News

ICPSR provides access to carefully curated geography-related data

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is an international, member-based association of more than 780 academic institutions and research organizations. ICPSR maintains an archive of more than 250,000 research data files in the social and behavioral sciences. It hosts specialized collections related to education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse, arts, and more. ICPSR members include academic, nonprofit, government, and commercial organizations. Members have full access to ICPSR’s data archive and other scholarly services. ICPSR’s website contains a list of member institutions, as well as information about how organizations can join ICPSR (1).

Geographers may find ICPSR’s data archive of interest. Its data resources often contain spatial information, opening the potential for mapping, geocoding, and spatial analysis. About ten percent of the ICPSR collection is restricted to protect data confidentiality. The ninety-percent that are public-use data files can be accessed and downloaded from individual study home pages. Restricted data files can be accessed by researchers using ICPSR’s virtual data enclave (VDE) system or other safe computing environments.

ICPSR offers a geospatial VDE infrastructure with geospatial tools to facilitate spatial data analysis and discovery. This geospatial VDE is supported by current and prior NSF-funded collaborations between ICPSR and AAG (2). In addition, ICPSR is developing infrastructure for depositing geographic data and tools that facilitate spatial data analysis and discovery. ICPSR encourages geography researchers to use these services, deposit their own data, and in doing so, collaboratively build a spatial data infrastructure for interdisciplinary studies.

Five ways to find Geography-related data in ICPSR’s archive

There are many ways to find data that are of interest to geography researchers. Start your search at ICPSR’s online study catalog and refine your search using the five approaches below.

Figure 1. ICPSR NACJD Study 2895: Examination of Crime Guns and Homicide in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1987-1998

First, users can refine their searches by typing geography-related keywords. The geography search filter is controlled by a curated list of place names (3) and allows users to type a place name such as “Pittsburgh,” (4) which will return over 2,000 studies related to the city. By clicking on a study title, such as “Examination of Crime Guns and Homicide in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1987-1998” (study number 2895), users can find more details about the study, its associated data files, and descriptive metadata, as shown in Figure 1. This particular study is for public use and users can download the study data in formats that include shapefiles, Stata, SPSS, SAS, and more.

Second, the subject terms filter provides a way to narrow search results. For example, one of the studies available by filtering with the term “transportation” is the study titled “Historical Transportation of Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railroads in the United States” (5) (study number 36353). This study contains GIS materials covering the spread of different modes of transportation in the lower 48 states from America’s founding to 1911. Geographers may be interested in the spatial patterns contained in this study that describe historical transportation networks.

Third, users can search by geography-related concepts. Searching for “land cover,” for example, returns more than 3,900 studies, as shown in Figure 2. One of the top results is the “National Neighborhood Data Archive (NaNDA): Land Use and Land Cover by Census Tract, United States, 2001-2016,” which contains measures of land cover (e.g., low-, medium-, or high-density development, forest, wetland, open water) derived from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD). These data are aggregated by U.S. census tract.

Figure 2. ICPSR search results with keyword “land cover”

Fourth, the data type filter (on the left side of the page in Figure 2) allows users to narrow search results to GIS formats. The study titled “Exploratory Spatial Data Approach to Identify the Context of Unemployment-Crime Linkages in Virginia, 1995-2000” (study number 4546) contains ESRI shapefiles that can be used for mapping and spatial analysis.

Finally, users can narrow their search by exploring individual topical archives. The study in Figure 1, for example, is part of ICPSR’s National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) (6). NACJD is a grouping of studies that relate to criminal justice and many associated data files contain geographic information. A list of topical archives is available on the ICPSR website.

The five methods above are good ways to refine your search for data in ICPSR’s study archive. In the results page, users can further refine their search by time period, data collection method, release date, and other filters (see filters on the left side in Figure 2).

To track the thousands of works that build on the data from ICPSR’s archive, a “Bibliography of Data-related Literature” is continuously updated. Listed works include journal articles, books, book chapters, government and agency reports, working papers, dissertations, conference papers, meeting presentations, unpublished manuscripts, magazine and newspaper articles, and audiovisual materials.

Other scholarly services at ICPSR

ICPSR provides leadership and training for the social science research community in data access, curation, and methods of research data analysis. ICPSR advances and expands social and behavioral research, acting as a global leader in data stewardship, while providing rich data resources and responsive educational opportunities for present and future generations.

In addition, ICPSR stores, curates, and provides access to scientific data so others can reuse it and validate research findings. Curation, from the Latin “to care,” is the process ICPSR uses to add value to data, maximize access, and ensure long-term data preservation. ICPSR provides guidance to members about managing their data responsibly and ethically to support transparent and reproducible research.

Since 1963, ICPSR has offered the ICPSR Summer Program as a complement to its data services, and members receive discounted tuition rates for these courses. This program provides rigorous, hands-on training in statistical techniques, research methodologies, and data analysis. Courses such as “Regression Analysis for Spatial Data” and “Spatial Econometrics” are specifically designed for spatial studies in the social sciences. The AAG is now also exploring new offerings with ICPSR to deliver courses about geographic research methods and best practices to allow scholars to leverage geospatial information in ICPSR’s collections.

References:

(1)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/membership/administration/institutions

(2)https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1832465&HistoricalAwards=false and https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1244691&HistoricalAwards=false

(3)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/browse/facet/studies/geographies

(4)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/search/studies?q=Pittsburgh

(5)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/36353

(6)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/discover-data.jsp

(7)https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/

ICPSR, Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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News

Geospatial Brain Power

Does learning GIS improve spatial reasoning capabilities in high schoolers? A team from six universities is studying the students—and their brains—to find out.

A group of researchers from six American universities are studying what effect spatial education has on the development of the spatial thinking and reasoning skills of high school students. The research team wants to find out how the students, who use GIS technology for class projects, go about solving complex reasoning problems and whether their brains are physically changing in response to spatial learning.

With more emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in the American secondary school curriculum, an increasing number of students want to pursue STEM degrees at universities and the well-paying careers available to them upon graduation.

Students who take STEM classes often become innovators.

While spatial reasoning and analysis are frequently applied in careers that fall under the STEM umbrella, these important skill sets aren’t formally included in the secondary school curriculum. Instead, they are introduced incidentally in STEM-related classes when students encounter spatial concepts in the assignments.

“Spatial thinking plays a very important role in the learning and practice of STEM-related disciplines,” said Bob Kolvoord, dean of the College of Integrated Science and Engineering at James Madison University (JMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia. “Many of the most important discoveries in science involved a critical spatial insight, such as the structure of the Benzene ring or the DNA molecule.”

The Geospatial Semester

One way to teach high school students spatial reasoning and help them retain those skills is to add GIS coursework to the curriculum. Broadly speaking, spatial reasoning covers all thinking that has a spatial component. This includes geospatial reasoning, which is geographic in nature. Spatial analytics methodologies often include the examination of physical features such as the respective size, shape, and position of the objects or sites being studied and how they interact with nearby elements in their environment.

The Geospatial Semester is now in 30 high schools.

To help introduce students to spatial reasoning, Kolvoord in 2005 cofounded the Geospatial Semester (GSS) with his colleague Kathryn Keranen, an adjunct professor at JMU.  The GSS program offers high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to take GIS classes at their own schools while earning university credit at JMU. The program started at 4 high schools in Virginia but has expanded to include 30 high schools in Virginia, Oregon, and Illinois.

