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AAG Highlights Advancing Discipline Diversity During Geography Awareness Week at Michigan State University

Photo 1 Yoruba Richen, filmmaker and director, speaks during the AAG ceremony at MSU during Geography Awareness Week in 2019. (Photo credit: Jacqueline Hawthorne)

As part of its annual celebration of Geography Awareness Week, the Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU), featured a screening of The Smithsonian Channel’s The Green Book: A Guide to Freedom followed by an engaging Q & A session with filmmaker and director Yoruba Richen. Richen’s film takes an in-depth look into the real story of Victor H. Green’s The Negro Motorist Green Book, during the Jim Crow era and beyond.

A $10,000 check was presented to the department on behalf of the American Association of Geographers (AAG) during the event held at the Clifton & Dolores Wharton Center for Performing Arts on the campus of MSU on November 14, 2019. This award denoted the first installment of a $30,000 gift in support of the Advancing Geography Through Diversity Program (AGTDP) initiative to support underrepresented graduate students who are African-American, Latinx, and Native American.

Photo 2 Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb speaks during the AAG ceremony at MSU during Geography Awareness Week in 2019. Johnson-Webb is a Professor of Geography at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) and serves as the elected secretary to the executive committee of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). Before earning her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Johnson-Webb, a human geographer specializing in health and medical geography, earned a BA and an MA in Geography from MSU. (Photo credit: Jacqueline Hawthorne)

The Advancing Geography Through Diversity Program (AGTDP) at MSU is a nationally recognized initiative facilitating diversity within the discipline of Geography. The program’s goal is to recruit and support outstanding graduate students from key underrepresented groups, who are seeking to obtain either a Master’s or Doctorate in Geography. Students admitted to the MSU Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences via AGTDP receive full funding.

Following a few brief remarks by Richen, Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb, Associate Professor of Geography at Bowling Green State University, and elected secretary to the executive committee of the AAG, presented the check in support of the professional development of underrepresented graduate students within the department. Before earning her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Johnson-Webb, a human geographer specializing in health and medical geography, earned a BA and an MA in Geography from MSU. “Shortly before the presentation, I was told that I was the first African-American (U.S.-born) to earn a Master’s degree (1994) in Geography at MSU. This seemed hard to believe,” said Johnson-Webb. “Geography is a very diverse discipline in terms of ethnicity and nationality. However, scholars of African American, Hispanic American, and American Indian heritage are grossly underrepresented.”

Dr. Johnson-Webb commended the department for making a concerted effort to recruit and fund underrepresented scholars in geography. She also praised MSU’s Dr. Joe Darden, a professor of Geography for nearly 50 years and recipient of the 2019 AAG Lifetime Achievement Award, for his tireless efforts both in the department and in the discipline to increase diversity. Darden has served as a mentor to countless students and is also the recipient of MSU’s Distinguished Faculty Award (1984), the Ethnic Geography Specialty Group’s Distinguished Scholar Award (2006), the AAG Enhancing Diversity Award (2006), and the Distinguished Ethnic Geography Career Award (2015), and was elected to the inaugural cohort of AAG Fellows in 2018.

Photo 3 Rachel Croson, Former Dean of the College of Social Science, accepts a check presented by Dr. Karen Webb-Johnson on behalf of AAG. From left to right: Dr. Karen Johnson-Webb, Professor of Geography at BGSU and AAG Secretary; Rachel Croson, former Dean of the College of Social Science, Dr. Joe T Darden, Professor of Geography; and Dr. Dee Jordan, recent Ph.D. graduate and second African-American woman to receive a doctorate from the Department of Geography. (Photo Courtesy of Dee Jordan)

“I am honored to be a member of this pioneering initiative. AGTDP has facilitated the building of a lifelong network of support,” said Cordelia Martin, a health geographer pursuing her Ph.D. in MSU’s Global Urban Studies Program (GUSP). “I am inspired by the talent and passion of my fellow members, and I know they will go forward and be forces of progressive change within their local and global communities.”

Angie Sanchez, a Ph.D. student, says she has benefitted from AGTDP in several ways. “First off, the camaraderie build with other AGTDP scholars has been lifesaving during my first year as a Ph.D. student,” she said. “We have built a system of folks that understand the issues that go on in our lives as minorities, as minority scholars, and as minorities in a predominantly non-diverse field. We support each other through things as simple as having a social hour together, to having write-ins and study groups for classes we end up taking together.” Sanchez also appreciates the access AGTDP has provided to guest speakers such as Dr. Beronda Montgomery. “She has helped guide me through her words and is a support and source of encouragement.”

Funding through AGTDP helps lessen the financial stressors many graduate students face allowing them to focus on their studies. “Because of the financial assistance and support from the AAG, I was able to complete my first year as a doctoral student with a 4.0 and make numerous academic and professional connections,” said Kionna Henderson, pursuing a Ph.D. in Geography after receiving a Master of Public Health degree.

Photo 5 (From left to right) Rachel Croson, former Dean of the College of Social Science, Dr. Joe T Darden, Professor of Geography; and Dr. Dee Jordan, recent Ph.D. graduate and second African-American woman to receive a doctorate from the Department of Geography. (Photo credit: Jacqueline Hawthorne)

MSU is grateful for the ongoing support of AAG and is committed to AGTDP and to expanding the impact of scholars of African American, Hispanic American, and American Indian heritage in the discipline of Geography. For additional information about AGTDP, please visit geo.msu.edu.

 

 

 

 

 

 

diversity, Joe T. Darden, Michigan State University
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President's Column

An Interview with AAG Executive Director Gary Langham (Part 2)

Last month I shared Part 1 of an interview I conducted with AAG’s Executive Director Gary Langham to help the membership learn a bit about his perspectives, goals, and personal history that led him to AAG.

We met on August 19, close to the one-year anniversary of his first week in this role—half of which has been during the coronavirus pandemic. The interview lasted for over an hour, generating far too much to publish as a single column. This is the second part, which has been edited for content and clarity.

AMY: What drew you to AAG?

GARY: For the last nine years, I had worked for an environmental and conservation non-profit, the National Audubon Society, where I was Vice President and Chief Scientist. I managed a similar-sized budget and almost twice as many staff. Staff was spread all over the country and worked in different research programs, ranging from marine conservation to climate change research. Many people like birds, but they’re also great for setting conservation priorities and monitoring environmental health. You can use science to show policymakers the connection between bird populations and protected areas, like marine reserves. If the fish-eating birds like puffins aren’t doing well, then the fish stocks aren’t either.

