‘I Can’t Afford to Coast’: Ocean Works Hard, Under the Radar
Deep blue ocean wave. Photo by Gaetano Cessati A special news update for April Fool's Day AAG caught up with Ocean on a sunny day near Null Island recently, where she is filming her latest epic adventure with veteran filmmaker Rock “High Tide” Anderson, Calm on the Surface. Ocean was wearing a thin veil of…
AAG Announces Undergraduate Program Excellence Awards
The American Association of Geographers (AAG) has named two recipients of 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 and cash prize for Bachelors’ Program Excellence is…
You Baby
“You Baby.” It’s Saturday morning. Jeffrey, who is chronologically well out of his early teenage years, but very much still there in spirit, is awake and calling to me with his favorite insult. He’s mostly non-verbal, but this particular phrase is one that he articulates well enough for anyone to understand. It’s catchy. A friend…
Want a Thriving Department? Focus on Undergraduate Success
I cannot think of a person in higher education who has not felt the pressure of maintaining and growing undergraduate enrollments. Undergraduates, who make up the large majority of the student body, are the people we devote most of our instructional efforts toward, and—as administrators constantly point out—are university’s primary source of revenue through tuition…
2021 AAG Honors Announced
Each year, the AAG invites nominations for AAG Honors to be conferred in recognition of outstanding contributions to the advancement or welfare of the profession. The AAG Honors Committee and the AAG Council are pleased to announce the following AAG Honorees. 2021 AAG Lifetime Achievement Honors Dr. Carol Harden, University of Tennessee Knoxville Carol Harden, the…
Advocate for Geography in Austerity
This is Part 1 of a two-part column on what geography departments can do (and should not do) to advocate for their work in budget talks, which are all the more crucial during the COVID-19 pandemic. These points are largely derived from answers I received from geographers in upper administrative positions at universities. At the…