Newsletters

Newsletter – May 2021

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Opening Up the Possibilities for an Accessible AAG

By Amy Lobben

amy-225x300

Many of us “went” to the AAG annual meeting last month, scheduled to take place in Seattle. Of course, we all attended virtually from separate isolated locations. I attended from my living room, my kitchen table, and my bedroom floor… Keeping with my personal mission and my conference theme of Access, now is a good time to discuss how we all can participate in enhancing inclusion of attendees with disabilities at our meetings, whether they be national, regional, or in our departments. And wouldn’t it be nice if we all could be disciples, each carrying this message forward into our sister organizations when we attend meetings in cognate disciplines? My hope is that this column will be useful going forward, in particular for people who are as yet less familiar with disability and other accessibility issues, not just at AAG but at other conferences as well.

Continue Reading.

FROM THE MERIDIAN

A Good Day for Geography, Every Day

By Gary Langham

The late Will Graf would end his AAG President’s columns with this optimistic affirmation: It’s a good day for Geography. Given the last year, you might be surprised to hear that it is just as true today as it was during his tenure in 1998-99. Let me explain.

Continue Reading.

PERSPECTIVES

Working Together for Racial and Social Justice: From Anti-Asian Racism and Violence to Anti-Racist Praxis in Geography

By Guo Chen, Associate Professor of Geography and Global Urban Studies, Michigan State University

stopAAPIhate-1-300x197-1In June 2020, the Association for Asian American Studies issued an open call for putting an immediate end to anti-Black racism and advancing efforts toward achieving global social justice. The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and George Floyd pulled a painful trigger for many Asian Americans… Since January 2020, the lives of Asian-heritage people in the U.S. and likely the same for those in other countries have been violently shaken. Asian Americans were among the first to help local communities combat Covid-19, while racist attacks were increasing in cities like Los Angeles…

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

What was Presented at the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting?

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Curious about all 2,952 papers and posters that were presented during the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting last month? Geographers Seong, JI, Stanescu, Lee, and Hwang used keyword network analysis to create a visual summary of the annual meeting. Based on presentation keywords, Urban was identified as the most frequent keyword, followed by COVID-19, GIS, and Climate Change.

Read the full analysis.

Save the Date for AAG NYC!

Join us for the 2022 AAG Annual Meeting February 26 – March 1, 2022. We invite you to organize and participate in sessions, workshops, field trips, special events, and activities. Look for the call for papers in June 2021. We look forward to seeing you in New York City.

PUBLICATIONS

NEW Annals of the American Association of Geographers Issue Alert:
The 2021 Special Issue of the Annals on the Anthropocene

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The Annals publishes a special issue each year to highlight research around a specific theme of global importance. The thirteenth annual special issue includes 29 articles on the Anthropocene and is guest edited by David Butler. The articles are divided into six sections: definitions and conceptual considerations; historical perspectives on the Anthropocene; physical geography and the Anthropocene; natural hazards, disasters, and the Anthropocene; the environment and environmental degradation; and the Anthropocene and geographic education. Introduced in 2000 as a concept indicating that human modification of the environment had reached such a significant level that a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene had been initiated, the Anthropocene has no universally accepted starting point. The 2021 special issue examines all geographic facets of the Anthropocene.

Read more about the Annals Special Issues.

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

NEW The Professional Geographer Issue Alert: Research featuring urban agriculture, geospatial analysis of HIV care, unemployment and more

The-PG-2017-generic-213x300The most recent issue of The Professional Geographer has been published online (Volume 73, Issue 2, May 2021) with 14 new articles on current geographic research. Topics in this issue include direct injuries and fatalities from tornado outbreaks, shrinking cities, post-great recession geographies, electoral geography, principal component analysis, residential satisfaction in historic blocks, and structural fractality of road networks. Local areas of interest include Henan Province, Brazil, New York City, and Ethiopia. Authors are from a variety of institutions including University of Cologne, University of Connecticut, and Simon Fraser University.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of The Professional Geographer through the Members Only page. In every issue, the editors choose one article to make freely available for three months. In this issue you can read The Elasticity of Shrinking Cities: An Analysis of Indicators by Maxwell Hartt for free for the next three months.

Questions about The PG? Contact profgeog [at] aag [dot] org.

