President's Column

Doing Geography in the Age of Coronavirus or How is Everybody Coping?

You hear it from everyone you know: these are strange and frightening times. While most of us have witnessed major disease outbreaks from afar – Ebola, SARS, Swine Flu – it is another thing to encounter something so directly, so personally, so comprehensively. Pandemic: what once seemed part of a grim historical record has smashed into our contemporary reality.

If you are one of the lucky ones, you are reading this inside your comfortable home, self-isolating, dashing out only to gather the most essential items. If you are one of the lucky ones, you are struggling to refit your classroom activities, your research, your office operations, your interactions with colleagues, and your accessibility to other people within this extraordinary era – pushing everything from the physical to the virtual realm. Maybe you also have children at home who want to be with their friends, or now need to be home-schooled. A hassle for sure, but hopefully something we will come through.

Of course not everyone is so lucky. Some are still on the front lines, making this strange new world tenable for the rest of us. Medical care workers of all sorts, people working for essential services or industries, people who must put themselves in the middle of this pandemic every single day. Still others are ill from the disease or care for sickened loved ones. And then there are those who have lost their jobs because of virus-related shutdowns or whose existing precarity threatens to push them over the edge. Poor pupils worried about the loss of their school lunches and struggling without secure internet connections. Students blocked from conducting their long-planned research and who may also be anxious about paying their rent. Job seekers who have just seen their prospects shrivel up. And junior scholars fearing how this might affect their tenure clock.

In my columns I have tried to touch on issues that affect some of us. The coronavirus threat is an issue that affects ALL of us in a way unimaginable just a few short weeks ago. It is important for us to remember that while the effects and the worry are universal, the outcomes are uneven. What for some of us may be an annoying inconvenience can prove to be truly horrific for others.

For those of us leading the AAG, the past two months have been challenging but manageable. As it became clear that the novel coronavirus would be so much more than a small disruption, we made the difficult decision to cancel our annual meeting, the first cancellation since the United States entered World War II. While the decision seems obvious now, we knew that many, many of our members would be seriously disappointed as the annual meeting is one of the highlights of their year.  We also realized that all of the careful planning conducted by the AAG staff and so many in the membership would be upended.

Even before we decided to cancel the in-person meeting, the staff was working on ways to allow some of the existing sessions to be conducted virtually. So far we have 150 virtual sessions ready for the AAG conference week. The platforms that are being assembled should allow for a fairly smooth operation for those who participate and attend. If you have already registered for the Denver meeting, you can attend these sessions free of charge and use your registrations for future meetings, while others pay a nominal fee. We will continue with the AAG council meeting (virtually of course) and hold the AAG business meeting. And we have a prepared a wonderful book, The Rocky Mountain West: A Compendium of Geographic Perspectives, which is available on the AAG website.

Of course there are so many aspects of the AAG annual meeting that cannot be done virtually and several of these will be postponed. Many of the themes for Denver will continue in Seattle (along with some new themes) and participants are invited to continue their sessions as they had already intended. I have reached out to the marquee participants for our Denver meeting and most have agreed to return next year. The presidential plenary will be a joint affair with president-elect Amy Lobben and myself looking at issues of marginalization, accessibility, and expanding the geography community. Past-president Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach will be able to present her address next year. We are working to make sure all of this year’s honorees will get their rightful due at next year’s Awards Luncheon. And the best news is that the AAG will host the annual meeting in Denver after all, in March 2023. It will be an opportunity for us to make good on all the work and preparations conducted by the local arrangements committee and local professionals.

Our annual meetings are so much more than sessions. They are opportunities for us to affirm our place in the geographical community. They provide a way for people to meet and connect with those they have only encountered on paper or online. They give students a much-needed boost in their professional development and networking. And they reignite old friendships and foster new ones. To continue with this, we hope that geographers consider some of the other options offered in Fall 2020. I have long championed the value of regional meetings, and this will be an opportunity for many of us to explore these. While we had intended to provide publicity for the regional meetings in Denver, we will be sure to advertise these over the summer. Other meetings, such as Race Ethnicity and Place, Geography 2050 and the Applied Geography Conference should go forward as we overcome this affliction.

