination decisions.

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

New Curated Specialty Group Sessions at #AAG2021

This year at the 2021 Annual Meeting, AAG is taking a new approach to our scheduling of Specialty and Affinity Group sessions to decrease overlap and showcase the work of these groups. Specialty and affinity group chairs have highlighted a guided program of their “must-see” sessions for those interested in their specific topics including rural geography, business geography, geomorphology, hazards, the history of geography, and more. Curated tracks are AAG’s approach to helping you find the most relevant sessions among our abundant choices, helping you navigate our more than 760 sessions and 2,700 paper abstracts this year. All abstracts will be assigned to sessions by Mid-February, when the preliminary program is released.

Browse Sessions by Theme.

AAG 2021 Goes Virtual – Program to be Released Mid-February

AM2021V-1000X1000sq-290x290-1

In mid-November, AAG made the difficult but necessary decision to shift the 2021 annual meeting to a completely virtual experience. A streamlined process is in place to help session and activity organizers bring their programming to the virtual environment, with the assistance of AAG staff. Stay tuned — the program for the virtual meeting will be released in mid-February.

PUBLICATIONS

NEW The Professional Geographer Issue Alert:
Articles with topics ranging from the role of rivers in environmental movements to the digital representation of cities

The-PG-2017-generic-213x300The most recent issue of The Professional Geographer has been published online (Volume 73, Issue 1, February 2021) with 13 new articles on current geographic research. Topics in this issue include impacts of COVID-19 on learning; quantitative geography journals; income inequality; Wikipedia; Weibo; spatial autocorrelation; and regional development research trends. Locational areas of interest include Baltimore, Maryland; South Florida; and Catalonia. Authors are from a variety of institutions including University of North Carolina at Greensboro; University of Denver; and Avignon University.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of The Professional Geographer through the Members Only page. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read How Identity Enriches and Complicates the Research Process: Reflections from Political Ecology Fieldwork by Hanson Nyantakyi-Frimpong for free for the next 3 months.

Questions about The PG? Contact PG [at] aag [dot] org.

NEW Winter Issue of the AAG Review of Books Published

The latest issue of The AAG Review of Books is now available (Volume 9, Issue 1, Winter 2021) with 15 book reviews on recent books related to geography, public policy, and international affairs. The Winter 2021 issue also holds one book review essay and a book review forum focused on the recipient of the 2019 AAG Meridian Book Award, Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry, by Julie Guthman.

Questions about The AAG Review of Books? Contact aagreview [at] aag [dot] org.

In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:

• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books

Call for Abstracts: Special Issue of ‘Annals’ on “Race, Nature, and the Environment”

Annals-generic-225x300-1The 2023 Special Issue of the Annals invites new and emerging geographic scholarship situated at the crossroads of Race, Nature, and the Environment. In seeking contributions from across the discipline, we welcome submissions that advance critical geographic thinking about race and the environment from diverse perspectives and locations; that utilize a broad array of geographic data, theories, and methods; and that cultivate geographic insights that cut across time, place, and space. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by e-mail to Jennifer Cassidento by March 31, 2021. The Editor (Katie Meehan) will consider all abstracts and then invite a selection to submit full papers for peer review by June 1, 2021.

More information about the special issue.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

New Webinar Series Explores GeoEthics

The American Association of Geographers, in partnership with the Center for Spatial Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara and with support from Esri, will launch a series of webinars on key considerations for GeoEthics. The GeoEthics Series will begin on February 9, with a webinar hosted by Arizona State University’s Spatial Analysis Research Center.

Drawing together experts from academia, the private sector, and government, the multi-year GeoEthics Series is expected to result in an action plan for addressing the ethical issues surrounding geospatial data. Major ethical issues raised by locational information will be discussed, including surveillance, labor and employment, governance, geospatial analytics, and more culminating in an in-person Summit in late 2021, to be scheduled as soon as it is safe to do so. Sponsored by Esri, this Summit will further explore geospatial ethics in areas such as geography, human rights, immigration, labor, law, policy, computing, data science, and sociology. For more information, visit this link.

