Journals

AAG Welcomes New Annals Editor

June 29, 2021

Brian King has been named a co-editor of Human Geography and Nature & Society for The Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

King is a professor and Head of the Department of Geography at the Pennsylvania State. His research, teaching, and outreach focus on livelihoods, conservation and development, environmental change, and human health, centering on Southern Africa. More recently, his laboratory group (HELIX: Health and Environment Landscapes for Interdisciplinary eXchange) is examining how COVID-19 is transforming the US opioid epidemic. Beyond the university, his affiliations span numerous departments at Penn State and other institutions. At Penn State, he is a Faculty Research Associate with the Population Research Institute, Research Affiliate with the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, and Faculty Affiliate with the School of International Affairs and Consortium to Combat Substance Abuse. King is also an Honorary Research Associate with the African Climate and Development Initiative at the University of Cape Town and was selected as a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow in 2017.

King served on the Editorial Board of the Annals from 2016-2019, as well as on the Editorial Boards of African Geographical Review since 2019 and of Geoforum since 2014. His book States of Disease: Political Environments and Human Health (University of California Press, 2017) received the Julian Minghi Distinguished Book Award, and was reviewed in April 2019 in The AAG Review of Books. An active member of several AAG Specialty Groups, including the Cultural and Political Ecology and Development Geographies specialty groups, he has also served in leadership roles, including successive terms as Director, Vice Chair, and Chair of the Developing Areas Specialty Group (which changed its name to Development Geographies in 2008).

King joins Human Geography editor Kendra Strauss of Simon Fraser University and Nature & Society Editor Katie Meehan of King’s College London to respond to the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, including an increase in manuscript submissions and a decrease in reviewer availability. He will also support the editors’ ability to devote additional attention to upcoming special issues of the Annals. He will serve in the capacity of co-editor through December 31, 2023.

President's Column

Moving Forward on Climate Change and Professional Ethics

June 29, 2021

A few weeks ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that atmospheric CO2 concentrations, at 419 ppm, have now reached 150% of their pre-industrial levels – the highest in more than four million years, when sea levels were about 24 meters higher, the global average surface temperature almost 4ºC warmer than today, and the first modern humans had more than three million years yet to appear on earth. The world-historical COVID-19 pandemic, still wreaking havoc across the mostly unvaccinated globe, temporarily decreased emissions, but not enough to be detectable in rising atmospheric CO2 levels. NOAA has recently defined new “normal” temperatures that are significantly higher than those in the past.

As I write, a hazardous and extreme heat wave has gripped the Southwestern US, stretching power grids to their limits and threatening heat deaths. The entire Western United States is also in the throes of a severe drought that is expected to last all summer. Indeed, global warming has contributed significantly to changing what would have otherwise been a moderate drought in the Southwestern US into a megadrought worse than has been seen for almost a millennium. This year, drought is predicted to lead to another ruinous, record-breaking fire season, on the heels of nightmarish 2020 fire season in the Western US – and around the world. It is also affecting access to safe drinking water and forcing farmers to make difficult decisions about what crops to keep, which will likely lead to higher food prices.

None of this is news to geographers, so why start my first column as AAG president with a reminder of the ongoing climate devastation? There are several reasons, beyond my embodied experience of consecutive days of record-shattering heat in my home state of Colorado. (These days, my kids and I have taken to sleeping in a tent on our back porch – itself a privilege.) First, geographers have been at the forefront of research on climate change, adaptation, resilience, and climate justice, but our research as geographers is often not acknowledged in the press or known to the public; this is relevant to the visibility, and ultimately health, of the discipline. Second, climate change is one of four primary policy campaigns that AAG will be undertaking over the next 1-2 years. Through the release of the new AAG website, expected later in 2021, geographers will be able to more easily engage with legislation and policy related to climate change.

Third, I want to use this opportunity to highlight the work of the Climate Action Task Force, which has been led by Professor Wendy Jepson and which I joined in 2020. As a reminder, this task force was formed by Council to undertake the task of realizing the goals of a 2019 member petition: to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting commensurate with what the IPCC states is needed to limit warming to 1.5 C — that is, a 45% reduction (from 2010 levels) by 2030. In doing so, the Task Force is seeking ways to position AAG as a leader and model of how large organizations can respond to climate change in a manner that both meets the needs of their members and is environmentally and socially just.