How this novel coronavirus changes us is open to speculation. But I have no doubt that the modifications to our society and to our geography will be profound, exceeding the transformations wrought by 9/11. Everything from personal hygiene to store design will harbor the possibility of a new pandemic. Right now, geographers can provide the necessary analytics and visual tools to help all of us understand the impact of the virus today. Looking toward the future, there will be ample opportunity for geographers to unpack all of the implications of this unprecedented and devastating disease.

But now is a time to step back. Many people are hurting. Many more are scrambling. First, take care of yourselves and your families. Then take care of those to whom you are directly connected – your students and the people who depend on you – inasmuch as you can do so. Look out for those who may be fearful and alone; there are more like this than you think. Be kind to one another. Keep your physical distance, but preserve and enhance your social community. The world has become a scary place. We need connections – now more than ever. Please help make these connections happen.

— Dave Kaplan
AAG President

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0070

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Journals

‘The Professional Geographer’: COVID-19 Announcement

To the authors, readers, reviewers, and staff members who contribute their energy and insight to The Professional Geographer,

I am grateful to this community of scholars and practitioners, whose contributions to The Professional Geographer have helped maintain its high quality and excellent reputation. Your dedication to scholarship and reflections on practice have put The Professional Geographer in a strong position to weather the unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right now, all of us are experiencing intense personal and professional demands. As teachers and professionals, we must move our work online, with increasing requests of our students and colleagues. As parents and caregivers of family and friends, and as individuals, we are called upon to cope with change, uncertainty, economic stress, and threats to our own and loved ones’ health.

In recognition of these realities, and to respond to our community’s needs, The Professional Geographer will adjust its customary timetables for submissions and reviews to accommodate everyone who will need extra time this year because of increased professional and personal obligations. Our team will make every effort possible to move the editorial process along smoothly, working within the realistic timeframes needed by each person we work with, as the need arises. For example, we may need to extend the review period for a submitted paper, or give an author extra time to make revisions. Editorial decisions, which rely on voluntary peer-reviews, may be prolonged as a result.

In short, we expect to slow down the production process in the coming months, to help our contributors and staff rise to the unexpected challenges of this global public health crisis. Production of The Professional Geographer will not stop, however. Perhaps now more than ever, our discipline needs the excellent scholarship and professional reflections the journal provides on how and with what tools we learn about the world and work to solve its problems.

As the editor of a journal that has evolved over 70 years to fulfill this mission, I am confident that even this challenge will lead us to become more robust, once we get through this tunnel. I look forward to working with you. Together we will endure this challenging moment. I ask for your patience and resilience, and thank you for your support of our community.

Editor, The Professional Geographer

Heejun Chang

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News

‘The AAG Review of Books’: COVID-19 Announcement

It has been my pleasure to serve as Editor in Chief for the AAG Review of Books for eight years. As I work on the transition to a new incoming editor, to prepare for the rest of 2020, we have been served up with an unexpected challenge, in the form of the COVID-19 crisis.

The publishing industry is already reacting to this public health emergency, moving back publication dates and slowing editorial schedules. A ripple effect in timelines and publication dates for the Review is inevitable. Coupled with this reality, we also need to be responsive to the personal and professional needs of our reviewers and staff, as they manage unanticipated family and professional obligations at this difficult time.

Accordingly, we expect to slow down the pipeline of new book reviews during this first part of 2020, which will affect our timetables for the next several issues.

Please rest assured that we will continue to work toward providing timely, well-considered reviews of the most current books concerning geography, geospatial public policy, and global geopolitical issues. We expect that the timing of our work will be influenced by these significant external forces at work in all of our lives and the publishing industry this spring.

I greatly appreciate your patience and understanding during the coming months. Thank you for your contributions to the journal, your contributions to the field, and your readership.

