PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

The Costs (and Benefits?) of Constant Counting

By Mona Domosh

I’m a 24; well, only on Google scholar (the more inclusive research “platform”). Otherwise, on Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science, I’m a 12. For those fluent in the language of academic metrics you will know immediately what I am referring to: my h-index, a number that is calculated based on the subset of my publications such that h publications have been cited h times. In other words, according to Google scholar, I have 24 publications that have been cited 24 times. The h-index, therefore, provides a shorthand metric of academic “success,” a way of combining an assessment of productivity and purported impact all in one number. Continue Reading

Recent columns from the President

• Curating the AAG
• Keeping Track of Us and Keeping Us on Track
• The Not-So-Silent Majority
• More from the President

Get the Most From Your AAG Annual Meeting Experience with the Mobile App

The AAG mobile app will help you balance your schedule of preferred sessions, events and meetings with friends and colleagues, while keeping you informed with daily Geograms and social media updates. Networking features offer colleagues tools to share schedules and exchange contact information.

The AAG mobile app also integrates with social media networks on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And, it will help you collect and share important notes and information from sessions and exhibitors.

Learn More.

ANNUAL MEETING

Illinois Secretary of Education to Speak at Annual Meeting

Beth Purvis, Secretary of Education of the State of Illinois, will be a featured speaker during an AAG Annual Meeting panel on K-12 policy. The session will be held on Friday, April 24, from 8:00 – 9:40 a.m. and speakers representing various U.S. Senate and House offices have also been invited. The panel will focus primarily on the possibility of Congressional reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA; currently known as No Child Left Behind) in 2015 and related opportunities for geography. Learn More.

Family Activities in Chicago

Learn, explore, and enjoy Chicago with the family

By Euan Hague

Within a few minutes walk of the Hyatt, there are a number of museums and things to do with children. The best place to start your visit to Chicago is downtown at the Cultural Center. Not only does the Center offer free art exhibitions and musical performances, often at lunch times or early evenings, it is also the site of Chicago’s main tourism information office. The Cultural Center has spectacular interior decoration, including a Tiffany Glass dome roof. There are numerous attractions in Chicago and the CityPass offers a combined multi-ticket discount to many of the most popular museums and experiences. Continue Reading.

FOCUS ON CHICAGO

Chicago’s North Burling Street, 2005-2015: From Public Housing to Mega-mansions

By Euan Hague

On Wednesday 30 March 2011, demolition began at 1230 North Burling Street, the last remaining high-rise block of public housing of the Cabrini-Green complex that, at its peak, had been home to over 15,000 people. The 23 high rise public housing blocks of Cabrini-Green, built between 1958 and 1962 and ranging from seven to nineteen floors in height, came to symbolize all that was bad about public housing, not just in Chicago but in the United States more generally. Cabrini-Green, like all of Chicago’s public housing, was conceived, designed, constructed and administered by the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). In 1969 the CHA was found by the Supreme Court to have acted unconstitutionally in using race to determine where to build, and how to allocate apartments in, the city’s public housing projects. Continue Reading.

Surveillance and Policing in Chicago…and its Discontents

By Brendan McQuade

In the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing, Chicago received national attention for its comprehensive network of surveillance cameras. One of the first U.S. cities to make extensive use of surveillance cameras, beginning in June 2003, the Chicago Police had launched “Operation Disruption,” a multi-phased plan to install “blue-light” Police Observation Device cameras (PODs) in high crime areas. Able to rotate 360 degree and zoom to a fine level of detail, bullet proof, operable in any weather condition, these cameras record continuously and switch into night vision mode after dark. They are used to monitor street crimes and direct police deployment. Continue Reading.

[Focus on Chicago is an on-going series curated by the Local Arrangements Committee to provide insight on and understanding of the geographies of Chicago]

NEWS

Give Back By Becoming a GeoMentor

AAG Announces ConnectED GeoMentors Program

Esri and the Association of American Geographers (AAG) are working together to develop a nationwide network of GeoMentors to support the U.S. Department of Education’s ConnectED Program, for which Esri has agreed to donate free GIS software to all K–12 schools in the U.S. GeoMentors will help schools and teachers introduce GIS and associated geographic concepts into classrooms across the country. Learn More.