A 45% reduction is not a trivial change; it’s not a tweak around the margins of business as usual. Achieving this goal would mean a radical transformation in how the AAG stays financially solvent, and perhaps how we form our identities as geographers. As such, AAG can only move forward through extensive member participation and dialogue about what this means and how we might get from here to there. These conversations have already begun. At the virtual meeting this spring, the Task Force hosted a collaborative keynote panel of anthropologists who shared their creative and inspiring reflections and experiences on climate-friendly and accessible conferencing, as well as two roundtables of dialogue amongst geographers representing different types of institutions, career stages, and social identities to consider the meaning of annual in-person meetings to their careers, and share ideas for future formats that would be less carbon intensive and yet meet geographers’ needs.

Going forward, The Professional Geographer will soon publish a Focus Section that presents a variety of perspectives on low-carbon annual meetings. The Climate Action Task Force is looking forward to community commentary on these contributions and further brainstorming through the new AAG website. Looking down the road, AAG will also be performing a financial analysis of different future meeting models, working collaboratively with the AAG Regions on a climate-forward initiative, encouraging the formation of meeting nodes, and further soliciting all members’ input through a survey. I will revisit these important issues in future columns.

* * *

If AAG action on climate change has seemed a long time coming to some members, so too has an update of the AAG Statement on Professional Ethics, last revised more than a decade ago, in 2009, long before the implementation of the Professional Conduct Policy. Indeed, graduate students have recently argued that it is outdated, too long, confusing, and falls short of providing clear guidance, especially compared to those of other scholarly organizations. I am happy to share, therefore, that at its Spring 2021 meeting, AAG Council unanimously approved a revised Statement on Professional Ethics, which can be accessed here. AAG will soon make it readily available for review whenever a member joins or renews, and during the Annual Meeting registration process.

The impetus for this came from the report of the AAG Geography and Military Study Committee, which was formed in 2017 by AAG Council in response to a member petition calling on the AAG to study the engagement of Geography with US military and intelligence communities vis-à-vis safety, labor demand, curriculum, academic freedom, and ethics, and to offer concrete recommendations based on its report. Both the Report and the timing of the resulting process have subsequently been subject to critique. What I want to focus on here, though, are several of the Report’s recommendations that Council voted in Fall 2020 to accept, including:

Revise the AAG code of ethics statement and policy as it relates to the ethical issues that may arise from military-funded research. This should include comparing the AAG statement (current and proposed) with the codes of ethics related to research developed by other disciplines such as the American Anthropological Association (AAA) and the American Psychological Association (APA) as well as the Department of Defense (DoD) statement of ethics as it relates to research.

and

Update and revise the AAG Statement on Professional Ethics (every few years). With new and revised updates, encourage members of the association to read them as part of the membership renewal and meeting registration processes.

In response to this Report, Council also approved the formation of an implementation committee, which I chaired, to update the ethics statement.

The committee began its work by consulting other professional organizations’ statements of ethics and, based on those models, revised the 2009 Statement to focus on practical and easily memorable principles and actions. The committee also integrated references to the 2020 Professional Conduct Policy, removed discussion of issues regulated elsewhere (such as regarding the confidentiality of student grades), updated the language regarding new technologies, and explicitly mentioned the ethics of geographers’ engagements with the military, intelligence, security, policing and warfare where specifically relevant, but with an eye toward a Statement broad enough to cover all ethical obligations. It was a significant undertaking conducted over a short period of time, and I want to sincerely thank the committee members for putting in so much, and such thoughtful, time and effort to this task: Council member Richard Kujawa (Saint Michael’s College), Sue Roberts (UKY), Reuben Rose-Redwood (UVic), and former AAG president Eric Sheppard (UCLA).

