Newsletters

Newsletter – May 2018

May 2, 2018

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

The Difference That an Award Can Make (For All of Us)

By Derek Alderman

The 2018 Award for Bachelors Program Excellence goes to the Department of Geography at SUNY-Geneseo

One of the greatest pleasures of serving as President of the AAG is attending and participating in the Association’s awards ceremonies, both at Regional Division conferences and at the Honors Luncheon held every year at our national meetings. Words cannot adequately describe the feelings of pride and fulfillment that award recipients appear to experience upon having their scholarship, teaching, or outreach/service recognized publicly… I encourage members to take full advantage of the award nomination process to recognize deserving colleagues. Members might also consider nominating a person previously overlooked or unsung at awards ceremonies but who has given significantly to geography. I suggest that awards make a difference to us, both in terms of the welfare of individual nominee and the wider discipline.

Continue Reading.

Read past columns from the current AAG President on our President’s Column page.

ANNUAL MEETING

2018 AAG Annual Meeting Highlights

The American Association of Geographers annual meeting was held April 10–14, 2018 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This conference hosted 8,550 geographers, GIS specialists, environmental scientists, and other registrants from around the world, with 32% of registrants coming from countries outside of the United States. Whether you want to reminisce or just see what you missed, check out our retrospective of the special events and sessions from New Orleans.

Visit the photo gallery.

MAD wins 2018 World Geography Bowl

AAG2018-WGB_0230-300x200 The Mid Atlantic Team won first place in the 2018 World Geography Bowl, an annual geography knowledge competition for teams of college-level geography students representing the AAG’s regional divisions. The MAD Team defeated Team SEDAAG during the final round of the event where AAG President Derek Alderman served as a guest judge. In its 29th year of hosting, the 2018 AAG World Geography Bowl provides a fun nighttime conference activity while also assisting students in attending the AAG Annual Meeting.

View photos and news about the 2018 Bowl.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

2018 AAG Nystrom Award Recipients Announced

A fund established by former AAG President J. Warren Nystrom supports an annual prize for a paper based upon a recent dissertation in geography. There were 4 finalists in this year’s competition. They presented their papers in a special session on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 where the Nystrom Committee selected two Nystrom Awardees. The Nystrom Committee and the AAG are pleased to announce Bisola Falola of the University of Texas Austin and Qunshan Zhao of Arizona State University as the recipients of the 2018 J. Warren Nystrom Award. Bisola Falola’s dissertation is entitled “Terrains of Trauma – Urban Youth and Policies of Disinvestment.” Qunshan Zhao’s dissertation is entitled “Impact of tree locations and arrangements on outdoor microclimates and human thermal comfort in an urban residential environment.”

Learn more about the Nystrom Award and previous awardees.

Meet the Editors of AAG Journals: Stephen Hanna

Over the next several months, the AAG will be adding a new section to our newsletter and social media accounts to help members get to know the many editors of the AAG suite of journals. This month, meet one of the AAG Journals’ newest editors, Dr. Stephen Hanna. Hanna serves as the Cartography Editor for three of the AAG journals: the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities.

Find out more about the AAG Journals editors.

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Geography education often emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach as a way to understand the breadth of knowledge the discipline has to offer. The two professional geographers interviewed this month in the AAG Profiles of Professional Geographers, Joe Scarpaci, Executive Director of Center for Study of Cuban Culture & Economy and Matthew Connolly, Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Central Arkansas, both agree that this big picture approach to understanding the world is a key asset for those looking to undertake a career path in geography. Combine this diverse knowledge base with time management skills to make a winning combination!

Learn more about Geography careers.

The Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University Makes History

The MSU Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences has admitted and will fund three African American women graduate students for the 2018 academic year. This will be the first time in the history of the Department that three African American graduate students will be admitted and funded in the same year. The students admitted and funded are Cordelia Martin-Ikpe who will be pursuing a PhD in Geography with a focus on public health, Raven Mitchell who will begin her master’s in geography with an emphasis on physical and environmental geography, and Kyeesha Wilcox who will start her master’s degree in geography by researching urban social geography and food deserts.

RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES

2018 Guide to Geography Programs Deadline Extended

AAG Guide to Geography Programs The American Association of Geographers is accepting entries from geography programs for the 2018 edition of the Guide to Geography Programs in the Americas. The deadline for submitting a listing has been extended to Friday, June 1, 2018. The 2018 edition of the Guide will be available exclusively online. The Guide lists undergraduate and graduate programs in all areas of geography and includes an interactive map that students can use to explore and discover geography programs, with easy-to-use search tools to find programs by degree type, region, and program specialization. It has long been an invaluable reference for faculty, prospective students, government agencies, and private firms in the United States, Canada, and throughout the world.

More information on the Guide and how to list your program.

Early Career Faculty and Department Leadership Workshops

On behalf of the Geography Faculty Development Alliance, the AAG is pleased to announce the 2018 Early Career and Department Leadership Workshops! These annual workshops for early career faculty and late career graduate students or geography department leaders will be held at the George Washington University in D.C. from June 10-16, 2018 (early career) and June 13-16, 2018 (department leaders).

More information and registration available.

AGI Webinar – Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions

AGI-webina The American Geosciences Institute’s Policy & Critical Issues program, in partnership with the American Association of Geographers, is hosting a free webinar, Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions, that will take place May 16th from 1:00-2:00 PM EDT. This webinar will explore recent trends in wildfires and changes in contributing factors/drivers of these hazards; examine different wildfire policy and management strategies and how they apply to different ecosystems; and feature case studies of wildfire policy and management strategies in the western and southern states. Speakers will be Tania Schoennagel from the University of Colorado-Boulder, David Godwin from the Southern Fire Exchange, and Vaughan Miller from the Ventura County Fire Department.

More information and register for the free webinar.

Call for Nominations for AAG Honors

Please consider nominating outstanding colleagues for the AAG Honors, the highest awards offered by the American Association of Geographers! AAG Honors are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by AAG members in research and scholarship, teaching, education, service, and for lifetime achievement. Individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties are encouraged to nominate outstanding colleagues by June 30.

Guidelines for Honors nominations and a full listing of previous AAG Honorees.

AAG Fellows Program – Call for Nominations

The AAG is soliciting nominations for the AAG Fellows Program by Saturday, June 30, 2018. Please consider nominating outstanding colleagues to be recognized as AAG Fellows, a program to recognize geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography! Nominations for AAG Fellows are reviewed annually by the AAG Honors Committee, who will submit a slate of final nominations to the AAG Council for selection.

Additional information and guidelines for Fellows nominations.