2015 Honorary Geographer: Peter Bol

The Association of American Geographers has named Peter Bol as its 2015 Honorary Geographer. Bol is the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning and the Charles H. Carswell Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. In making its selection, the AAG recognized Bol’s leadership role and engagement with the AAG to build university-wide support for geospatial analysis in teaching and research at Harvard University, and the resulting establishment of the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, of which he was its first and extraordinarily successful director. Learn More.

AAG Selects Paul Knox for AAG Globe Book Award

The AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography will be given for a book written or co-authored by a geographer that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world. This distinction for 2015 is presented to Paul Knox (editor) for the book, Atlas of Cities, published by Princeton University Press. Learn More.

AAG Members Elect New Councillors and Committee Members

A list of newly elected officers and committee members is available online. Learn more.

MEMBER & DEPARTMENT NEWS

USGS Scientist Roger Sayre Honored for Public Service with Esri Award

U.S. Geological Survey scientist Dr. Roger Sayre was honored with the annual Making A Difference Award at the Esri Federal Users Conference in Washington, DC, on February 9, 2015. The award recognized Sayre’s vision and leadership in recent collaboration between the USGS and Esri to produce a new map of global ecosystems at an unprecedented level of detail. Read More.

AAG Member David López-Carr Named AAAS Fellow for 2014

AAG member and UC Santa Barbara Geography Professor David López-Carr has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for 2014. He is being recognized for advancing the scientific understanding of the couple process of human population dynamics and environmental change. Dr. López-Carr’s work focuses on population dynamics, particularly the links between migration and fertility and terrestrial and marine resource use in Latin America and between population and health vulnerabilities to climate change in America. He integrates diverse data sources from the United Nations and World Bank, working with anything from socioeconomic and demographic data to remotely sensed imagery with field-based surveys. Read More.

IN MEMORIAM

Chiao-Min Hsieh
James W. Merchant
Richard R. Randall
Stephen E. White

POLICY UPDATES

White House Announces New STEM Education Funds

The following news piece from AAAS details an Obama Administration STEM initiative. The AAG has been working hard to ensure that federal programs focused on STEM science and education opportunities are open to geographers and GIScientists.

During the White House Science Fair on March 23, President Obama announced a commitment to invest over $240 million to encourage students in the STEM fields, as part of his “Educate to Innovate” campaign. New funding will include: $150 million fund to help early-career scientists stay on track; $90 million to the “Let Everyone Dream” campaign, which aims to increase STEM opportunities for underrepresented youth; and $25 million for a competition within the Department of Energy to inspire students to create media about science and literacy. Read More.

Public Access to NSF-Funded Research

On March 18, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced its plan to promote public access to the results of NSF-sponsored research. While the agency is not building its own public archive, NSF states that accepted manuscripts or versions of record must be publicly available in an approved repository within 12 months of publication. Availability signifies that any user can download, read, and analyze the data free of charge. This will apply to “new awards resulting from proposals submitted, or due, on or after the effective date of the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that will be issued in January 2016.” Read More.

PUBLICATIONS

Call for Papers: GeoHumanities

GeoHumanities is a new journal being launched by the Association of American Geographers and will be published by Taylor and Francis. Its editors are Tim Cresswell (Northeastern University, Boston) and Deborah Dixon (University of Glasgow). GeoHumanities publishes original peer-reviewed articles that span conceptual and methodological debates in geography and the humanities; critical reflections on analog and digital artistic productions; and new scholarly interactions occurring at the intersections of geography and multiple humanities disciplines. Read More.