Of course, no Statement of Ethics is ever final or perfect, especially as ethics themselves are not a matter that can be settled once and for all. Thus, the AAG should become proactively engaged with the question of ethics, on an ongoing basis. This is already starting to happen, not only with plans for Council to revisit and update the Statement every three years, but also with the ongoing GeoEthics Webinar Series, a partnership between AAG, Esri, and the Center for Spatial Studies at UC-Santa Barbara. Once the AAG’s new website is up and running, we hope to offer a list of links and publications on ethics and geography, and provide a space for feedback for all AAG members, including reactions to the Ethics statement, additional resources, and other discussion.

If ethics are, in part, about doing no harm, then a commitment to act to reduce the future harms of climate change is one in accordance with our stated ethical principles. I also want to point out that both the new Statement on Professional Ethics and the work of the Climate Change Task Force are ultimately the results of member petitions to Council. Both petitions have sparked concrete actions that are moving the AAG forward in a positive direction toward addressing the pressing challenges facing the earth and its peoples in the 21st century.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0094

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 emily [dot] yeh [at] colorado [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

News

AAG Welcomes Summer 2021 Interns

June 22, 2021

Two new interns have joined the AAG staff this summer! The AAG would like to welcome Eliana and Jacob to the organization.

Eliana Peretz is a senior at Mount Holyoke College pursuing a B.A. in Geography and Gender Studies. After graduation, she plans to pursue a master’s degree in her main field of interest, climate migration, specifically studying the relationship between climate-induced displacement and social and cultural categories such as class, gender, and race. In her spare time, Eliana likes to make post-it art, read murder mystery novels, and watch stand up comedy.

Jacob Tafrate is a senior at the George Washington University pursuing degrees in Geography and International affairs, with a minor in Geographic Information Systems. He is most interested in Arctic geography and the application of GIS techniques to further understand the unequal impacts of climate change. After graduation Jacob hopes to continue his Geography education in graduate school. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, reading, and spending time with friends and family. While Jacob is originally from West Hartford, Connecticut his favorite place in the world is New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

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.

Newsletters

Newsletter – June 2021

June 2, 2021

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

On Teaching, Time Management, Mentoring, and Service

By Amy Lobben

drew-beamer-Vc1pJfvoQvY-unsplash-300x200-1 With summer almost here, I’m about to head into my last year as an academic. I’m “retiring” June 2022, although in truth I’ll work full time running my family’s winery and nonprofit, both built around the mission of providing training, jobs, and community for those with disabilities. As I transition from academics, Andrew and I are encountering many things we didn’t know were part of running a small business. This transition has prompted me to reflect on my transition from student to faculty member and, in turn, on how we prepare our graduate students for major life and career transitions.

Continue Reading.

FROM THE MERIDIAN

Perspectives: A New Column in the AAG Newsletter

By Gary Langham

In May, we introduced a new column to the AAG Newsletter called Perspectives, replacing AAG’s former Op-Ed feature. Perspectives will share the opinions and ideas of members on issues of relevance to geography. We encourage submissions that stimulate dialogue, get members thinking, and challenge our discipline to take new approaches to the social, political, and environmental issues confronting geographers and the public.

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

New York City to host 2022 AAG Annual Meeting

Statue of Liberty National Monument and NYC skyline

Mark your calendar for the AAG Annual Meeting in the Big Apple, February 25 – March 1, 2022. The hybrid meeting will take place both online and at the NY Hilton Midtown and the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Registration and the call for papers for #AAG2022 will be announced this summer and we invite you to organize and participate in sessions, workshops, field trips, special events, and activities. We look forward to seeing you in New York City!

Stay up to date on the annual meeting

PUBLICATIONS

NEW Annals Alert: Articles with topics ranging from the 2016 U.S. presidential election to meteorological data in the Antarctic

Annals-generic-225x300

The most recent issue of the Annals of the AAG has been published online (Volume 111, Issue 4) with 17 new articles on contemporary geographic research plus one commentary on social vulnerability models and a related response. Topics in this issue include location spoofing at Standing Rock; biodiversity and coffee plantations; postremoval of Mexican deportees; WWII geographies; geography’s involvement with the military; the Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS Institute; Dollar Stores; and distance in geographical analysis. Locational areas of interest include Cambodia; Bangladesh; Ecuador; the North Antarctic Peninsula; and Jakarta. Authors are from a variety of research institutions including University of Colombo; University of Texas – Austin; University College Dublin; and Central China Normal University.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of the Annals through the Members Only page. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read On Geography and War: New Perspectives on the Ardennes Campaigns of 1940 and 1944 by Stephan Harrison and David G. Passmore for free for the next two months.