Editor, the AAG Review of Books

Kent Mathewson

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News

‘Annals of the AAG’: COVID-19 Announcement

The Long View

When the Annals was launched in 1911, penicillin did not yet exist. As Editors, we are taking the long view on the COVID-19 pandemic. While the journal has persevered through many global crises, the present moment is clearly not business as usual.

We recognize these are exceptional times that are creating unusual burdens for individuals and communities. Many people are taking on additional duties as they cope with self-isolation and social distancing; cancelled classes, school and childcare; caring for and assisting older people and those with underlying health conditions; and the very real needs of students, staff and colleagues in our institutions. Those with caring responsibilities are facing more demands on their time, not fewer. These caring responsibilities are diverse and include friends, neighbors, colleagues and students—not just family members or dependent children.

We have chosen not to suspend our journal activities or operations for a set period, given the uncertain duration of this crisis. Instead, we are slowing things down, in order to stay nimble and responsive to differential challenges, capacities, and needs of our staff, contributors, and community members. Editorial decisions and copy-editing will be slower than usual; the window of reviewing will be extended and adapted to personal circumstances; responses and communications may be uneven or delayed. The months ahead will test all of us in different ways. Through difficult times, we ask for your patience.

Most important, we ask that our readers put care and community first. Peer review and academic publishing is, at its core, an act of goodwill—it requires sustained, thoughtful engagement with others, a kind of relation-building. We fully recognize and respect that not all members of our community are in a position to submit or review papers at this time. If you are able to engage in peer review, we will work with you to fully take account of your circumstances.

In the months to come, we expect to see trials and tests like never before, requiring us to pull together as a community. In this community, we find strength and hope. Reflecting on the recent words of Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach, we take some inspiration: “in the years to come, let them say of us: when things were at their worst, we were at our best.”

Editors, Annals of the American Association of Geographers

Ling Bian, David R. Butler, Katie Meehan, Kendra Strauss

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Journals

‘GeoHumanities’: COVID-19 Announcement

Not Business as Usual: A Message from the Editors of GeoHumanities

There is little about being an academic in the current time that can be called “business as usual”. Academic publishing is no exception. It is the joint act of many people – authors, reviewers, readers, people in the offices of publishers and professional societies such as the AAG, editors, and many others. All of us live in communities that have been, and increasingly will be, shaped by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We join with our fellow AAG editors in choosing not to suspend our journals’ activities or operations for a set period, given the uncertain duration of this crisis. Instead, we are slowing things down, to allow more space and time for listening to the different challenges, capacities, and needs of our staff, contributors, and community members. Editorial decisions and copy-editing will be slower than usual; the window of reviewing will be extended and adapted to personal circumstances; and responses and communications may be uneven or delayed. The months ahead will test all of us in different ways. Through difficult times, we ask for your patience.

Alongside our fellow AAG editors, we ask that all of us who contribute to the existence of our journals put care of self and others first. Submission of papers and peer review are, we believe, at their core, a means of building, maintaining and sharing an academic community. They require sustained, thoughtful engagement with others – a relation-building founded on trust, generosity and empathy as well as rigour, honesty and accountability. This engagement takes many forms, works to different tempos, and is itself immersed in a world of cares and responsibilities. For many of us, ‘not business as usual’ means taking time to simply care for others and ourselves; for others, it means slowly taking stock of events, and reserving our voice until a time when we feel a contribution is feasible and useful. As such, we urge critical conversations on the links that have been, and continue to be, drawn between academic publishing, productivity, and career progression within academia. Universities and the apparatus that surrounds them can, and will, frame articles as measures of academic ‘belonging’ and ‘success’, reducing the work involved to metrics, and arguably glossing the many values that scholarship can provide to both the individuals undertaking it and their potential audiences. This framing can also erase or ignore other sites where other practices are cherished and valued – including caring for ourselves and others – practices that are especially important during times of crisis.

Please take good care.

Editors, GeoHumanities

Tim Cresswell and Deborah Dixon

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News

2018 NAEP Geography Report Card Offers Crucial Insight into Geographic Literacy

April 23, 2020 marks the date for The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB)’s release of the 2018 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Geography Report Card, along with the nation’s 2018 assessments of U.S. History and Civics education.