It was a great job with great staff, so the truth is I wasn’t looking for a new position. The AAG’s headhunters called, and they asked me who I thought would be right for the job. So, I gave them some recommendations, and then they said, how come you’re not applying for the job? And I said, what? I’m not a geographer. And they said, no, you should look at the job description again because of your experience—with management, media, fundraising, policy, and non-profits—is what they’re looking for. And I realized that as a trained ecologist, I really am a physical geographer of sorts—I should have been going to the Annual Meeting all along!

AMY: So we had some good headhunters. Excellent! Let’s just stay within the vein of AAG. This is a question that I never really thought about until I took on my current role. AAG just sort of seemed opaque to me until I stepped in as vice president. So what does the AAG Executive Director actually do?

GARY: That’s a great question. My job is to lead our fantastic staff: to help them succeed if they need it and stay out of their way when they don’t. I also oversee our budget and enter into contracts. Council approves the annual budget. It’s my job to keep revenues and expenses in line, develop and maintain partnerships, and ensure that staff is enacting the strategic plan and the long-term vision set by Council.

Those are the nuts and bolts of the job, but I also think about the value proposition for members. How can AAG be the best organization possible for all geographers? For 100 years, it was enough to hold the Annual Meeting and deliver the journals in the mail every month. AAG is at its best when it connects members to each other and to the rest of the world—public, professional, and government. We can help them make connections at any stage of their careers and provide professional services. Our members’ research and ideas are essential to shaping a just and diverse world. AAG must ensure that geographers’ interests are represented in conversations about ethics, policy debates, public perception, and higher education. Geographers are influencers. And, we need to expand our membership base.

AMY: Well, a new model, depending on how it’s structured, would do exactly that: expand and broaden the membership base. As an aside, I have to admit one of the things that I used to love so much about my AAG membership was exactly what you mentioned—getting the journal in the mail. I loved that. But, then that journal just turned into a stack of guilt because I would get them in the mail, and I‘d say, “I’m reading this cover to cover today.” But, eventually, I would put it on top of the previous one, and they all just became this stack of guilt. I still always loved getting it in the mail.

I don’t want to put words into your mouth, so correct me if I’m wrong. But, it sounds like over the past year, you have been thinking that there need to be new models, new approaches to modernize the AAG, so it can be relevant to more groups of geographers. Currently, what do you think that we’re doing well, and where is there an opportunity to grow?

GARY: We have to continue fostering the multi-generational sense of belonging to the AAG. The glue that seems to hold us together is the bonds between mentor and student stretching back in time. We represent 364 academic departments, and I want us to consider this our core to protect and maintain. At the same time, we can offer more to professional geographers and grow our base. When I was interviewing and reading everything online about AAG to understand it, I noticed significant growth in membership numbers over the last 15 years. I thought it must be GIS professionals, and I was shocked to learn that wasn’t true. Instead, it was our international expansion, another area where I think we have lots of growth potential. My biggest regret by far is that I haven’t been to an Annual Meeting yet. So many members to meet and sessions to attend. I can’t wait to do that.

AMY: Okay. Let’s pivot a bit. I’m going to give you the question that I, along with, I assume, many academic geographers get from students and parents. And I’m curious how you answer it. What do you say when someone asks you, “what do geographers actually do?”

GARY: I think of geography as the intersection of people, place, and the environment, though it doesn’t have to be all those things all the time. Truly, you can’t understand anything in this world, past, present or future, without understanding places and spaces. Part of what makes geography so compelling to me is the endless number of ways to explore place and space—you can never run out of new things to learn.

That question and answer then naturally progressed to a discussion about academia and the relevance of geography. I will bring some of the remaining discussion into future columns, though not as an interview transcript. Until we can all meet again in person, I hope that these two parts of the interview allow you to know a bit more about the person who is now running the American Association of Geographers.

—Amy Lobben
AAG President and Professor at University of Oregon
lobben [at] uoregon [dot] edu

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0079

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Amy Lobben
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Xiaohui Liu

Website: https://xiaohuiliu.com/

Education: Ph.D. in Geography (University of Southern Mississippi), M.S. in Geology (Bowling Green State University), B.S. in GIS (Shandong University of Architecture and Engineering, China)

Describe your job. What are some of the most important tasks or duties for which you are responsible?
My job as a geospatial analyst and health disparity researcher aims to identify geographical/environmental factors leading to health disparities, and novel ways to characterize and explain them. Health disparities exist as a result of multiple social, environmental, geopolitical, and economic factors, so a geographical or spatial perspective is indispensable in examining, analyzing, and addressing these disparities.

My routine tasks include proposing research questions, designing research methods, identifying datasets (both spatial and aspatial), conducting analysis, and preparing research manuscripts. My research questions are mostly developed based on identified research gaps and my curiosity about where health disparities exist, among which populations, how they change over time, as well as the potential reasons that cause these disparities. Given the complexity of these questions, integrating and analyzing data from multiple sources is always necessary. For instance, spatial data, survey data, census data, social media data, and biomarker data are often used to support my research.

What attracted you to this career path?
Geography became my favorite subject in middle school. Being the student with the most geographic knowledge in my class helped me build great confidence, which eventually led me to explore a career in geography. After choosing GIS as my undergraduate major, my determination to choose a career as a geographer was enhanced by the joy of creating knowledge from data. Ever since then, I have been consecutively involved in multiple projects funded by U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. National Science Foundation, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research to apply my geospatial knowledge and skills to analyze, model, and visualize problems resulting from the interaction of social and physical environments.

How has your education/background in geography prepared you for this position?
My training in geography has helped me to identify research topics with spatial components and provided me with the skills to conduct research independently. I have also become proficient in performing desktop geospatial analysis, building web-based applications, and developed a self-motivation to keep learning new skills. I believe that all the learning and training experiences have improved my competency in the job market.

What geographic skills and information do you use most often in your work? What general skills and information do you use most often?
Spatial thinking is the core of my geographic skills. On top of that, I am always ready to learn and adopt new approaches, i.e., spatial data science practices, which have helped me to work more efficiently. I use oral and written communication skills daily. I also appreciate teamwork and being able to learn from others.

Are there any skills or information you need for your work that you did not obtain through your academic training? If so, how/where did you obtain them?
Yes; the skills I learned at school have only provided me with a foundation, while those I learned and developed through my work have been key in helping me thrive. I actively seek information from all sorts of platforms to help me understand research trends and position my research focus, i.e., signing up for National Science Academy professional training workshops and subscribing to the latest research publication mailing lists. At the same time, I have sought out additional opportunities for learning new technical skills, including learning on Coursera, Data Camp, Data Incubator, among other platforms, to keep up with the latest geospatial science technologies and tools. I also signed up for all the workshops that were relevant to my research at AAG annual meetings when I was able to attend them.