Bridging the Digital Divide

A May 2020 survey of AAG’s students found that 60% of undergraduates, 66% of masters, and 48% of PhDs faced new challenges in their learning environments and technology needs due to COVID-19. These numbers are one reason AAG launched the Bridging the Digital Divide program with Esri as a partner. The program has already dedicated $238,000 to faculty requests from eight tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), 14 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and 1 predominantly Black institution (PBI). It is serving students across more than 95 courses, 41 percent of which are GIS classes. Learn more about the program in the Winter issue of ArcNews. Readers can also catch up with Dr. Adegoke Ademiluyi, a faculty member at Fayetteville State University, who responded to the Bridging the Digital Divide program to benefit his students in this ArcNews interview.

For more information about the AAG’s COVID-19 Task Force efforts, read Executive Director Gary Langham’s Winter ArcNews article.

AAG Welcomes Spring 2021 Interns

The AAG is excited to welcome two new interns coming aboard our staff for the Spring 2021 semester! Joining us this semester are Ilan Gritzman, a recent graduate from University of Central Florida, and Jennifer Church, senior at The University of Maryland.

Interested in interning with the AAG for Summer 2020? The AAG is accepting intern applications until March 1, 2021. Interns at the AAG are provided a weekly stipend and participate in most AAG programs and projects such as education, outreach, research, website, publications, or the Annual Meeting.

Meet the interns.

POLICY CORNER

Our Policy Priorities for the Biden Administration

Image-118 capitol building

On January 20th, the first day of President Biden’s term, the AAG shared a letter with the White House outlining our top policy priorities for the new administration.

In the letter we state that as an organization of engaged geographers, spatial data scientists, academics and professionals, we stand ready to offer our support and expertise as the administration begins its ambitious agenda to “Build Back Better.” Our priorities include an emphasis on the importance of federal geospatial data and the implementation of the Geospatial Data Act, continued increased funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and related agencies, prioritization of geography as a subject in K-12 education, the use of geography to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and the need to restore government and public trust in scientific integrity. We will adapt as issues evolve and emerge in years to come, but will do so with an emphasis on these guiding priorities along with the policy and advocacy tenets outlined in AAG’s Strategic Plan.

Click here to read the full letter to the White House, and stay tuned throughout the year for more ways to get involved in the AAG’s advocacy campaigns.

In the News:

  • In a victory for geographers and environmental advocates, a federal judge this week struck down a Trump-era EPA rule that allowed the omission of legitimate scientific findings, including confidential geospatial data, in the name of “transparency” in policymaking. The AAG, along with the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) and the University Consortium for GIS (UCGIS), submitted a federal public comment in 2020 to oppose this troubling and harmful rule.
  • The Census Bureau is working to report results from the 2020 count  that will dictate 2021 redistricting, but continues to run behind schedule. The bureau will first release state population counts which are used to determine the number of total seats each state has in the House of Representatives. State population counts were due by the end of 2020, but are now expected by April 30th as the agency attempts to fix irregularities in data. The next important release is the detailed demographic data used by each state to draw new legislative districts. That data is typically delivered by the end of March, but as of now it is not expected to be shared before July 30th.
  • On January 27, President Biden issued a detailed Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. Among other things, the order ensures that “climate considerations” will have a place in U.S. foreign policy and national security, promises a government-wide approach to addressing the climate crisis, including by establishing a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and interagency National Climate Task Force, and seeks action to spur workforce development in sustainable infrastructure, agriculture, and the energy sector, while also addressing environmental justice for the most vulnerable populations.
MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Linda Peters was inspired by her work with the March of Dimes Birth Defect Foundation to integrate geography and GIS in finding solutions for fundraising in areas of need. Today Linda holds a B.A. in Geography and Certificate in GIS/Cartography from University of Maryland Baltimore County and works as a Global Business Development Manager for Esri. Linda knows that most issues she comes across with her customers can benefit from spatial analysis, so she recommends strong communication skills and a willingness to put in the work and listen as keys for a successful career.

Learn more about Geography Careers on the recently updated AAG Jobs & Careers website.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

AAG Calls for Nominations for Standing and Awards Committees

The AAG Council will make appointments to several of the AAG Standing Committees at its spring 2021 meeting. These appointments will replace members whose terms will expire on June 30, 2021. If you wish to nominate yourself or other qualified individuals for one or more of these vacancies, please notify AAG Director of Operations Candida Mannozzi on or before March 1, 2021. Please make sure that your nominee is willing to serve if appointed. Include contact information for your nominee as well as a brief paragraph indicating their suitability for the position.