Questions about the Annals? Contact annals [at] aag [dot] org.

Journals-newsletter-100 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

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Get a Glimpse of AAG’s New Website

Web-redesign-reveal-1200x675-1-300x169 During our virtual annual meeting, we gave a sneak peek of our new website currently in the design process. If you missed the session or weren’t able to attend the conference, you still have a chance to see the recording. Our website agency, Free Range, revealed some of the exciting changes in store for this completely accessible, innovative, and mobile friendly website launching later this spring. Please send us your questions and thoughts at feedback [at] aag [dot] org. We’d love to hear from you! View the recording.

We are also looking for some fresh taglines to appear on the new AAG website when it launches this summer! What does AAG mean to you in a few words? Submit your suggestion here.

Prepare to Nominate Colleagues for AAG Honors

awards_hi-res-300x160 Please consider nominating outstanding colleagues for the AAG Honors, the highest awards offered by the American Association of Geographers. Individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties are encouraged to nominate outstanding colleagues. Deadlines for nominations will be later this year – on September 15th. The new nomination portal will be open for nominations starting later this summer.

More information about AAG Honors

Symposium on COVID-19’s Impacts

On June 22-25, AAG will co-sponsor a symposium on COVID-19’s second-order impacts on cities throughout the world. Register to find out more about the Cities’ COVID Mitigation Mapping (C2M2) program, a program of the Office of the Geographer and Global Issues at the U.S. Department of State through its MapGive open mapping initiative. Join C2M2, AAG, and Harvard University’s Center for Geographic Analysis to hear from experts at the forefront of monitoring the pandemic, producing critical data on local economies, and providing an understanding of critical needs for societies to adapt to the conditions imposed by pandemic strategies, seen through the lenses of migration, livelihoods, and gender. Registration is now open. This symposium is free and open to the public. Find out more and reserve your place here.

For more information about the Cities’ COVID Mitigation Mapping (C2M2) program, please go to mapgive.state.gov/c2m2. To RSVP to the June 22-25 Symposium, visit this link.

Open Plenaries during this Week’s AAG GFDA Workshops

The AAG is pleased to announce the return of the Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) Department Leadership workshop this week. Two of the virtual plenary sessions will be FREE to all interested parties.

Thursday, June 3 from 2:30-3:45pm ET the Women in leadership in geography panel will include perspectives from Kavita Pandit, Georgia State University; Marilyn Raphael, University of California Los Angeles; Joanna Regulska, University of California Davis; and Emily Ting Yeh, University of Colorado at Boulder and AAG President. Register here.

Saturday, June 5 from 1:00-2:15pm ET the Visioning and leading for an inclusive future panel invites contributions from Jacqueline Housel, Sinclair Community College; Adriana Martinez, Southern Illinois-Edwardsville; Rashad Shabazz, Arizona State University; Shaowen Wang, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana; and moderated by Gary Langham, Executive Director of AAG. Register here.

POLICY CORNER

Pennsylvania State Bill Threatens Geographers’ Work

A bill is moving through the Pennsylvania General Assembly that threatens work opportunities for geospatial professionals in the state, and has been described by others in the geospatial community as a “solution without a problem.” HB609 attempts to provide further definitions for licensing and surveying by encompassing a wide array of mapping activities, including broadly-characterized geospatial data collection that has been successfully done by skilled and trained GIS and mapping professionals for years. If passed, this bill will exclude from market opportunities professional geographers, GIS practitioners and geospatial technology businesses, both large and small, unless they opt to acquire a surveying license.

When property boundaries are called into question, those in our community appreciate and understand the necessary work of land surveyors. But this overreaching piece of legislation fails to acknowledge the innovative, high-quality work done by geographers and GIS practitioners far outside the realm of land surveying. The AAG will continue to track this critical issue in PA, and will monitor for similar bills in other states. Click here to learn more about the bill and how you can get involved.

