Three new interns have joined the AAG staff this fall! The AAG would like to welcome Juliana, Zachary, and Sreya to the organization.
Julianna Davis is a senior at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, pursuing a B.A. in Political Science along with a minor in Geography and Environment. Her main interests include human geography, geopolitics, and community organizing for more equitable futures. Julianna has previously interned with the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network, and Athens Partnership. Supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program at her university, she is currently completing a faculty mentored qualitative research project regarding Greek geopolitics, ethnic identity, and migration. Julianna hopes to earn her Masters in geography or a closely related field and continue building on the education she is receiving at UH. In her free time, she loves swimming in the ocean, hiking, and spending time with her friends and family.
Zachary Jarjoura is a senior at University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a B.S. in geographical sciences with a minor in sustainability studies. Zachary previously interned for Anne Arundel County’s office of information technology, where he used GIS to analyze traffic and route buses and emergency vehicles to address the safety of the county’s citizens. After graduation, he intends to pursue a Master of Community Planning and become a city planner, continuing to work for the improvement of the community. In his spare time, Zachary enjoys exploring new places, hiking, spending time with friends and family, and playing music.
Sreya Juras is a recent graduate from The Ohio State University where she received a BS in International Development while minoring in Environmental Science and Spanish. Additionally, she completed her undergraduate thesis in Geography. Sreya is interested in researching agrarian communities in Latin America and understanding their future in the face of the climate crisis; focusing on adaptation, resilience building, and forced migration. During her internship, Sreya will work on various projects including, but not limited to: writing promotional tweets for our journal publications, creating our next Guide to Geography Programs, and preparing for the annual AAG meeting. In her free time, Sreya enjoys hiking, traveling, and listening to a good true crime podcast.
If you or someone you know is interested in applying for an internship at the AAG, the AAG seeks interns on a year-round basis for the spring, summer, and fall semesters. Currently, due to COVID-19 safety regulations in Washington, DC AAG interns are home-based employees. More information on internships at the AAG is also available on the Jobs & Careers section of the AAG website at: https://www.aag.org/internships.
Share
Post
Redistricting flyer
Share
Resources
Video: A World of Possibilities
Have you ever wondered where things happen? Why do they happen there? How do we find patterns and change them?
That’s where geography comes in—by connecting the where, why, who, and how. These insights are critical keys to healthier communities, a livable climate, and charting a stronger, more equitable future.
With skills in geography, you’ll have tools to work for respected companies, for universities, for nonprofits, and in public service for local, state, or national governments.
In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor shows the demand for these skills is expanding rapidly to meet new technological, environmental, and social needs.
There’s a world of possibilities waiting for you. You belong here.
AAG would like to thank AAG members Dr. Debarchana Ghosh, Dr. Deborah Thomas, Dr. Jacqueline Housel, Dr. Jason Post, Dr. Justin Stoler, and Dr. Wan Yu for their roles in helping shape this video and the AAG COVID-19 Response Subcommittee for proposing this project.
Share
Newsletters
Newsletter – September 2021
PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
Geographers and Redistricting
By Emily Yeh
Fair redistricting is indispensable to a healthy democratic republic. But what exactly is fair? This turns out to be a rather difficult question; it is much easier to see when things are blatantly not fair – when they don’t adhere to one-person one-vote in the second sense of equal representation.
The AAG is now accepting abstracts for all presentation types at the 2022 AAG Annual Meeting to be held February 25 – March 1 in New York City. All abstracts for both in-person and virtual presentations will be accepted. For those participating in-person at the annual meeting, registrants may opt to present their work in either in-person or virtual paper or poster sessions. Those registered for the virtual meeting experience may only present in virtual paper or poster sessions. Deadlines vary by presentation type.
Serve as a Career Mentor at the 2022 AAG Annual Meeting
The AAG seeks panelists, career mentors, workshop leaders and session organizers for careers and professional development activities at the 2022 AAG Annual Meeting in New York City. Individuals representing a broad range of employment sectors, organizations, academic and professional backgrounds, and racial/ethnic/gender perspectives are encouraged to apply. If interested, email careers [at] aag [dot] org, specifying topic(s) and activity(s) of interest, and attach a current C.V. or resume. For best consideration, please submit your information by November 4, 2021.