“We wanted to develop an educational program that exposed students to more problem-based learning through projects that require collaboration, and the use of GIS in their coursework was a good fit,” said Kolvoord. More than 4,000 students have participated in GSS thus far. Past student projects have explored a variety of issues related to the environment, renewable energy, wildlife, transportation, and public safety.

An Analytical Methodology for Spatial Cognition

Postulating that the students who participated in the Geospatial Semester had increased their spatial reasoning abilities, Kolvoord assembled a team to study whether exposure to GIS changes students’ high-level STEM spatial thinking ability. The team developed testing procedures to determine how these changes occur at both the cognitive and neurological levels.

Kolvoord’s chief collaborator on the team is David Uttal, professor of psychology and education at Northwestern University, where he works in the area of spatial thinking in STEM education. Other members include Adam E. Green, an associate professor of psychology at Georgetown University who specializes in cognitive neuroscience; David Kraemer, assistant professor of education in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College; and Emily Grossnickle Peterson, an assistant professor in the School of Education at American University, along with graduate students at all four institutions. Nora Newcombe, a professor of psychology at Temple University and the principal investigator at the school’s Center for Spatial Intelligence and Learning, advises the team.

Kolvoord said that his and Uttal’s approach to the research has evolved over the last 10 years. They started by interviewing students and assessed their final class projects. Students have used GIS to study a wide range of topics including elk habitats, hurricanes, air quality in relation to California wildfires, and even school locker usage.

“We initially found that the GIS students used more spatial language and exhibited stronger problem-solving skills than other students,” Kolvoord said. “We then added other collaborators to the team to more fully examine how the cognitive and behavioral aspects of the testing results connect.”

Two students who were recently enrolled in the Geospatial Semester present their final projects at a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) forum.

The researchers also explored the students’ spatial thinking abilities using standard psychometric measures. These include the mental rotation test (MRT), where a person—selecting from a series of options—matches the shape of one figure to another figure by mentally rotating them, and the embedded figures test (EFT), where the test taker recognizes geometric shapes from a bigger and more complex image.

Also, the students were interviewed and asked to answer questions such as these: Why do you think gas or milk prices differ from gallon to gallon or brand to brand? How would you predict what the price would be for each gallon or brand? If you were trying to increase recycling in your community or to run for a local political office, how would you go about running your campaign?

“There are both spatial and nonspatial ways to solve these problems. By analyzing their answers, we examined both their use of spatial language and their problem-solving abilities,” Kolvoord said. “We have ways to tease apart the interviews to look at how the students identify a problem, how they reason with the data, how they draw a conclusion, how they cite spatial data, and how they cite spatial representation. And the data we are collecting is really, really interesting. We have found that the open-ended problem-solving capabilities achieved by the GSS students seem to be making a difference in the development of their cognitive abilities that we can quantify.”

The research also includes performing neuroimaging of the brains of students in the study groups, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology. These tests determine whether physical changes in the brain actually occur with spatial learning, according to Kolvoord. “This allows us to develop biological inferences about how these changes occur and explain the effects of spatial education on core spatial abilities as well as high-level spatial thinking,” he said.

Grants from the National Science Foundation and the Center for Spatial Intelligence and Learning support the team’s work.

Kolvoord said the research he and other team members are doing is bridging a critical gap between the analytical work being performed in the cognitive neuroscience laboratory and its real-world application in the classroom. Testing students provides the researchers with definitive, real-world data on what improves spatial cognition.

“More than two decades of research on how the brain performs spatial cognition has provided us with a reasonably clear understanding of the process,” he said. “Our longtime, active engagement with those schools that teach the Geospatial Semester gives us access to a group of students exposed to a unique form of STEM education that is deliberately designed around spatial thinking and reasoning. Because of our access to these students, we believe that this may be the first research that employs longitudinal data analysis to measure how learning in a real-world high school changes the brain.”

What Researchers Have Learned So Far

The study included a test group of 79 students who had experience in learning and using GIS technology, and a control group of 130 students who hadn’t enrolled in GSS. Pre- and posttest data was collected on all 209 students, who came from both urban and suburban school districts and were demographically diverse.

The scan results have shown so far that there was a significant effect on the GSS students when they mentally processed the embedded figures task.

“Specifically, there were differences in activation in the parietal region of the brain, which is related to spatial reasoning,” Kolvoord said. “Students who took GSS had a greater blood flow in this region from pretest to posttest compared to the control group, implying greater activation.”

Since this analysis was done for all students participating in the tests, researchers feel optimistic about the results. They haven’t yet found out whether there is any increased white matter connectivity in the brains of the GSS students, but the researchers plan to continue work on that aspect of the project.

“While we have not completed the final analysis of all of our test results, we see differential improvement in the GIS students [compared to the control group] on STEM problem-solving skills, including problem definition and arguing from evidence,” Kolvoord said. “These abilities apply broadly across STEM and other disciplines, as they are the key skills in critical thinking.”

The research team will conduct a second series of experiments to determine the duration of GIS instruction that is needed to improve cognitive reasoning abilities.

To learn more about the GSS program, visit the Geospatial Semester website. This video from the National Science Foundation’s 2018 STEM for All Video Showcase, describes the GSS program and the neural impacts of spatial education.

Esri, Geospatial Semester, K-12, Sponsored content, stem
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Journals

AAG Announces New Annals Editors, Thanks Leaving Editors

The AAG welcomes two new editors to take the positions of the Human Geography and Nature & Society editorships for the Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Kendra Strauss of Simon Fraser University will be taking over for Human Geography Editor Nik Heynen while Katie Meehan of King’s College London will assume the role of the Nature & Society Editor as James McCarthy’s term ends. The AAG sincerely thanks Nik Heynen and James McCarthy for their four years of exemplary service in these positions.

Kendra Strauss is both an Associate Professor and Director of the Labour Studies Program and The SFU Morgan Centre for Labour Research as well as an Associate Member of the Department of Geography at Simon Fraser University. Before taking on her current position, Strauss was an Urban Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Glasgow and then held a permanent lectureship in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge from 2012 to 2014. Her focus as a geographer and feminist political economist revolves around labor politics, the definition of work, the regulation of labor markets, and geographical imaginations of environmental change. Strauss brings to the Annals a background in editing as the co-editor of two books, Precarious Worlds: Contested Geographies of Social Reproduction and Temporary work, agencies, and unfree labour: Insecurity in the new world of work. She has also served on the editorial boards of six journals in geography, labor studies, and political economy.

A human-environment geographer and water policy specialist by training, Katie Meehan is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at King’s College London and the lead PI of the Plumbing Poverty project. Prior to King’s, she was Assistant and then Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon, from 2010 to 2019. Her expertise includes urban political ecology, infrastructure and social inequality, water insecurity and development, science and technology studies, climate change adaptation, and the politics of environmental knowledge at the science-policy interface. Meehan is a mixed methodologist, combining data from diverse sources such as ethnography, household surveys, Q method, and census data. Her research has appeared in journals such as Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Science, Geoforum, Environment and Planning D, Water International, Environmental Science and Policy, and WIREs Climate Change. Meehan is on the leadership team of the NSF-sponsored Household Water Insecurity Experiences Network.