NEW Spring Issue of the AAG Review of Books Published

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The latest issue of The AAG Review of Books is now available (Volume 9, Issue 2, Spring 2021) with 14 book reviews on recent books related to geography, public policy and international affairs. The Spring 2021 issue also includes two book review essays: Olwig’s comparison of Landscape and Power in Geographical Space as a Social-Aesthetic Construct and Landscape Theories: A Brief Introduction both by Olaf Kühne; and Kearns’ review of A Queer New York: Geographies of Lesbians, Dykes, and Queers by Jen Jack Gieseking, recipient of the 2021 Glenda Laws Award.

Questions about The AAG Review of Books? Contact aagreview [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

ASSOCIATION NEWS

2021 AAG Nystrom Award Recipients Announced

Nystrom-Awardees-300x169The J. Warren Nystrom Award, established by a former AAG President to annually recognize a paper based on a recent dissertation in geography, is awarded during a special session at the AAG Annual Meeting. Two recipients were chosen for the 2021 AAG Nystrom Award: Daniela Aiella, currently a Postdoc at Queen’s University (PhD University of Georgia), for “A colonial genealogy of eviction: racialized dispossession in Atlanta and Vancouver” and Ziqi Li, a Visiting Assistant Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (PhD Arizona State University), for “Computational Improvements to Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression.” The Nystrom Award session recording is available to watch in the Annual Meeting program until May 11.

Learn more about the Nystrom Award and previous awardees.

AAG Announces Undergraduate Program Excellence Awards

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Two recipients have been named for the 2021 Award for Bachelors’ Program Excellence in Geography: The Geographic Science Program at James Madison University (JMU) in Virginia, and the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. The annual award honors Geography departments and programs that have significantly enhanced the prominence and reputation of Geography as a discipline and demonstrated the characteristics of a strong and engaged academic unit, playing an important role in educating future geographers and promoting the discipline to a wider world.

Learn more about these programs.

Get a Glimpse of AAG’s New Website

Web-redesign-reveal-1200x675-1-300x169During our virtual annual meeting, we gave a sneak peek of our new website currently in the design process. If you missed the session or weren’t able to attend the conference, you still have a chance to see the recording. Our website agency, Free Range, revealed some of the exciting changes in store for this completely accessible, innovative, and mobile friendly website launching later this spring. Please send us your questions and thoughts at feedback [at] aag [dot] org. We’d love to hear from you! View the recording.

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

Careers in Geography: Developing Collegial Relationships in a Department

Wednesday, May 12, 2:30 – 3:45pm EST

Join AAG members in the next webinar in our Department Leadership and Early Career series. This free event brings together panelists to discuss issues of onboarding, collegiality, and how a healthy department is widely beneficial for students, staff, and faculty. REGISTER NOW!

The Department Leadership and Early Career series combines two themes in one: building and growing strong academic programs, and helping students and young geographers navigate their early careers. AAG is pleased to continue this series throughout the spring, free and open to the public. Recordings of webinars held thus far are also available to watch at any time.

See upcoming webinars and view recordings

POLICY CORNER

New Data from Census as Geographers Prepare for Redistricting

US_Capitol

Last week the Census Bureau released its long-awaited congressional apportionment data. The 2020 population count resulted in some surprises and close-calls as states learned how many seats in the House of Representatives they will keep, gain, or lose. The release of this apportionment data was the first of two important steps in what’s next for congressional and state redistricting. States still require the Census demographic data in order to start drawing new district lines, which may not be released until late summer.

While the drawing of new maps won’t start for several months, now is the time to familiarize yourself with the process. To learn more, check out A Geographer’s Place in Redistricting published in Esri’s most recent edition of ArcNews. In this article, AAG’s Michelle Kinzer emphasizes that “when it comes to the fight for fair redistricting, there is no one better equipped than a geographer.”