New York City to Host Hybrid 2022 AAG Annual Meeting
Mark your calendar for the AAG Annual Meeting in the Big Apple, February 25 – March 1, 2022. The hybrid meeting will take place both online and at the NY Hilton Midtown and the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Registration and the call for papers for #AAG2022 is open, and we invite you to organize and participate in sessions, workshops, field trips, special events, and activities. We look forward to seeing you in New York City!
Space to Cultivate: A View from the AAG Review of Books
“I envision the Review as a space to be working through ideas and concepts,” says Editor-in-Chief Debbie Hopkins, who took the helm of the journal in mid-2020: “A place where a reviewer has the freedom to speak.” Read our interview with Hopkins and Editorial Assistant Neha Arora to find out more about what they look for in submissions
A World of Possibilities: Introducing AAG’s New Recruitment Video
Many AAG members have shared the importance of having new digital marketing tools that can be used to recruit students into geography programs. As part of the COVID-19 Rapid Response initiative, AAG has worked with Green Jay Strategies to produce just such a film: A World of Possibilities Waiting for You with a Degree in Geography. The video is aimed at students who are early in their process of discovery of a geography degree and considers the research of Dr. Justin Stoler (University of Miami) on the understanding and preferences of undergraduate students. AAG can customize this video with your department’s contact information at the end (the video can also just be used as it is). If you would like to have a version that displays your department contact information on a closing slide at the end of the video, please email helloworld[at]aag[dot]org for more information.
AAG would like to thank AAG members Dr. Debarchana Ghosh, Dr. Deborah Thomas, Dr. Jacqueline Housel, Dr. Jason Post, Dr. Justin Stoler, and Dr. Wan Yu for their roles in helping shape this video and the AAG COVID-19 Response Subcommittee for proposing this project.
AAG Early Career and Department Leadership Webinar Series Continues in Fall 2021
The Early Career and Department Leadership webinar series, launched in fall 2020 as part of the AAG’s COVID-19 Rapid Response initiatives, also represents a broader effort at the AAG to expand year-round programming for members and the wider geography community. The AAG is pleased to announce that the webinar series will continue in the 2021-2022 academic year.
This fall will be a great time to reconnect with colleagues, both in your regions and beyond. For the first time, AAG and the Applied Geography Conference are collaborating with six of our Regional Divisions to create a carbon-sensitive meeting model with AAG Regions Connect: A Joint Climate-Forward Initiative. Happening Oct 14-16, AAG Regions Connect is part of a larger effort to reduce carbon emissions at AAG events combining in-person local gathering with nationally available online events, including new offerings for career and professional development and regional perspectives on international and national issues. Registration is now open. See the larger work of the AAG Climate Action Task Force.
Check out our Events page for information on Regions Connect and other Regional Division events this fall.
The Future Is Here: Geography Awareness Week November 14-20
AAG is excited to announce this year’s theme for Geography Awareness Week, The Future Is Here: Geographers Pursue the Path Forward. Highlighting the many ways that geographers are anticipating and shaping a better future in their work, the week will also celebrate the contributions of early-career geographers and students of geography.
We’ll share more resources and materials in October, and in the meantime, we want to hear from you! We are looking for stories to amplify your work and ideas during GeoWeek with our #GeographersRespond hashtag. You can send us information about a GeoWeek event you are planning, a video of you talking about your path to geography, a photo with a few lines about your work, or just an email telling us what you’re up to. Send your items to lschamess [at] aag [dot] org for a chance to be featured during Geography Awareness Week.
Nominate Colleagues for AAG Honors and AAG Fellows
Please consider nominating outstanding colleagues for the AAG Honors, the highest awards offered by the American Association of Geographers, and the AAG Fellows, a program recognizing both later-career and early/mid-career geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. Individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties are encouraged to nominate outstanding colleagues following the newly revised submission guidelines. Deadlines for nominations will be September 15th.