Do you participate in hiring, screening, or training of new employees? If so, what qualities and/or skills do you look for?
Yes. Being involved in screening and training of new employees has helped me realize that a clear vision of career development and self-awareness of personal strengths and weaknesses can often make candidates stand out. A solid domain knowledge, technical proficiency, and experience are equally important qualifications.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a job like yours?
My advice for geographers who are interested in being a geospatial analyst/researcher in an interdisciplinary field is to follow your own passion and always balance your expertise and passion when making career choices. It’s likely that the first few jobs may not be ideal for many people, so being able to follow your heart when making career changes is very important. Be flexible and always be willing to learn — this is extremely important in interdisciplinary work.

What is the occupational outlook for career opportunities in your field/organization, esp. for geographers?
I’m very positive about the career opportunities for positions like geospatial analysts in government organizations like the NIH. Given the fact that a lot of social and environmental issues have spatial components, implementation of geospatial solutions could greatly help address these issues. In the era of fourth industry revolution, we also have more spatial data, and more powerful, mobile, and easy-to-use tools to identify new spatial knowledge and solve problems. With that said, we need a workforce willing to roll up their sleeves to make the world a more sustainable and harmonious place.

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Newsletters

Newsletter – September 2020

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

An Interview with AAG Executive Director Gary Langham (Part 1)

By Amy Lobben

“While the AAG membership elects some of its governance (i.e. president, vice president, Council), the temporal constant in leadership is the Executive Director (ED). Historically, his tenure spans multiple presidents and many dozens of councilors. Since COVID-19 has prevented our new ED, Gary Langham, from meeting the membership and vice versa, I decided to interview him as an introduction into learning a bit about his perspectives, goals and personal history that led him to AAG.”

Continue Reading.

ANNUAL MEETING

Present Your Work at #aagSEATTLE

The AAG is now accepting abstracts for all presentation types at the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting to be held April 7-11 in Seattle, Washington. All abstracts for both in-person and virtual presentations will be accepted. For those participating in the annual meeting virtually, registrants may opt to present their work in either a paper or a poster session and participate in virtual panels. Virtual participants may organize paper, poster, and panel sessions. In addition, in-person attendees may also choose to showcase their work in either a lightning paper or guided poster session. Deadlines vary by presentation type.

View the Call for Papers.

Volunteer as a Career Mentor at the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting 

The AAG seeks panelists, career mentors, workshop leaders and session organizers for careers and professional development activities at the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. Individuals representing a broad range of employment sectors, organizations, academic and professional backgrounds, and racial/ethnic/gender perspectives are encouraged to apply. If interested, email careers [at] aag [dot] org, specifying topic(s) and activity(s) of interest, and attach a current C.V. or resume. For best consideration, please submit your information by November 20, 2020.

Get involved with the AAG Jobs and Careers Center.

Seattle, WA to Host Hybrid 2021 AAG Annual Meeting

Dusk view of the skyline, Seattle, Washington

Registration is now open for the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting to be held April 7-11 in Seattle, Washington. The Early Bird registration rates offer the lowest rates across all levels of meeting participation. But hurry, Early Bird rates expire on September 14th!

PUBLICATIONS

NEW Annals Alert: Articles with topics ranging from forest-based carbon offsetting to postcolonial Marxism to atmospheres of diplomacy

The most recent issue of the Annals of the AAG has been published online (Volume 110, Issue 5, September 2020) with 19 new research articles on contemporary geographic research. Topics in this issue include urban floods, safety in urban peripheries, qualitative GIS, geosurveillance of crime, asylum seekers, housing financialization, bandwidth, Gillian Hart, and race & resilience. Locational areas of interest include Uganda, India, China, Yellowstone National Park, Kenya, and Bangladesh. Authors are from a variety of research institutions including Syracuse University, University College Dublin, University of Texas, and University of St. Andrews.

All AAG members have full online access to all issues of the Annals through the Members Only page. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read Embodied Intersectionalities of Urban Citizenship: Water, Infrastructure, and Gender in the Global South by Farhana Sultana for free for the next two months.

Questions about the Annals? Contact annals [at] aag [dot] org.

In addition to the most recently published journal, read the latest issue of the other AAG journals online:

• Annals of the American Association of Geographers
• The Professional Geographer
• GeoHumanities
• The AAG Review of Books

New issue of African Geographical Review

The latest issue of the journal of the Africa Specialty Group of the AAG, the African Geographical Review, has recently been published. Volume 39, Issue 3 (September 2020) is available online for subscribers and members of the Africa Specialty Group. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read The African COVID-19 anomaly by Joseph R. Oppong for free.

See more about the journal.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

New AAG Career and Research Mentors Program

As part of the AAG’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force, AAG members proposed the creation of a mentoring program in a time when students and colleagues may have limited access to previous peer and professional contacts and mentors, while also facing new challenges. In response, the AAG has created a new mentoring program with the goal of facilitating more connections in our community and keeping students and early career geographers energized and engaged with their geography education, research, and careers.

How does it work? AAG members may volunteer to be a mentor by signing up online and providing information about their areas of expertise and interest. Students and early career geographers seeking a mentor can view the current list of volunteers and reach out through the provided contact information to start a dialogue. An active AAG membership is required for volunteer mentors only, not those seeking a mentor.

For more information, to sign up as a mentor, or to view the list of volunteer mentors, visit aag.org/mentorship. For questions, contact us at mentoring [at] aag [dot] org.

Updates to 2020 AAG Regional Meetings and Regional Division Student Awards

Due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19, many of the Regional Division Meetings of the AAG have shifted to a virtual format, presenting an opportunity for engagement within and beyond your Regional Division. Find the most up-to-date information about the 2020 fall meetings, which will occur from mid-October to mid-November, on the AAG Events Calendar.

Graduate and undergraduate students attending Regional Division Meetings can submit their work for consideration for an AAG Council Award for Outstanding Undergraduate and Graduate Student Papers at a Regional Meeting. These awards offer monetary prizes meant to help offset the costs of attending the virtual or in-person 2020 AAG Annual Meeting. For 2020, the AAG has expanded these awards to support in-person and/or virtual attendance of the 2021 or a future AAG Annual Meeting, in order to accommodate awardees as they make plans in these times of COVID-19.

Participatory Forum on New Requirements for Ethical Geographic Science in Rapid Research

COVID-19 calls upon researchers to navigate a fast-paced scientific inquiry process under enormous public scrutiny. As a member of the AAAS Science and Human Rights coalition, AAG will host an experimental virtual forum to initiate conversations among interested researchers regarding challenges faced from rapid funding mechanisms, abundance of geographic data from emerging technologies, and the “real-time” expectations and needs of governments in a rapid research environment. Participants will connect with other scholars and actively contribute to discussions concerning topics such as human subjects in research in a time of automated location tracking and facial recognition; the collective Rights of “places”; and who carries the burden of rapid COVID-19 research. The participatory forum will be held on October 1, 2020 at 1:00 PM EDT.

