Newsletters

Newsletter – January 2016

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

New Year, New Name, New Proposal

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Bednarz

By Sarah Witham Bednarz

I am writing this column on the first day of the new year. Effective January 1, 2016, the AAG will begin to operate under the name “American Association of Geographers,” rather than “Association of American Geographers.” The membership voted overwhelmingly in both 2014 and 2015 to make this change. The name “American Association of Geographers” is a registered “DBA” or “doing business as” name. Using a DBA name does not require the AAG to change the association’s prior name, and both names can legally be used by the association. The new name will be phased in over the next year.

I know some members are not happy about the change but it is, in fact, a recognition that our organization has changed. We have substantial membership from outside the United States. Our annual meeting is enlivened with participants from around the world. Our journals invite submissions from geographers everywhere and we publish the abstracts in multiple languages. We are an international organization that is located in the United States. The name reflects who we have become. Of course this means a new logo and some adjustments over time. And it means that at some point we may wish to re-think our systems of representation to acknowledge our growing internationalism. We have regional councillors, national councillors—do we need international councillors? That is an agenda item for another president, not me. Continue Reading.

Recent columns from the President

Important Election Information: AAG Voting Now Open

The AAG online election is now open through Feb. 4, 2016. Each member may vote with the special email code you received Monday, Jan. 11, via your preferred email address. This code will allow you to sign in to our AAG SimplyVoting website and vote.

If you didn’t receive your electronic ballot for the 2016 AAG Election, please check your spam folder. To ensure you receive further election communications, please add aag [at] simplyvoting [dot] com to your address book, so we’ll be sure to land in your inbox.

Read about the candidates now.

President: (one to be elected)

  • Glen M. MacDonald, UCLA

Vice President: (one to be elected)

  • Derek H. Alderman, U. of Tennessee
  • Daniel A. Griffith, U. of Texas-Dallas

National Councillors: (two to be elected)

  • John B. Cromartie, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
  • David DiBiase, Esri
  • Jon Harbor, Purdue U.
  • Cathleen McAnneny, U. of Maine-Farmington

Honors Committee A: (one to be elected)

  • Susan L. Cutter, U. of South Carolina
  • Wei Li, Arizona State U.
 Nominating Committee: (three to be elected)

  • Meghan Cope, U. of Vermont
  • Andrew W. Ellis, Virginia Tech
  • Hilda Kurtz, U. of Georgia
  • Amy Lobben, U. of Oregon
  • Marianna Pavlovskaya, Hunter College, CUNY
  • Bradley C. Rundquist, U. of North Dakota

Honors Committee B: (two to be elected)

  • C. Patrick Heidkamp, Southern Connecticut State U.
  • Jonathan Leib, Old Dominion U.
  • Laura Pulido, U. of Southern California

ANNUAL MEETING

Session Commemorating William Garrison To Follow Presentation of Garrison Award

The recipient of the William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography will present their paper at the AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco. A memorial session and reception to commemorate the life of Bill Garrison will follow. Learn more.

Garrison Award Session
Thursday, March 31, 2016 | 3:20 p.m.
San Francisco, CA (Room TBD)

Tributes in Memory of William L. Garrison
Thursday, March 31, 2016 | 5:20 p.m.
San Francisco, CA (Room TBD)

RS-books-300x215-1.Rebecca Solnit: ‘Mapping the Infinite City’ – A talk on the ‘infinite trilogy’ of atlases

When the trilogy Rebecca Solnit and a host of collaborators launched in 2010 with Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas concludes with the New York atlas co-directed by geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, the teams will have produced three books and 70 maps making postulates about both the nature of cities and the possibilities of contemporary cartography.

This talk will explore what maps can do, or at least what these particular maps do, the ways these projects are counters to the rise of digital navigation and celebrations of what maps did in other eras, and how cartography lets us grasp or at least gaze at the inexhaustibility of every city, the innumerable ways it can be mapped. Learn More.

Painted_Ladies_San_Francisco_January_2013_panorama_2-300x225-1Explore the Growing List of AAG 2016 Field Trips, Workshops and Excursions

Explore the rich physical and cultural geography of San Francisco, Calif., and the Bay Area through informative field trips led by geographers or other experts. Field trips and excursions are also an excellent way to meet and exchange ideas with colleagues and friends. Also, expand your knowledge base and sign up for a workshop within your area of expertise. Learn More.