PUBLICATIONS

Read the May 2018 Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’ ’

Annals-cvr-2017

The AAG is pleased to announce that Volume 108, Issue 3 (May 2018) of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers is now available. While the Annals features original, timely, and innovative articles that advance knowledge in all facets of the discipline, each issue highlights one article chosen by the editors. This month’s editors’ choice is Governing Dispossession: Relational Land Grabbing in Laos by Miles Kenney-Lazar.

Full article listing available.

May 2018 Issue of the ‘Professional Geographer’ Now Available

PG cover

The Professional Geographer, Volume 70, Issue 2, has been published. Of note to geographers interested in the Public Engagement theme for #AAG2018, the focus section in this issue is Out in the World: Geography’s Complex Relationship with Civic Engagement. The issue also includes short articles in academic or applied geography, emphasizing empirical studies and methodologies.

See the newest issue.

New Books in Geography — March 2018 Available

New Books in Geography illustration of stack of books

Books published during the month of March 2018 have been compiled in the monthly list of newly-published books in geography and related fields. Books in the March list include the 2018 AAG Meridian Book Award winner, Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes, as well as books whose topics encompass regional geographies, environmentalism, and big data.

Browse the whole list of new books.

Spring 2018 Issue of ‘The AAG Review of Books’ Now Available

Volume 6, Issue 2 of the quarterly The AAG Review of Books has now been published online. In addition to scholarly reviews of recent books related to geography, public policy and international affairs, this issue features longer book review fora of Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge, The Rise of the Hybrid Domain: Collaborative Governance for Social Innovation, and The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890 Players League.

Read the reviews.

GEOGRAPHERS IN THE NEWS

IN THE NEWS

Popular stories from the AAG SmartBrief

EVENTS CALENDAR

Submit News to the AAG Newsletter. To share your news, email us

President's Column

The Difference That an Award Can Make (For All of Us)

May 1, 2018

The AAG sponsors a number of important awards. The number and type of awards, for both individual professionals and even whole academic programs, have steadily grown over the years. While we have no shortage of accomplished geographers to honor and nominees for awards are consistently of high quality, we arguably don’t receive enough nominations for all awards. And in some instances, awards are not given every year because of a lack of submissions. This difficulty in garnering award nominations is not restricted to the Association but appears to be a challenge at a variety of institutional levels, including at many colleges and universities.

AAG staff Michelle Ledoux and Meredith Stone (pictured right) organized for a smooth presentation process the more than 100 awards and grants acknowledged during the 2018 AAG Awards Luncheon.

As I write, the Association is calling for nominations for many of its major honors, including its newly created AAG Fellows Program. I count no less than 40 separate AAG Awards, exclusive of those given by specialty and affinity groups. Some awards have a nomination deadline of June 30 and others having a deadline of December 31. I encourage members to take full advantage of the award nomination process to recognize deserving colleagues. Members might also consider nominating a person previously overlooked or unsung at awards ceremonies but who has given significantly to geography. I suggest in this column that awards make a difference to us, both in terms of the welfare of individual nominee and the wider discipline.

The visibility and recognition that comes with honoring others can have a major impact on their lives, careers, and sense of belonging. The time and energy invested in creating a nomination, which admittedly can be significant, is about lending aid to colleagues and making an intervention in “managing the egosystems” that operate within the Academy. The term “egosystem,” a play on the word “ecosystem,” recognizes that departments and other workplaces are, at their heart, communities of scholars whose self-conceptions and interconnected relations with each other shape the overall health and working environment of the team. These egosystems—if out of balance—can lead to deserving colleagues being ignored and feeling de-valued and under-appreciated, which in turn affects their morale and material well-being. As I noted in my first presidential column, one’s career, although it can feel like a lonely, solitary pursuit, is constantly defined by social relationships with others. The decision to nominate someone is about taking some responsibility for that person’s professional and personal success.

Enhancing our participation in award nominations is also critical to the social project of promoting geography to external audiences and demonstrating excellence in a time of growing academic assessment and accountability. Nominating is decidedly about pushing past one’s self interest and advocating for someone else, which can be difficult in a profession that at times pits us against each other. In the end, however, nominating a colleague for an award is more than a possible victory for that particular person; it is a potential win for all of us as we work to enhance the public image and prominence of the wider discipline. Importantly, a vibrant and advocacy-centered culture of award nomination must also recognize the many different ways and institutional settings in which geographers work and make contributions. I discuss this latter point in the context of a recent Council decision to expand the AAG Program Excellence Award to recognize geographers working in two-year/community colleges.

Managing the Egosystem

Over the past few years, I have increasingly used the phrase “managing egosystems” to capture the difficult but important responsibility that we have in ensuring a healthy and sustainable balance of social relations within our departments, programs, and other workplaces. It will surprise no one when I say that the Academy is composed of strong egos, personalities, and agendas. Arguably, these egos are necessary for competing and having an impact within the marketplace of ideas. But too much ego or self-importance can negatively affect working conditions, create low levels of self-esteem among some colleagues, and even result in the marginalization of other voices and contributions within geography. The very structure and composition of awards can reflect and reinforce an out of balance egosystem. For example, the array of awards within AAG has only a few honors explicitly for non-tenure track scholar-teachers, even though fixed term lecturers, adjuncts, and faculty and staff of practice have a growing presence in universities.

I believe that an expanded and inclusive approach to award nomination can be an effective mechanism in addressing egosystems characterized by inequalities. While everyone likes recognition, it has special meaning in the rigorous Academy, which can sometimes be a tough place for maintaining one’s confidence and sense of value. As a Department Head for five years, I frequently saw what self-doubt could do to brilliant people and how a broad, proactive approach to award nomination can lift the morale of faculty members, staff, and students—especially those from historically under-represented groups or those lacking the following, volume and promotional savvy of other colleagues. Effective department leaders—a term not confined only to those holding formal administrative duties—nominate frequently and encourage those around them to do the same. In some universities, progressive leaders have established entire committees to oversee and assist with the preparation of nominations for their departments and programs.

Importantly, the difference that an award can make is not restricted to the socio-psychological well-being of the person nominated. Rather, awards have material, career-value for many of us positioning for an employment opportunity, merit raises, tenure and promotion, and consideration for other forms of professional advancement. Receiving an AAG award can significantly enhance a colleague’s professional standing back at their home institution and can be leveraged in making nominations for other honors, on and off campus. In this respect, a lack of nominations for a particular award potentially represents a lost opportunity to increase the security and even survivability of colleagues within their jobs and programs of study. Award nominations can be one of many mechanisms used to advance the goal of broadening participation in geography and creating a disciplinary “ethics of care” that can recruit and retain talented colleagues.