Nominate Inspiring Geographers: September Awards Deadlines
AAG Grants and Awards make a huge impact on our community of Geographers and help maintain the legacy of geographers of the past while paying tribute to geographers thriving right now. Deadlines are already approaching starting in September. Don’t miss your opportunity to apply or nominate someone deserving! Learn more about the following grants and awards before their due dates:
Sept. 15: AAG Enhancing Diversity Award and AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award
The AAG Nominating Committee seeks nominations for Vice President (one to be elected) for National Councilor (two vacancies), and for Student Councilor (one vacancy) for the 2022 election. The AAG encourages nominations of a broad range of colleagues who reflect different disciplinary specialties, regional locations, gender, race, ethnicity, diverse ability, stage in career, etc. Those elected will take office on July 1, 2022. AAG members should submit the names and addresses of each nominee and their reasons for supporting nomination to any member of the AAG Nominating Committee no later than September 24, 2021. As part of your nomination statement, please confirm that the person is willing to be considered for the position for which you are recommending them. Nominations by email are strongly preferred.
Reconciliation in Place Names Act Endorsed Again by AAG
Last month the Reconciliation in Place Names Act was reintroduced in Congress by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Congressman Al Green (D-TX). The AAG supported this bill in the last Congress and has again endorsed this important piece of legislation that aims to rectify the litany of US geographic place names that are offensive and outdated. See below for an excerpt from Sen. Markey’s press release on the bill.
Washington, DC – United States Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Congressman Al Green (D-Texas) introduced the Reconciliation in Place Names Act. Originally introduced last year with then-Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), this bill would address land units and geographic features with racist and bigoted names.
Public lands are a part of the fabric of America that are meant to welcome everyone; however, thousands of geographic features, national forests, wilderness areas, and other public lands have offensive names that celebrate people who have upheld slavery, committed unspeakable acts against Native Americans, or led Confederate war efforts. Furthermore, many of these landmarks include offensive slurs that degrade people based on their race or background, making many feel unwelcome.
Currently, the United States Board on Geographic Names oversees all naming processes and decisions. While Board policies authorize changing the names of offensive geographic features, the current process is time-consuming, lacks transparency and public involvement, and is ill equipped to address the vast nature of the problem. The Reconciliation in Place Names Act would create an Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, which would make recommendations to the Board on Geographic Names on geographic features to be renamed and recommendations to Congress on renaming Federal land units with offensive names.
In the News:
The AAG’s Redistricting Panel Series is happening now! Click here to learn more about why geospatial thinkers are indispensable to the redistricting process, and to see if there is an upcoming panel in your state. It’s time for all geographers to step up and get involved in this once in a decade opportunity to draw new state and congressional districts.
MEMBER NEWS
September Member Updates
The latest news about AAG Members.
Dr. Jayajit Chakraborty from the University of Texas at El Paso was selected to serve as a member of the Science Advisory Board and the new Environmental Justice Science Committee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) is a federal advisory committee that provides independent peer review, consultation, advice, and recommendations to the EPA Administrator on a range of environmental health science, engineering, climate change, environmental justice, and economic issues. Read more.
RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Visiting Geographical Scientist Program Accepting Applications for 2021-2022
The VGSP, which sponsors visits by prominent geographers to small departments or institutions with limited resources, is accepting applications for the 2021-2022 academic year. The purpose of this program is to stimulate interest in geography among students, faculty members, and administrative officers. A list of pre-approved speakers is available on the website, however participating institutions select and make arrangements with the visiting geographer. VGSP is funded by Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), the international honors society for geographers. Questions and complete applications may be directed to Mark Revell.
The next testing window for the GISCI Geospatial Core Technical Knowledge Exam® as a part of the GISP Certification has been scheduled and will once again be administered by PSI Online through their worldwide testing facilities in a computer-based testing (CBT) format. The exam will be held December 4 – 11, 2021. The Exam will be administered by PSI Online, a worldwide exam delivery company with over 70 years of experience in providing computer-based testing (CBT) facilities across the US, Canada, and around the world.
Register for the 2021 AAAS Science, Technology and Human Rights Conference
Registration for the 2021 AAAS Science, Technology and Human Rights Conference is now open! The conference will be held online October 21-22. Visit https://sciencetechhumanrights2021.org/ to register. Early registration is available through September 1. More information is available here. Students: stay tuned for the call for student e-posters, which will be issued soon.
Participate in a Survey on Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Kauffman Foundation
The Kauffman Research team is working with scholars at NORC at the University of Chicago (an independent, non-profit survey research organization) to survey researchers of entrepreneurship and innovation about the professional climate within their field. The survey focuses, primarily, on questions of intellectual inclusion within university departments, conferences and networking arenas, and the publishing and funding domains. Kauffman invites scholars who study entrepreneurship—at all stages of their academic career, and across fields and disciplines to share their perspectives with us.