More information and registration.

Nominations Sought for AAG Council Positions

The AAG Nominating Committee seeks nominations for Vice President (one to be elected) for National Councilor (two vacancies), and for International Councilor (one vacancy for an inaugural, 2-year Observer position on Council) for the 2021 election. The AAG encourages nominations of a broad range of colleagues who reflect different disciplinary specialties, regional locations, gender, race, ethnicity, diverse ability, stage in career, etc. Those elected will take office on July 1, 2021. AAG members should submit the names and addresses of each nominee and their reasons for supporting nomination to any member of the AAG Nominating Committee no later than September 18, 2020. As part of your nomination statement, please confirm that the person is willing to be considered for the position for which you are recommending them. Nominations by email are strongly preferred.

Please send nominations or questions regarding these positions to the AAG Nominating Committee: Kate Berry (Chair), Becky Mansfield, and Daoqin Tong.

Geography Awareness Week 2020 Is Coming

November 16-21, 2020 will be the 34th annual Geography Awareness Week. If you have ideas for how AAG can celebrate this year, we want to hear from you! Email Lisa Schamess at lschamess [at] aag [dot] org with your suggestions.

POLICY CORNER

Census Deadline Adjustment Could Affect Communities of Color

In early August, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that it would be ending its official count one month earlier than planned. The new deadline means that the agency has until September 30th to count every household and individual living in the country. This comes during a year when the Census faced unexpected challenges, at times having to halt and delay counting efforts until they could safely continue amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Now with one month less than planned, there are fears that the data may yield inaccurate results. Many stakeholders and experts have expressed concern over this change in procedure, including a group of former Census Bureau directors who have served under nine past presidents. Of particular concern is the risk of undercounting communities of color. Many of these communities have lower self-response rates, and the shortened counting period makes in-person enumeration harder to accomplish. Undercounting communities of color would not only have lasting damage on statistical accuracy, it would undermine fair representation in subsequent Congressional redistricting and jeopardize the allocation of much-needed federal funds. While certain leaders have spoken out and demanded an extension to the deadline, including Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), agency officials are currently operating under tremendous pressure to meet the accelerated deadline. The Census Project has released a toolkit for individuals who want to take action in support of a fair and accurate 2020 Census. They encourage advocates to post to social media using the hashtags #SavetheCensus and #DontRushtheCensus.

In the News:

MEMBER NEWS

Profiles of Professional Geographers

Xiaohui-Liu-photo-e1598902703368-249x300-1Geography was Xiaohui Liu’s favorite subject in middle school. Now Xiaohui is a geospatial analyst and health disparity researcher as a Postdoctoral Intramural Research Training Awardee at the National Institutes of Health! While Xiaohui values her core skill set in spatial thinking, she also emphasizes the need to continuously adopt and learn new spatial data science practices in her career. She recommends Coursera, Data Camp, and all the technology-related workshops at the AAG annual meetings to help those seeking geospatial careers stay on top of technological changes in the field.

Learn more about Geography Careers on the recently updated AAG Jobs & Careers website.

September Member Updates

The latest news from AAG Members.

Brittany D. Jones, a Ph.D. candidate in The University of Toledo Spatially Integrated Social Science Doctoral Program in the College of Arts and Letters, is one of four winners of a 2020 MAXQDA Research for Change Grant from VERBI Software and the Global Nature Fund. Her research project is titled “Empowerment Through Consumption: Land Banks, Land Ownership and Black Food Geographies.” Her co-advisors are Dr. Neil Reid and Dr. Sujata Shetty, professors in the UToledo Department of Geography and Planning. Read more.

Welcome to Clancy Wilmott, and thank you to John Kelmelis: AAG representatives on the Board of Directors of the GIS Certification Institute

The GIS Certification Institute or GISCI was established in 2002 by member organizations: Association of American Geographers (AAG), Geospatial Information and Technology Association (GITA), National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), University Consortium of Geographic Information Science (UCGIS), Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), to provide the GIS community with a complete certification program, leading to Certified GIS Professionals. John Kelmelis has completed five years as AAG representative of GISCI’s board of directors and is succeeded by Clancy Wilmott, who assumes a two-year term on the board, and will join Mike S. Scott (Salisbury University) who is currently on the board.

Find out more about the GIS Certification Institute.

RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Nominate Inspiring Geographers: September Awards Deadlines

awardsAAG Grants and Awards make a huge impact on our community of Geographers and help maintain the legacy of geographers of the past while paying tribute to geographers thriving right now. September deadlines are approaching fast. Don’t miss your opportunity to apply or nominate someone deserving! Learn more about the following grants and awards before their due dates:
Sept. 15: AAG Enhancing Diversity Award and AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award
Sept. 22: AAG Nystrom Award for Recent Dissertations

Climate Adaptation Research Symposium

On September 21, 2020, the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation will virtually host a free symposium on climate adaptation. The event will bring together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners on climate adaptation throughout the U.S., with the goal to expand knowledge and inform adaptation and resiliency policies and plans.

Register to attend.

Fellowships Available for Research in India

AIIS-logo

The American Institute of Indian Studies announces its 2020 fellowship competition, and invites applications from scholars who wish to conduct their research in India. Junior fellowships are awarded to Ph.D. candidates to conduct research for their dissertations in India for up to eleven months. Senior fellowships are awarded to scholars who hold the Ph.D. degree for up to nine months of research in India. AIIS welcomes applicants from a wide variety of disciplines. It especially encourages applicants in fields such as Development Studies, Natural Resources Management, Public Health, and Regional Planning. The application deadline is July 1, 2019. Inquiries should be directed to 773-702-8638 or aiis [at] uchicago [dot] edu.

Download the application.

News from the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program at the NSF

NSF_logo2sThere have been several recent changes within the National Science Foundation (NSF) relevant to members of the AAG. In addition to annual changes in program staff, there has been a name change for the geography program from Geography and Spatial Sciences to Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences at NSF. Scott Freundschuh continues as HEGS Program Director with Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen (State University of New York-Buffalo) and Kendra K. McLauchlan (Kansas State University) joining him as Jacqueline Vadjunec returns to Oklahoma State University.

Read more about the name change.

IN MEMORIAM

The AAG is saddened to hear of the passing of these colleagues.

Marshall E. Bowen, an emeritus professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Mary Washington, passed away at his home on August 19, 2020. Professor Bowen received an undergraduate degree from Plymouth Teachers College (NH), a masters from Kent State University (OH), and his doctorate from Boston University. He joined the faculty at Mary Washington in 1965 and retired in 2001. Read more.