Awards as Disciplinary Advocacy

And while awards are important to one’s personal sense of belonging and self-worth, I also argue that the nomination process is inherently a practice in disciplinary advocacy, a means of ensuring that the achievements of geographers are recognized by wider audiences—some of whom may or may not fully understand what geography is and what geographers contribute.

As a Department Head, I always loved seeing one of my faculty, staff, or students receive an award. First and foremost, I felt great for the person being honored, especially since I had observed first-hand the amount of work and sacrifice that person invested in her work. Second, the award became a bragging point for me as I went to my College Dean or University Provost in making the case for why geography deserved more resources, a greater place in the curriculum, or simply a greater amount of public attention. Indeed, news about winning awards should always be included in distributed press releases, alumni newsletters, social media promotions, and student recruitment brochures. Third, for my university and many others, awards have become—for better or for worse—part of the analytics used to assess the productivity of programs and their standing among other units on campus as well as within national rankings. In this respect, not actively participating in the award nomination process can have a detrimental effect on one’s own program and ultimately how geography is rated overall among other fields.

The Program Excellence Award is presented in alternate years to Bachelors Programs and Masters Programs. This year’s Award for Bachelors Program Excellence goes to the Department of Geography at SUNY-Geneseo.

It was this very recognition that awards have a larger institutional context and cache that motivated the Association’s Council to approve four years ago the creation of a Program Excellence Award for non-PhD granting geography departments. The award acknowledges the collective efforts of professors, lecturers, staff, and students in enhancing the prominence of Geography as a discipline. It is believed that bestowing the awards would allow BA/BS and MA/MS geography departments to demonstrate external recognition of program quality to university officials, prospective students and faculty, and the general public. In the current academic environment, evidence of excellent standing or distinction can be important to administrators as they make strategic decisions about departments and programs. Indeed, some past departmental recipients of the AAG Program Excellence Award report that they have been successful in leveraging this discipline-wide recognition into greater institutional consideration and investment.

While the AAG Program Excellence Award has attracted stellar nominations, not all regional divisions are participating (every year, each regional division is permitted two preliminary nominations). Granted, regional division leaders do not have to nominate every year (nor in every program category), but I know that each of our regions overflows with excellent non-doctoral geography departments. I stress this point about the broadening base of nominations since we are in a time when even historically strong programs are under the threat of reduction, merger with other disciplines, or even elimination. Can any of us in today’s university afford not to take advantage of an opportunity to advocate for (and nominate for recognition) the achievements of our discipline and its practitioners?

Taking a proactive approach to nominations will grow in importance with the AAG Program Excellence Award now that it has a separate category for recognizing geography programs/departments at two-year/community colleges. Thanks to a proposal brought by Treasurer Julie Cidell, the Council approved at the New Orleans national meeting this expansion, recognizing that more than 150 two-year colleges in the US offer a degree program in geography. Geography departments at these institutions promote geography in their local communities, support (and mentor) high school teachers teaching college credit courses, provide retraining to students returning to school and support life-long learners. Yet, because faculties at two-year/community colleges often do not belong to AAG and they lack funds for Association dues and travel to conferences, it will be even more imperative that our Regional Divisions reach out to geographers at these institutions, get to know them, and advocate for them through the nomination process. Colleagues at two-year colleges are often poorly resourced, strapped for time, and especially vulnerable to administrative pressures. They are an important front line in the discipline maintaining its health and sustainability.

Don’t Expect Someone Else to Nominate

In closing, many of us labor under a dangerous assumption that someone else will nominate outstanding people. Some of us even believe that honors/awards selection committees will no doubt solicit nominations for qualified individuals. Even if the latter assumption were a valid one, it is realized unevenly. Some awards committees are actually quite passive in their approach, seeing themselves as merely the receivers and evaluators of nominations rather than the cultivators of dossiers. Moreover, committee-solicited nominations rely upon traditional networks of familiarity and run the risk of missing someone operating in different professional, social, and intellectual circles. Bottom line, if you think someone is deserving of an honor, then move forward decisively to work (by yourself or better yet, with others) to nominate that person.

I am interested in knowing from AAG members about their experiences in the area of nominations and awards—whether as a member of an award selection committee, a nominator for someone, or the recipient of a nomination. What difference do you feel that awards make in our careers and discipline and how can we enhance that impact even more. What obstacles, either internal or external to the nomination process at AAG, limit people’s involvement in this important part of our professional culture? Please share your thoughts and experiences by emailing me (dalderma [at] utk [dot] edu) or share on Twitter #PresidentAAG.

— Derek Alderman
Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee
President, American Association of Geographers
Twitter: @MLKStreet

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0034

Annual Meeting

Mid Atlantic Division Team Takes 2018 World Geography Bowl Title

May 1, 2018

The Mid Atlantic Team won first place in the 2018 World Geography Bowl, an annual quiz competition for teams of college-level geography students representing the AAG’s regional divisions. The 2018 event was a milestone, marking the 25^th year for hosting the event during the AAG Annual Meeting.

On April 11, while the International Reception was pumping away upstairs, the World Geography Bowl was underway on the third floor of the Sheraton Hotel in New Orleans. Ten teams representing eight of the regional divisions as well as two ad hoc spoiler teams competed in the 9 round preliminary match up. The eight divisions represented were: Mid Atlantic, East Lakes, West Lakes, Southwest, Southeast, Great Plains/Rocky Mountain, New England-St. Lawrence Valley, and Middle States Divisions. The two spoiler teams were aptly named Longitude and Latitude.

The championship round challenged the top two teams from the round-robin preliminaries: Southeast and Mid Atlantic. After a neck and neck round of toss-up questions, Mid Atlantic pulled out the victory in the team question portion of the final. AAG President Derek Alderman was on hand during the final round to serve as the guest judge and grantor of the prize atlases courtesy of National Geographic Society to the winning team.

Most of the students who participate on the regional teams are chosen during their respective regional division Geography Bowl competition held during their regional division annual meeting each fall. All students who participate receive funding from their regional division as well as the AAG in order to help offset the costs of attending the AAG Annual Meeting.