MORE HEADLINES

Op-Ed: A Graduate Student Perspective on Geography

By Courtney Reents

I started my first semester as a geography graduate student with a geographic background comprised only of GIS and remote sensing, exclusively covering geospatial technology and its applications with little consideration for the discipline that nurtured its growth. Prior to taking this course on contemporary geographic thought, I would have dismissed references to various paradigms and worldviews, to determinism and mechanistic materialism and the quantitative revolution, as the purview of philosophy and meta-theory, relics of the irrelevant discourses of another century. I was operating under the mistaken assumption that the way things are is the way they’ve always been, and that no particular sequence of historical events was required to forge the discipline of Geography as it exists today. Read More.

EVENTS CALENDER

• 2015 AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 21-25
• Venice International Conference on Waterscapes and Historic Canals as a Cultural Heritage, Venice, Italy, May 14-15
• GeoComputation 2015, Dallas, TX, May 20-23
• 21st Annual California GIS Conference, Sacramento, CA, June 1-3
• IMAGIN 2015 Annual Conference, Traverse City, MI, June 7-9
• Annual Conference of the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 2015, Malta, June 15-18

Submit News to the AAG Newsletter. To share your news, submit announcements to newsletter [at] aag [dot] org.

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

Curating the AAG

By Mona Domosh

Even more accurate than the first daffodil as a mark of spring’s approach is the onset of my recurring anxiety dream. It goes like this: I’m walking quickly through endless corridors, becoming more and more filled with dread as I just can’t seem to find the room in which I am about to present a paper. It is my “AAG” nightmare. About 15 years ago or so it replaced my “exam” nightmare, the one in which I’m in a room about to take an exam and realize that I know nothing about the subject. I’ve been told these types of anxiety dreams are common and “normal” and, at least for me, as our annual conference approaches, they are always tempered by the anticipation of connecting with old friends and the excitement of encountering new ideas. And Chicago 2015 promises to fulfill those expectations in spades. Continue Reading

Recent columns from the President

• Keeping Track of Us and Keeping Us on Track
• The Not-So-Silent Majority
• Caregiving and Conference-Going
• More from the President

Theme and Events Planned Around the Launch of AAG’s New ‘GeoHumanities’ Journal

The AAG has organized a panel session at its annual meeting to launch its new journal, GeoHumanities, which will be published by Routledge. GeoHumanities will draw on and further explore the multifaceted scholarly conversations between geography and the humanities that have been evolving over the past decade, and it will serve as a home for critical and creative interdisciplinary works. The session begins at 1:20 p.m. on April 23, 2015, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Panelists will include the journal’s editors, who will discuss their visions for the journal. A reception hosted by Routledge will follow. Learn More.

ANNUAL MEETING

AAG Announces Centennial Celebration for Professors’ Association (AAUP)

The AAG is pleased to announce a special session at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting in celebration of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Centennial.

Hans-Joerg Tiede, Professor of Computer Science at Illinois Wesleyan University, will address the principles of academic freedom: what academic freedom is, why it matters, and how it is safeguarded. The presentation will include a discussion of relevant AAUP policies for protecting academic freedom. Learn More.

FOCUS ON CHICAGO

Pilsen – The Gentrification Frontier

By Euan Hague

On the night of January 22-23, 2015, the windows of Bow Truss Coffee at 1641 West 18th Street on Chicago’s Lower West Side were covered with handwritten posters declaring “Wake up and smell the gentrification … ¿Sabes dondes estas? ¡La raza vive aqui! … Sugar with your gentrification?” An artisanal coffee roaster that has two other locations in the city, Bow Truss had opened on 18th Street a few months previously in summer 2014. To many residents of this Pilsen neighborhood, the arrival of Bow Truss and its gourmet coffee, priced at more than double that sold at Dunkin Donuts on the same block, symbolized what had long been feared: gentrification was fundamentally changing their community, remaking it into a place where they could no longer afford to live. Continue Reading.