Frank Friedman, a member of AAG since 1959, died at his home in Robesonia, Pennsylvania, on May 30, 2020. He was 81. Friedman earned his Bachelor of Science in Education from Kutztown State College in 1960. He earned a Master of Education in Geography from Penn State University in 1965, and a Master of Science from Drexel University in 1980. He was a longtime geography teacher in the Conrad Weiser School District in Pennsylvania. Read more.

Robert (Bob) Wheeler Smith died on August 13, 2020 in Grantsville, MD. He was 70 years old. Smith received his BA degree from Bucknell University, in Political Science. It’s said that he was so taken with his political geography class textbook that he looked up its author, Louis Alexander at the University of Rhode Island, and subsequently went there to receive his Master’s degree in Geography. Smith joined the State Department just before the UN Law of the Sea Convention was finalized in 1982, and devoted his career to maritime boundaries. Read more.

Marvin Creamer, a geographer and skilled sailor who completed a two-year circumnavigation of the globe in 1984, without any instruments at all, died on August 12, 2020 in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a brief illness. He was 104 years old. Born in 1916 in Salem County, New Jersey, Creamer was a graduate of Glassboro State College, now known as Rowan University. He stayed on as a professor, establishing the Geography Department as its first chair in 1970 and received numerous honors up until his retirement in 1977. Read more.

Michael Freilich, former head of NASA Earth Science Division and a distinguished member of the United States Delegation to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), died on August 5, 2020. Under Dr. Freilich’s leadership, NASA was a vital, collaborative partner in worldwide study of the earth. Read more.

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AAG Staff
President's Column

An Interview with AAG Executive Director Gary Langham (Part 1)

While the AAG membership elects some of its governance (i.e. president, vice president, Council), the temporal constant in leadership is the Executive Director (ED). Historically, his tenure spans multiple presidents and many dozens of councilors. Since COVID-19 has prevented our new ED, Gary Langham, from meeting the membership and vice versa, I decided to interview him as an introduction into learning a bit about his perspectives, goals and personal history that led him to AAG.

We met on Wednesday, Aug. 19, which not coincidentally is the one-year anniversary of his first week in this role—half of which has been during the coronavirus pandemic. The interview lasted for over an hour, generating far too much to publish as a single column. So, I will cover the interview in two columns beginning with this piece as a summary of his path that led him to AAG. I have edited my questions and Gary’s comments below for brevity and clarity.

AMY: Let’s just start with some basics, like your background, the area of your formal training, and your experiences that led you to AAG.

GARY: I grew up in Sacramento, CA, within an academic family. My dad was a Ph.D. botanist and his father had a Ph.D. in plant genetics, so acquiring my own Ph.D. seemed natural to me. Looking into the future one could never know, but in hindsight this makes sense.

My dad and grandfather had interesting backgrounds. My grandfather, originally an Iowa farm boy, had to find a new path when the family farm was lost during the depression. Eventually, he ended up at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, in the early 1930s where he was the first Ph.D. recipient in plant genetics. Upon graduation, the government of Venezuela asked him to move there and lead a program for crops and genetics. He agreed and asked my grandmother, then a nurse, to marry him. They decided to go, despite speaking no Spanish at the time, and had four children there over the next 20 years.

During this time, he also became known as the father of the sesame seed. Sesame lays down its seed in pods that shatter when ripe, making it very time consuming to harvest. My grandfather was the first to find a variety that would open enough for machine harvesting, but not enough to lose the seeds. This side of the family continued researching and perfecting varieties of sesame for many years.

In addition to his scholarly abilities, my grandfather had an entrepreneurial spirit. Soon after he got there, oil production was booming in Venezuela, leading to a massive economic boom. He founded four large plant nurseries, supplying the growing numbers of businesses, hotels and factories around the country.

My dad was born and raised in Venezuela working in his dad’s plant nurseries. When my dad was 15, he went to the United States for the first time to finish school and later attend college. Inspired by what he learned from my grandfather, he sought his Ph.D. in plant biology and ecology. My father then taught at California State University in Sacramento for 38 years. He preferred teaching much more than research. I had the good fortune of growing up accompanying him on his botany and ecology field trips. We were around college students all of the time. During the summers, they would visit one day a week, so I grew up immersed in his love of teaching.

When I was seven years old, my dad discovered birding. He had been playing semi-pro ice hockey for fun, but he was getting too old and he wanted something else to do. He was also tired of the students asking what all the birds were on the field trips. So, he took this bird watching class. And it sounds silly to go from hockey to birding, but there is a whole world of competitive birding. Who knew?

What that meant for me, because he was so competitive, is whether I felt like it or not, I was in the back of a car going to look for birds every weekend from age seven to 13, and going all over the country traveling a lot with my parents. It was a lot of driving though, and I didn’t always love it. And of course, when you’re a kid, you absorb everything that you’re exposed to. So, now I was getting exposed to people, showing slides about birds and these professors would come over and they talk about their trips around the world. And, it was a great way to grow up. When I was 15, I started going back to Venezuela with my father. That was the first time my dad had been back in 30 years, and I kept going back for at least a month every year for the next 20 years.

Soon, he and I started leading birdwatching tours. Surprisingly, many people want to see birds bad enough that they will hire experts to show them all the species. Because I had spent so much time doing this, by the time I was 18 I was able to do it professionally. That’s how I put myself through college, leading trips all summer and over winter break. And, I did that for many years. When I came to my own schooling, I started off as an English major, finished that coursework and thought I was going to go to law school and do environmental law.

So, I was doing these birding tours, often with lawyers, and they’re like, “yeah, don’t do law school. Don’t do what I do. You should do birds or something like that. You should do ecology or conservation.” And, so I stayed on in college for a whole other major in biology. And, because I was putting myself through school with these tours, I could. I wasn’t in a hurry because I was getting paid to travel four months a year. In your twenties that’s really fun. Then I went back to college and took a class in, say, mammalogy, and then went all over the Americas seeing the mammals in the field. We were working all over the Americas: Canada, Costa Rica, and California in summer, and seven different trips in Venezuela that would rotate three per year over winter break.

This was an awesome way to grow up and go to college. But, eventually, I thought I’m just going to get a Ph.D. too. And what was great is because I had so much experience in South America already, it was easy to convince my advisers that I could go off and do research in South America because I’d already been doing it, essentially, for years. And it didn’t sound like a big risk. So, I got lucky and got into, arguably, the best ornithology program in the world at Cornell University. That was just a great experience. Although my Ph.D. is in ecology and evolutionary biology, I studied birds in South America.