The winning Mid Atlantic Division team’s roster was:

Matthew Cooper, University of Maryland
Christine MacKrell, George Washington University
Brian Slobotsky, University of Maryland
Zachery Radziewicz, Salisbury University
Daniel Milbrath, Salisbury University

The first runner-up Southwest Division team’s roster was:

Jesse Andrews, Appalachian State University
William Canup, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Jacob Cecil, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Darby Libka, University of Mary Washington
Randi Robinson, Mississippi State University
Jared White, University of West Florida

The second runner-up Great Plains/Rocky Mountain team’s roster was:

Tristan Boyd, University of Colorado, Denver
Karl Bauer, Kansas State University
Sara Newman, University of Colorado, Denver
Peter Brandt, North Dakota State University
Lindy Westenhoff, University of Wyoming
Jonathon Preece, University of Wyoming
Sujan Parajuli, South Dakota State University

In addition to team prizes, the top individual scorers are also acknowledged. The Most Valuable Player of the 2018 World Geography Bowl was Jesse Andrews from Appalachian State University (SEDAAG) who was presented with an atlas courtesy of Gamma Theta Upsilon.

The remaining top five individual scorers listed in order of points received were:

Matthew Cooper, University of Maryland Graduate Student (MAD)
Kate Rigot, University of Colorado, Denver Graduate Student (Team Latitude)
Deondre Smiles, Ohio State University Graduate Student (East Lakes)
Tristan Boyd, University of Colorado, Denver Undergraduate Student (Great Plains/Rocky Mountain)

Thanks to the 2018 WGB prize donors and volunteers

Organizers of the World Geography Bowl would like to express thanks to the countless volunteer question writers, team sponsors/coaches, moderators, judges, and scorekeepers who make the competition possible, and to the many students who competed across the country. We would like to recognize the volunteers this year as: Paul McDaniel (Kennesaw State University), Wesley Reisser (US Department of State & George Washington University), Rob Edsall (Idaho State University), Dawn Drake (Missouri Western State University), Richard Deal (Edinboro University of Pennsylvania), Zia Salim (California State University at Fullerton), Ronnie Schumann (University of North Texas), Liz Lowe (GIS Technician, New Orleans City Park), Jim Baker (University of Nebraska-Omaha) Patrick May (Plymouth State University), Jase Bernhardt (Hofstra University), Mel Johnson (University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc), Olumide Olufowobi (University of Lagos), Megan Heckert (West Chester University), Tom Bell (University of Tennessee) Peggy Gripshover (Western Kentucky University), Amber Williams (West Virginia University), Lee Ann Nolan (Pennsylvania State University), Jeff Neff (Western Carolina University), Casey Allen (University of Colorado, Denver).

World Geography Bowl organizers thank its supporters, who generously donated atlases, books, gift certificates, software, plaques, and clothing – Texas State University, National Geographic Society, Pearson, Gamma Theta Upsilon, University of Georgia Press, Clark Labs, Esri, Guilford Press, Syracuse University Press, Penguin Random House, American Geosciences Institution, and Expedia – who recognize the important role the competition plays in building a sense of community and generating excitement around geographic learning. Your continued support is truly appreciated.

A special thank you goes out to the World Geography Bowl executive director, Jamison Conley (West Virginia University) for his volunteer efforts at organizing the bowl since 2015.

2019 World Geography Bowl – Washington, D.C.

The 2019 World Geography Bowl competition will be held in Washington, D.C. in April 2019. Regional competition typically occur during the fall at respective AAG regional meetings, where regional teams for the national competition are usually formed. For more information on organizing a team or volunteering at the national event, contact the World Geography Bowl executive director, Jamison Conley at West Virginia University at Jamison [dot] Conley [at] mail [dot] wvu [dot] edu or the AAG Geography Bowl coordinator, Emily Fekete at efekete [at] aag [dot] org. To learn more about the 2019 World Geography Bowl, follow updates posted here.

In addition, a photo album of the event will be shared soon.

Post

The Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University Makes History

April 30, 2018

Cordelia Martin-Ikpe (Photo by Dee Jordan)

Cordelia will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography with an emphasis on public health. She is a native of Detroit and worked at the Michigan Public Health Institute after receiving her master’s degree from Michigan State University. She will take relevant courses and conduct research on comparative maternal health outcomes for American-born and foreign-born Black women.

Raven will be pursuing a master’s degree with an emphasis on Physical and Environmental Geography. Raven is a native of Davison, Michigan and received her undergraduate degree from Northern Michigan University in Earth Science. She received the Outstanding Graduating Senior Award from the Department of Earth, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Northern Michigan University. Raven was also a student in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) in 2017 at Michigan State University.

Kyeesha will be pursuing a master’s degree with an emphasis on Urban Social Geography and the relationship between the lack of equal access to healthy food for low income populations and the high obesity rates in neighborhoods with very low socioeconomic characteristics within metropolitan areas. She received her undergraduate degree from Middle Tennessee State University. Kyeesha has already demonstrated her research skills by receiving the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Award this academic year. She was also a student in the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) at Michigan State University in 2017.

How Did the Department Achieve this Historic Accomplishment?

The most important factors in the Department’s success in recruiting the underrepresented graduate students were progressive leadership and measurable commitment. Measurable commitment is demonstrated by actually funding the underrepresented students once a Department admits them. According to the most recent NSF Report on Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities (2016) only six African Americans received a Ph.D. in Geography in the entire United States. Among the primary reasons is the lack of funding via a graduate assistantship or fellowship support.

Already considered a progressive leader in support of diversity issues, Alan Arbogast, Chairperson of the Department, was willing to demonstrate a measurable commitment to recruit and fund the three underrepresented students mentioned above. Such willingness was communicated to the progressive Chair of the Admissions Committee and Director of the Graduate Program, Ashton Shortridge. Professor Shortridge started to engage in very active recruitment to increase the number of underrepresented graduate students. Professor Shortridge co-leads the Department’s underrepresented minority recruitment initiative with Dee Jordan, a fourth-year doctoral geography student. Dee is very experienced with diversity issues. She has served on the Diversity Panel for Graduate Student Life and Wellness, Leadership Fellows, and contributes to important conversations about navigating MSU as a student of color. Dee was selected as the 2018 recipient of the MSU Excellence in Diversity Award in the Individual Emerging Progress category.

Over the past four years, geography doctoral student Dee Jordan has been actively pursuing ways to increase underrepresented minority representation within the Department. Dee reached out to me and Professor Shortridge in 2014 and expressed concerns about the lack of African American, Hispanic, and Native American students in her cohort, among graduate students within the Department as a whole, as well as in the Department’s promotional video. Dee inquired about the Department’s recruitment strategy, which was largely passive, and she suggested more active recruitment to attract diverse student applicants. Both Professor Shortridge and I were receptive to her suggestion, and Dr. Arbogast also agreed that this approach could be beneficial for the Department.

In 2017, after researching best practices in recruiting, creating inclusive climates, cultural competency and cohort effects, the Find Your Place in the World underrepresented minority scholars in geography initiative began.