What’s in a Nickname? In the case of Chiraq, a Whole Lot

By Derek Alderman and Janna Caspersen

Chicago goes by many nicknames—from the widely recognized “Windy City” and “Second City” to more obscure and seemingly puzzling associations, such as “Paris on the Prairie” and “The Smelly Onion.” Nicknames are important branding strategies used by civic boosters, and Chicago’s namesakes are frequently employed to market the city and its surrounding region as “The Jewel of the Midwest” and “Heart of America.” At the same time, urban monikers can arise from the wider public and they have sometimes been used to draw attention to negative qualities of Chicago life. With the help of a NWS meteorologist and social media, the city was rechristened “Chi-beria” during the record-breaking cold weather of 2013-14. The Wall Street Journal identified Chicago as “Beirut by the Lake” when reporting on the intense political infighting on the city council in the early- and mid-1980s. Continue Reading.

[Focus on Chicago is an on-going series curated by the Local Arrangements Committee to provide insight on and understanding of the geographies of Chicago]

About Featured Themes

Each year, the AAG identifies a few themes for its Annual Meeting to help focus discussion and provide a fresh and engaging structure to the conference program. Current themes include:

• Radical Intra-Disciplinarity
• Symposium on International Geospatial Health Research
• Symposium on Physical Geography: Environmental Reconstruction — A Nexus of Biogeography, Climatology and Geomorphology
• Geography and Online Education
• GeoHumanities
• Chicago and the Great Lakes Region

Learn More.

NEWS

AAG Receives Grant for New Research with Geographic Alliances

The National Geographic Society’s Education Foundation has awarded the AAG a grant to involve several Geographic Alliances in the work of the National Center for Research in Geography Education, a research consortium led by the AAG and Texas State University.

Last month, the Coordinators of the Alabama, California, Iowa, and Kansas Geographic Alliances met over two days with the NCRGE Co-Directors, Michael Solem and Richard Boehm, and several researchers associated with two current NCRGE research initiatives funded by the National Science Foundation: GeoProgressions, a capacity-buidling project for learning progressions research, and GeoSTEM (GeoSpatial Teaching Enrichment Modules), a pilot project that is supporting the Esri-ConnectED initiative by creating ArcGIS Online-based resources, materials and tools for STEM teacher education programs. Read More.

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

Charles Redd Center for Western Studies Offers Multiple Awards for 2015

The Charles Redd Center for Western Studies has announced multiple awards for 2015 that are available for scholars conducting research related to Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, or/and Wyoming. Follow the link to https://reddcenter.byu.edu/Pages/Apply-for-an-Award.aspx for further information and application instructions. Applications for 2015 are due by 11:59 p.m. MST on March 15. Learn More.

Call For Submissions: 2015 IPSG Graduate Student Paper Competition

The Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group (IPSG) invites submissions for its annual Graduate Student Paper Competition, in conjunction with the 2015 AAG general meeting. We invite graduate student papers addressing indigenous critical cartography, geographic research, education, methodologies, and/or theory. Learn More.

MEMBER & DEPARTMENT NEWS

Dale Quattrochi Receives Helmut Landsberg Award for Research in Urban Heat Island Effect

Dale A. Quattrochi, a geographer and senior research scientist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, is the recipient of The Helmut Landsberg Award given by the American Meteorological Society (AMS) at the society’s annual meeting held in Phoenix, AZ, on January 4-8, 2015. Read More.

Susan Hanson to Serve on National Academy of Sciences Governing Council

Susan Hanson, Distinguished University Professor Emerita in the School of Geography at Clark University, has been elected by the members of the National Academy of Sciences to serve a three-year term on its governing council. Hanson currently serves as Chair of the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Subcommittee for National Research Council Oversight (NRC) and is a member of the TRB Executive Committee. Read More.

Michael Webb Publishes Report on U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Moving to Work Demonstration

AAG member Michael Webb has recently published a report on the Moving to Work demonstration, a program introduced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1996 that allows high-performing housing authorities the flexibility to respond to local housing needs. This report offers comments meant to guide current debates about the extension of the Moving to Work agreements and providing a basis for future evaluations. Read More.

