The Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University Makes History
The MSU Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences has admitted and will fund three African American women graduate students for the 2018 academic year. This will be the first time in the history of the Department that three African American graduate students will be admitted and funded in the same year. The students admitted and funded are Cordelia Martin-Ikpe, Raven Mitchell and Kyeesha Wilcox.
Cordelia will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography with an emphasis on public health. She is a native of Detroit and worked at the Michigan Public Health Institute after receiving her master’s degree from Michigan State University. She will take relevant courses and conduct research on comparative maternal health outcomes for American-born and foreign-born Black women.
Raven will be pursuing a master’s degree with an emphasis on Physical and Environmental Geography. Raven is a native of Davison, Michigan and received her undergraduate degree from Northern Michigan University in Earth Science. She received the Outstanding Graduating Senior Award from the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Northern Michigan University. Raven was also a student in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) in 2017 at Michigan State University.
Kyeesha will be pursuing a master’s degree with an emphasis on Urban Social Geography and the relationship between the lack of equal access to healthy food for low income populations and the high obesity rates in neighborhoods with very low socioeconomic characteristics within metropolitan areas. She received her undergraduate degree from Middle Tennessee State University. Kyeesha has already demonstrated her research skills by receiving the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Award this academic year. She was also a student in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) at Michigan State University in 2017.
How Did the Department Achieve this Historic Accomplishment?
The most important factors in the Department’s success in recruiting the underrepresented graduate students were progressive leadership and measurable commitment. Measurable commitment is demonstrated by actually funding the underrepresented students once a Department admits them. According to the most recent NSF Report on Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities (2016) only six African Americans received a Ph.D. in Geography in the entire United States. Among the primary reasons is the lack of funding via a graduate assistantship or fellowship support.
Already considered a progressive leader in support of diversity issues, Alan Arbogast, Chairperson of the Department, was willing to demonstrate a measurable commitment to recruit and fund the three underrepresented students mentioned above. Such willingness was communicated to the progressive Chair of the Admissions Committee and Director of the Graduate Program, Ashton Shortridge. Professor Shortridge started to engage in very active recruitment to increase the number of underrepresented graduate students. Professor Shortridge co-leads the Department’s underrepresented minority recruitment initiative with Dee Jordan, a fourth-year doctoral geography student. Dee is very experienced with diversity issues. She has served on the Diversity Panel for Graduate Student Life and Wellness, Leadership Fellows, and contributes to important conversations about navigating MSU as a student of color. Dee was selected as the 2018 recipient of the MSU Excellence in Diversity Award in the Individual Emerging Progress category.
Over the past four years, geography doctoral student Dee Jordan has been actively pursuing ways to increase underrepresented minority representation within the Department. Dee reached out to me and Professor Shortridge in 2014 and expressed concerns about the lack of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students in her cohort, among graduate students within the Department as a whole, as well as in the Department’s promotional video. Dee inquired about the Department’s recruitment strategy, which was largely passive, and she suggested more active recruitment to attract diverse student applicants. Both Professor Shortridge and I were receptive to her suggestion, and Dr. Arbogast also agreed that this approach could be beneficial for the Department.
In 2017, after researching best practices in recruiting, creating inclusive climates, cultural competency and cohort effects, the Find Your Place in the World underrepresented minority scholars in geography initiative began.
This four-pronged marketing, recruitment, retention and graduate engagement strategy is a comprehensive approach to diversifying the professoriate and increasing demographic representation for students of color in the discipline.
In addition to progressive leadership at the department level, progressive leadership at the Dean’s level was also important. Dr. Rachel Croson joined the MSU College of Social Science as Dean in August 2016. She immediately engaged in the development of a strategic plan for 2017-2022. One of the values of the plan is inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is demonstrated by a culture in which all individuals are valued, respected and engaged so that diverse voices can enrich our work (College of Social Science Strategic Plan, 2017-2022, p. 2). Among the missions of the strategic plan is diversity. The plan states, “our college is open and welcoming, deriving strength from a plurality of identities and lived experiences. We will build a more diverse and inclusive environment to fulfill our mission” (p. 5).
The Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences has taken action to assist the College in achieving this mission and insuring that the Department will continue to be a pipeline for underrepresented graduate students to not only be admitted but also funded.
— Joe T. Darden
Professor of Geography
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, and AAG Fellow
DOI: 10.14433/2017.0035
Dr. Stephen Hanna recently joined the AAG Journals’ editorial team as the Cartography Editor for the AAG suite of journals: the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities.
The American Geosciences Institute’s Critical Issues Program is pleased to offer a free webinar in partnership with the American Association of Geographers, “
What was your favorite class in K-12? Oceanography (I grew up on an island in a fishing family, it was the perfect combination of personal experience and science) and, yes, it absolutely incorporated geography.
We are just days away from the start of the AAG annual meeting. I look forward to seeing many of you in New Orleans. For most of us, participating in the conference is work. It may be a labor of love, but it represents, nonetheless, a significant investment in terms of money, energy, and time. Please know that your investment and work on behalf of the discipline and the Association at the meeting is appreciated…No doubt, conferences should be about the work of building disciplinary bonds and expertise; however, I would suggest our meetings potentially offer an even wider array of professional interactions and benefits that open us to new places, people, and skills. In this column, I discuss the value, but also the challenges, of making our AAG meetings more public-oriented.