The AAG would like to express its appreciation for the work of Nik Heynen as the past Human Geography Editor for the Annals. Heynen, a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia, contributed his valuable experience as past Editor of Antipode and founding editor of the Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Book Series to the AAG, ensuring the Annals remained a journal held in high regard by the Geography community.

A sincere thank you to James McCarthy as he leaves his post as the Nature & Society Editor for the Annals. A Professor of Geography at Clark University, McCarthy edited the most recent Special Issue of the Annals on Environmental Governance in a Populist/Authoritarian Era, which is now available as a stand-alone edited volume from Routledge. As the Nature & Society Editor since January 2016, McCarthy’s dedication has continued the tradition of publishing research of high quality and rigor expected from the AAG.

Strauss and Meehan will begin their service in these roles on January 1, 2020.

Annals, Annals of the AAG, editors, Journal editors, The Annals of the American Association of Geographers
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Awardees

AAG Announces 2020 AAG Award Recipients

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. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO during the AAG Awards Luncheon on Friday, April 10, 2020.

2020 Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award

The AAG bestows an annual award recognizing an individual geographer, group, or department, who demonstrates extraordinary leadership in building supportive academic and professional environments and in guiding the academic or professional growth of their students and junior colleagues. The late Susan Hardwick was the inaugural Excellence in Mentoring awardee. The Award was renamed in her honor and memory, soon after her passing.

Jeffery Roth, Stephen F. Austin State University

The AAG Enhancing Diversity Committee, and the Committee on the Status of Women in Geography have selected Dr. Jeffery Roth of Stephen F. Austin State University to receive the 2020 AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award.

Dr. Roth’s nomination materials speak to his excellent mentoring abilities in advising students from a variety of backgrounds and his commitment to supporting students both professionally and personally. He truly embodies the exemplary legacy of the late Susan Hardwick. Dr. Roth has served as Geography Club advisor, he continues to create lifelong learners, has received teaching awards, and actively participates, and encourages students to participate in community activities. It is clear that Dr. Roth has shaped the lives of faculty, students, and members of the community in remarkable ways.

The AAG is proud and pleased to present the 2020 AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award to Dr. Jeffery Roth.

2020 Enhancing Diversity Award

The AAG Enhancing Diversity Award honors those geographers who have pioneered efforts toward, or actively participate in efforts towards encouraging a more diverse discipline.

Demetrice Jordan, Michigan State University

Demetrice (Dee) Jordan, has been a true change agent for diversity in our discipline.

Among Ms. Jordan’s many notable accomplishments, she founded and co-leads the Michigan State University Geography Department’s graduate student diversity recruitment initiative “Advancing Geography through Diversity,” which actively recruits and increases application submissions and acceptance among underrepresented minorities. Dee is a tireless mentor and advocate for creating an institutional climate that encourages the development of under-represented minorities as leaders in our discipline.

Ms. Jordan was named MSU’s 2018 Excellence in Diversity, Individual Emerging Progress recipient, as well as the 2018 Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association’s Graduate Student Emerging Leader recipient, becoming the first Geographer at MSU to hold these honors.

The AAG is proud and pleased to award Ms. Demetrice Jordan its 2020 AAG Enhancing Diversity Award.

2020 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.

2020 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.

Brian J. L. Berry, Lloyd Viel Berkner Regental Professor and Dean of the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at The University of Texas at Dallas

Professor Berry is one of the most influential figures in the disciplines of geography, urban studies, and regional planning. Berry’s early urban and regional research helped spark the quantitative revolution that occurred in geography and urban research in the early 1960s, making him the world’s most frequently cited geographer for more than 25 years. Throughout Professor Berry’s distinguished career he has successfully bridged theory and practice and has been heavily involved in urban and regional planning in both developed and developing countries.

In addition, the AAG recognizes Dr. Berry’s service to the discipline, including as AAG President (1978-1979) and as dean of the former University of Texas at Dallas School of Social Sciences, transforming it during a period of rapid growth into the (now) School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. Professor Berry’s over 500 books and countless significant awards speak volumes on the impact of his research in geography, and its recognition in other scientific fields.

2020 AAG Honorary Geographer

The AAG annually selects an individual as the year’s Honorary Geographer. The award recognizes excellence in research, teaching, or writing on geographic topics by non-geographers. Past recipients include Stephen Jay Gould, Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman, Barry Lopez, Saskia Sassen and Maya Lin.

Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan, geologist, former NASA astronaut, NOAA Scientist, and 2017 Charles A. Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History

The AAG Executive Committee recognizes Kathryn Sullivan’s distinguished career, including being the first American woman to walk in space, serving as Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, and as a NOAA Administrator. The direction in which Sullivan steered Administration and NOAA priority work in the areas of weather and water services, climate science, integrated mapping services and Earth-observing capabilities is immediately recognized and welcomed by geographers. Sullivan also led NOAA with regard to satellites, space weather, water, and ocean observations and forecasts to best serve American communities and businesses. As a woman scientist and role model, Kathryn Sullivan mirrors many of the values the AAG also actively pursues in our discipline and our association.

2020 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.

Dr. Audrey Kobayashi, Queen’s University

Dr. Kobayashi exemplifies the ideals of the AAG Harold Rose Award, with a decades-long commitment to anti-racist research that has reshaped the discipline with impact far beyond university walls. In terms of research, Kobayashi has published on anti-racist practice in top field journals and in her Presidential addresses to the AAG “The Idea of Race in Geography,” and to CAG “What’s Race Got to Do with it? The Geography of Racialization in Canada.”

Kobayashi’s writing is frequently taught in graduate courses, thus impacting the next generation of geographers in the project of building an anti-racist geography. She is an impressive model of anti-racist praxis, from her work advocating for employment equity in Canada to her involvement authoring commissioned reports on anti-racist practice, to her mentoring of early career underrepresented scholars and efforts to consult with university administrators. We will end with the words of one of the letters of support, “Rose’s effort to confront the “Geography of Despair” remains unfinished. However, as exemplified by the steadfast work of scholar-activists such as Professor Kobayashi, this work continues.

The 2020 Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award in Geographic Science
The Marble-Boyle Undergraduate Achievement Award recognizes excellence in academic performance by undergraduate students from the U.S. and Canada who are putting forth a strong effort to bridge geographic science and computer science as well as to encourage other students to embark upon similar programs. The award is an activity of the Marble Fund for Geographic Science of the AAG.

Jacob Bostick, University of Colorado – Colorado Springs

Nathan Fiscus, University of North Alabama

Chelsie Perkins, East Tennessee State University

2020 Community College Travel Grants
Provides financial support for students from community colleges, junior colleges, city colleges, or two-year educational institutions to attend the Annual Meeting.

Martha (Kennedy) Masanzi, Santa Barbara City College

Ozer Ozturk, Lone Star College

Brenna Strawn, Lone Star College

Stuart Watts, Montgomery College

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New Books for Geographers

New Books: December 2019

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to current public health policies which have prompted the closing of most offices, we are unable to access incoming books at this time. We are working on a solution during this transition and will continue our new books processing as soon as we can. In the meantime, please feel free to peruse previous books from our archived lists.