This four-pronged marketing, recruitment, retention and graduate engagement strategy is a comprehensive approach to diversifying the professoriate and increasing demographic representation for students of color in the discipline.

In addition to progressive leadership at the department level, progressive leadership at the Dean’s level was also important. Dr. Rachel Croson joined the MSU College of Social Science as Dean in August 2016. She immediately engaged in the development of a strategic plan for 2017-2022. One of the values of the plan is inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is demonstrated by a culture in which all individuals are valued, respected and engaged so that diverse voices can enrich our work (College of Social Science Strategic Plan, 2017-2022, p. 2). Among the missions of the strategic plan is diversity. The plan states, “our college is open and welcoming, deriving strength from a plurality of identities and lived experiences. We will build a more diverse and inclusive environment to fulfill our mission” (p. 5).

The Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences has taken action to assist the College in achieving this mission and insuring that the Department will continue to be a pipeline for underrepresented graduate students to not only be admitted but also funded.

— Joe T. Darden
Professor of Geography
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, and AAG Fellow

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0035

Post

Meet the AAG Journals Editors – Stephen Hanna

April 30, 2018

Dr. Stephen Hanna recently joined the AAG Journals’ editorial team as the Cartography Editor for the AAG suite of journals: the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, the Professional Geographer, and GeoHumanities.

Hanna is a full professor of geography and former chair of the Department of Geography at University of Mary Washington. His cartographic editorial experience is extensive, for example, Hanna has served as the cartography editor for two edited volumes on tourism, Mapping Tourism and Social Memory and Heritage Tourism Methodologies, as well as produced dozens of maps for personal publications in both academic and public outlets. As cartography editor, Hanna “enjoys engaging with a wide variety of graphics including some innovative ways of visualizing both qualitative and quantitative information.”

Hanna’s research is focused on critical cartography and heritage tourism, and his expertise is well documented in numerous cartographic projects. Some of his most recent NSF-funded team research involved investigating how slavery is (or is not) addressed in the landscapes, narratives, and performance that constitute southern plantation museums as heritage places.

In addition to ensuring that the maps and figures printed in the AAG suite of journals meet high quality cartographic standards, Hanna envisions his role as editor to include continued mentorship of students, a key component of his current work at an undergraduate focused institution.

Hanna offers the following advice for prospective publishers in geography: “As cartography editor, I’m focused on the maps people create to accompany their articles. Please don’t settle for the default map design options found in most GIS software packages. Take a little time to consider how best to encourage your readers to spend some time examining your maps. After all, you are including them to clearly communicate your findings or to support your argument.”

Post

Free Webinar on Wildfire Management Strategies, May 16 (CEUs available)

April 25, 2018

The American Geosciences Institute’s Critical Issues Program is pleased to offer a free webinar in partnership with the American Association of Geographers, “Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions,” on May 16th at 1:00 PM EDT.

Critical Issues Webinar: “Adapting Wildfire Management to 21st Century Conditions”

The combination of frequent droughts, changing climate conditions, and longer fire seasons along with urban development expansion into wildland areas has resulted in more difficult conditions for managing wildfires. Over the last several decades, the size of wildfire burn areas has increased substantially and nine of the 10 years with the largest wildfire burn areas have occurred since 2000. Wildfires are causing more frequent and wider-ranging societal impacts, especially as residential communities continue to expand into wildland areas. Since 2000, there have been twelve wildfires in the United States that have each caused damages exceeding a billion dollars; cumulatively these twelve wildfires have caused a total of $44 billion dollars in damages. As of 2010, 44 million homes in the conterminous United States were located within the wildland-urban-interface, an area where urban development either intermingles with or is in the vicinity of large areas of dense wildland vegetation. These challenging conditions present a unique opportunity to adapt existing wildfire policy and management strategies to present and future wildfire scenarios.

This Critical Issues webinar explores recent trends in wildfires and changes in contributing factors / drivers of these hazards, and features case studies of wildfire policy and management strategies in the western and southern United States.

The webinar speakers are:

Tania Schoennagel, Ph.D., Research Scientist, University of Colorado-Boulder, INSTAAR
David Godwin, Ph.D., Southern Fire Exchange / University of Florida
Vaughan Miller, Deputy Chief, Ventura County Fire Department

AGI would like to recognize the webinar co-sponsors: American Association of Geographers, American Institute of Professional Geologists, Geological Society of America, Southern Fire Exchange, and the Ventura Land Trust.

To register for this webinar, please visit: https://crm.americangeosciences.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=112

After registering, a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar will be sent to you. AGI will post a recording of the webinar on the Critical Issues program’s website after the event. If you cannot make the webinar but would like to be informed about the recording, please register and AGI will notify you as soon as the recording is available.

CEUs:
All registrants who have paid for CEUs from the American Institute of Professional Geologists and attend the entire duration of the live webinar will receive 0.1 CEUs from AIPG.

If you have any questions about this webinar, please contact Leila Gonzales at lmg [at] americangeosciences [dot] org.

Additional upcoming AGI webinars:

May 11th, 1:00 PM EDT: The Current and Mid-21st Century Geoscience Workforce

Annual Meeting

AAG 2018 New Orleans Annual Meeting PDF Program

April 17, 2018

Annual Meeting

2018 Annual Meeting Program: New Orleans, LA

April 14, 2018

Newsletters

Newsletter – April 2018

April 4, 2018

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Making AAG Meetings More Public

By Derek Alderman

Derek Alderman's Making AAG Meetings More Public illustration of raised hands to comment/thought balloons We are just days away from the start of the AAG annual meeting. I look forward to seeing many of you in New Orleans. For most of us, participating in the conference is work. It may be a labor of love, but it represents, nonetheless, a significant investment in terms of money, energy, and time. Please know that your investment and work on behalf of the discipline and the Association at the meeting is appreciated…No doubt, conferences should be about the work of building disciplinary bonds and expertise; however, I would suggest our meetings potentially offer an even wider array of professional interactions and benefits that open us to new places, people, and skills. In this column, I discuss the value, but also the challenges, of making our AAG meetings more public-oriented.

Continue Reading.

Read past columns from the current AAG President on our President’s Column page.

ANNUAL MEETING

Emerging Workforce Scholars Program at the AAG Jobs and Careers Center

Launched at the 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston, the AAG’s Emerging Workforce Scholars program enables aspirational community college and undergraduate students from underserved New Orleans-area communities to attend the Annual Meeting and interact with geography and geoscience professionals to learn about the work they perform and the preparation required for careers in their field. This year, the AAG is proud to partner with Limitless Vistas, Inc., New Orleans Flood Protection Authority-East, Delgado Community College Workforce Development, University of New Orleans Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences, and others to make this another successful career exploration program. Plan to attend the program Keynote with Ron Spooner, chief engineer for the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board (S&WB) and Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve, and extend a warm welcome to the Emerging Scholars as they explore careers in geography and the geosciences!