 FOCUS ON SAN FRANCISCO

Bay Area Open Space Is ‘Not’ Open Space

By Sheila Barry, Paul F. Starrs, and Lynn Huntsinger

hiker_landscape_barry_sheila-300x225-1. Fig 1: A hiker takes a landscape of grazing cattle, wildflowers, and broad views, walking through prime Checkerspot Butterfly habitat, Coyote Ridge, south of San Jose, California. (Photograph by Sheila Barry)

The San Francisco Bay Area has more open space within its borders than any other metropolitan area in the United States, an intriguing state of affairs for a regional population approaching nine million people. While so much open space provides a scenic landscape and exceptional opportunities for outdoor recreation including hiking, biking, horseback riding, and hang gliding, it also supports the area’s most prevalent land use. From Santa Clara to Sonoma County — on private lands, regional parks, on habitat conservation and watershed lands — cattle ranching continues as the number-one land use in this famed tourist destination and hotbed of the knowledge economy and high tech industry. Whether the working ranches are on public or private land, many Bay Area ranchers represent a fourth, fifth, or sixth generation stewarding the land and their livestock, drawing on older traditions and practices of pastoralists and primary producers. Ranching or working rangelands describe the land use of over 1.7 million acres of the Bay Area’s 4.5 million acres of open space (PlanBayArea.org). Rangelands that produce both livestock products and ecosystem services are known as “working landscapes” in the Bay Area. Learn More.

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

ASSOCIATION NEWS

AAG AWARDS

2016 AAG Awards Announced

The AAG congratulates the following awardees on their accomplishments:

PUBLICATIONS

Call for Abstracts: Special Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’ on Social Justice and the City

The Annals of the American Association of Geographers is seeking contributions for a Special Issue on “Social Justice and the City.”

We are seeking papers from a broad spectrum of scholars on social justice struggles in urban contexts. While we hope to be able to publish conceptual research drawing on now 40 years of cutting edge research in Geography on “social justice and the city,” we also hope to solicit papers on urgent contemporary issues, which will inform and motivate a broad audience of consumers and producers of geographic knowledge, from policy makers to grassroots activists. Learn More.

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Heynen
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McCarthy

‘Annals’ Welcomes Two New Editors

Our flagship journal, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, begins the new year with a change of editorship.

Bruce Braun and Richard Wright have completed their four year terms as editors of the Nature and Society, and People, Place and Region sections respectively. Their successors are James McCarthy and Nik Heynen.

James McCarthy is a Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. Nik Heynen is a Professor in the Department of Geography at University of Georgia. Learn More.

MEMBER AND DEPARTMENT NEWS

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Martin

Leading Geography Historian and AAG Archivist Geoffrey Martin To Speak at Library of Congress

Dr. Geoffrey Martin, a prominent historian of American geography, will discuss “On the History of the Book —American Geography and Geographers: Toward Geographical Science” at 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 21, 2016, at the Library of Congress. This special event, which is free and open to the public, will focus on Martin’s most recent major work, and will include a display of related rare maps and atlases from the collections of the library’s Geography and Map Division. Opening remarks will be delivered by Ralph Ehrenberg, Chief of the Geography and Map Division, and Douglas Richardson, Executive Director of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). Learn More.

Kavita Pandit

Kavita Pandit Named Associate Provost at Georgia State U.

Georgia State University recently announced the appointment of Kavita Pandit as Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, effective March 1, 2016. Pandit was AAG President in 2006 and currently serves as associate provost for international education at the University of Georgia.

Her previous academic administrative positions include senior vice provost for the State University of New York, as well as associate dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and head of the department of geography at the University of Georgia. Learn More.

IN MEMORIAM

FUNDING & RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Apply Now for Travel Grants for the AAG IGU 2016 Beijing Conference

AAG is now accepting applications for 2016 AAG NSF International Geographical Union (IGU) Conference Travel Grants. The application deadline has been extended to January 25. The conference will take place August 21-25 in Beijing, China. Learn More.

Gulf Research Program Accepting Applications for Exploratory Grants

The Gulf Research Program’s Exploratory Grants Funding Opportunity is now open. Applications are being accepted for innovative research projects that seek to break new ground in Informing Coastal Community Planning and Response to Environmental Change in Regions with Offshore Oil and Gas Operations. These grants will support the development and testing of new methods, technologies, and approaches that improve the capabilities of communities in coastal regions to successfully plan for, mitigate, and adapt to environmental change–specifically in the context of how these changes may affect or be affected by offshore oil and gas operations. Learn More.

MORE

GMMap_1_7_2016-300x175-1. GeoMentors Willing to Help Educators Many GIS professionals want to help educators and youth use GIS, and are willing to be a GeoMentor. List yourself as an educator or GeoMentor.