In the News:

  • Competing NSF bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, the NSF for the Future Act (H.R. 2225) and the Endless Frontier Act (S. 1260). While both bills propose a new NSF directorate, they are otherwise substantially different. Click here to see a side-by-side comparison prepared by COSSA.
  • On March 31, the White House issued a fact sheet detailing many of the spending priorities in President Joe Biden’s proposed infrastructure initiative, the American Jobs Plan. The proposal includes $250 billion in research funding.
  • Nominations are being sought for to fill eight upcoming vacancies on the National Science Board (NSB), the policy-making body of the National Science Foundation (NSF) that also serves as an independent advisor to the President and Congress on federal science policy. More information on the nomination process is available on the NSB website. Nominations are due by May 31, 2021.
MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

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Growing up in the Bay Area inspired a career in hazards for Johanna Ostling, a Forestry Technician (Fire Lookout) for the U.S. Forest Service. Fire Lookouts play a vital role in identifying locations of wildfires during fire season and directing responders to the location on the ground. Ostling uses her knowledge of weather conditions to record variables like wind speed, cloud types and cloud cover, and precipitation as well as her abilities to identify physical landscape features and map coordinates to determine wildfire locations and response.

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

May Member Updates

The latest news about AAG Members. 

Four geographers are newly elected to the Academy of Arts and Sciences: incoming AAG Vice President Marilyn Raphael, 2020 AAG Lifetime Achievement recipient Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Marshall Shepherd, and 2021 Stan Brunn Award for Creativity recipient Dawn Wright. Founded in 1780, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences honors excellence and convenes leaders from every field of human endeavor to examine new ideas, address issues of importance to the nation and the world, and work together “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” Read more.

Two geographers have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Marshall Shepherd and 2021 Stan Brunn Award for Creativity recipient Dawn Wright. Established in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences is committed to furthering science in America, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community. Read more.

Dr. Reece Jones of the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa has been named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Read more.

AAG Member Caroline Tracey is among eight selected to be a WW Dissertation Fellow in Women’s Studies for 2021. Tracey, a PhD candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, is working on an ethnography of the activism of women and trans deportees and return migrants in Mexico City for her dissertation. Read more.

Dr. Matt Cook of the Department of Geography and Geology at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) has been awarded the Ron Collins Distinguished Teaching Award, the highest teaching award EMU presents. He received this award in the same year as being granted tenure and serving as a co-PI on a major grant project. Read more.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

A Few Spaces Remaining: AAG Leadership and Early Career Workshops, 1-5 June

Two summer professional development workshops from the AAG’s Graduate Faculty Development Alliance have moved online. Registration is free and currently open, though only a few open slots are available – reserve your spot by May 15. Department Chairs, Heads, new Deans, and other emerging leaders – develop the tools you need to do your job, network with peers, and learn from top leadership professionals in an inclusive, innovative, and interactive series. The AAG Geography Faculty Development Alliance for early career geographers, as well as non-AAG members who are graduate students or teaching geography in higher education, offers an innovative, new online approach to the highly successful early career workshops that have been offered since 2002.

For more information about both workshops see http://www.aag.org/gfda or contact Dr. Patricia Price (patricia [dot] price [at] baruch [dot] cuny [dot] edu) with questions about the leadership workshop or Dr. Michael Solem (msolem [at] txstate [dot] edu) about the early career workshop.

Call for Abstracts: 2021 Climate Adaptation Research Symposium

call-for-abstracts-graphic-twitter_Climate_Adaptation-300x150The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation is delighted to invite abstracts for our 2021 Climate Adaptation Research Symposium. This virtual event will feature recent social science research on the impacts of climate change, particularly on vulnerable populations and communities. We’re building off the success of last year’s event, which brought together 70 presenters and more than 2,000 attendees from across the nation and world. Abstracts are welcome from economics, geography, law, public health, sociology, urban planning, and related disciplines. Research should measure the scale of climate impacts or focus on strategies to reduce these impacts.

Submission deadline: May 7, 2021

Symposium: September 8, 2021

Learn more and submit your abstract here: https://innovation.luskin.ucla.edu/abstracts/

Please direct any questions to lcievents [at] luskin [dot] ucla [dot] edu.

Participate in AGI’s Geoscience COVID-19 Impacts Survey

RAPID-COVID19-Geosciences-Study_04-1-300x194The American Geosciences Institute’s Geoscience COVID-19 Impacts study has been extended into a second phase that will continue the longitudinal study through March 2022, thanks to continued support by the National Science Foundation (Award #2029570). The second phase of this study will focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic has permanently changed the way in which geoscientists work and study and how workplace and instructional environments transition into post-pandemic configurations. The study will continue to accept new participants through January 2022 and is open to all geoscientists, including students, retirees, and those not currently employed, who reside in the United States, and are at least 18 years old.