IN MEMORIAM

Graeme Hugo
C. Gregory Knight
Ruth Shirey
Joseph Sonnenfeld

POLICY UPDATES

COSSA Reviews President’s Budget Request for Social and Behavioral Science

COSSA announced last week that President Obama released his fiscal year (FY) 2016 budget request to Congress on February 2, officially kicking off the FY 2016 appropriations process. In turn, COSSA has released its analysis of the President’s budget request. The 62-page report provides funding details for all federal departments, agencies, and programs important to social and behavioral science research. It outlines the President’s funding proposals as they compare to current (FY 2015) levels. In addition, the document serves as a helpful catalog of social science programs and initiatives across the federal government. Read More.

Courtesy COSSA Washington Update

PUBLICATIONS

New Books Received — February 2015

The AAG Review of Books office has released the list of the books received during the month of February.  Read More.

People, Place, and Region Section Editor Sought for ‘Annals of the AAG’

The Association of American Geographers seeks applications and nominations for the People, Place, and Region section editor for the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. The new section editor will be appointed for a four-year editorial term that will commence on January 1, 2016. The appointment will be made by fall 2015. Read More.

Nature and Society Section Editor Sought for ‘Annals of the AAG’

The Association of American Geographers seeks applications and nominations for the Nature and Society section editor for the Annals of the Association of American Geographers. The new section editor will be appointed for a four-year editorial term that will commence on January 1, 2016. The appointment will be made by fall 2015. Read More.

New AAG Position Opening: Editorial Associate

The Association of American Geographers (AAG) has an immediate opening for the position of Editorial Associate, to be located at the AAG’s central office in Washington, DC. In collaboration with the Managing Editor and the Production Editor, the Editorial Associate will contribute to the day-to-day operations of the AAG’s four scholarly journals: Annals of the Association of American Geographers, The Professional Geographer, The AAG Review of Books, and GeoHumanities. Read More.

JOBS & CAREERS

Jobs and Careers Center at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting

In recent years, careers and professional development activities at the AAG’s Annual Meeting have been expanding and broadening. Thanks in part to positive feedback and attendance, the 2015 Annual Meeting in Chicago will continue to feature the Jobs and Careers Center, a centralized location where conference attendees can attend panel discussions, participate in workshops, receive free career mentoring, view job postings, network with other geographers, and browse a variety of information and educational materials.

This year’s track of careers sessions will kick off on Tuesday, April 21 with a panel discussion for newcomers to the conference and a workshop on teaching with the book Practicing Geography: Careers for Enhancing Society and the Environment. Read More.

MORE HEADLINES

Op-Ed: Preemption and Scalar Politics, from Living Wages to Hydraulic Fracturing

By Christian Brannstrom and Matthew Fry

If municipal political geographies seem boring, think again. In Texas, where we study municipal oil and gas drilling ordinances with support from the National Science Foundation (and live in cities with active drilling), fundamental questions are being raised: What are state governments for? What are municipalities for? How do opposing sides frame their struggles to determine the locus of regulation and control over activities like oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking)? Read More.

GISCI Announces Changes to the GISP Certification Process

The GIS Certification Institute (GISCI) is changing the GIS Professional (GISP) certification process following decisions made during its first 2015 meeting. These changes affect both current and future GISP certification holders and were made in order to increase the value, recognition and long term viability of the GISP certification and the GISCI organization. Changes are schedule to go into effect on July 1, 2015. Read More.

EVENTS CALENDER

• 2015 AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, April 21-25
• Venice International Conference on Waterscapes and Historic Canals as a Cultural Heritage, Venice, Italy, May 14-15
• GeoComputation 2015, Dallas, TX, May 20-23
• 21st Annual California GIS Conference, Sacramento, CA, June 1-3
• IMAGIN 2015 Annual Conference, Traverse City, MI, June 7-9
• Annual Conference of the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 2015, Malta, June 15-18

Submit News to the AAG Newsletter. To share your news, submit announcements to newsletter [at] aag [dot] org.