December 2019

After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration by Holly Jean Buck (Verso Books 2019)

Blue Legalities: The Life and Laws of the Sea by Irus Braverman and Elizabeth R. Johnson, eds (Duke University Press 2020)

City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856 by Marcus P. Nevius (University of Georgia Press 2020)

Disaster Upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap Between Knowledge, Policy and Practice by Susanna M. Hoffman (Bergahn Books 2019)

Half Broke: A Memoir by Ginger Gaffney (W. W. Norton & Company 2020)

The Licit Life of Capitalism: US Oil in Equatorial Guinea by Hannah Appel (Duke University Press 2019)

Making Industrial Pittsburgh Modern: Environment, Landscape, Transportation, Energy, and Planning by Jill Lindsey Harrison (MIT Press 2019)

Murals of the Americas: Mayer Center Symposium XVII, Readings in Latin American Studies by Victoria I. Lyall, ed (University of Oklahoma Press 2019)

Punctuations: How the Arts Think the Political by Michael J. Shapiro (Duke University Press 2019)

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Newsletters

Newsletter – December 2019

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Going Local or How the AAG Can Help Enhance its Regional Divisions

By David Kaplan

The region is one of geography’s main concepts and, true to these roots, regional divisions—mostly within the United States but many including Canadian provinces—developed as an intrinsic part of the American Association of Geographers. The Pacific Coast Division was formed in 1938 and the other regional divisions were established in the 1940s and 1950s. Preston James and Geoffrey Martin credit regions with much of the AAG’s growth during the 1960s, but what else would you expect from a geography organization? Regions are part of our DNA.

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

Book your stay in Denver, CO

The 2020 AAG Annual Meeting will be headquartered in downtown Denver, Colorado at the Hyatt Regency – Convention Center. Discounted rooms will also be available at the neighboring Sheraton – Denver Downtown, currently being freshly renovated for meeting attendees to enjoy! A discounted block of rooms is being held for those attending the AAG Annual Meeting. Book your stay before rooms sell out or the rate expires on March 13, 2020.

View the accommodations.

Career Mentors Needed for #aagDENVER

 

The advice of a mentor can be instrumental in preparing young geographers for success in today’s competitive job market. The AAG seeks professional geographers representing the business, government, nonprofit and academic sectors to serve as volunteer Career Mentors during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO. During sessions held each morning of the conference, mentors will 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. For additional questions and to volunteer, please contact Mark Revell at the AAG.

More information about the Jobs & Careers Center.

Hiking around the Denver Area

Focus-on-Denver-graphic

If you are looking for some fresh air during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting, the Denver area has plenty of open spaces to choose from! While Rocky Mountain National Park and Mount Evans are some of the more well known locations for hiking, Esri Education Manager Joseph Kerski has some “off the beaten path” suggestions. His map of top ten hikes include a variety of options from urban hiking to views of the great plains to geologic vistas! Get ready to get outdoors at #aagDENVER.

Learn more.

Poster abstracts for #aagDENVER due January 31!

Present a poster at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. As soon as your poster is ready, upload the electronic file to our Poster Portal so it can be viewed online well before and beyond your presentation session. In addition, the AAG has set up printing partnerships for discounts on paper poster printing to help you save.

PUBLICATIONS

New Books in Geography — October Available

New-books1-1Read the latest titles in geography and related disciplines as found on the New Books in Geography list. Some of these books will be reviewed in The AAG Review of Books. The editors of The AAG Review of Books are happy to receive suggestions for potential reviews and potential reviewers. Reviews are commissioned by the editors, based on the appropriateness and qualifications of the reviewer, observing the usual avoidances of conflict of interest. Persons wishing to volunteer their reviewing services should have the requisite qualifications and demonstrable prior knowledge and engagement with the subject area, preferably through publications. Please contact the editors at aagrb [at] lsu [dot] edu.

Browse the full list of new books.

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

New issue of African Geographical Review

The latest issue of the journal of the Africa Specialty Group of the AAG, the African Geographical Review, has recently been published. Volume 38, Issue 4 (December 2019) is available online for subscribers and members of the Africa Specialty Group. The latest issue contains eight articles covering all sub-fields of geography, to enhance the standing of African regional geography, and to promote a better representation of African scholarship.

See more about the journal.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Meet the 2020 Class of AAG Fellows!

honors and awardsThe AAG Fellows program recognizes geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. AAG Fellows, conferred for life, serve the AAG as an august body to address key AAG initiatives including creating and contributing to AAG initiatives; advising on AAG strategic directions and grand challenges; and mentoring early and mid-career faculty.

See the Fellows.

AAG is Proud to Announce the 2020 AAG Honors

Each year, the AAG invites nominations for AAG Honors to be conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of the profession. The AAG Honors Committee is charged with making award recommendations for each category, with no more than two awards given in any one category. The AAG is proud to officially announce the 2020 AAG Honors. Formal recognition of the Honorees will occur at the Awards Luncheon at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.

See the Honorees.

Introducing the Climate Action Task Force

In response to a member petition circulated last spring calling upon the AAG to reduce CO2 emissions related to the Annual Meeting, AAG Council formed a Climate Action Task Force. Task Force members Patricia M. Martin and Joseph Nevins report on the early initiatives set forth to attempt to transition to a low-carbon conference model. Planning for several experimental activities is currently underway for the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting.

Read the report.

Get ready for the 2020 AAG Election

Election ButtonThe AAG election will be conducted online again, and voting will take place January 8-30, 2020. Each member who has an email address on record with the AAG will receive a special email with a code that will allow them to sign in to our AAG SimplyVoting website and vote. It’s important to update your email address in your AAG account to ensure you receive the email ballot. The 2020 election slate will be published soon.

Be prepared for the election.

AAG Hosts Workshop at Regional Division Meetings

To better understand how the AAG could assist geography programs with student recruitment, the AAG developed a workshop (the “AAG Geography Student Recruitment and Career Resources” workshop) that was offered at four AAG Regional Division Meetings throughout Fall 2019. AAG staff encouraged participants to think geographically about their student recruitment plans and to come up with an actionable plan for their own campuses. By offering the workshop, the AAG was able to identify some strategies that can any program can consider tailoring to their own needs.

Learn more about the workshop.

Congratulations to Outstanding Graduate Student Papers from Regional Meetings

The AAG is proud to announce the Fall 2019 student winners of the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. The annual award, designed to both encourage regional meeting participation and support AAG Annual Meeting travel, is granted to one student from each division as decided by regional division board members. The winners from each region will present their work in two dedicated sessions at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. Congratulations to all of the students who participated!

Read more about the winners.

POLICY CORNER

GIS Day at the Library of Congress

The Library of Congress hosted an event on Nov. 13th in honor of GIS Day. The program featured Librarian of Congress and 2019 AAG Atlas Award Recipient, Carla Hayden, along with Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR) and other distinguished researchers and speakers. The projects presented throughout the day exemplified the utility of GIS around the themes of cultural heritage preservation and disaster response. The AAG co-hosted a celebratory reception later that day on Capitol Hill with MAPPS, ACEC, and NSGIC.