Upcoming Virtual Events from the Kauffman Foundation
Have you ever wanted to share your research with experts and decision-makers in a way that grabs their limited attention? Participate in the Plain Language: Executive Summaries Workshop. This free, virtual event will share strategies for:
Defining the target audience(s) for scholarly research.
Leveraging smart information design to create useable and persuasive documents.
Applying sentence-level edits to improve the readability of your work.
Advisory Committee to Director of Census Bureau Seeks New Members
The Census Advisory Committee Branch is in the process of soliciting nominees to fill membership vacancies on the Census Scientific Advisory Committee (CSAC). The purpose of the CSAC is to provide advice to the Director on the full range of Census Bureau programs and activities including communications, decennial, demographic, economic, field operations, geographic, information technology, and statistics. The ending period of solicitation is September 30, 2021.
John (‘Jock’) Herbert Galloway died on July 27, 2021 in Tweed, Ontario, after suffering several years with Alzheimer’s. Jock was a devoted and much loved and respected member of the Department of Geography & Planning at the University of Toronto as well as at Victoria College where he was a long-time Fellow. Exploring the global geographical diffusion of the sugar cane industry and its various branches, Jock’s research and publications focused on the historical geography of Brazil and the Caribbean. Read more.
The AAG is also saddened to hear of the passing of Sanford H. Bederman and Bobby M. Wilson this past month with written tributes forthcoming.
When I taught my Geography of China class in fall 2019, I had a student from the PRC whom I remember as being particularly open-minded and eager to learn. One day, after I lectured about the massive Hong Kong protests for universal suffrage and the principle of one-person one-vote that were occurring, he asked, nonplussed, “Why do they care so much about one-person one-vote? What’s the big deal? Why bother protesting for that?” He was genuinely curious about what could motivate so many people to expend so much effort on something that didn’t seem to him to be much preferable to the alternative. I explained the benefits of representative and liberal democracy, accountability of one’s elected officials, and the importance of citizens having a real voice in governance, but I could see the skepticism from him and other international students about what US democracy was looking like to the rest of the world.
There’s also a slightly different way to interpret his question: why were the people of Hong Kong struggling so hard for an ideal that has proven elusive even for the world’s self-proclaimed champion of democracy? Consider the first meaning of “one-person one-vote” – universal suffrage. Aside from the obvious fact that voting in the US was originally limited to only white men with property, this year has seen an unprecedented wave of over four hundred voter suppression bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. Georgia has notoriously made it illegal for anyone other than a poll worker to give food or water to anyone waiting in line to vote, disproportionately affecting minority communities where wait times are very long and barriers to voting formidable. Other bills make it more difficult to register, establish strict photo ID laws, and limit access to voting by restricting mail-in ballots, absentee ballots, early voting, number of polling sites, and hours polling sites are open. These and other measures disproportionately affect people of color, the elderly, and those with disabilities. In one 2016 inspection, nearly two-thirds of polling places had at least one impediment for those with disabilities, up from less than one-half in 2008. Many Native Americans who live on reservations do not have traditional street addresses, causing their voter registration applications to be rejected; furthermore, because of increasing limits on polling sites and drop boxes, some Native Americans have had to drive up to 150 miles in order to vote.
Beyond these obstacles to voting access that belie the idea of universal suffrage, however, there is also a second meaning to “one-person one-vote”: the principle that any one person’s voting power should be roughly equivalent to another’s. Representation in the US Senate does not adhere to this principle (nor the Electoral College for the selection of the president): a voter in rural Vermont effectively has sixty times the clout of a voter in California. The House of Representatives, though, is supposed to be the people’s house, with representation proportional to the population (though every state must have at least one representative). It is for this reason that there is a decennial census, in order to apportion Congressional representatives based on population change. Since the number of House seats was frozen at 435 by an act of Congress in 1929, reapportionment has meant the movement of Congressional seats from slow-growing to faster-growing states. Recent scholarship in political geography suggests that this process has disadvantaged lower income, less educated, and minority populations. The findings of the 2020 Census, delayed due to the pandemic, have resulted in seven states losing one seat each, five states gaining one seat each, and Texas gaining two seats.