Ecology spoke to my wide range of interests. And, just like with geography, you can never get bored with it because there’s so many different facets to it. After seven field seasons in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Peru, I wanted to go somewhere else. So, I did an NSF bioinformatics postdoc through UC Berkeley, with two years in the field and Queensland, Australia doing climate change research in the Wet Tropics and then a year back at Berkeley. Finally, I started working at Audubon, bringing birds, biology and policy together in conservation. Audubon was my job for 12 years before I started at AAG.

AMY: Actually, that was great. As you were relaying your story, I kept thinking about how your path seemed to be laid out for you. And, I feel like I just fell into geography. I spent my early life walking around in circles trying to figure out what I was going to do until I found this magic thing called geography. It just basically landed in my lap in college. And, then it transformed me.

At this point, our conversation transitioned to AAG, Geography, and higher education. I’ll continue the interview in a later column in which Gary will highlight his vision and goals for AAG.

—Amy Lobben
AAG President and Professor at University of Oregon
lobben [at] uoregon [dot] edu

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0078

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News

News from the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF), September 2020

Update 9/15/2020: In response to concerns raised by members of the AAG, the NSF has clarified its announced changes to the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences program (HEGS), formerly known as the Geography and Spatial Sciences program (GSS). 

AAG appreciates the time many of our members have taken to bring  questions and concerns about the program changes to light. The NSF’s Program Officers are available to provide answers and assistance in preparing proposals (email for the program and program guidelines are at the end of this clarification). 

Clarification from National Science Foundation: The repositioning of the Geography and Spatial Sciences program (GSS) to the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences program (HEGS)

Over the past several years, NSF’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) has repositioned several programs to better reflect the science supported by those programs and to make their value more apparent to a broader audience. Nearly all NSF program names draw attention to what researchers do or why it matters. As a result, most programs are no longer named solely after disciplines. These changes bring SBE into closer alignment with long-held program naming practices at the rest of NSF. This provides more opportunities for researchers to conduct innovative and valuable work and for NSF to more effectively communicate the value of the research that it supports.

The name change from Geography and Spatial Sciences (GSS) to Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) represents a more holistic perspective that considers the broad range of topics that enhance fundamental geographical knowledge, concepts, theories, methods and their application to societal problems and concerns. With the increase in convergent programs across NSF directorates such as Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES), Coastlines and People (CoPe), Sustainable Regional Systems (SRS) and Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), geographers stand uniquely situated to participate in such endeavors. At the same time, the inclusion of the term “Geographical Sciences” in the new program title signals the sustained and continued support of geography. In line with NSF’s mandate to support basic scientific research, HEGS-supported projects are expected to yield results that enhance, expand, and transform fundamental geographical/spatial theory and methods, and produce broader impacts that benefit society.

HEGS (previously GSS, and before that Geography and Regional Science-GRS) recognizes that geography is a broad discipline that includes the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. While HEGS continues to consider proposals that cover research in human geography, HEGS does not fund research that engages predominantly humanistic, non-scientific framings and methods. This has always been the case and is not a new policy or a change in requirements for proposals submitted to NSF. HEGS has always stressed to PIs that their proposals must focus on the scientific aspects of a project, including clearly articulated questions or hypotheses, methods and a corresponding data analysis plan that can provide answers to those questions. HEGS program staff have noted a steady increase in predominantly non-science-oriented proposals. It is important to note that this repositioning is not a judgement on the value of such scholarship or its practitioners. HEGS will continue to accept proposals that creatively integrate scientific and critical approaches. Prospective PIs are encouraged to visit the HEGS website and explore the diverse research and PIs that have been recently funded by the program.

The repositioning of HEGS also reflects the breadth of research appropriate for submission to the programs. HEGS is situated in the Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division of SBE and thus research projects submitted to the program must illustrate their relevance and importance to people and societies. If a proposal is not well-connected to social or human dimensions, the proposal could be more appropriate for other programs at NSF. For example, bio-physical science is supported by programs in the Division of Environmental Biology in NSF’s Biological Sciences Directorate, and physical science is supported by programs in the Division of Earth Sciences (e.g. the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics Program) in the Geosciences Directorate.

Potential investigators are encouraged to contact a HEGS program officer with questions about whether their proposal would be considered by HEGS. Email hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov with a two-page (maximum) attachment outlining the research question(s) or hypotheses, the intellectual merit and anticipated broader impacts of the project, as well as the methods and anticipated data and analysis.

Scott M. Freundschuh, HEGS Program Officer

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, HEGS Program Officer

Antoinette WinklerPrins, Former GSS Program Officer and current Deputy Division Director in BCS

FAQs 

overview of guidance 

detailed guideline

***
Original announcement: Announcing Staff Changes in HEGS

Scott Freundschuh continues as HEGS Program Director.

BIO: Scott M. Freundschuh holds a Ph.D. in geography from SUNY Buffalo. Scott is a cognitive geographer, specializing in spatial cognition as it relates to types of spatial knowledge and their structures, geographic scale, spatial concept development and understanding, and spatial skills development. He is a faculty member at the University of New Mexico.

Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen joins HEGS as new Program Director.

BIO: Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Georgia. Her research interests include the geography of innovation, geographic implications of industrial evolution with a focus on bio-pharmaceuticals, agri-bio, and bioenergy sectors, energy transitions, foreign direct investment in the United States, and socioeconomic implications of urban-regional population shrinkage. She is a faculty member at the State University of New York-Buffalo.

Kendra McLauchlan is now a permanent Program Director in the Division of Environmental Biology and works closely with HEGS.

BIO: Kendra K. McLauchlan holds a Ph.D. in ecology from University of Minnesota. Kendra is a physical geographer, specializing in reconstructing North American paleoenvironments as recorded in lacustrine sediments and dendrochronological records. She holds an adjunct appointment as a faculty member in Geography and Geospatial Sciences at Kansas State University.

HEGS Program Director Jacqueline (Jackie) Vadjunec has returned to Oklahoma State University where she has been promoted to full professor. Congratulations Jackie!

From GSS to HEGS – Why the Change?

The change from Geography and Spatial Sciences to Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences at NSF is the result of efforts within the Social and Behavioral Sciences Directorate to reposition programs so that they align with the mission of the Directorate. Geography is a broad discipline, spanning multiple paradigms and topics ranging from purely process-oriented biophysical geography to post-modern, humanistic geography. However, not all geographic scholarship is a good fit at the National Science Foundation (NSF). The name change articulates more clearly the human, environmental, and geographical sciences that are appropriate for funding at NSF. This change reflects NSF’s mission to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense” and also HEGS’s location in the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).