For more information and to participate in the study, please visit https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/covid19.

IN MEMORIAM

Hultquist_NancyNancy B. Hultquist, retired Central Washington University (CWU) geography professor, died March 30th, 2021. Nancy is remembered fondly by students, friends, and colleagues. Starting out using computer punch cards, Hultquist eventually moved to using GIS, ultimately introducing countless K-12 teachers to the early iterations of making maps and GIS through NCGE workshops she participated in. She was quick to assist junior faculty and devoted countless hours to helping students find employment, including maintaining a jobs list of employment opportunities across the Pacific Northwest which currently has over 800 subscribers. Read more.

The AAG is also saddened to hear of the passing of Jene McKnight and Roger Kasperson this past month with written tributes forthcoming.

FEATURED ARTICLES

Why should geographers care about data science?

By By Canserina Kurnia, Esri Senior Solution Engineer for Education, and Joseph Kerski, Ph.D., GISP, Esri Education Manager

HouseValueMap-300x229“Data science is the study of data. Data science involves developing methods of recording, storing, and analyzing data to effectively extract useful information. The discipline of geography has always been focused on data science, because geographers have always been keen to gather, analyze, and make sense of large volumes of data across a wide variety of scales and covering a wide variety of themes, from ecoregions to individual census blocks. Those using GIS are spatial data scientists: They combine their data with theoretical foundations such as Tobler’s First Law to explain and predict. As they visualize and analyze data, they detect patterns and relationships, testing real-world phenomena against hypotheses.

Why is geographic thinking and spatial analysis important to data science?” Continue reading.

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President's Column

Opening Up the Possibilities for an Accessible AAG

Many of us “went” to the AAG annual meeting last month, scheduled to take place in Seattle. Of course, we all attended virtually from separate isolated locations. I attended from my living room, my kitchen table, and my bedroom floor. Though just to insert some sense of the old days, for one committee meeting, I invited one of my University of Oregon colleagues (Alec Murphy) to the “Presidential Suite” (my kitchen table). I mistakenly thought the meeting was scheduled for later in the day and in my email invite, I offered to serve charcuterie and wine. Alec corrected my timing mistake and suggested that 8am might be too early for wine. I’m not so sure.

President Lobben opening up “the Presidental Suite” (her table at home, and a laptop) at AAG 2021.

Keeping with my personal mission and my conference theme of Access, now is a good time to discuss how we all can participate in enhancing inclusion of attendees with disabilities at our meetings, whether they be national, regional, or in our departments. And wouldn’t it be nice if we all could be disciples, each carrying this message forward into our sister organizations when we attend meetings in cognate disciplines? My hope is that this column will be useful going forward, in particular for people who are as yet less familiar with disability and other accessibility issues, not just at AAG but at other conferences as well.

Let me start with a bit of background. Over its lifetime, members of the Disability Specialty Group have spent significant time and effort working on issues of access, inclusion, and optimal integration at the AAG Annual Meetings. These efforts have included advocating for accommodations, sending advance scouts to venues, reporting on mobility strategies, and developing guidelines for conference assistants (for example, identifying an accessible route between the Marriott Wardman Park and the Omni Shoreham Hotels in Washington, D.C; it’s certainly not a direct one).

These efforts are beyond helpful—they are necessary for many of our members. But, these are not the sort of activities in which AAG Specialty Groups should have to engage in on their own. Imagine tasking members of the Water Resources Specialty Group with mapping access to safe drinking water at each conference.

As a result, AAG Council approved the creation of an Accessibility Task Force to ensure structural foregrounding of accessibility for all in all AAG’s operations. While I hope that this Task Force will continue to work on additional issues of accessibility, the initial charge was to address physical barriers to access and inclusion in the AAG. The first report has been drafted and submitted to Council and focuses on three issues: the website, Meridian Place, and the annual conference. AAG staff are already working on implementing nearly all of the report’s recommendations. Task Force members and I are thrilled by this progress and applaud our AAG leadership for taking these steps.

While I hope that this Task Force will continue to work on additional issues of accessibility, the initial charge was to address physical barriers to access and inclusion in the AAG.