This year’s Geography Report Card is particularly important, as the NAEP is not due to assess geography again over the coming decade. The data collected in 2018 could be the only such information available for insight into geography education for the foreseeable future.

Popularly known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP is the largest, continuous, national assessment of what U.S. students know and can do in school subjects. Since 1994, NAEP has conducted nationally representative studies of student achievement in geography. The 2014 assessment showed a critical shortfall in geographic literacy among students, with three out of four eighth graders scoring below the “Proficient” level (defined by NAEP as competency over challenging subject matter).

NAEP results provide an important window on the status and needs for geography education in the United States. The data can be analyzed on the basis of geographic region, school factors (including sector), student demographics, and teacher characteristics and instructional approaches, among other contextual variables. As was the case in 2014, the 2018 NAEP Geography Assessment will report student achievement at the eighth-grade level (pre-2014 assessments included fourth and twelfth grade students). One of the novel elements of the 2018 geography assessment was the inclusion of digitally administered items that test fundamental GIS knowledge and skills.

AAG will participate in a virtual event, sponsored by the NAGB, to share and discuss the 2018 findings on April 23 from 1:30 – 3:00 pm EDT. Pre-register for the event here. NAGB staff will present highlights of the geography, U.S. history, and civics assessments. Additional speakers will present an overview of current initiatives aimed at enhancing and improving learning outcomes in those subject areas. Dr. Michael Solem (Professor of Geography, Texas State University and AAG Senior Advisor for Geography Education) will present geography-related strategies and resources at the event.

NOTE: In anticipation of the 2018 NAEP Geography Report Card, the AAG will host a virtual panel session, “Using NAEP Geography Datasets to Improve Geography Education,” on Wednesday, April 8 from 1:45 PM – 3:00 pm MDT (this is the original session date and time scheduled for the cancelled in-person AAG Annual Meeting). The discussion will focus on the importance of the NAEP Geography Assessment as a source of data on geographic literacy, the opportunities NAEP affords for conducting research on geographic learning, and the implications of NAEP findings for strategic planning, K-12 curriculum development, and achieving greater diversity and inclusion at all levels of the discipline and workforce. Panelists will also discuss the potential of reinstating geography to the NAEP assessment schedule in the coming years. To register for this session, see this link.

Later in 2020, AAG will collaborate with other organizations, including the National Council for the Social Studies, to pursue the expansion of the use of NAEP data and research findings for strengthening educational practice and policy. Additionally, the AAG will contribute to a NAEP webinar that highlighting a study by the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) involving the use of raw, restricted-use NAEP geography datasets to model variability in student achievement. Research of this nature offers a chance to reach a deeper understanding of the student, household, and school-level factors that appear to be associated with achievement gaps across demographic and socioeconomic fault lines. Information about these collaborations and events will be shared in future issues of AAG News.

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News

Geographers Act on COVID19

 

GeoDS Lab at University of Wisconsin, Madison. County-level Spring 2020 travel data from March shows thousands of trips generated in the U.S., which may help explain the rapid growth of infection cases across the country.

On March 23, AAG asked how our members and followers are responding to the COVID19 pandemic. We got an extraordinary range of responses from all over the world. Here are just a few:

Addressing vulnerability. Rafael Pereira of Brazil’s Institute for Applied Economic Research (Ipea) is working with a team using transportation modelling and geolocated data to map where vulnerable people live in areas with difficult access to health care facilities in the largest 20 cities of Brazil; David Garcia is working with the Phillipines-based geospatial collective he founded, The Ministry of Mapping, to crowdsource the location, treatment capacity, and equipment needs of all health facilities there, while also working with a clinical psychologist to provide emotional support to the mappers themselves as they examine painfully difficult data. Jim Herries is working with a team at Esri to provide a wide variety of visualizations, including a map of where America’s seniors live, and under what conditions.