In the News:

  • The President has signed another short term continuing resolution (CR) to replace the previous one set to expire November 21st. This newly signed CR will postpone the fiscal year deadline another month and will allow the government to continue operating under FY 2019 levels. The House and Senate hope to complete work on all FY 2020 spending bills before the new deadline of December 20th.
  • One notable exception to the static funding levels maintained in the most recent CR is the increase in funding for the U.S. Census Bureau. The short term stopgap bill passed on November 21st allocates $7.3 billion to the agency as they prepare for the 2020 count. This funding, which had previously been delayed, is a crucial resource as the Census Bureau substantially expands its staff and capacity in anticipation of next year.
MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

College is about learning to think critically says Lisa Colson, GIS & Imagery Specialist at USDA/Foreign Agricultural Service. Lisa was attracted to a career in geography because it allowed her to combine her interests in food security, sustainability, and alleviating poverty. The skillsets geographers have are increasingly in demand in our globalizing world!

Learn more about Geography Careers.

December Member Updates

The latest news about AAG Members.

AAG National Councilor Jennifer Collins is spearheading the organizational efforts for the 2020 Symposium on Hurricane Risk in a Changing Climate. As a new event, the symposium seeks to foster communication among scientists, engineers, and practitioners in order to increase understanding of and better ways to deal with tropical cyclone risks. The early bird registration deadline is December 15. Learn more.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Take Time Out This Summer for Professional Development

 

The AAG’s Geography Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) will once again offer a valuable in-depth opportunity for early career professionals and department leaders in Geography to learn and engage during its annual workshops June 21-27, 2020, at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The shorter four-day workshop for department leaders (June 24-27) will overlap with the week-long conference for early career attendees providing a full career spectrum of exercises and activities.

Register today!

NSF seeks program officer in Geography and Spatial Sciences

NSF_logo2sThe National Science Foundation is seeking qualified candidate for a Geographer (Program Director) position for the Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) Program, within the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), Alexandria, VA.

See the job posting.

IN MEMORIAM

David Eugene Schwarz

The AAG mourns the loss of David Schwarz (1936-2019), a professor of geography at San Jose State University. He passed away in Gilroy, CA, aged 82, after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. David accepted a position at SJSU in 1971 and spent his entire career in various positions serving the university. His research was largely in the field of remote sensing.

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GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS
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Awardees

Regional Divisions Announce Outstanding Graduate Student Papers During their Fall Meetings

The AAG is proud to announce the Fall 2019 student winners of the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. The AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting is designed to encourage graduate student participation at AAG Regional Division conferences and support their attendance at AAG Annual Meetings. One graduate student in each AAG Regional Division receives this yearly award based on a paper submitted to their respective regional conference. The awardees receive $1,000 in funding for use towards their registration and travel costs to attend the AAG Annual Meeting. The board members from each region determine student award winners.

The winners from each region will be presenting their papers in two dedicated paper sessions at the upcoming 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO.

Matthew Walter (far left)

MSDAAG: Matthew Walter, Masters Student, University of Delaware; Paper title – A Rapidly Assessed Wetland Stress Index (RAWSI) Using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-1 Radar Data

GPRM: Cheyenne Sun Eagle, Masters Student, University of Kansas; Paper title – Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Land Allotment on the Pawnee Reservation

SWAAG: Katherina Kang, Masters Student, University of North Texas in the Department of Geography; Paper title – Vegetation and land use effects on the spatial distribution and accumulation of soil black carbon in an urban ecosystem

Junghwan Kim

WLDAAG: Junghwan Kim, Ph.D. Student, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Paper title – How Neighborhood Effect Averaging May Affect Assessment of Individual Exposures to Air Pollution: A Study of Individual Ozone Exposures in Los Angeles

ELDAAG: Rebekka Apardian, Ph.D. Student of Spatially Integrated Social Sciences, University of Toledo; Paper title – Exploring the Relationship Between Pedestrian Crashes and Walkability

Michaela Garland

NESTVAL: Michaela Garland, Master’s Student, Southern Connecticut State University; Paper title – Evaluating, initiating, and incubating Blue Economy development – Case of the Long Island sound region

Dustin Tsai (on right)

APCG: Dustin Tsai, PhD candidate, University of California Davis; Paper title – A Tale of Two Croatias: How Club Football (Soccer) Teams Produce Regional Divides in Croatia’s National Identity

SEDAAG: Jordan Brasher, PhD candidate, University of Tennessee-Knoxville; Paper title – “Contesting the Confederacy: Mobile Memory and the Making of Black Geographies in Brazil”

Jordan Brasher (center)

MAD: Kelly J. Anderson, University of Maryland College Park, Middle Atlantic Division; Paper title – “Weather-related Influences on Rural-to-urban Migration: A Spectrum of Attribution in Beira, Mozambique”

 

 

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AAG is Proud to Announce the 2020 AAG Honors

Each year, the AAG invites nominations for AAG Honors to be conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of the profession. The AAG Honors Committee is charged with making award recommendations for each category, with no more than two awards given in any one category.  This year, the AAG Honors Committee and the AAG Council are pleased to announce the following AAG Honorees to be recognized during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting Awards Luncheon.

2020 AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Graduate Center, CUNY

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, the recipient of this year’s AAG Lifettime Achievement Award, is a public intellectual who integrates geographic scholarship with advocacy and activism. This award recognizes Dr. Gilmore’s transformational contributions to the discipline of Geography. Her scholarship has pushed the boundaries of geographic thought and influenced the trajectories of multiple areas of our field, including critical human geography, black geographies, and political economic geography. Dr. Gilmore is also an advocate for geographic thinking and the importance of space and place within interdisciplinary fields including American studies, carceral studies, and ethnic studies.

Dr. Gilmore is particularly known for her work in carceral studies, including her award-winning book, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis and Opportunities (soon to be re-issued by University of California Press). Golden Gulag brought the theoretical and methodological tools of economic geography to bear on the interconnections of race, space and inequity, reshaping the national conversation on prisons. In this book and in related articles, chapters, and lectures, she pushed scholars, politicians and citizens to confront society’s highly inequitable valuation of different lives. In addition to her contributions on prison abolition, Dr. Gilmore’s research addresses racial capitalism, organized violence, and labor and social movements. She is known for her depth of knowledge, meticulous analysis and theoretical agility.

Dr. Gilmore’s powerful scholarship has been paired with deep engagement in public-facing scholarship. She is the quintessential intellectual-activist, engaging a wide range of audiences in the U.S. and internationally on the role of the state in taking and preserving life. Dr. Gilmore is also an extraordinary mentor of undergraduate and graduate students and of junior and mid-career scholars. She is described by her mentees as a “formidable, uncompromising, generous and greatly beloved scholar”. Through her mentorship, Dr. Gilmore has shaped a new generation of public scholars within Geography.

The discipline of Geography has benefited enormously from Dr. Gilmore’s scholarship, activism, and mentorship. She is a role model for all of us. (Photo credit ©DonUsner)

Michael Watts, University of California – Berkeley

Michael Watts, recipient of the 2020 AAG Lifetime Achievement Award, is one of the most influential nature/society scholars of the last fifty years. His foundational research on political ecology, vulnerability and resilience, agrarian political economy, the social production of famine, oil

and development, and environmental justice – all conducted through a fine-grained ethnographic, political, and deeply historical engagement with Nigeria and West Africa – continues to shape scholarly debates and research programs across the environmental social sciences, area studies, and humanities.