But there are substantial barriers to access—socially situated barriers—that AAG cannot legislate or manage centrally. The social model of disability recognizes that disability manifests in cultural attitudes embedded in social practices. It’s the social model that suggests our society has to change to remove disabling barriers to access.

At the AAG annual meeting, many of these socially constructed barriers to access are created by other attendees. This is something that is in your control.

If you want to take small, individual and significant steps to foster inclusion, consider making the following social and behavioral changes outlined in the table below. This list is put together from a short survey I sent out to members of our Task Force and from my own personal experiences. It is by no means inclusive of all the measures we can take, and does not touch on other sets of measures that would help inclusion for other marginalized groups, but it is a starting point. And it is often taking that first step that opens us up to being more aware of how our actions affect others.

  • Don’t block ramps.
  • Adjust microphone heights as necessary.
  • Ensure equal integration in spaces (don’t relegate people with mobility devices to areas just for them or to the margins of the room).
  • Don’t move chairs around and block access corridors.
  • Avoid wearing scents.
  • Respect independence.
  • Don’t pet service animals unless invited to do so.
  • Talking louder doesn’t improve clarity. Be clearer rather than louder.
  • Don’t use flash photography or other strobe-like devices.
  • Avoid low lighting. It’s not safe for anyone, but especially unsafe for people who are blind or have low vision.
  • When communicating with someone using a sign language interpreter don’t talk to the interpreter, talk to the person with whom you’re communicating.

I want to spend some time contextualizing four important issues: judging others, bathrooms, language, and presentation guidelines.

Judging others: We all know that we’re not supposed to judge others based on appearance. And, yet we do. People who are visibly different from the majority of others that are present in a space are judged differently and assumed to be unable (or able). It’s an age-old adage: Don’t judge people by their appearances. This is especially true in the world of ability.

Bathrooms: I have to admit, I’m obsessed with bathrooms. They seem to be the battleground for so much of our collective history and ongoing exclusions – notably also around gender non-conformity and transgender rights in present times.

I also have deeply personal experiences navigating public toileting with my son with cognitive disabilities. Many of his and our experiences have not been easy, nor dignified. There have been many times when assisting my son has involved both of us finding ourselves on filthy public bathroom floors because public bathrooms are not designed for adults in his situation. Fortunately, my son can now use the family bathrooms or men’s bathrooms with Andrew (my husband). If Andrew isn’t with us, he and I go to the women’s bathroom. That often incites negative comments and critiques from others.

I’ve been asked not to use profanity in my columns. Too bad. If I could I’d be able to convey what I think about the judgement of others in the women’s bathroom in those circumstances.

But, my obsession with bathrooms isn’t really about the bathroom itself. It’s about how we have designed and legislated our bathrooms to control access to public space. From Victorian-era gender discrimination (which extended far beyond just public bathrooms), to Jim Crow racially segregated bathrooms (also extended far beyond bathroom spaces), to recent battles over transgender people’s rights to bathrooms (think North Carolina’s HB2 law), it seems that people only want to drop drawers in spaces that include people who only look like them or suspect they are like them.

The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) ensures that public bathrooms provide accommodations for people with disabilities. But accommodation is not inclusion. ADA laws mandate separate spaces, including bathrooms (but also: building entrances, classrooms, hiring process, educational practices, work environments…). You’ve seen these bathroom spaces on campuses and in civic venues, airports, and conference settings–rows and rows of stalls for non-disabled people and merely one or two “disabled stalls.”

I’ve paid attention to our public bathrooms at the AAG annual meeting venues. Without exception, the gendered public bathrooms at our venues have been airport style; only one or two stalls for people with disabilities, but rows for non-disabled people.

Until our society implements universal design and access for our public bathrooms, in our future meetings, attendees can focus on two key things to ensure dignified access to bathrooms: 1. when both an accessible stall and standard stall are available, use the standard stall if you don’t need the accessible stall; and 2. avoid judging others for seemingly inappropriate use of an accessible stall; you cannot judge by appearance alone who needs to use those stalls.

Language. We must condemn the use of derogatory slurs about marginalized groups, and that includes words that are considered “metaphors” (e.g., “stupid” “crazy” “lame”) but really point to ableist thinking. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review provides a good overview on the use of ableist language.