Open committees include: Committee on the Status of Women in Geography; Diversity and Inclusion Committee; Finance Committee; Membership Committee; Publications Committee; AAG Awards Committee; AAG Fellows Selection Committee; AAG Globe Book Award Committee; AAG Harm de Blij Award Committee; AAG Meridian Book Award Committee; AAG Marcus Fund for Physical Geography Committee; AAG Program Excellence Award Committee; AAG Research Grants Committee; AAG Harold Rose Award Committee; AAG Student Award and Scholarship Committee; and AAG Wilbanks Prize Committee.

Click here for a description of committees.

Career Mentors Needed for 2021 AAG Virtual Meeting

The AAG seeks professional geographers representing the business, government, nonprofit and academic sectors to serve as volunteer “Career Mentors” during the 2021 AAG Virtual Meeting. Career mentoring provides an open forum for students and job seekers to receive one-on-one and small-group consultation about careers in a variety of industries and employment sectors. Mentors are expected to answer questions and provide general career advice to students and job seekers interested in learning more about industries that employ geographers, the work geographers perform and strategies for getting into the field. This year we will be organizing eight sessions, one each morning and one each afternoon of the conference, to provide our virtual attendees around the world with more opportunities to participate.

For additional questions and to volunteer, please contact Mark Revell at the AAG at mrevell [at] aag [dot] org by March 1st, 2021.

NCRGE Dear Colleague Letter: Advanced Placement Human Geography

NCRGE_logoThe National Center for Research in Geography Education is organizing a research group to conduct a comprehensive analysis of AP Human Geography course data. Grants of $4,000 each are available for up to four researchers to join the study. For more information on how to apply, see this Dear Colleague Letter: http://www.ncrge.org/funding/

IN MEMORIAM

The AAG is saddened to hear of the passing of these colleagues.

William Dando, 50 year AAG member and longtime chair of the Bible Geography specialty group, passed away on January 1, 2021. Throughout his career Dando received numerous awards for his teaching and service throughout his career, exemplifying an academic life that was a balance between scholarship and community service. He leaves behind his wife and co-writer/editor Caroline Z. Dando; children Christina, Lara, and Bill (all geographers); four grandchildren — Emmaline, Anna, Alex, and John; and thousands of former students and mentees. Read more.

Robert Thomas Kuhlken, retired professor of geography and former geography department chair at Central Washington University, died on January 1, 2021. He was 67. More than anything Kuhlken loved to be outdoors and was a lifelong scholar, educator, and tireless observer of the natural world. Read more.

Hugh Brammer, who dedicated his life’s work to studying agriculture in Bangladesh, passed away at the age of 95 on January 13, 2021. Brammer, who held a MA in Geography from University of Cambridge spent over 25 years working for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. Read more.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS
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From the Meridian

In Kansas, an Early Warning for Higher Education and Geography

Late last month, a bellwether event took place in Kansas, threatening higher education’s ability to support post-COVID recovery. Citing the extreme budget constraints caused by the pandemic, the nine-member Kansas Board of Regents unanimously approved a new policy giving public institutions the power to remove faculty, including those with tenure, through 2022. The new policy sidesteps one already in place that addresses financial emergencies while preserving transparency and faculty participation in termination decisions.

Four of Kansas’s six public universities were quick to say they will not use the new policy, at least for now. In contrast, the University of Kansas’s Chancellor Douglas A. Girod stated that the University is considering the policy as it reckons with a budget shortfall of more than $74 million. Girod goes on to suggest this shortfall will require the university to “eliminate programs and departments, reduce services, and implement furloughs and layoffs.” We only have to review the recent trends of geography departments to recognize this as a dire situation — all at a time when the value of geospatial awareness and research is more critical than ever.

The AAG submitted a letter to Chancellor Girod, asking him to join with other leaders of the state’s universities in rejecting this new policy and instead continue to involve academia’s most precious resource: its people. In our letter, we described why we–along with more than 50 national organizations and more than 6,000 individuals–are signing on to the KU Faculty’s Solidarity Letter:

“We see the Kansas Board of Regents policy decision as a troubling signal, and a potential threat for universities across the country as ongoing budget austerity measures and the crisis of COVID-19 converge. These circumstances leave vulnerable academic tenure as a whole, but especially the tenure of geography departments and professors. We will closely monitor this trend, and we call on our members to alert us to similar issues emerging on their campuses.”