Watts’ work is widely cited and taught. He has written two powerful monographs – Silent Violence: Food, Famine, and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (1983/2013 2nd ed.) and Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta (2014) – and more than 300 articles and essays. He is perhaps best known for his edited volumes, which have been no less than field-defining. He has set and then reset the intellectual trajectory of political ecology and critical nature/society research three times in twenty years with the various editions of Liberation Ecologies, initially published in 1996 and then entirely overhauled twice: first for a 2nd edition in 2004, and then again for a 3rd edition retitled Global Political Ecology, which was published in 2011. His 2001 collection Violent Environments (with Nancy Peluso), catalyzed a body of research focused on the role of armed conflict in environmental conservation world-wide which continues today in work on the role of armed drones in wildlife protection. His recent co-edited volume Subterraenean Estates: Life Worlds of Oil and Gas (2015) promises to play a similarly defining role in research on the environmental and political impacts of fossil fuel extraction. He has received numerous awards including the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors. In addition to funding from NSF and the National Geographic Society, his research has been funded by major foundations including Ford and Rockefeller. He has also received a Guggenheim.

As the Class of 1963 Professor of Geography and Development Studies at Berkeley, he supervised 90 Ph.D. students and served on the committees of 75 others. His service to Geography and academia more broadly includes co-founding and directing the storied Environmental Politics Workshop at UC Berkeley, and serving as Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Social Science Research Council for more than a decade and on the advisory board for the Stanford Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences. Beyond academia, Watts has worked at the highest levels of international development (serving as Chief of Party for the United National Development Program and working with the World Bank), corporate governance (arranging workshops on corporate social responsibility for companies such as Statoil and Genentech), statecraft (working with the U.S. Congress and State Department on oil issues), and community activism (collaborating with photojournalists and the environmental justice collective RETORT). These multi-faceted engagements with diverse stakeholders are a testament to Watts’ ability to impact both powerful and marginalized constituencies in and beyond academia.

2020 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Honors

Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia

The 2020 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Award is awarded to Jamie Peck, for his foundational and sustained contributions to the field of economic geography and to human geography, more broadly.
It is difficult to overstate Jamie Peck’s intellectual influence. Peck is one of the most productive geographers of our time. He is in the top 1% of social scientists in terms of citations, with an h-index of 83 and more than 40,000 citations. His published work, which is notable for both methodological rigor and deep theoretical insight, includes 6 monographs, 13 edited volumes, 93 book chapters and 200 articles. Over three decades, he has published transformative work on the dynamics of neoliberalization, the economic transformation of urban governance, the history of economic geography, changing labor markets and regulation, and policy mobilities. His research has been funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and The Leverhulme Trust, among other sources. His many awards include the RGS-IBG Back Award and a Guggenheim, and he is a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences (UK), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. One of the outstanding characteristics of his scholarship is his ability to frame complex problems in terms accessible to a broad audience. This is reflected in the reach of his work outside of the academy, as demonstrated by quotations and interviews in two dozen popular press outlets, including the Economist, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Peck’s extraordinary scholarship is matched by an extraordinary record of service to the field as an editor and mentor. In his remarkable and ongoing run as editor at Antipode and Environment and Planning A, and now as lead editor of the five Environment and Planning journals, he has shaped the intellectual conversation across Human Geography for decades. Beyond his own editorial work, he is currently on the editorial or advisory boards of 11 other academic journals, and is a tireless reviewer for the top journals in geography and regional studies. Finally, through his deep intellectual generosity to junior colleagues and students, including as founder of the Summer Institute for Economic Geography and as advisor to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, he has played a pivotal role in the development of generations of economic geography scholars. For these and his many other contributions to geography, Jamie Peck is the recipient of the 2020 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Award.

Qihao Weng, Indiana State University

Qihao Weng is a pioneer and leading scholar in the area of urban remote sensing. During his distinguished career, he has significantly advanced our theoretical understanding and empirical knowledge of urban heat islands and land surface temperature, urban sprawl, and environmental sustainability in the context of rapid urbanization. His originality, creativity, and significant intellectual contributions have resulted in 235 articles, 14 books, and funding support from NSF, NASA, USGS, NOAA, ESA, and the National Geographic Society. His academic record testifies to his history of innovative work and far reaching influence on a wide range of disciplines including urban geography, urban planning, landscape ecology, meteorology, and climatology.

Weng’s outstanding contributions to urban remote sensing and sustainability science include methodological innovations including novel algorithms and data analysis strategies and theoretical advances offering new perspectives on the urban environment and spatio-temporal aspects of urbanization processes. Taken together, Weng’s empirical and theoretical contributions have yielded significant new insights on some of the most critically important phenomenon influencing contemporary urban environments.

Weng’s seminal research on urban heat islands, landscape effects on land surface temperature, and urbanization processes opened a critical new frontier towards understanding and measuring novel environmental risks in rapidly growing urban regions. He developed a methodology for estimating land surface temperature with satellite-derived measures of vegetation that has become a core technique for those investigating urban climates. His research has also demonstrated that urban sprawl and warming are not an isolated phenomenon, but instead are coupled with other risk factors, such as infectious disease. His scholarship has not only transformed the scientific understanding of remote sensing in geographical applications, but also has bridged methodological gaps between geography, spatial ecology, and environmental science.

Beyond the considerable impact of his own research, Weng’s production of educational materials and resources have played an important role in training future generations of urban scholars in remote sensing and GIS techniques. In particular, Weng’s An Introduction to Contemporary Remote Sensing is the standard textbook for many introductory remote sensing courses and has been adopted by numerous universities, community colleges, and technical schools around the world. He also has a long record of dedicated professional service to the AAG. In recognition for his outstanding contributions to scholarship in geography, Weng has received many honors and awards including the AAG Outstanding Contributions Award in Remote Sensing (2011) and Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award (2015). In 2018, Weng was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Senior Fellow at NASA, and member of the European Union Academy of Sciences.

Weng’s research exemplifies the multifaceted scholarship that is critical in bridging contemporary urban studies with spatial ecology and environmental science. He also continues to be a role model for exemplary practices in education, public service, and professional leadership for the next generation of geographic leaders. For these reasons, the 2020 AAG Distinguished Scholarship Award is awarded to Qihao Weng.

2020 AAG Gilbert White Distinguished Public Service Honors

William Solecki, CUNY – Hunter College

The 2020 Gilbert White Distinguished Public Service Honors is awarded to William Solecki for his outstanding work to improve the human condition through direct community engagement, wide-ranging public service, and salient, cutting-edge research. Solecki’s work sits at the nexus of geographic inquiry, social justice, and environmental policy. His work has transformed our understanding of the opportunities and obstacles of urban living in a changing natural environment, and has been deeply influential across communities and organizations.

Of particular note is Solecki’s deft ability to work at multiple geographic scales among myriad organizations to advance our understanding of, and ability to respond effectively to, climate change. At a local scale, Solecki has co-chaired the New York City Panel on Climate Change, served as the Director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, served as the interim Director of the Science and Resilience Institute @ Jamaica Bay, and led several climate impact studies in the greater New York and New Jersey region. At a national scale, Solecki served as the coordinating lead author for chapters in the 2014 (Chapter 11: Urban, Infrastructure, and Vulnerability) and 2018 (Chapter 18: Northeast) U.S. National Climate Assessment reports. Internationally, Solecki has been involved in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2006 and has made numerous contributions to the IPCC’s assessments of climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation for communities. He served as a contributing author for three chapters in the Fourth Assessment Report, as a lead author for the Urban Areas chapter in the Fifth Assessment Report, as a lead author for the Decision-Making Options for Managing Risk chapter in the Sixth Assessment Report, and as a coordinating lead author of the Framing and Context chapter of the IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5oC.