I don’t think that most people are intentionally derogatory about or towards disability when they use such words. But, these are not used as words of praise, and their usage upholds stigma for many groups with cognitive impairments and/or mental health diagnoses.

For a handy guide on when it’s OK and not OK to words like those above, consult the chart below (which I developed from a chart from the Military Special Needs Network).

Adapted from the Military Special Needs Network

The National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/style-guide/) lists some excellent guidelines for referring to people with disabilities. To paraphrase:

  • Refer to a disability only when it’s relevant to a conversation and when knowledge of the disability is certain (e.g. not based on appearance alone).
  • Be sensitive to preferences for people-first or identify-first language. For example: “People who are blind…” rather than “Blind people…” This is intended to emphasize an individual’s personhood rather than their disability. However, there are critiques against the use of people-first language, including that it is often imposed by non-disabled people on disabled individuals and that the use of people-first language does not address the social injustices faced by the disability community. Also, many disabled people prefer identity-centric language because their disability is an important part of their identity and because it facilitates activism based on identity. In any case, people have the right to refer to themselves however they want.
  • When possible, ask the individual how they would like to be described.
  • Avoid made-up words like “diversability” and “handicapable” unless referring to them in a quote, a movement, or an organization.

None of us can be perfect and language preferences are subject to change. In fact, the very term “disabled” is contested as pejorative and biased. But we can all try to be better in how we use language around ability. Be open to self-correction.

Presentation Guidelines. One of the primary goals of our annual meeting is to exchange scholarly findings and ideas. We mostly use an audio/visual format for that sharing. Yet not everyone uptakes audio/visual presented information in the same way. Fortunately, presenters have a few options for enhancing the accessibility of their presentation and, happily, these guidelines by the APHA will improve the effectiveness of presentations more generally. Moderators and organizers must also stay aware of the needs of all of their presenters with regard to disabilities and access.

Going back to the inclusion diagram I referenced in the March column. We all decide what sort of Annual Meeting we want to host and attend. We can reject the medical models that suggest that disability is a personal problem and can only be ‘fixed’ by medical intervention. Instead, we can embrace universal access, and a space, a culture, and an annual meeting that moves beyond individual accommodation so as to be truly inclusive.

If you’re wondering which disability model you embrace, answer this question: What do you think needs curing, the body or the society?

Thank you to the Accessibility Task Force for their efforts in drafting the first report: Audrey Kobayashi, Deborah Metzel, Katherine Ericson, Sandy Wong, Hamish Robertson, and Leonor Vanik. Thank you to several others who shared their conference experience with me as I gathered input for the foundation of this column. And thank you to Sandy Wong, Diana Beljaars, and Stephanie Coen for their feedback on initial drafts of this column.

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

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0091

FURTHER INFORMATION

AAG 2021 sessions on disability, mental health, and access (for registrants’ view until May 11)

Accessibility Guidelines for Presenters, American Public Health Association

Disability Language Style Guide, National Center on Disability and Journalism

Knowledge base, including chart of definitions toward inclusion, Think Inclusive

Why You Need to Stop Using These Words and Phrases, Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar, Harvard Business Review

Military Special Needs Network and EFMP Coalition

Disability Justice, from Showing Up for Racial Justice, including these Google Docs:

Disability Home Manners,

Disability Justice, anti-ableism and access resources, and

Nuts and Bolts of Disability Access.

Is there a resource you’d recommend? Email us at newsletter [at] aag [dot] org.

 

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at lobben [at] uoregon [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

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From the Meridian

A Good Day for Geography, Every Day

The late Will Graf would end his AAG President’s columns with this optimistic affirmation: It’s a good day for Geography. Given the last year, you might be surprised to hear that it is just as true today as it was during his tenure in 1998-99. Let me explain.

As I write this, it is the one-year anniversary of our official announcement canceling the AAG Annual Meeting in Denver. I will never forget that week or that gut-wrenching decision. The AAG meeting was one of the first big academic meetings of the year, and the crisis was escalating quickly. I am sure that I was not the only one waking up in the middle of the night and checking the latest statistics and news. Increasingly, it seemed that we would have to cancel, yet more than 6500 members had registered, and the AAG had not canceled a meeting since WWII.