Make the most of your AAG annual meeting experience by downloading the AAG mobile app, the digital version of the AAG Annual Meeting Program. With the AAG mobile app, attendees can browse sessions and abstracts, create and save a personalized schedule of events, and find up to the minute information about room changes or upcoming activities. A detailed user manual is available for download on the AAG Annual Meeting website. Don’t wait until you’re standing in the registration line, download the AAG mobile app before you get to New Orleans!
The annual round robin tournament features teams of students from each of the AAG Regional Divisions competing for both a team championship title and individually for an MVP Award. The 2018 World Geography Bowl will be held on Wednesday, April 11 starting at 7:30 PM in the Bayside A-C, Oak Alley, and Nottoway rooms on the 4th Floor of the Sheraton hotel, one floor down from the International Reception. Stop by on your way to the reception or join in to watch the championship round after the reception concludes! Prizes donated from generous sponsors are awarded to winning teams and individuals.
The Jobs and Careers Center will be open daily from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM daily during #AAG2018. Stop by for over 65 sessions, workshops, and field trips related to careers and professional development. Sessions will cover a broad range of topics, from working as a geographer in the public, private, nonprofit, or academic sector, to networking strategies, to becoming a certified GIS Professional (GISP), to women in leadership roles in geography. Students, be sure to attend the Student Networking Happy Hour on Thursday, April 12 from 3:00 – 5:00 pm.
Flooding still represents the costliest natural disasters in the United States on an annual basis, explains 
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The Big Easy has always been cool, but the geography of cultural strongholds in the city has changed over time. Bourbon Street in the 1930s was a hotbed of nightlife with its 63 nightclub establishments, some of the first in the United States. But is Bourbon Street, with its critics’ claims of inauthenticity, still considered “cool” today? 
The AAG is pleased to announce the recipients of the three 2018 AAG Book Awards: the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize, the AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography, and the AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography. The AAG Book Awards mark distinguished and outstanding works published by geography authors during the previous year, 2017. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur during the 
Wendy Jepson, professor of Geography at Texas A&M University, was named a AAAS Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow for the class of 2018-2019. Jepson, who was recently elected an AAG National Councilor, is one of the 15 food and water security researchers chosen to represent this year’s class of fellows. The goals of the Leshner Leadership Institute are not only to address scientific issues surrounding resource availability, but also to better engage the public through science/society dialog.
Geographers Cristi Delgado, GISP, Enterprise GIS & Open Data Coordinator for the City of Berkeley, California and Paul McDaniel, Assistant Professor of Geography at Kennesaw State University love the ways that a career in geography connects them with current events and their communities. In this month’s Profiles of Professional Geographers, read about their varied career paths and the diverse skills needed to pursue employment in the geographic field.
Alfred W. Crosby died peacefully at Nantucket Cottage Hospital among friends and family on March 14, 2018. He was 87 and had lived with Parkinson’s Disease for two decades. During his career, Crosby taught at Albion College, the Ohio State University, Washington State University, and the University of Texas at Austin, retiring in 1999 as Professor Emeritus of Geography, History, and American Studies. In addition to his many accolades, Crosby was also involved in the Civil Rights movement, taught Black Studies and the history of American jazz, helped to build a medical center for the United Farm Workers’ Union, and took a leadership role in anti-war demonstrations.
The Annals of the American Association of Geographers seeks contributions for a Special Issue on the topic of Smart Spaces and Places. ‘Smart’ technologies have advanced rapidly throughout society (e.g. autonomous vehicles, smart energy, smart health, smart living, smart cities, smart environment, and smart society) and across geographic spaces and places. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to address questions such as how to make spaces and places ‘smart’, how the ‘smartness’ affects the way we perceive, analyze, and visualize spaces and places, and what role geographies play in knowledge production and decision making in such a ‘smart’ era. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by email to Jennifer Cassidento (
Early Career Faculty and Department Leadership Workshops
The National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) invites proposals to develop new collaborative and interdisciplinary research networks in geography education. Through this program, NCRGE aspires to strengthen geography education research processes and promote the growth of sustainable, and potentially transformative, lines of research. Along this vein, NCRGE is also hosting a 
In recognition of the location of AAG’s 2018 Annual Meeting in New Orleans and Black Geographies as one of the three meeting themes, Southeastern Geographer offers free access to digital issues on 
The Professional Geographer, Volume 70, Issue 2, has been published. Of note to geographers interested in the Public Engagement theme for #AAG2018, the focus section in this issue is Out in the World: Geography’s Complex Relationship with Civic Engagement. The issue also includes short articles in academic or applied geography, emphasizing empirical studies and methodologies.
Volume 6, Issue 1 of The AAG Review of Books has now been published online. In this first issue of 2018 be sure to check out the discussions of Concrete Revolution: Large Dams, Cold War Geopolitics, and the US Bureau of Reclamation, Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labor Market, and Cities in Global Capitalism.