In addition to his extensive scholarly research and many contributions to climate change assessments, Solecki is co-founder of the Urban Climate Change Research Network, co-editor of Current Opinion on Environmental Sustainability, and founding editor of the Journal of Extreme Events. He currently maintains numerous collaborative projects around the world. In 1975, Gilbert White wrote “that the human race is a family that has inherited a place on the earth in common, that its members have an obligation to work toward sharing it so that none is deprived of the elementary needs for life, and that all have a responsibility to leave it undegraded for those who follow (Stewardship of the Earth, p. 403-404). William Solecki is awarded the 2020 Gilbert White Distinguished Public Service Honors for his unfettered devotion to those basic principles and his ability to put them into action.

2020 Distinguished Teaching Honors

Robert Lake, Rutgers University

Robert Lake, the recipient of the 2020 AAG Distinguished Teaching Honors, is an extraordinary educator and mentor of graduate students and young scholars. He has provided generous, sensitive and supportive teaching and guidance both inside and outside of the classroom. Lake’s goal has been to teach students how to think rather than what to think. His selfless mentorship has allowed students to grow and flourish intellectually.

At Rutgers University, Lake served as dissertation chair or committee member for over 130 doctoral students, many of whom are now leading scholars in urban geography and urban studies. He is well known for his innovative course design, particularly in the area of geographic theory, and his ability to convey to students his deep understanding of the research process. Moreover, he has contributed, through numerous administrative positions, to the structure and organization of graduate education from the department to the university level. Lake has been the recipient of multiple teaching awards inside and outside of Rutgers University.

Lake also has provided discipline-wide mentorship for graduate students and young scholars. As a long-term co-editor of the journal Urban Geography, Lake guided young scholars through the publication process. In his role as organizer of the annual AAG Urban Geography plenary lecture, he provided a forum for intellectual discourse and mentoring. Over the last two decades, Lake has organized the Brooklyn Urban Reading Group, an ongoing, open and inclusive discussion involving faculty and students from nearby universities.

Through his devotion to graduate education and the mentoring of young scholars, Lake has contributed to a network of scholars (affectionately referred to as Bob-net) who are continuing to strengthen the discipline of geography. In the words of a colleague and mentee, Robert Lake’s commitment to “pluralism, engagement, and deep care for others” makes him an exemplary educator and a role model for the discipline of geography.

2020 AAG Media Achievement Awar

Keith Debbage, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Keith Debbage, recipient of the 2020 Media Achievement award, is a quintessential communicator of the scholarly ideas of applied urban and economic geography. His conceptual explorations run the gamut from local-scale planning issues, to regional examinations of economic decline and recovery, to the impacts of the so-called “Creative Class.” In every case, Debbage breaks the complexity down into jargon-free and readable packets of knowledge. Debbage draws on his scholarship, extensive professional service, including his appointment as a Coleman Foundation Fellow, and his lived experience when communicating with the public, such as in his recent columns on the power of local-scale entrepreneurialism and the role of higher education in the economic and cultural life of North Carolina. A disarming folksiness is underlain by decades of applied scholarship, much of it completed with external grant and contract funding.

As a role model for others, Debbage is prolific in his media presence and yet, by all accounts, seeks to share the spotlight with his student collaborators and to bring sophistication to his analyses even as they are accessible. From over a hundred newspaper columns, often against a backdrop of maps or graphics, to countless radio and television appearances, Debbage does the difficult work of communicating geographic scholarship to the public. For his consistent commitment to this important work, for repeatedly demonstrating that conceptual complexity doesn’t mean Geography has to be confined to the Ivory Tower, and for finding the right voice to bring Geography into the public sphere, Professor Keith Debbage is recognized with the 2020 American Association of Geographers Media Achievement Award.

 

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AAG Holds Workshops on Student Recruitment at Regional Division Meetings

AAG President David Kaplan recently outlined the need among geography programs to actively recruit students and to develop further community connections to AP Human Geography teachers. Geography faculty and chairs at colleges and universities, however, share difficulties attracting students to major in geography (or related) degrees mainly because students are unfamiliar with the discipline or associated career paths. To address President Kaplan’s call and better understand how the AAG could assist geography programs with student recruitment, staff members Coline Dony, Emily Fekete, and Mark Revell developed a workshop that built on existing AAG Resources (The Guide to Geography Programs, Profiles of Professional Geographers) and knowledge about existing recruitment strategies across our programs. The “AAG Geography Student Recruitment and Career Resources” Workshop was offered at four Regional Division meetings throughout the Fall: the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain meeting, the Association of Pacifiic Coast Geographers meeting, the Mid-Atlantic Division meeting, and the Southeast Division meeting.

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These workshops attracted about 60 members, including program chairs, faculty, and students. Each workshop was introduced by AAG staff with an overview of possible recruitment strategies. Participants were prompted to first think geographically about their program and campus, leveraging our discipline’s very own expertise! For example, geography programs should understand where their own students come from (which schools feed into their college), and where their graduates go (how far and for what positions). The workshop went over a handful of on-campus strategies, such as connecting with undergraduate counselors and ways to showcase career possibilities, which could be implemented relatively easily. Other, more ambitious strategies that look beyond the college campus were also provided, including connecting to AP classrooms as a potential avenue to recruit students. This led to a broader discussion on the need to bolster ties with K-12 geography education in the US and on AAG’s active efforts in this area (e.g., Powerful Geography, Encoding Geography). Funding opportunities that can support those more pioneering and collaborative efforts around education research were also highlighted. Finally, important advice was provided on how to best leverage social media to reach different audiences (e.g., students, parents, or college administrators) and on how to manage social media accounts.

The overview of on- and off-campus approaches was followed by a break-out session providing workshop participants the opportunity to reflect on these suggestions, share their own outlook with us, and raise additional opportunities or challenges. During this break-out session, each group was also charged to create an actionable recruitment plan that would fit their program. Throughout these workshops, AAG staff learned that there is no “one size fits all” strategy to effectively recruit students. Techniques that work in Pennsylvania won’t necessarily work in Montana. By improving your understanding of your program’s “catchment area” (e.g., where are students coming from and where are they going) it will be easier to think critically about strategies. For example, if your program draws largely from a handful of high schools, you should reach out to those schools directly or offer to get involved in their AP Human Geography or AP Environmental Science programs. If your university draws from a community college, try to engage or collaborate with their faculty. Perhaps you can invite students to campus for Geography Awareness Week. If your college or university is drawing from students on a more national scale, you could consider contacting your registrar to see who has completed the AP Human Geography or Environmental Science exams on your campus and proactively reach out to these students. Finally, chairs and faculty need to think ahead and be aware of major demographic shifts impacting the overall demand for a college education in their area or across Institutions of Higher Education in general.