As the Executive Committee sat in the conference room in San Diego and voted to cancel the in-person meeting, it was just 30 days before the event. Since the AAG had been investing in a virtual platform for months, we knew we could offer a virtual meeting, though 30 days was not much time to prepare. We decided to give full refunds and make the virtual meeting free for anyone already registered. Of course, this was the only fair decision, but it was also consequential for the organization, both culturally and financially. We also knew that membership was likely to dip significantly, but we had no idea how much or how long it might take to rebound. So, we budgeted for up to 50% losses in membership and took a pessimistic view of the current fiscal year. This time last year, the AAG was looking into a fiscal abyss, but I am pleased to report that the AAG has weathered this financial storm very well.

With the losses from the meeting, we expected to take a loss in FYE20, and we did: Official losses were $2M. This figure does not include additional spending that occurred as a result of the COVID-19 Rapid Response program. In total, $900k was approved from reserves to fund nine programs.  For example, our support for students included Bridging the Digital Divide, providing direct funds to purchase hardware and software for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities. These programs are meant to help members cope with the economic challenges of the pandemic.

After the initial FYE21 budget was approved in April 2020, the AAG Council re-convened in June 2020 to adopt a new budget. The first draft of the revised budget projected a loss of $1.5M due to loss of membership and projections for the Annual Meeting with reduced attendance. To offset these projected losses, we reduced expenses by $846k, with the other half being approved from reserves. This approach cut nearly all expenses except for staff. Remarkably, we expect to end the year without the need for any reserves, ending in positive territory, even without considering revenue from investments.

While AAG has experienced a 19% loss in membership year over year during the pandemic, this is far lower than the feared 50% loss. Three out of four of our lost members are either graduate students or members making under $75k per year. Therefore, Council has expanded eligibility for membership renewal fee coverage to all those making less than $75k and expanded the membership window for qualifying to two years. The job market appears to be recovering: Between March 1, 2019 and 2020, job postings at AAG dropped 38%. Postings have rebounded in 2021, and are now up 31%, suggesting at least some postings were merely delayed in the early pandemic.

The whole world turned upside down in the last year, and none of us are untouched. And still, it’s a good day for Geography.

The AAG has managed to get through a pandemic with surprising ease. To be sure, there are serious challenges ahead and much work to do. However, there is also reason to expect tomorrow will be a better day. Our work to replace our membership database and website is moving forward. On April 7th, we offered members the first preview of the site, and the full site is expected to launch in early summer. (We are welcoming feedback from members about a new tagline; share your ideas for a new tagline here). Together these new systems will open up greater possibilities for membership retention and a range of new and improved services. Multi-year membership, automatic renewals, tagged content, and much more will be possible. We continue to invest in creative, more inclusive approaches to meeting, including a climate-forward dispersed-meeting model for a new fall meeting, and a hybrid meeting that blends the best possible options for international virtual access and in-person convening in New York City.

Nearly two-thirds of graduate students in the AAG Methods workshops found the interactions highly valuable.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the last year is how popular our online seminars have been. In February, we kicked off a GeoEthics series, bringing together experts to talk about locational ethics. We also offered methods training workshops that have connected more than a thousand graduate students to a whole range of experts to discuss research challenges and solutions—and to one another at a time when peer support was also important. In all these cases, we showcase our membership’s expertise, connecting our members to it and each other. Traditionally, we might offer all these things only at the Annual Meeting. However, online platforms allow us to share year-round, to feature topics and presenters that reflect the AAG we want for the future. With minimal new expenses, we can showcase the expertise of our members while connecting and building community.

All respondents to the survey on AAG Methods workshops found resources helpful; nearly two-thirds found them very or extremely helpful.

If you attended any of these sessions, you know that it really matters to attendees. Three hundred people were on one three-hour session, engaged and eager for more. Students shed tears as they connected to methods experts and one another, gaining access and answers they needed during the pandemic. More to come on this experiment, but it gives me hope. During the troubling days and nights this past year, one thing kept coming back to me. Even as the pandemic loomed over all aspects of our personal and professional lives, we still found the energy, funding, and resolve to launch the COVID Rapid Response programs and to support one another. We put the members and our community first.

The whole world turned upside down in the last year, and none of us are untouched. And still, it’s a good day for Geography.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0090

Please note: The ideas expressed by Executive Director Gary Langham are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. Please feel free to email him at glangham [at] aag [dot] org.

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