In the News:

The AAG is planning a series of state-level panels to encourage geographers to get involved in the 2021 redistricting process, and we need your help. To get involved or simply learn more, please reach out to Michelle Kinzer, mkinzer [at] aag [dot] org.
During the May 20-21 meeting of the Council of Councils at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a Working Group on Basic Behavioral and Social Science Research (bBSSR) presented a report analyzing past support for basic research on behavioral and social phenomena related to health and areas ripe for additional study.
On May 17, the House of Representatives approved a group of bills introduced in the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that aim to make the U.S. science enterprise more equitable, safe, and fair. Four bills, the Supporting Early-Career Researchers Act (H.R. 144), the STEM Opportunities Act (H.R. 204), the MSI STEM Achievement Act (H.R. 2027), and the Combatting Sexual Harassment in Science Act (H.R. 2695) were introduced by Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson and were endorsed by COSSA.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Daniel-Cole-300x239

Daniel Cole began his career as a research cartographer at the National Museum of Natural History. Today he is the GIS Coordinator & Chief Cartographer at the Smithsonian Institution and oversees over 400 GIS and Storymap users and developers working on scientific projects. Cole recommends geographers not only develop good cartographic design skills for public communication, but also that students take courses in related fields of interest such as conservation, anthropology, or computer science to best be able to jump in on cartographic projects in other fields.

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

June Member Updates

The latest news about AAG Members.

Mark Monmonier has received the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award from Syracuse University. Monmonier, known best for “How to Lie with Maps,” retired from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University this May. More.

Craig E. Colten, Carl O. Sauer Professor in Louisiana State University’s Department of Geography & Anthropology, was granted the prestigious Senior Scholar Rainmaker Award winner for 2020 from Louisiana State University. The Rainmaker Awards are given each year to faculty who have demonstrated outstanding research, scholarship, and creative activity for their respective ranks and discipline. More.

Laura Szymanski, geography PhD candidate at University of Wisconsin – Madison, was named the 2021-2022 William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow from the American Geosciences Institute. Szymanski will spend a year working in Congress on intersections of geoscience and policy. More.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

New issue of you are here

you-are-here-1-300x169 The 2021 issue of you are here: bodies & politics has been published. This issue focuses on the significance and political potentials of bodies and embodiment in the current political moment. you are here is an annual publication produced by graduate students at the University of Arizona School of Geography, Development, and Environment. The journal seeks to explore geographic themes through poetry, creative writing, maps, photographs, visual art, sonic art, film, and other imaginable genres.

Learn more about you are here.

Call for Participation: Developing Geospatial Expertise Symposium

You are invited to submit papers discussing your perspectives and/or research on geospatial expertise as part of the Spatial Cognition 2020/21 Conference. Ten to twelve of those papers will be selected by the organizers for 15-minute presentations plus Q&A. Background, links to registration, paper submission via EasyChair, and details of this can be found at: http://burtelab.sites.tamu.edu/developing-geospatial-expertise-symposium/

IN MEMORIAM

Roger Kasperson passed away in his home in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, April 10, 2021. A former Clark Graduate School of Geography faculty member, Kasperson also received his B.A. in geography from Clark and his M.A. and PhD from University of Chicago. Kasperson was a major figure in risk analysis, resilience, and sustainability and was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. More.

The AAG is also saddened to hear of the passing of Jene McKnight.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

EVENTS CALENDAR

President's Column

On Teaching, Mentoring, Balance, and Service

June 1, 2021

With summer almost here, I’m about to head into my last year as an academic. I’m “retiring” June 2022, although in truth I’ll work full time running my family’s winery and nonprofit, both built around the mission of providing training, jobs, and community for those with disabilities. As I transition from academics, Andrew and I are encountering many things we didn’t know were part of running a small business. This transition has prompted me to reflect on my transition from student to faculty member and, in turn, on how we prepare our graduate students for major life and career transitions.

In my case, I was fortunate. Judy Olson, my PhD advisor at Michigan State from 1996 to 1999, was and is amazing. Those three years were life-changing; Judy gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life—the courage to think. Her advising style was respectful and quietly demanding. She didn’t give answers, but provided guidance on how to discover them. Judy also instilled in her advisees the importance of service, something she epitomizes herself. I would not be AAG president if she hadn’t steered me in that direction. Judy and my department also gave me the opportunity to teach my own class, a large multi-section beast of a GIS class that was a major learning experience for students—and for me.