January is National Mentoring Month: Join the GeoMentors Program

President Obama issued a proclamation last month designating January as “National Mentoring Month” in support of the Nation’s young people and to “honor those who give of themselves to uplift our next generation.” In the proclamation, the President states, “Working together, we can provide every child with the tools, guidance, and confidence they need to flourish and succeed.” Read the complete Presidential Proclamation – National Mentoring Month.

In observance of National Mentoring Month, the AAG welcomes everyone from the broad GIS community, across all disciplines and sectors, to consider volunteering with the AAG-Esri ConnectED GeoMentors Program to enhance GIS and geographic learning in US K-12 schools through the introduction of ArcGIS Online into classrooms across the country. Learn More.

IN THE NEWS

Popular stories from the AAG SmartBrief

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

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New Books for Geographers

New Books: January 2016

Every month the AAG compiles a list of newly-published books in geography and related areas. Some are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books.

Publishers are welcome to send new volumes to the Editor-in-Chief (Kent Mathewson, Editor-in-Chief, AAG Review of Books, Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803).

Anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles should also contact the Editor-in-Chief.

January, 2016

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Post

Session Commemorating William Garrison To Follow Presentation of Garrison Award

Garrison Award & Tribute Sessions
3:20 p.m.–7:00 p.m., Thursday, March 31, 2016

An award session to present the paper selected for the William L. Garrison Award for Best Dissertation in Computational Geography will be held at 3:20 p.m. on Thursday, March 31, 2016, at the AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Stéphane Joost, a former Garrison awardee and current Garrison Committee Member, will also deliver a presentation, “The geographic dimension of genomic diversity: from genome scans to whole-genome sequence data.”

Memorial presentations will follow the award segment of the session to commemorate Garrison’s life and work in geography. Brian J.L. Berry, Duane F. Marble, and Elizabeth Deakin will lead the talks. The session will conclude with a reception, permitting assembled participants and guests to pay tribute to and share their reminiscences of Bill.

William Louis “Bill” Garrison, one of the leaders of geography’s “quantitative revolution” in the 1950s and an outstanding transportation geographer, died last year on February 1, 2015, at the age of 90. The Garrison Award, which was named for Bill, supports innovative research into the computational aspects of geographic science. This award is intended to arouse a more general and deeper understanding of the important role that advanced computation can play in resolving the complex problems of space–time analysis that are at the core of geographic science. The award is one of the activities of the Marble Fund for Geographic Science of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

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Annual Meeting

Bay Area Open Space Is ‘Not’ Open Space

The San Francisco Bay Area has more open space within its borders than any other metropolitan area in the United States, an intriguing state of affairs for a regional population approaching nine million people. While so much open space provides a scenic landscape and exceptional opportunities for outdoor recreation including hiking, biking, horseback riding, and hang gliding, it also supports the area’s most prevalent land use. From Santa Clara to Sonoma County — on private lands, regional parks, on habitat conservation and watershed lands — cattle ranching continues as the number-one land use in this famed tourist destination and hotbed of the knowledge economy and high tech industry. Whether the working ranches are on public or private land, many Bay Area ranchers represent a fourth, fifth, or sixth generation stewarding the land and their livestock, drawing on older traditions and practices of pastoralists and primary producers. Ranching or working rangelands describe the land use of over 1.7 million acres of the Bay Area’s 4.5 million acres of open space (PlanBayArea.org). Rangelands that produce both livestock products and ecosystem services are known as “working landscapes” in the Bay Area (Fig 1).

Fig 1: A hiker takes a landscape of grazing cattle, wildflowers, and broad views, walking through prime Checkerspot Butterfly habitat, Coyote Ridge, south of San Jose, California. (Photograph by Sheila Barry)

Ranching supports the Bay Area’s incredible biological diversity at the landscape and pasture level. Thirty-three percent of California’s natural communities are found in the Bay Area on only five percent of the state’s land, which makes this one of the nation’s most important biological hot spots (Bay Area Open Space 2012). At the landscape level, ranching maintains extensive open landscapes that were originally grassland or a tree-grass mosaic shaped by the burning practices of native Californians (Fig 2) (Diekmann et al. 2007). Oaks that are the most common native tree provide abundant acorns and rich game habitat. Spanish-Mexican colonists used the grasslands and woodlands for extensive livestock grazing well into the 1840s, and established some of the largest ranches in California. The Pt. Reyes National Seashore derives from what was originally a Mexican land grant.

Fig 2: Working landscapes make up a substantial portion of the San Francisco Bay area, as evident in this 2015 map by the California Rangeland Trust.

