AAG Newsletter: September 2017
September 2017 Welcome to the Newsletter of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). For more up-to-date news, stories, and announcements, read PRESIDENT'S COLUMN Moving at Twitter Speed By Derek Alderman The title of my column comes from a recent NPR story on the NAACP. The storied civil rights organization is undergoing a wholesale “retooling” of its structures…
NCRGE Welcomes Abstracts for a Special Track During AAG 2018 New Orleans
Transformative Research in Geography Education For the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting in New Orleans, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) is welcoming abstracts and organized session proposals for a special track of sessions on Transformative Research in Geography Education during the AAG Annual Meeting on April 10-14, 2018, in New Orleans. This track…
Moving at Twitter Speed
The title of my column comes from a recent NPR story on the NAACP. The storied civil rights organization is undergoing a wholesale “retooling” of its structures and tactics in an effort to regain relevance among younger generations of activists and to enhance its efficacy in anti-racism advocacy and education. In adapting to a dramatically…
NSF Seeks Candidates for Division Director of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
The National Science Foundation is in the process of identifying potential candidates for division director for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences within the Geography and Spatial Sciences Program. This division includes many psychological sciences, as well as geography and spatial sciences, cultural and biological anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. The current director term ends at the…
Coline Dony Joins AAG as Senior Geography Researcher
The AAG welcomes Coline Dony as a Senior Geography Researcher. Before joining the AAG staff in Washington, , Coline served as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore County where she taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in GIS, geovisualization and programming for spatial data analysis. Coline also taught an undergraduate course…
AAG Statement on Charlottesville Tragedy and White Supremacy
The American Association of Geographers is deeply saddened and disturbed by the recent deadly and violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia. Rallies supported by white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members led to the killing of one counter-protester, the wounding of at least 19 other protesters, and the deaths of two law enforcement officers doing…
Louisiana Topography: Third Lowest, Third Flattest, and Most Interesting
A look at quirks and idiosyncrasies of topographic flatness in "Louisiana Topography: Third Lowest, Third Flattest, and Most Interesting" by Tulane geographer Richard Campanella, courtesy Louisiana Cultural Vistas (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series of articles on New…
Some Hispanic and Latino Landscapes of New Orleans
If you have a penchant for landscape, be warned: you will be tempted to spend more time outside of the hotels than in the paper sessions of the upcoming AAG conference in New Orleans. Many aspects of the New Orleans landscape might seem generically American, especially within the compact Central Business District (CBD) upriver from…
The Serious Business of Public Communication
If you have not yet examined the AAG Long Range Plan, 2015-2025, then I encourage you to do so. It provides a useful update on the Association’s progress since its 2002 strategic plan and offers 20 specific recommendations important for the future of AAG and the discipline of geography. One of those recommendations calls on…
Expanding and Empowering a Culture of Mentorship
The Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) Early Career Workshop class of 2017 gathered for a photo at the close of the conference on June 24 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tenn. Words cannot adequately capture my excitement and honor to be able to serve as President of the American Association of Geographers. I…
New Orleans: The Uncertain City
Skyscrapers in the New Orleans business district in the foreground contrast with the French Quarter in the background. Photo credit: Craig Colten New Orleans battles with its identity. Locals see their home as a river city. Its European colonial founders etched a street grid across the narrow natural levee and perched the incipient city on…
NSF Is Recruiting Geographers for its Graduate Research Fellowship Program
In addition to opportunities via the DDRI program in GSS, grad students in geography and related spatial sciences also have an opportunity to compete in NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP). This program is run separately from GSS, but will benefit from more geographers serving as panelists. To participate, you will need to register as a…