See more information about the Emerging Workforce Scholars Program and events.

Go Green by Downloading the AAG Mobile App

AAG-App-Quad-baby250-209x300 Make the most of your AAG annual meeting experience by downloading the AAG mobile app, the digital version of the AAG Annual Meeting Program. With the AAG mobile app, attendees can browse sessions and abstracts, create and save a personalized schedule of events, and find up to the minute information about room changes or upcoming activities. A detailed user manual is available for download on the AAG Annual Meeting website. Don’t wait until you’re standing in the registration line, download the AAG mobile app before you get to New Orleans!

Get started with the AAG mobile app.

Cheer on your Regional Team at the 2018 World Geography Bowl

The annual round robin tournament features teams of students from each of the AAG Regional Divisions competing for both a team championship title and individually for an MVP Award. The 2018 World Geography Bowl will be held on Wednesday, April 11 starting at 7:30 PM in the Bayside A-C, Oak Alley, and Nottoway rooms on the 4th Floor of the Sheraton hotel, one floor down from the International Reception. Stop by on your way to the reception or join in to watch the championship round after the reception concludes! Prizes donated from generous sponsors are awarded to winning teams and individuals.

Learn more about the bowl.

Family Activities, Childcare, and Dining in New Orleans

Are you bringing your whole family with you to #AAG2018? The AAG has compiled a list of activities everyone will enjoy throughout the week in the Crescent City, including this walking tour of the area: New Orleans, Unmonumentalized by Brian Marks. Don’t forget, the AAG will also be offering subsidized on site childcare for ages 6 months to 12 years between the hours of 7:00 AM – 8:00 PM on Tuesday; 7:30 AM – 7:30 PM on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday; and 7:30 AM – 6:00 PM on Saturday during the conference. Want to check out the local food scene? Skeeter Dixon has gathered some dining suggestions for those looking to try out an Oyster Bar, Po Boy, or cocktail.

Find family activities and dining.

Jobs and Careers Center at the 2018 Annual Meeting

The Jobs and Careers Center will be open daily from 8:00 AM to 5:30 PM daily during #AAG2018. Stop by for over 65 sessions, workshops, and field trips related to careers and professional development. Sessions will cover a broad range of topics, from working as a geographer in the public, private, nonprofit, or academic sector, to networking strategies, to becoming a certified GIS Professional (GISP), to women in leadership roles in geography. Students, be sure to attend the Student Networking Happy Hour on Thursday, April 12 from 3:00 – 5:00 pm.

Full schedule of Jobs and Careers events.

FocusOnNewOrleansLogo

Flood Control Infrastructure and ‘Political Hydrology’ along the LA-TX Gulf Coast

Flooding still represents the costliest natural disasters in the United States on an annual basis, explains Paul F. Hudson of Leiden University. New Orleans, site of the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting, has seen its fair share of flood events, with Hurricane Katrina damages totalling $153.0 billion and Hurricane Harvey disaster-related expenses expected to rise beyond Katrina’s costs. President Obama’s Executive Order 13690 was expected to help decrease the monetary costs associated with flood occurrences, however it was recently overturned. Hudson outlines the goals of EO 13690 and compares action in the United States with recent work in the Netherlands. Annual Meeting.

Continue Reading.

Southwest Louisiana’s Creole Trail Riding Clubs

While many outsiders may be familiar with the larger Mardis Gras parades and festivals in Louisiana, fewer people know about the trail riding events of the state’s Creole riding clubs. Alexandra Giancarlo elaborates on the history of Creoles in southwest Louisiana and the cultural trail riding events that continue today, many now as fundraising opportunities for charity events or to help local community members. Look for Giancarlo’s #AAG2018 field trip exploring this topic: Zydeco, Gumbo, and Black Innovators: A Day Trip to Southwestern Louisiana Creole Country.

Read the full story.

New Orleans: Place Portraits

med_bourbon-street-street-sign-at-lafitte-s-blacksmith-shop-300x200 The Big Easy has always been cool, but the geography of cultural strongholds in the city has changed over time. Bourbon Street in the 1930s was a hotbed of nightlife with its 63 nightclub establishments, some of the first in the United States. But is Bourbon Street, with its critics’ claims of inauthenticity, still considered “cool” today? Richard Campanella of the Tulane School of Architecture and New Orleans’ unofficial “geographer laureate” maps out the historical geography of coolness in the Crescent City, ending with a call to see Bourbon Street as post-cool, a “triumph of localism.”

A Night on the Town in 1930s New Orleans
Mapping the Geography of Cool
Hating Bourbon Street

“Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast” is an ongoing series curated by the Local Arrangements Committee to provide insight on and understanding of the geographies of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the greater Gulf Coast region in preparation for the 2018 Annual Meeting.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

2018 AAG Book Awards Announced

honors and awards The AAG is pleased to announce the recipients of the three 2018 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, 2017. Formal recognition of the awardees will occur during the AAG Awards Luncheon at the Annual Meeting on Saturday, April 14, 2018.

See the Awardees.

MEMBER NEWS

Jepson named a 2018-19 AAAS Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow

Wendy Jepson, professor of Geography at Texas A&M University, was named a AAAS Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow for the class of 2018-2019. Jepson, who was recently elected an AAG National Councilor, is one of the 15 food and water security researchers chosen to represent this year’s class of fellows. The goals of the Leshner Leadership Institute are not only to address scientific issues surrounding resource availability, but also to better engage the public through science/society dialog.

Read more about Jepson.

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Geographers Cristi Delgado, GISP, Enterprise GIS & Open Data Coordinator for the City of Berkeley, California and Paul McDaniel, Assistant Professor of Geography at Kennesaw State University love the ways that a career in geography connects them with current events and their communities. In this month’s Profiles of Professional Geographers, read about their varied career paths and the diverse skills needed to pursue employment in the geographic field.

Learn more about Geography careers.

IN MEMORIAM

Alfred W. Crosby

Alfred W. Crosby died peacefully at Nantucket Cottage Hospital among friends and family on March 14, 2018. He was 87 and had lived with Parkinson’s Disease for two decades. During his career, Crosby taught at Albion College, the Ohio State University, Washington State University, and the University of Texas at Austin, retiring in 1999 as Professor Emeritus of Geography, History, and American Studies. In addition to his many accolades, Crosby was also involved in the Civil Rights movement, taught Black Studies and the history of American jazz, helped to build a medical center for the United Farm Workers’ Union, and took a leadership role in anti-war demonstrations.