I was lucky to receive so much guidance, support, and preparation. Even so, I was thoroughly unprepared for life as a faculty member. Almost overnight, I went from being a student, focusing only on my own research, writing, and limited teaching to mentoring many students, teaching multiple classes, having much higher research expectations, juggling work-life balance in a whole new way, and… the service. So much service.

As I reflected on my major career transitions, I became curious about the student-faculty transition of others and whether those of us in PhD-granting programs are adequately preparing our students to launch into successful careers. So, I contacted multiple individuals in different positions and institutions (thank you all!) and asked them two questions: “What experience in your PhD program best prepared you for your career?” and “What didn’t you learn that you wish you had?”

Intriguingly, almost no one mentioned research training or field expertise in response to either question. Perhaps that’s because most people feel that their PhD program prepared them for future research and expected that to be the primary focus. Instead, answers focused on the preparedness (or non-preparedness) in two main areas: Teaching and Balance. I’ll provide some very brief highlights below. For a thoughtful and much deeper discussion of mentoring, see Kavita Pandit’s 2020 article Mentoring graduate students in an era of faculty career restructuring.

Teaching: While teaching loads vary by type of institution (e.g., teaching vs. research intensive, community college vs. 4-year college, etc.), all faculty I know teach. Moreover, even at a research-intensive institution, I spend more time talking with colleagues about teaching than I do about research. Likewise, I spend much more time working with graduate students than I do conducting literature reviews or launching new research. And, yet, most PhD students receive little to no formal teaching training, and many PhDs do not even experience teaching our own class until we become faculty members. This almost inevitably leads to us dusting off our old syllabi and notes taken as students, frantically updating content-related notes right up until class starts and—only occasionally—emulating what we believed were the best practices to help students learn. As one of my friends said: “I had no teaching experience. I mean none. The first time I taught was when I walked into a classroom of 80 students.”

There was one exception in the answers: a friend said he received an intense amount of formal pedagogic training. In summarizing his experience and its impact, he stated, “The professors were professional educators and the students were in-service teachers. Wow. I learned about pedagogy, good reflective teaching practice, and the language of assessment (student learning objectives, rubrics, normalizing grading expectations, etc.).”

What a show-off.

But… that really should be the standard we set for training the graduate students who will be the future educators in higher education.

Recent years—and particularly the Covid-year-of-teaching-remotely—have added a major issue that makes preparing graduate students for teaching far more complex. It’s true that I spend more time talking about teaching with my colleagues than I do about research. But, lately, I’ve spent even more time talking about issues of mental health and how to help guide students who experience issues across the spectrum of mild anxiety to catastrophic breakdowns. Thus, in addition to preparing our graduate students to use best learning practices, organize stimulating class materials, and prompt discussions, they now need to understand that their roles as teacher/mentors extend well beyond the basics of pedagogy. For many faculty, engaging with students as fellow humans brings challenges that can seem to blend roles of teacher and counselor. One of my friends summed up this challenge brilliantly: “Mental health training–this is, quite simply, the biggest challenge of my career. Teaching is care work, and yet we are rarely (if ever!) equipped with the adequate skills or support networks to deal with a range of mental health challenges in our students and colleagues.”

Let me be clear; I am NOT advocating that we be mental health professionals. But we must prepare our graduate students to know how to direct students with mental health issues to the appropriate people and centers and, equally important, how to avoid being personally ensnared in trying to solve those problems for the students.

Balance: Nearly everyone I know, including most of my friends and colleagues who responded to my email request for input, struggle with work-life balance and time management.

Achieving work-life balance has been a priority for me for about 10 years. I’m pretty much failing. But, here are the four things that I regularly try to accomplish:

Set boundaries and work hours. I’ve actually been pretty good at this one because it involves cocktails. When Andrew first started as Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, I implemented evening cocktail hour. This is the moment when work stops.
Make time for yourself, family, and friends. I’m super bad at the first, pretty good at the second, and marginal at the third.
Work a job you love. This is absolutely one of the most important things. Because, even if you have achieved work-life balance, if you don’t like your job, you’re not in equilibrium. And, if you do find yourself out of balance, at least the time demands are something that you enjoy.

