On Teaching, Mentoring, Balance, and Service
With summer almost here, I’m about to head into my last year as an academic. I’m “retiring” June 2022, although in truth I’ll work full time running my family’s winery and nonprofit, both built around the mission of providing training, jobs, and community for those with disabilities. As I transition from academics, Andrew and I…
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…
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…
Advocate for Geography in Austerity – Part 2
This is Part 2 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. As I…
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…
Beyond the Academic 1 Percent Or How to Create a More Inclusive and Equitable Academic Culture
Social media can be dangerous. I recently read a post on Twitter, sent by a non-geographer, which seemed to lament geography’s absence from the Ivy League and similarly selective private institutions. If I could share an unpopular opinion, I’m glad that geography does not have a large representation in the Ivy League. Not because I…