Read more.

POLICY

Omnibus Appropriations Bill Includes AAG-Supported Increases for Research Agencies

Image-118 capitol building

The AAG continues to monitor federal decisions of importance to geography and our members. On March 23, President Trump signed a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that funds the federal government through the end of Fiscal Year 2018 (September 30). The legislation provides increased appropriations for many programs of importance to geographers, listed in the full AAG report of this bill. The AAG has repeatedly supported robust funding for federal science agencies, and we will continue to promote the value of research programs as Congress moves on to consideration of 2019 budgets. Unfortunately, the omnibus does not include a fix for the popular DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program.

Full report available.

RESOURCES & OPPORTUNITIES

Call for Abstracts: Special Issue of ‘Annals’ on “Smart Spaces and Places”

Annals-cvr-2017 The Annals of the American Association of Geographers seeks contributions for a Special Issue on the topic of Smart Spaces and Places. ‘Smart’ technologies have advanced rapidly throughout society (e.g. autonomous vehicles, smart energy, smart health, smart living, smart cities, smart environment, and smart society) and across geographic spaces and places. We welcome theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions 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. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by email to Jennifer Cassidento (jcassidento [at] aag [dot] org) by April 30, 2018.

Read the full call.

Early Career Faculty and Department Leadership Workshops

More information and registration available.

NCRGE Transformative Research in Geography Education Funding

NCRGE_logo The National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE) invites proposals to develop new collaborative and interdisciplinary research networks in geography education. Through this program, NCRGE aspires to strengthen geography education research processes and promote the growth of sustainable, and potentially transformative, lines of research. Along this vein, NCRGE is also hosting a series of sessions in Transformative Research in Geography Education at the 2018 AAG Annual Meeting.

Funding proposal deadline May 15, 2018.

PUBLICATIONS

‘Southeastern Geographer’ Special Issues on Geographies of Louisiana and Black Geographies

southeast_geographer In recognition of the location of AAG’s 2018 Annual Meeting in New Orleans and Black Geographies as one of the three meeting themes, Southeastern Geographer offers free access to digital issues on Geographies of Louisiana and Black Geographies. Since its founding in 1962, Southeastern Geographer has often published research on issues before they were the “hot-topics” of today, including racial segregation evident in residential neighborhoods, electoral geographies, Confederate monuments, and long-term weather patterns with implications for climate change. Papers selected from across several decades demonstrate some of the breadth of such work. The digital issues will be available with open access until May 31, 2018. After that, they will be accessible through Project MUSE’s standard subscription.

Browse Geographies of Louisiana or Black Geographies.

May 2018 Issue of the ‘Professional Geographer’ Now Available

PG cover The Professional Geographer, Volume 70, Issue 2, has been published. Of note to geographers interested in the Public Engagement theme for #AAG2018, the focus section in this issue is Out in the World: Geography’s Complex Relationship with Civic Engagement. The issue also includes short articles in academic or applied geography, emphasizing empirical studies and methodologies.

See the newest issue.

New Books in Geography — February 2018 Available

New Books in Geography illustration of stack of books

Each month the AAG publishes a list of newly-published books in geography and related fields. Books compiled from the month of February include titles by David Harvey and topics ranging from the 2016 election to GIS and drones to poverty and place.

Browse the whole list of new books.

Read the March 2018 Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’

Annals-cvr-2017

Every year since 2009 our flagship journal, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, has published a special issue that highlights geographic research around a significant global theme. The tenth special issue of the Annals, published in March 2018, brings together 27 articles on the topic of Social Justice and the City, edited by Nik Heynen.

Full article listing available.

Winter 2018 Issue of ‘The AAG Review of Books’ Now Available

Volume 6, Issue 1 of The AAG Review of Books has now been published online. In this first issue of 2018 be sure to check out the discussions of Concrete Revolution: Large Dams, Cold War Geopolitics, and the US Bureau of Reclamation, Degraded Work: The Struggle at the Bottom of the Labor Market, and Cities in Global Capitalism.

Read the reviews.

FEATURED ARTICLES

Stop Teaching GIS

By David DiBiase

Teach how to learn GIS instead. …
… Since the late 1990s, over 10,000 students have taken [Nature of Geographic Information, part of Penn State’s online GIS programs], and most have expressed satisfaction with their experiences. Penn State colleagues and students helped me update the course incrementally. But the geospatial field has changed fundamentally since the late 1990s, and the Penn State Online program, which the course was designed to introduce, has evolved and expanded along with it. Equally important, our understanding of how people learn (and, in particular, how they learn online) has advanced considerably. Nearly 20 years on, Nature of Geographic Information was overdue for a complete makeover.

Continue reading.

Featured Articles is a special section of the AAG Newsletter where AAG sponsors highlight recent programs and activities of significance to geographers and members of the AAG. To sponsor the AAG and submit an article, please contact Oscar Larson olarson [at] aag [dot] org.

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Stop Teaching GIS

April 2, 2018

Teach how to learn GIS instead.

That was a guiding principle as I recently redesigned the gateway course to the Penn State Online certificate and master’s degree programs in GIS.

I began developing Nature of Geographic Information in 1998, at the outset of the Penn State Online program. I designed the course to serve adult students who sought to start or advance careers using GIS. The online course consisted of an open-access textbook and associated courseware for registered students. The courseware included ungraded and graded quizzes meant to ensure students’ engagement with the text, as well as discussion forums and prescribed projects that required students to practice working with and writing about key concepts and technologies.

Through the years, over 10,000 students have taken the course, and most have expressed satisfaction with their experiences. Penn State colleagues and students helped me update the course incrementally. But the geospatial field has changed fundamentally since the late 1990s, and the Penn State Online program, which the course was designed to introduce, has evolved and expanded along with it. Equally important, our understanding of how people learn (and, in particular, how they learn online) has advanced considerably. Nearly 20 years on, Nature of Geographic Information was overdue for a complete makeover.

Although I began working with Esri full-time in 2011, I continued to lead online classes and workshops part-time for Penn State. I was thrilled and a bit overawed when program director Anthony Robinson invited me to create and lead a new version of the course. I accepted the challenge in the summer of 2016 and worked on the revision for over a year. The result, now known as Making Maps that Matter with GIS, differs from its predecessor in scope, objectives, content, and user experience.