Chancellor Girod responded quickly to our letter, expressing appreciation for our feedback and promising to include our concerns in their decision-making process while still citing the need to address the university’s budget challenges. Soon after, as reported by KU faculty member Ani Kokobobo in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Provost Barbara A. Bichelmeyer indicated that “the university hoped not to use the policy but needed to keep it on the table just in case,” and noted that further faculty input would be sought. But, asks Kokobobo, “can anyone feel safe speaking up on campus anymore, when we’re expected to outline the parameters of our own firings and those of our colleagues?”

Unfortunately, the circumstances surrounding this issue are neither unique to Kansas nor are they only about COVID-19. For most states, public funding for higher education never recovered after the 2008 recession. Without the recurring financial challenges borne from stagnating state support, perhaps more institutions would have reserves sufficient to handle the additional strains of COVID-19. If anything, the trying times call for robust and consistent investment in high-quality teaching and research, as well as a shift back towards support for the academic freedom that tenure provides. The Kansas action runs dangerously counter to those ideals and poses a particular threat to the future of geography departments’ wide-ranging instruction and research on the impacts of COVID-19.

While COVID-19 may be the crisis of our time, the problems faced by geography departments are not new. At AAG, we have seen troubling trends in austerity for geography departments and faculty for over a decade. Our $900,000 COVID-19 Rapid Response programs help support the discipline through the pandemic and strengthen departments ahead of budget stresses. An ongoing series of workshops and resources give department chairs more tools to showcase geography at their institutions. Furthermore, we continue to support the discipline by pushing for significant funding increases for the National Science Foundation and related agencies, opening up more grant opportunities to ease the funding burden on graduate students and researchers.

But we can do more to strengthen our understanding of the challenges faced by geography departments and geographers. Working with our Healthy Departments Committee, our Data-Driven Strategic Insights group on the AAG staff is preparing to support a significant data collection this spring. If successful, this data collection can help us gain a bird’s-eye view of the network of geography programs in the U.S. and inform a strategy to strengthen it. With the prospect of deep cuts throughout higher education, it will be important for programs not to spread themselves too thin and instead focus on a specialty that reflects the needs of local job markets or builds inter-university geography programs. Retaining tenure-track positions will be critical to the sustainability of programs and long-term academic excellence. We urge geography programs in our network to facilitate the AAG’s work by providing timely, accurate information about each program’s strengths and weaknesses.

Although universities and colleges must face budget realities and make difficult decisions, we can leverage our collective experiences to ensure departments will not only survive but thrive amidst the profound changes that COVID-19 and other forces bring to post-secondary education and research. Now, more than ever, AAG will commit to supporting the stability and continuity of geographers and geography departments, acknowledging that every penny invested in their work repays itself with tangible benefits for public health, education, communities, and so much more.

What You Can Do Now

—Gary Langham
AAG Executive Director

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0085

Please note: The ideas expressed by Executive Director Gary Langham are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. Please feel free to email him at glangham [at] aag [dot] org.

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News

AAG Welcomes Spring 2021 Interns

Two new interns have joined the AAG staff this spring! The AAG would like to welcome Ilan and Jennifer to the organization.

Ilan Gritzman recently graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s of Science in Public Administration and a minor in Urban and Regional Planning. Ilan has previously interned for Smithsonian Libraries on the World of Maps project, participated in a GIS study abroad in Belize, and served as a research assistant for Citizen Science GIS. He currently also collects and maps data on apartment units across Florida as a city surveyor for One Hundred Feet Inc. Ilan intends to pursue an M.A. in Urban and Regional Planning and secure a full-time position in either urban planning or GIS upon graduation. In his spare time, Ilan likes to cycle, play tennis, travel, and watch sports.

Jennifer Church is a senior at The University of Maryland, pursuing a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy with a concentration in Land Use and a minor in Nonprofit Leadership and Social Innovation. After graduation, Jennifer hopes to have the opportunity to travel before applying for a Masters program in Geography. In her spare time, she enjoys skiing, kayaking, and embroidering.

If you or someone you know is interested in applying for an internship at the AAG, the AAG seeks interns on a year-round basis for the spring, summer, and fall semesters. Currently, due to COVID-19 safety regulations in Washington, DC AAG interns are home-based employees. More information on internships at the AAG is also available on the Jobs & Careers section of the AAG website at: https://www.aag.org/internships.

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