After reapportionment comes redistricting: the drawing of electoral district boundaries for Congressional districts as well as state legislatures. The Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment dictate that in any given state, congressional districts and state legislative districts must have equal populations. Redistricting must also follow the Voting Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on race (though it has been substantially gutted by 2013 and 2021 Supreme Court decisions). Beyond this, however, the actual drawing of districts is up to each state. Common criteria for districts, adopted by many states, include geographic compactness, contiguity, preservation of communities of interest, preservation of counties or other political subdivisions, and competitiveness.
Fair redistricting is indispensable to a healthy democratic republic. But what exactly is fair? This turns out to be a rather difficult question; it is much easier to see when things are blatantly not fair – when they don’t adhere to one-person one-vote in the second sense of equal representation. Gerrymandering is the term used to describe a configuration where district boundaries give unfair advantages to an incumbent, a political party (partisan gerrymandering), or another group. The portmanteau was coined in 1812 after a governor named Gerry signed into law a redistricting plan which looked like a salamander and was designed to keep his political party in power. Partisan gerrymandering has a long history in the US, with two of its most common tactics being “cracking” and “packing.” Cracking refers to spreading members of a political or ethnic/racial minority into many districts to ensure they cannot elect a representative of their choice, while packing is the concentration of voters of one type into one district, to reduce their overall influence. Although the strategies seem plain enough, interpretations can be contested in practice. In particular, in the 1990s, a wave of majority-minority districts was created to prevent or reverse racial discrimination caused by earlier gerrymandering. But these attempts to prevent cracking minority representation were seen by others as a form of packing.
Since the 1960s, there has been increasing litigation as well as citizen attention to the often highly partisan results of redistricting. One response has been the creation of Independent Redistricting Commissions (IRCs) to either oversee or delineate congressional and legislative boundaries. In addition, many states, regardless of whether they have IRCs, have opportunities for public comment and testimony, public hearings, public map submissions, and citizen review.
Here is where geographers come in – or, at least, should. After all, there are few things as geographical as the drawing of maps. Yet, though there continues to be research on electoral geography (for example see recent articles by Webster, Forest, and Rossiter et al.), most research on redistricting has been done by political scientists, mathematicians and lawyers. Even more relevant here is the fact that geographers have by and large been absent from the current redistricting process underway across the US. This is no doubt due in part to the fact that each state has a different process, making it harder to identify opportunities to get involved. It is for this reason that AAG is launching a virtual Redistricting Panel Series this month to equip geographers with the tools and knowledge to take action in their home states as district maps are redrawn. There will be panels for up to 15 states this month, organized by geographers and hosted on AAG’s virtual platform. Anyone is welcome to register for a panel, which will focus on the redistricting process of that particular state, how geographers can get involved, and why geospatial thinking is indispensable to the effort to create fair outcomes.
My own participation in a recent public hearing of the Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission confirmed just how relevant geographical considerations are – for example, in defining “communities of interest.” Preliminary maps had put several small mountain towns in western Boulder County into a large district that crossed county lines and was comprised of many mountain areas. In this version of redistricting, mountain towns tied to the ski industry were treated as a community of interest. But many at the hearing argued that in fact the more relevant community of interest is the watershed. “Everything flows downhill” said one participant: residents of the mountain towns come downhill for schools and jobs, much as the water in the reservoir flows east down to larger population centers. Others argued about the donut shape that the city of Boulder had been divided into for a state house district, suggesting that this split a community of interest that has developed around the issue of affordable housing. Others still argued that, given their concern about the health and environmental impacts of fracking, they should not be placed in a district with a majority pro-fracking and anti-regulation population. An exasperated IRC member asked several times how the speakers would draw the lines instead, given the requirements of equal population. A former county commissioner sympathized with the IRC, acknowledging the difficulty of their task: “One person’s ‘gerry’,” he noted, “is another person’s ‘mander.’”
I hope that AAG’s Redistricting Panel Series will inspire geographers to get involved, contributing their geospatial expertise and sensibilities to these extraordinarily important, and difficult, tasks. To see panels and register, visit this link.
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 emily [dot] yeh [at] colorado [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.
Share
Register for Free
Create an account to get free access to exclusive AAG content.
AAG Members get exclusive access to publications, prominent journals, unique advocacy, grant, scholarship and professional opportunities with access to industry focus communities, and event discounts, including our annual meeting.