Regarding content, the main difference is that I stopped assigning a textbook (though several texts are recommended). It seems to me that today’s next generation GIS text is the World Wide Web itself. The user experience in the new course is markedly different as well—for instructors as well as students. The syllabus states, “Students are expected to investigate assigned topics independently and to share findings within study groups to collaboratively construct understandings of these topics.” The course introduction goes on to state, “The best employers in this field are looking for GIS pros who know how to discover, evaluate, and use information needed for the task at hand. This course is designed to help you strengthen those skills. The course establishes educational objectives but does not spoon-feed the information needed to achieve them. We expect you to find and discuss the required information yourself, using the web, libraries, and your own personal experience.” Instructors spend considerably more time evaluating student discussion posts and web mapping projects using rubrics like the one illustrated here, and proportionately less time updating exercise instructions and other course content.

Rubric Used to Score Students’ Contributions to Discussions in Penn State’s GEOG 482: Making Maps that Matter with GIS

The notion that people learn best when they actively construct knowledge in relation to what they already know is not a new idea, of course. Nor am I alone in believing that students—particularly adult students—should be challenged to take more responsibility for their own learning. For example, Karen Kemp, professor of practice at the University of Southern California and coeditor of the original National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) Core Curriculum in GIS, says, “My goal in teaching now in our field is simply to teach students how to learn.” Don Boyes of the University of Toronto reports, “Where it makes sense, I am encouraging students to learn how to find their own data. . . . I provide some guidance about where to look for data and how to evaluate it, but I want them to be in charge of their own work as much as possible.” At Minnesota State University Moorhead, David Kramar says, “[I] generally begin the semester with some cookbook/step-by-step exercises that are intended to get the students familiar with the software interface and basic functionality. However, my ‘true’ labs require them to think critically, use the help and search functionality, and (frankly) figure it out for themselves (with my guidance and assistance as needed).” And in their 2017 International Journal of Geographical Information Science article “Critical GIS Pedagogies beyond ‘Week 10: Ethics,” Sarah Elwood of the University of Washington and Matthew Wilson at the University of Kentucky state that “our approach to skill building now involves students in learning new interfaces or platforms through individual and collaborative exploration without detailed step-by-step instructions, but with instructions for how to identify and productively engage online user forums, help files, etc.”

There are many ways to get students more actively involved in learning. The right strategy depends on your educational objectives, your students’ ages and experience, and your instructional context. For instance, Robert Rose, at the College of William and Mary, directs a support unit that offers GIS classes to students in geology, environmental studies, government, and other undergraduate programs. They’ve adopted a “laddered approach” to GIS instruction that begins with scripted GIS activities, followed by add-on exercises with less detailed guidance, culminating in a final project in which students create “habitat suitability models for mythical beasts” with no step-by-step instructions. At San Diego Mesa College, Michele Kinzel says that she uses “backwards design and constructivist approaches. I also reach out to multiple learning styles and combine individual hands-on GIS lessons with small group work and other types of exploration.”

Boris Mericskay, at Université Rennes2, developed an “inverted approach” in which he “poses a problem to students and leaves it to them to find the right tools and how to combine them.”

“At the beginning, the students are a little lost,” Mericskay admits, “but eventually they figure out how to apply GIS to solve the problem I posed.” Like Don Boyes and others, Bob Kolvoord of James Madison University has taken a flipped classroom approach, in which “students have various work they need to do to prepare for class, and then class time is spent working on largely open-ended exercises to bolster their spatial thinking and GIS skills.”

Some strategies involve more elaborate educational technology than others: geographer Ashley Ward and GIS librarian Amanda Henley, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, challenge small groups of students to select 8–10 socioeconomic variables from the Atlas of Human Development in Brazil; map the variables using ArcGIS Online; and then, prompted by patterns they discover in the maps, embark on self-guided explorations of on-ground landscapes using Google Street View in a Liquid Galaxy immersive virtual reality display.

Don Boyes created a YouTube channel to share self-produced video demonstrations that support his flipped classroom approach.

Requiring students to take greater responsibility for their learning isn’t easy, and it’s not for everyone. Vince DiNoto of Jefferson Community and Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky, says that while he’s a “firm believer in less lecturing and more personal assistance,” he finds that “students directly out of high school really struggle with open-ended case studies. They email me constantly, imploring me to tell them what I want.” Aaron Addison, of Washington University in St. Louis, reports, “I’ve tried the ‘guide on the side’ rather than ‘sage on the stage’ approach at the graduate student level and, to a lesser extent, at the undergraduate level. My experience (unfortunately) is that it may work on a 1:1 basis but does not appear to result in successful outcomes in a classroom setting with 15–20 students.” Bob Kolvoord relates that “on the whole, the flipped classroom approach works well, but it can be a challenge for students who aren’t motivated or that have poor task/time management skills.”

What about the students in my new course? A formal evaluation of student outcomes and preferences is under way, but anecdotal data is the best I have to share at this point. I found feedback from one student—an accomplished young woman who is new to GIS but previously earned a PhD in marine geochemistry—particularly enlightening. Early in the first offering of the course, she wrote me privately to express frustration. She wrote, “I (and probably most students) signed up to learn from an expert (and you are, according to your credentials, an expert!). But in the discussion forums, we’re learning from our peers, and most of us are hardly experts.” She felt cheated. Rather than wait to submit an anonymous evaluation at the end of the course, she asked permission to create a forum in which students could share critiques and suggestions about the course. Later in the course, I took her advice and invited all 53 students to post in a course commentary discussion. By this time, students had about six weeks of experience with the new course format. On reflection, the same student wrote this:

“After my first exchange with David a few weeks back about my frustrations with this class . . . I dug up an interesting article in Harvard Magazine¹ about how interactive learning is much more successful than traditional (lecture) teaching and learning methods, although it meets with a lot of resistance. I was skeptical then, but the more time passes, the more I find this active learning class engaging; the more I enjoy what I’m learning; and the more I agree that, overall, this pedagogical method has been a success with me.”

Other students complained that researching unfamiliar topics independently and reading their peers’ many posts were too-time consuming. Fellow instructor Adrienne Goldsberry and I streamlined that aspect of the course for the second offering, and fewer complaints about excessive workloads followed. However, it remains true that students who are unfamiliar with the subject matter, or who prefer their accustomed roles as consumers of instructor-produced content, are uncomfortable with the level of responsibility that the course demands.

At this point, it should be clear that the call to action in the title of this short article is purposely provocative. Naturally, every college and university educator wants to help students learn to discover, evaluate, apply, and share knowledge independently and in groups. Still, I believe it’s healthy for GIS educators to ask ourselves frankly whether we give our students enough responsibility for their own learning. The question and answer have been transformative for me.

– David DiBiase

¹Lambert, Craig (2012). Twilight of the Lecture. Harvard Magazine https://harvardmagazine.com/2012/03/twilight-of-the-lecture