Despite these geographic and administrative differences, there are, however, some tactics that any program can implement to begin developing a recruitment plan. First among these is to ask your majors directly what made them choose geography as a major. Understanding how students make this choice will make your strategies more successful. Second, strive to develop good relations with college or university administrators. An active presence on social media could support this effort. Next, make sure to keep your faculty aware about ongoing events on your campus to leverage opportunities that could have an impact on your program. Fourth, actively connect with the undergraduate counselors and external advisors on your campus and perhaps consider using available funds to send the geography advisor to the AAG Annual Meeting to attend the Jobs & Career Center sessions for a day so they can familiarize themselves with the discipline. Finally, remember that student recruitment and program building takes sustained effort and time. Programs need to stay proactive about recruitment, make sure to assess strategies for their effectiveness, and understand that recruitment never ends (each year a new crop of students needs to be recruited).

We all care about geography and believe in the value of geographic education. If we work towards promoting and changing the cultural perception of geography as a subject, we can work towards building a more sustainable discipline.

While current funding only allowed staff to attend four Regional Division meetings, the workshop will also be offered at the Virtual 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. The free workshop titled “Geography Student Recruitment Workshop: strategies to attract more majors to your geography program” will be offered Wednesday, April 8, 2020, from 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM MDT. To attend the session please join here. A related session of interest to participants “What’s in a Name? Undergraduate Student Perceptions of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability Key Words and Program Names” is being offered by Justin Stoler, University of Miami, beforehand on Wednesday, April 8, 2020 from 11:10 AM – 12:25 PM MDT. In addition to the AAG Annual Meeting, the virtual workshop will be also held Wednesday, May 20, 2020 from 2:00 to 3:30 PM EDT. Those interested in participating in the free online event can register here.

 

*Funding for travel to present the AAG Student Recruitment and Career Resources Workshop at the four regional meetings outlined above was provided by the National Science Foundation (Award# 1837577). .

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President's Column

Going Local or How the AAG Can Help Enhance its Regional Divisions

The region is one of geography’s main concepts and, true to these roots, regional divisions—mostly within the United States but many including Canadian provinces—developed as an intrinsic part of the American Association of Geographers. The Pacific Coast Division was formed in 1938 and the other regional divisions were established in the 1940s and 1950s. Preston James and Geoffrey Martin credit regions with much of the AAG’s growth during the 1960s, but what else would you expect from a geography organization? Regions are part of our DNA.

Today, regional divisions have distinct membership and governance structures. Several regions run their own journals; others have comprehensive websites and newsletters. And every region hosts a substantial one- or two-day meeting in the fall with field trips, keynotes, sessions, posters and prizes.

We differ in our approach to the AAG regions. Some geographers attend only the regional meetings; for them, these are the best part of the geography community. Others rarely interact with their region, focusing instead on the national meeting. And a few are active at both the regional and national levels. Despite being smack-dab in the middle of the West Lakes region, my graduate program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison had little to do with it, at least at that time. So I was only vaguely aware of regional divisions until I attended my first East Lakes meeting right after I started teaching at Kent State. I later served as division president and regional councilor.

Former presidents Kavita Pandit and Tom Baerwald have eloquently discussed some of the benefits of regions and regional meetings. These assets include a more intimate venue to contrast with the controlled chaos that is the national meeting, more opportunities to highlight geography to local politicians and businesses, the ability to show off geography to administrators, better interaction opportunities for undergrads and grads, lower costs, and more. When I attend regional conferences I notice that, with just two to four concurrent breakout sessions and fewer outside distractions, most sessions are quite well attended with ample questions and an opportunity for presenters to get their ideas across—something that is valued especially by students. And in this day of concern about carbon impacts of attending far-away conferences, regional meetings provide an option much closer to home.

My time as AAG vice president and president allows me to attend as many regional conferences as possible. I have glimpsed the culture of each region and I have enjoyed the vitality of the meetings. But my observations and discussions with regional leaders and meeting participants have also revealed some challenges. These often come in the form of varied attendance and engagement by members. At each regional meeting I attended, some schools were clearly involved whereas some significant programs were virtually absent. For graduate students looking to make contacts with scholars in their area of interest, or for undergraduates looking for information about different programs, such absences are frustrating. What may once have been a launching pad for grad students seeking to give their first paper is now ignored for a spot on the national program. Past president Audrey Kobayashi decried a “huge indifference to regional division activities across the country,” at least among some of the larger universities. This creates division; it creates a sense of abandonment. And frankly it means that the regions cannot function as well as they should. Past president Julie Winkler posed some important questions to ask about the regional meetings: How can the regional divisions strengthen geography at the national level? Is the attendance at regional division meetings proportional to the types of institutions in the region? What are some of the gaps that could be addressed?

So we must incentivize healthier regions and better regional meeting participation in order to bolster the AAG and geography as a whole. To that end, I established a task force—made up of members of each region—to understand some of the problems and point to potential solutions. Thus far, we have been asking regions a lot of questions, gathering information on various strengths and weaknesses, and then thinking of ways the AAG can assist. These suggestions come from the regions themselves and, if implemented, could considerably bump up the value of regional participation.

The first concerns are tied to regional governance. Quite plainly, many regions have difficulty finding enough willing leaders. Regions do not have professional staff and so governance and conference planning falls on the shoulders of volunteers. Some people feel that the recognition is not at all commensurate with the demands of this vital service. To this end, the AAG has pledged to provide more recognition for regional volunteers, enhance opportunities for regional officers to exchange ideas at the national convention and beyond, and perhaps waive the national meeting registration fees for division presidents or chairs.

Second, there is the question of how well the AAG might help with the management of the regions and their meetings. This September we sent out a survey asking if regional officers knew about all of the items the central office can manage: insurance, bookkeeping, a meeting registration license, Zoom account, childcare subsidy, and some others. The responses showed that not all of these services are universally known, yet they could save each region a big headache and some serious cash.

Finally, how might the AAG support and improve attendance at the regional meetings? In addition to the services listed above, we are committed to creating more incentives. We already established the AAG Council Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper at a Regional Meeting. This award of $1,000 that goes toward attendance at the national meeting is prestigious and profitable; I believe it has led to more students attending regional meetings. Other awards could be created—for outstanding undergraduate students or for faculty mentors who shepherd several students to regional meetings, for example. We could look at discounting the cost for students to participate in regional meetings. And for the regions themselves and for the hardworking people who put together a regional meeting, we are exploring various financial and non-financial areas of support. We will strive to establish more of an AAG presence at each meeting, going beyond the president giving the keynote. Perhaps most promising of all, there will be much more publicity for the regional meetings: at the annual spring meeting, on the AAG website, and on social media.

All these incentives must be matched with additional things that regions can do. The onus of putting together a regional meeting falls on just a few people. A manual of best practices, available to everybody, would be useful to see what has worked and what must be done and at what time. Another suggestion is to think about ways to combine a regional meeting with another meeting. Sometimes joint regional meetings can make a lot of sense. Other times, the meeting can be held concurrent with a specialty organization that attracts people from across the world. One promising avenue is to pair some of these meetings with a set of interested specialty groups. Could there be value in getting a dedicated geographical specialty conference that would share work, costs, and revenues with a regional division? This could create a bigger playing field.

Every region has a devoted core of people who participate in regional governance and regularly attend their fall meeting. But we can move beyond these mainstays to create a more robust level of participation: creating real incentives for people to work with their regions and to participate in regional meetings and making people feel that they and their students will obtain something of value at the regions which they cannot get elsewhere. These can be accomplished and, if they are, our regions will grow stronger and the American Association of Geographers as a whole will thrive.

— Dave Kaplan
AAG President

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0065

regional divisions
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