Spotting patterns and susceptibility. Geographers responded rapidly to examine disease transmission data at the local and regional level. Examples include the Northeastern Pennsylvania Alliance dashboard using data from Johns Hopkins University and Esri’s ArcGIS platform; Clio Andris at the Friendly Cities Lab at Georgia Tech mapping how our movements connect us; and Song Gao’s team’s modeling of potential transmission in Wisconsin. Geographers are also instrumental in tracking the impact of social distancing on disease transmission, as well as changes to air quality due to changes in social interactions (Descartes Labs).

Reflecting on context and history. Some geographers offer perspectives, op eds, essays, and interviews on the significance of COVID-19. Tim Cresswell of the University of Edinburgh reflects on how mobility has shaped the pandemic: “Turbulence has made certain aspects of our normal, taken-for-granted and never questioned mobile worlds visible.” At University of Saskatchewan, post-doc Chris Marsh was frustrated by the lack of Canadian-centric projections, and made his own. Medical geographer Graham Mooney of Johns Hopkins University has offered nearly a dozen interviews to major media outlets on what previous pandemics can teach us about COVID-19. And William Moseley of Macalester College participated in a quick-response UN-sponsored effort to understand global food security issues in light of COVID-19. His op ed on emerging food security issues in Africa due to the pandemic is here.

Do you know about a geographer’s work to respond to COVID-19? Contact Lisa Schamess, AAG Director of Communications.

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Advocacy

AAG 2020 Denver cancellation letter

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Reports and White Papers

AAG Climate Action Task Force [2020 REPORT]

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Newsletters

Newsletter – March 2020

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Going Global or How Best to Recognize the Internationalization of the AAG

By David Kaplan

We have always been the “AAG” but five years ago the membership overwhelmingly decided to change the full title from the Association of American Geographers to the American Association of Geographers. I remember being part of the Council when this change was discussed. It went beyond verbal tweaking and reflected our best efforts to recognize that the AAG was no longer just an organization of U.S.-based geographers. Instead we had become a community in which geographers from many countries gather.

Continue Reading.

 

ANNUAL MEETING

2020 AAG Annual Meeting Past-President’s Address Announced

AAG Past President Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach will focus on the theme of Science, Geography, and Human Rights for her address at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. The AAG is a founding member of the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary in Fall 2019. This address will highlight the roles played by AAG and Geography in the coalition, and address the broader impacts that geographers can and do contribute to promoting Science and Human Rights. To open the Past President’s Session, Luzzadder-Beach will present the 2020 AAG Presidential Achievement Awards to Sally P. Horn, professor of Geography at the University of Tennessee, and Nicholas P. Dunning, professor and head of Geography at the University of Cincinnati, for their long-term, major contributions to the discipline.

Learn more.

#aagDENVER and COVID-19 Updates

The AAG is following World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for preparing for large gatherings, and is proceeding as scheduled with its plans for the 2020 Annual Meeting. Updates on this developing situation will be posted on our website as they become available.

Stay informed.

Download the AAG Mobile App Today!

Tired of carrying a large printed program around the AAG Annual Meeting? Want to easily organize your AAG session schedule in a digital calendar format? Make the most of your AAG annual meeting experience by downloading the AAG mobile app. Don’t wait until you’re standing in the registration line. Get the app now and start planning your schedule.

Go green with the AAG Mobile App.

What will be Presented at the 2020 AAG Meeting?

Curious about all 4,893 papers and posters that will be presented during the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver, CO next month? Geographers Jeong Chang Seong, Chul Sue Hwang, Ana Stanescue, Yubin Lee, and Youngho Lee used keywords network analysis to create a visual summary of the research that meeting attendees can expect to see in April. Based on presentation keywords, urban stood out the most!

See the full network analysis.

Jobs and Careers Center at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting

During #aagDENVER, the AAG Jobs & Careers Center will be located in Mineral Hall A, B/C and D/E on the Third Floor of the Hyatt. It provides a central location for job seekers, students, and professionals to interact and to learn more about careers and professional development for geographers. A careers information table will be staffed and accessible each day for general questions, information, and resources.