In general, research that is predominantly post-modern, post-structural, humanistic etc., is not a good fit for NSF. As noted in the solicitation, “A proposal to the HEGS Program must explain how the research will contribute to geographic and spatial scientific theory and/or methods development, and how the results are generalizable beyond the case study.” If research is more biophysical or process oriented, but aspatial and/or not well-connected to social or human dimensions, the proposal could be more appropriate for other programs at NSF. For example, bio-physical science is supported by the programs in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) directorate, and physical science is supported by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics (GLD) program. When considering the fit of research at NSF, it is useful to understand the overall institutional architecture of the Foundation.

Potential investigators are encouraged to contact a HEGS program officer with questions regarding the fit of their research in HEGS. Please send an email inquiry to hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov with no more than a two page attachment that outlines the research question(s) or hypotheses, the intellectual merit and anticipated broader impacts of the project, as well as the methods and anticipated data and analysis.

You can find the new HEGS solicitation here.

You can find the HEGS FAQ here.

Other Funding Opportunities at NSF

Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems (DISES) Program

Navigating the New Arctic (NNA) Program

Coastlines and People (CoPe) Program

Build and Broaden DLC

Contact information for HEGS Program Directors is hegs-info [at] nsf [dot] gov.

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Staff
Staff

Marshall E. Bowen

Marshall E. Bowen, an emeritus professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Mary Washington, passed away at his home on August 19, 2020. Professor Bowen received an undergraduate degree from Plymouth Teachers College (NH), a masters from Kent State University (OH), and his doctorate from Boston University. He joined the faculty at Mary Washington in 1965 and retired in 2001.

Professor Bowen was known as a scholar of vacant lands in the American west, most notably Elko County, Nevada, and Park Valley, Utah, writing over 40 articles and a book. He authored Utah People in the Nevada Desert (Utah State University Press, 1994) and articles in the Western Historical Quarterly, Utah Historical Quarterly, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Agricultural History, Material Culture and the Journal of Cultural Geography. His article, “Crops, Critters, and Calamity: The Failure of Dry Farming in Utah’s Escalante Desert, 1913-1918,” received the Ray Allen Billington Award for the best journal article in western history in 1999 from the Western History Association. His article, “The Russian Molokans of Park Valley,” received the Nick Yengich Memorial Editor’s Choice Award for the best article appearing in the Utah Historical Quarterly in 2015 from the Utah State Historical Society. In 1999, the Pioneer America Society, of which he was a long-term member presented him with the Henry H. Douglas Award for outstanding achievement in research, teaching, and service.

He taught thousands of students over his 36 year career at Mary Washington, packing the basement lecture hall in Monroe Hall with well over 300 students each semester as he shared his passion for places across North America. He also taught seminars in Historical Geography, and early in his career taught the Geography of Asia as well courses in physical geography. Some of the most life-changing experiences for students were shared by those who had the opportunity to take his summer field course to the American West throughout the 1970s. Many of those students went on to pursue advanced degrees in Geography. In 1987, he received the Grellet C. Simpson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, followed by the Mortar Board Outstanding Professor Award in 1991.

An avid basketball player, Professor Bowen also served as the first men’s basketball coach at Mary Washington until 1976. Forty-five years later, many of those players remained a part of his life and hold frequent reunions to reminisce.

Professor Bowen is survived by his wife, Dawn, a Professor of Geography at UMW, a son and two daughters, and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be planned for a future date. The family requests that expressions of sympathy be in the form of contributions to the Geography Alumni Scholarship, University of Mary Washington Foundation, Jepson Alumni Executive Center, 1119 Hanover St., Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5412.

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Robert Smith

Robert (Bob) Wheeler Smith died on August 13, 2020 in Grantsville, MD. He was 70 years old.

Born in Glen Rock, NJ, Smith received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Bucknell University, in Political Science. It’s said that he was so taken with his political geography class textbook that he looked up its author, Louis Alexander at the University of Rhode Island, and subsequently went there to receive his Master’s degree in Geography. He earned his PhD in Geography from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Smith joined the State Department just before the UN Law of the Sea Convention was finalized in 1982, and devoted his career to maritime boundaries. His extensive international assignments included work on treaties with Mexico, Canada, the former USSR, and Kiribati. He authored many papers in the State Department series “Limits of the Seas.” He co-authored “Excessive Maritime Claims” and co-edited the multi volume International Maritime Boundaries.

During his career, he taught classes at Georgetown University, George Mason University, and the University of Virginia.  His favorite teaching experience was the Semester at Sea Program, which he taught after his retirement from the State Department.

Smith consulted for numerous countries on their own maritime boundaries, spending time at the Hague at the International Court of Justice and in Hamburg at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Smith is survived by his wife Sandra, brother, Arthur Smith, daughters Laura and Tesia, and son-in-law Federico Guerrero. He is predeceased by his parents, Arthur and Carolyn Smith, and his brother, Frederick Smith.

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Marvin Creamer

Marvin Creamer, a geographer and skilled sailor who completed a two-year circumnavigation of the globe in 1984, without any instruments at all, died on August 12, 2020 in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a brief illness. He was 104 years old.

Creamer, born in 1916 in Salem County, New Jersey, was a graduate of Glassboro State College, now known as Rowan University. He stayed on as a professor, establishing the Geography Department as its first chair in 1970 and received numerous honors up until his retirement in 1977. He was awarded an honorary doctorate degree in the humanities in 1980. Creamer also had graduate degrees in education and geography from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Wisconsin.

An avid traveler by both land or sea, Creamer was best known for his extraordinary sailing feet aboard the 26-foot Globerstar, a voyage that he completed when he was nearly 70 years old. His life and adventure were covered by the New York Times, The Economist, and perhaps most importantly, Cruising World.

He was married to Blanche Layton Creamer in 1946 (deceased 2005) and is survived by his sister Evelyn Creamer Daniels; children Andra Creamer Hohler James (David), Lynn Creamer Borstelmann (Tim), and Kurt Creamer (Melissa); grandchildren and step-grandchildren Peggy James, Star Schreier Nixon (Matt), Evan Schreier, Vaughn Creamer, John Borstelmann, Kathryn Jeffery, Maggie Creamer, and Daniel Borstelmann; great-grandchildren Charlotte Nixon and Logan Nixon. He is survived also by his wife of 10 years, Elaine Gillam Creamer.

 

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President's Column

The Invisible and The Silent

I am the parent of an adult child with intellectual and developmental disabilities and have spent the past two decades watching how society (dis)engages with him. People avert their eyes. People pretend not to see him.  People give him a wide berth in store aisles.

Some adults demonstrate shockingly bad behavior when he makes his noises or rocks back-and-forth. They display disapproval of his imperfect body and social conduct with facial expressions, comments, or gestures—such as picking up their groceries and moving to another checkout line. My reaction is a swift but reasonably (I think) calm tongue-lashing. Then, I always tell myself I won’t make a public display again. But I do.