Large patches of open grazed grassland support a species-rich birdlife community, including along the southern range a slowly recovering population of the California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus). At the pasture level, ranching provides for biodiversity through grazing and associated rancher stewardship. Grazing reduces annual plant biomass, influences vegetation composition, affects vegetation structure, and provides the patches of bare ground needed by some species, such as the Ohlone tiger beetle (Cicindela ohlone) (Cornelisse et al. 2013). The endangered Bay checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha bayensis), California tiger salamander, burrowing owls (Athene cunicularia), and kit fox (Vulpes macrotis mutica) all benefit from livestock grazing, which manages vegetation and preserves needed habitat (Bartolome et al. 2014). In fact, the exclusion of grazing has resulted in the extirpation of some populations of these species from “protected sites” (Barry et al. 2015). Rancher stewardship includes development and maintenance of livestock water sources including stock ponds, pest management, debris clean-up, and forage improvement. In the San Francisco Bay region, ponds developed for livestock water provide half of the available habitat for the endangered tiger salamander (Ambystoma californiense).

Despite being the area’s most prevalent land use, cattle ranching largely goes unnoticed by much of the public. Ranching operations typically need up to 15–20 acres per cow per year. Few people realize that many of the Bay Area’s open spaces are managed with grazing until they come on to cattle grazing in a regional park. While there is support for ranching as a way of life with long traditions, the management of vegetation that without grazing could prove a fire hazard is a shared goal, brought starkly to light by the Oakland-Berkeley firestorm of 1991 that killed 25 people and destroyed some 3,300 dwellings at a cost of more than $1.5 billion. Today, significant areas of the 8,180 acre Stanford University campus are grazed for vegetation control, as are upper reaches of the 1,232 acres UC Berkeley campus, often by hired goat herds (Stein 2015).

Bay Area ranchers are particularly aware of the public’s interest in the rangelands they manage (Fig 3). At least partly because they often rely on leases from parks and conservation lands to complement their private holdings, many ranchers have learned to manage for native plant and animal species and fire hazard control. The California Rangeland Conservation Coalition, a statewide group focused on bringing ranchers, scientists, environmentalists, range professionals, and agencies together to support ranching and the conservation of grazing lands, enjoys strong support among Bay Area ranchers (https://carangeland.org). Working landscapes are also a prominent part of the Bay Area’s “foodscape,” widely appreciated by food-conscious Bay Area residents. On privately-owned ranch lands, ranchers use wildlife-friendly practices and improvements, sometimes partnering with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the California Department of Wildlife, or local Conservation Districts. Many have mitigation or conservation easements on their properties, providing more habitat, watershed, and connectivity than can be provided on public lands alone.

Fig 3: Rancher Ned Woods grazes cattle on East Bay Park land, near Mt. Diablo and Walnut Creek, California. (Photograph by Lance Cheung, NRCS, USDA)

A recent study used social media to understand public interest and perceptions of cattle grazing on parklands (Barry 2014). Many park users visiting Bay Area grazed parks shared positive views about cows and grazing on Flickr™ expressing an enjoyment of the pastoral scene and their recognition the grazing animals as “happy cows.” A few negative comments (under two percent) made it clear that some park users, especially those with dogs, are bothered by manure. Of greater concern to park managers, some park users expressed a fear of cows. Some stated a desire to overcome their fear but there seemed to be uncertainty about what could happen or how to respond to the presence of livestock. If you run across cattle on your Bay Area wanderings, give them their space, and keep dogs far away, since to livestock a dog is a predator. Cows really just want to eat the grass and will generally ignore you if you let them. Park managers may be able to overcome negative perceptions and fear of cows on public lands via education. With over 2.5 million visitors to grazed parks per year in the Bay Area, there is a growing opportunity to educate and explain why Bay Area open space is not open space but instead, constitutes well-stewarded places supporting and benefiting from cattle and sheep ranching.

Further Reading and References

Barry, S. (2014). Using Social Media to Discover Public Values, Interests, and Perceptions about Cattle Grazing on Park Lands. Environmental Management 53: 454-464. DOI: 10.1007/s00267-013-0216-4

Barry, S., L. Bush, S. Larson, and L. Ford. (2015). Understanding Working Rangelands: The Benefits of Livestock Grazing California’s Annual Grasslands. University of California ANR Publication 8517. 7 p.

Bartolome, J., B. Allen-Diaz, B., et al. (2014). Grazing For Biodiversity in California Mediterranean Grasslands. Rangelands 36(5): 36-43. DOI:10.1525/california/9780520252202.003.0020

Bay Area Open Space Council. (2012). Golden Lands, Golden Oppoturnity. Prserving vital Bay Area lands for all Californians. Accessed Nov 2015.