Finally, 4. accept that there is no constant nor perfect work-life balance.

The last one is especially important for me to focus on as I sit here at 5am working on my column because there’s not enough time in the day.

Solutions: Ideally, the teaching and work-life issues are ones we should be addressing within our programs. But in truth, most of us learn about these professional expectations and options by observing rather than through any formal training. Even observing is not effective in many cases. Many PhD programs are within R1 universities, but most PhD students get hired in other types of institutions; graduate students thus have little if any opportunity to learn about the kind of careers into which they will arrive. As a friend said, “Getting hired at a R1 and reproducing your advisor’s career is not possible or desirable for everyone.”

But we don’t have to do it all—there are external resources available. In fact, the AAG has taken a lead in providing something that is missing from most graduate programs: professional development.

Here’s where I will shamelessly plug an AAG program which a friend described as “miraculous and life-affirming.” The AAG’s Geography Faculty Development Alliance Early Career Workshop begins this week. If you miss it this year, be sure to put it on your calendar for next year. You will receive 5 days of formal training in pedagogy, professional development, and work-life balance.

The AAG also has taken a strong role in providing opportunities and training elsewhere. Both career workshops at annual and regional meetings and seminar series, such as the recent remote series organized by Ken Foote, provide excellent resources. In addition, more and more universities are providing workshops and resources on these topics for graduate students or new faculty; for example, the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oregon funds many of its new faculty to attend a year-long program run by the National Center for Faculty Diversity and Development. We thus don’t always have to develop these programs in our departments, but we should at a minimum make sure we are directing our graduate students or new faculty to these areas of training and learning.

On a different note: This is my last column as the virtual AAG President. Occasionally, people have asked me what it’s like being AAG President. Here are the top 3 Pros and Cons.

Pros:

I have had a chance to get to know some amazing people, especially AAG staff.
I have surprised myself in how much I enjoyed writing these columns (and working on them with Andrew, who is a phenomenal editor). They have been a turn from my usual guarded privacy.
I have learned so much more about geography, geographers, and programs around the world. I’m very grateful for all of the experiences that people have shared with me (even when the experiences weren’t positive).

Cons:

It didn’t help my time management or work-life balance. But, I loved the work.
Email.
As I’ve shared with some people, my biggest regret during my term as President is that I never met another AAG member face-to-face (excluding my husband and UO colleagues). What a strange year to be in this role. I VERY much look forward to seeing a lot of you at future meetings

With my last column words, I’d like to thank everyone for trusting me with this position. I especially want to thank Dave Kaplan for sharing so much knowledge, patience, and time with me. You are a good mentor, Dave.

It’s been an honor to serve as AAG President.

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

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0093

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.

From the Meridian

Perspectives: A New Column in the AAG Newsletter

June 1, 2021

We are grateful to Guo Chen of Michigan State University, whose article “Working Together for Racial and Social Justice: From Anti-Asian Racism and Violence to Anti-Racist Praxis in Geography” was the first Perspective to appear, last month. We look forward to sharing more of our members’ thought-provoking commentary in the coming months.

One of the great strengths and challenges of the discipline of geography is that it embraces the world. We envision Perspectives as having wide-ranging potential, showcasing our members’ voices, experiences, and opinions regarding virtually any topic. We want to make space for members to engage and challenge one another, taking on questions that help illuminate and strengthen the relevance of geography to people’s lives.

In all cases, the articles will focus on the best ideas: showcasing novel ways of considering social, political, and geography concepts, adhering to the AAG Code of Conduct and supporting AAG’s goal of fostering robust discussion and respectful disagreement. Optimal length is 1,000-1,500 words.

So, do you have a probing question or fresh inspiration for the discipline? Do you have a unique and engaging response to a column or feature article you’ve seen in our newsletter? We want to hear from you. Consider submitting a column for consideration as an upcoming Perspectives. Read more about our submission guidelines here.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0092

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.