Learn about the Center’s offerings

Don’t delay – book your room for #aagDENVER today!

AAG has negotiated a discounted block of hotel rooms at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting headquarters hotels, the Sheraton Denver Downtown and the Hyatt Regency – Denver. This rate is available on a first come, first served basis until March 13. Now that the preliminary program has been released, rooms will start going fast.


PUBLICATIONS

NEW Annals of the American Association of Geographers Issue Alert:
The 2020 Special Issue of the Annals on Smart Spaces and Places

Annals-generic-225x300-1The Annals publishes a special issue each year to highlight research around a specific theme of global importance. The twelfth annual special issue includes 21 articles on smart spaces and places and is guest edited by Ling Bian. The articles are divided into four sections: spaces, places, and smart-ness; analytical smartness; critical smartness; and smart sustainability and policy. Throughout the issue, the authors explore theoretical, methodological, and empirical approaches 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. The 2020 special issue serves as a critical discussion of smartness as society moves into a new era.

Read more about the 2020 Special Issue.

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

Journals-newsletter-100In 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 Books in Geography — January Available

ATTACHMENT DETAILS New-books1-1-1From Silk Roads to Rwandan streets, there are always new titles in geography and related disciplines to be found on the New Books in Geography list. Some of these books will be reviewed in the AAG Review of Books. Persons wishing to volunteer their reviewing services for new books 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 if you are interested in being a reviewer.

Browse the full list of new books.

New issue of African Geographical Review

African-Geographical-Review-cvr-212x300-1The latest issue of the journal of the Africa Specialty Group of the AAG, the African Geographical Review, has recently been published. Volume 39, Issue 1 (January 2020) is available online for subscribers and members of the Africa Specialty Group. The latest issue contains five 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

2020 AAG Election Results

Election-button-1The AAG members have spoken and the candidates running for various AAG governance positions have been selected. Election results for the 2020 AAG Election have been posted. Congratulations to all who will be assuming their new roles on July 1st. The AAG thanks those whose terms will be concluding later this year.

See the results.

AAG Policies and Practices for Inclusion and Respect

AAG’s commitment to safe, welcoming, and inclusive gatherings is a direct outgrowth of our support and service to the geography profession. Building on the work of the AAG’s Anti-Harassment taskforce, the AAG has strengthened its policy on Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment established during the 2019 AAG Annual Meeting, and added to its practices for inclusion and respect at the AAG Annual Meeting. The AAG takes seriously its responsibility to inclusion and respect for members of the Association and the geography profession.

Read more.

AAG Announces Additional 2020 AAG Award Recipients

Congratulations to the recipients of 2020 AAG Awards including the AAG Harm de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the AAG Presidential Achievement Award, the new AAG-Kauffman Awards for Best Paper and Best Student Paper in Geography & Entrepreneurship, the AAG Marcus Fund for Physical Geography Award, the 2020 William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography, the 2020 Anne U. White Grant, the 2020 Dissertation Research Grant recipients, and the 2020 Research Grant recipients! Formal recognition of the awardees will occur during the AAG Awards Luncheon at the Annual Meeting on Friday, April 10, 2020.

Learn more about the awardees.

AAG Announces 2019 Book Awards

The AAG is pleased to announce the recipients of the three 2019 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, 2019. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur during the AAG Awards Luncheon at the Annual Meeting on Friday, April 10, 2020.

See the Book Awards.


POLICY CORNER

Understanding the President’s Budget Request

Image-118 capitol building

The Trump Administration released its proposed fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget request to Congress last month on February 10th, thus kicking off the annual Congressional appropriations process. In some good news, last year’s bipartisan budget agreement provided relief on FY 2020 and FY 2021 spending from previously outdated budget caps. But even with those caps raised, FY 2021 appropriations are still having to be crafted under only marginally higher limits.