Believe it or not, I’m happy when kids stare. At least they’re acknowledging his presence. And Jeffrey loves social interaction, if given the chance.

Amy Lobben’s son, Jeffrey, is wearing one of his favorite shirts.

That Jeffrey is singled out like this reflects how our society is obsessed with physical perfection. Examples are too numerous to list. Vanity sizing is just one example. Is that international? If not, I’ll explain. In America, as bodies get larger, sizing gets smaller. A women’s size 6 today was a size 12 fifty years ago. Because…we cannot have socially defined “imperfections” in our bodies. So, the fashion industry wisely adjusts their sizing over the years. It is remarkable how I have been a size 6 my entire adult life (I hope you hear the sarcasm regarding myself).

Society trains us to have low tolerance of imperfections in our own and others’ bodies. It’s no wonder that in the race to perfection, those with physical imperfections are ultra marginalized by society. And if we are intolerant of weight gain or imperfect eyebrows, imagine how intolerant we are with non-functioning eyes or legs. We have been taught to actively ignore those imperfections and the bodies they’re attached to. Even being near such a person in a grocery line is unendurable. The only distance at which this imperfection can be tolerated is so far away as to be indiscernible. It is the spatial scale of exclusion.

And that’s when it happens. People with disabilities become invisible. Through able-ism, they are silenced, left alone past the detectable edges of the universe that able-bodies and able-minded individuals inhabit.

Fortunately, an increasing number of countries have laws that protect the invisible and silent. In the United States, for example, organizations are required by law to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.

Of course, “reasonable” is vague and open to opinion. For example, under the cover of “reasonable,” the state of Alabama developed their ventilator rationing policy, which said: “Persons with severe or profound mental retardation, moderate to severe dementia, or catastrophic neurological complications such as persistent vegetative state are unlikely candidates for ventilator support.”

Horrible, right? Let us not cast our righteous stones. Alabama was not alone in developing policies for ventilator support that excluded people with imperfections. Fortunately, disability advocacy groups and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department have now ensured that ventilator policies don’t discriminate based on imperfection.

The American Association of Geographers is not immune; historically, it has not been welcoming of people with disabilities. At the same time, we have mostly not been overtly discriminatory. There is no need for intervention by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But we have created a culture and a structure that presents barriers to inclusion and participation of people with disabilities. For example:

  1. Cost of our annual meeting remains a persistent (and often vocal) concern for many AAG members. AAG responds to this concern and attempts to defray costs when possible. Some strategies include:  booking venues off-season, booking older venues, and including multiple locations in a single meeting. All of these strategies address membership demands to keep costs down. But, the result is an increase in barriers to participation for people with disabilities.  Remember Denver 2005? Or Las Vegas 2009? Even without disabilities, it’s pretty hard to get around in a blizzard or between venues that are over 1km apart. How many times have you experienced overcrowded stairwells between sessions because the elevators were unable to support capacity? These are trade-offs that most membership welcomes in AAG’s responsive efforts to defray conference fees.
  2. The AAG website is a disaster and does not come close to providing Universal Access. It’s not even screen-reader compliant. We are unique in our antiquatedness relative to most other large, professional organizations. This is ethically unacceptable and, for an organization that is always worried about recruiting more people to Geography, it’s not even good business.
  3. The physical headquarters of AAG is Meridian Place. It’s far from being ADA compliant. People who use manual or motorized wheelchairs cannot enter the front door.

Why is this the current state of AAG?  Historically, our collective membership has relegated issues of accessibility to the margins in favor of other priorities, such as saving money.

Fortunately, many accessibility issues are now being addressed by our new Executive Director, Gary Langham, and the AAG staff. For example, for the first time in my over 25 years in attending AAG meetings, child care for older children with disabilities was offered for the Denver 2020 meeting. Unfortunately, because of Covid, no one attended that meeting in person. But, the precedent was set. Don’t underestimate how big of a game-changer this support is for parents of older children with disabilities. For me, traveling as a parent of an older child with intellectual and developmental disabilities frequently represents an impossible obstacle. I’ve missed AAG meetings over the years because I couldn’t find support at home and because my son was too old for the child care provided by AAG.

As for examples two and three, though no concrete designs are yet in place, both website and Meridian Place renovations are actively being planned. ADA compliance and Universal Access are major parts of the discussion.

I am also delighted to announce that the AAG Council has unanimously supported the formation of a new AAG Accessibility Task Force. The members will identify the most pressing barriers to access within the AAG and develop strategies and guidelines to inform website design, building renovation, conference venue choices, and practices at conferences that enhance access.

I will always argue that supporting access for even one person with disability justifies great effort. However, if numbers are important to justifying the effort, we should consider why persons with disability are such a small proportion of AAG membership and conference attendance. For example, each year prior to the annual conference, AAG asks members for accommodation requests. Few requests are made. But, according to the Institute on Disability, the overall rate of people with disabilities (in the U.S.) is almost 13%. Disaggregated, disability increases dramatically by age. The most common disability reported is ambulatory.

But, AAG does not receive accommodation requests from 13 percent of the attendees (i.e. equivalent to disability prevalence in the overall population). Perhaps the disability rate for geographers is shockingly low? I doubt it.

July 26 was Disability Independence Day, commemorating the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act that was signed on the same day in 1990. Yet, this day seemed to come and go with little notice. How many people did you hear talking about it, marching about it, let alone celebrating it? As we experience the wave of social justice demanding amplification of marginalized voices, an important perspective is missing.

For too long AAG members with disabilities have been kept invisible and silent. Based on my brief tenure as Vice President and President, I have learned that many such individuals left the organization or stopped coming to conferences when barriers become too overwhelming. The Accessibility Task Force will advocate for AAG members with former and current disabilities, as well as that large portion of us who will, based purely on statistics, develop future disabilities. If we wish to have true lifetime members, we need to get ready now.

The task force’s charge over the next two years is to identify barriers and develop remediation recommendations, to move beyond the ADA and what is required by law to create true opportunities for access and inclusion for people with disabilities. We’re at the start of new AAG leadership and experiencing a nationwide awakening to the damages of exclusion and social injustice. Yes, there is much work to be done. But as we enter the dawn of the new decade, I am profoundly optimistic that this dawn will cast a bright light that makes us see those with disability and the barriers that prevent them from being in the AAG, the discipline of geography, and our society at large.

This is when the invisible become visible.

And that is when we as individuals and the AAG become true facilitators to access.

— Amy Lobben
AAG President

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0077

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Changing Human Populations Governance and Policy Networks and Connections
Amy Lobben
Amy Lobben