Some content may only be accessible if you belong to specific Specialty or Affinity Groups. You can still update your membership below. You will need to go through the Join flow, but you do not need to repurchase your membership unless it is expired or about to expire.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Fair redistricting is indispensable to a healthy democratic republic. But what exactly is fair? This turns out to be a rather difficult question; it is much easier to see when things are blatantly not fair – when they don’t adhere to one-person one-vote in the second sense of equal representation.
The AAG is now accepting abstracts for all presentation types at the 2022 AAG Annual Meeting to be held February 25 – March 1 in New York City. All abstracts for both in-person and virtual presentations will be accepted. For those participating in-person at the annual meeting, registrants may opt to present their work in either in-person or virtual paper or poster sessions. Those registered for the virtual meeting experience may only present in virtual paper or poster sessions. Deadlines vary by presentation type.
Mark your calendar for the AAG Annual Meeting in the Big Apple, February 25 – March 1, 2022. The hybrid meeting will take place both online and at the NY Hilton Midtown and the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. Registration and the call for papers for #AAG2022 is open, and we invite you to organize and participate in sessions, workshops, field trips, special events, and activities. We look forward to seeing you in New York City!
“I envision the Review as a space to be working through ideas and concepts,” says Editor-in-Chief Debbie Hopkins, who took the helm of the journal in mid-2020: “A place where a reviewer has the freedom to speak.” Read our interview with Hopkins and Editorial Assistant Neha Arora to find out more about what they look for in submissions
In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:
Many AAG members have shared the importance of having new digital marketing tools that can be used to recruit students into geography programs. As part of the COVID-19 Rapid Response initiative, AAG has worked with Green Jay Strategies to produce just such a film: 
This fall will be a great time to reconnect with colleagues, both in your regions and beyond. For the first time, AAG and the Applied Geography Conference are collaborating with six of our Regional Divisions to create a carbon-sensitive meeting model with 
AAG is excited to announce this year’s theme for Geography Awareness Week, 
Last month the Reconciliation in Place Names Act was reintroduced in Congress by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Congressman Al Green (D-TX). The AAG supported this bill in the last Congress and has again endorsed this important piece of legislation that aims to rectify the litany of US geographic place names that are offensive and outdated. See below for an excerpt from 
The VGSP, which sponsors visits by prominent geographers to small departments or institutions with limited resources, is accepting applications for the 2021-2022 academic year. The purpose of this program is to stimulate interest in geography among students, faculty members, and administrative officers. A list of pre-approved speakers is available on the website, however participating institutions select and make arrangements with the visiting geographer. VGSP is funded by Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), the international honors society for geographers. Questions and complete applications may be directed to 
The next testing window for the GISCI Geospatial Core Technical Knowledge Exam® as a part of the GISP Certification has been scheduled and will once again be administered by PSI Online through their worldwide testing facilities in a computer-based testing (CBT) format. The exam will be held December 4 – 11, 2021. The Exam will be administered by PSI Online, a worldwide exam delivery company with over 70 years of experience in providing computer-based testing (CBT) facilities across the US, Canada, and around the world.
The Kauffman Research team is working with scholars at NORC at the University of Chicago (an independent, non-profit survey research organization) to survey researchers of entrepreneurship and innovation about the professional climate within their field. The survey focuses, primarily, on questions of intellectual inclusion within university departments, conferences and networking arenas, and the publishing and funding domains. Kauffman invites scholars who study entrepreneurship—at all stages of their academic career, and across fields and disciplines to share their perspectives with us.
Have you ever wanted to share your research with experts and decision-makers in a way that grabs their limited attention? Participate in the Plain Language: Executive Summaries Workshop. This free, virtual event will share strategies for:
John (‘Jock’) Herbert Galloway
When I taught my Geography of China class in fall 2019, I had a student from the PRC whom I remember as being particularly open-minded and eager to learn. One day, after I lectured about the massive Hong Kong protests for universal suffrage and the principle of one-person one-vote that were occurring, he asked, nonplussed, “Why do they care so much about one-person one-vote? What’s the big deal? Why bother protesting for that?” He was genuinely curious about what could motivate so many people to expend so much effort on something that didn’t seem to him to be much preferable to the alternative. I explained the benefits of representative and liberal democracy, accountability of one’s elected officials, and the importance of citizens having a real voice in governance, but I could see the skepticism from him and other international students about what US democracy was looking like to the rest of the world.