At first glance, President Trump’s budget raises some serious concerns. The suggested funding numbers see significant cuts for agencies that support scientific research and development including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Education (DOE), and some basic research within the Department of Defense (DOD). But when it comes to actual funding numbers reached at the end of the lengthy appropriations process, how much does this suggested budget matter? The answer is, not much. Traditionally, the President’s Budget Request has been an opportunity for the White House to start the year off by outlining its priorities. However, once Congress takes the reigns these numbers serve merely as suggestions. The real groundwork happens in House and Senate committees that spend the next several months negotiating all the finer details of a comprehensive appropriations package. In recent years when these negotiations run up against the September 30th fiscal year deadline, we see Congress extend current fiscal year numbers with a “Continuing Resolution” to allow themselves more time. In most cases, the final appropriations bill passed looks vastly different than the President’s Budget Request.

As this annual appropriations cycle kicks off, the AAG continues to serve members by advocating for full Congressional funding of agencies that support programs and administer grants for scientific research and development in the discipline and many subdisciplines of geography.

In the News:

  • For a deeper dive on the President’s FY 2021 Budget Request and the proposed cuts for the broader scientific research community, feel free to check out analyses from the American Association for the Advancement Science (AAAS) or the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA).
  • Call for Comments: The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently issued a Request for Public Comment entitled “Draft Desirable Characteristics of Repositories for Managing and Sharing Data Resulting from Federally Funded Research.” OSTP is collecting this feedback in order to develop common characteristics that agencies can use to improve the management and sharing of data from federally funded research. You can go through the Federal Register to submit comments as an individual or institution. The comment period closes March 6th, 2020.
  • Save the Date: Looking for more on how to get involved in public policy and advocacy? Attend Speaking up for Science: Your Advocacy and Legal Toolkit on Wednesday, April 8th at the AAG Annual Meeting in Denver.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

This month, we checked in with Patricia Syvrud, the Minerals, Materials and Society Program Manager at University of Delaware! What advice does Syvrud give to those looking to develop their geography career? “Follow your passion and think outside the box. If you can’t find a job in your area of interest, don’t be afraid to volunteer your time which can lead to employment opportunities.”

Learn more about Geography Careers.

 

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Webinar & #aagDENVER Session on harnessing the geospatial components in social science research data

In March, the AAG will partner with the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) to offer a free webinar to explore the geospatial components of ICPSR’s data and research services. ICPSR is an international, member-based association of more than 780 academic institutions and research organizations that 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. This free webinar explores how much ICPSR’s data archive has to offer geographers, with spatial information that opens up the potential for mapping, geocoding, and spatial analysis. The webinar will examine how the data archive can influence geographic research.

Register and secure your seat in the webinar.

Geography Education Research at the AAG Annual Meeting

NCRGE_logoEach year for the AAG Annual Meeting, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) organizes and compiles a track of papers, posters, and panels focusing on geography education research. NCRGE is sponsoring this track to raise the visibility of research in geography education, grow the NCRGE research coordination network, and provide productive spaces for discussion about geography education research and what makes research in the field potentially transformative.

View the NCRGE track schedule at the 2020 AAG Annual Meeting in Denver

New NSF Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) solicitation

national science foundation nsfThe NSF announced the issuance of a new program name and solicitation, Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS, NSF 20-547), replacing Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS, NSF 17-566). The name change articulates more clearly the human, environmental, and geographical sciences that are appropriate for funding at the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the name change better reflects the agency’s mission to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense,” as well as HEGS’s location in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. Note that the program will be accepting proposals two times per year, in August and January, with the 2020 deadline falling on August 18, 2020. The program will continue to accept Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) proposals under the existing GSS DDRI solicitation (NSF 17-567).

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IN MEMORIAM

Carl Lewis Johannessen

The AAG is saddened to hear of the passing of Carl Lewis Johannessen, a Professor Emeritus and former chair of the Department of Geography at the University of Oregon. Johannessen, who had been a part of the University of Oregon since 1959, was most interested in cultural-plant geography, especially that of pre-Columbian plant diffusion. A student of the Berkeley School under Carl Sauer, Johannessen’s horticultural work took him throughout Central American and South Asia.

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