Cornelisse, T. M., M.K. Bennett, & D. K. Letourneau. (2013). The Implications of Habitat Management on the Population Viability of the Endangered Ohlone Tiger Beetle (Cicindela ohlone) Metapopulation. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e71005. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071005

Diekmann, L., L. Panich, and C. Striplen. (2007). Native American Management and the Legacy of Working Landscapes in California. Rangelands 29 (3): 46-50. DOI:10.2458/azu_rangelands_v29i3_diekmann

PlanBayArea.org [Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission]. (2013). Plan Bay Area 2040 Draft Environmental Impact Report. Accessed Nov 2015.

Stein, D. and Facebook. 2015. Moving Goats on UC Berkeley Campus, Video Clip,

Sheila Barry is Bay Area Natural Resources/Livestock Advisor and Santa Clara County Director for UC Cooperative Extension

Paul F. Starrs is Professor of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno

Lynn Huntsinger is Professor, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley

DOI: 10.14433/2016.0002

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Journals

‘Annals of the AAG’ Welcomes Two New Editors

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Our flagship journal, the Annals of the  American Association of Geographers, begins the new year with a change of editorship.

Bruce Braun and Richard Wright have completed their four year terms as editors of the Nature and Society, and People, Place and Region sections respectively. Their successors are James McCarthy and Nik Heynen.

James McCarthy is a Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. He is perfectly placed to edit the Nature and Society section of the Annals as his own research interests center around nature-society relations including political ecology, environmental policy and social movements, environmental history, and environmental politics.

McCarthy has considerable editorial experience in the field of nature-society geography including as editor of two major volumes – The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology (June 2015) and Neoliberal Environments (Routledge, 2007) – and three special issues of journals (Environment and Planning A, Geoforum and Antipode). He has also served on the Editorial Board of the Annals since 2008.

James is looking forward to leading this pivotal section of the Annals: “I consider nature-society research to be an absolutely essential area of scholarship for geography and for society, and the Annals to be the discipline’s leading journal in this critical domain. I am honored to have the opportunity to help recruit, develop, and publish the very best of geographic nature-society scholarship in the Annals.”

Nik Heynen is a Professor in the Department of Geography at University of Georgia. He has diverse interests including urban geography, urban political ecology, environmental justice, politics of race, urban social movements, and science and technology studies, which are well-suited to managing the breadth of manuscripts received in the People, Place and Region section of the Annals.

Heynen has considerable editorial experience including seven years in various editorial capacities at Antipode and was founding editor of the Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation Book Series at the University of Georgia Press, which to date has published 25 books with another 20 in process.

Nik is particularly excited about his new role: “At this point in my career, because of active research I have underway, I do not think there are many journals I would be as interested in editing as the Annals due to both the important disciplinary role it plays but also because of the diverse range of research results it publishes at such a high-quality.”

The AAG, the Publications Committee, and the rest of the Annals editorial team would like to express their heartfelt thanks to Bruce Braun and Richard Wright for their hard work over the last four years. They have presided over thriving sections, managing a heavy workload of manuscripts while ensuring that high quality and rigor was maintained.

The Annals of the AAG publishes six times a year (January, March, May, July, September and November) with one issue per year being a special themed issue. The upcoming March 2016 Special Issue is on Geographies of Mobility. See the contents of the latest issue or browse all past issues. If you are interested in submitting a paper to the Annals, please refer to the information for authors.

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President's Column

New Year, New Name, New Proposal

I am writing this column on the first day of the new year. Effective January 1, 2016, the AAG will begin to operate under the name “American Association of Geographers,” rather than “Association of American Geographers.” The membership voted overwhelmingly in both 2014 and 2015 to make this change. The name “American Association of Geographers” is a registered “DBA” or “doing business as” name. Using a DBA name does not require the AAG to change the association’s prior name, and both names can legally be used by the association. The new name will be phased in over the next year.

I know some members are not happy about the change but it is, in fact, a recognition that our organization has changed. We have substantial membership from outside the United States. Our annual meeting is enlivened with participants from around the world. Our journals invite submissions from geographers everywhere and we publish the abstracts in multiple languages. We are an international organization that is located in the United States. The name reflects who we have become. Of course this means a new logo and some adjustments over time. And it means that at some point we may wish to re-think our systems of representation to acknowledge our growing internationalism. We have regional councillors, national councillors—do we need international councillors? That is an agenda item for another president, not me.

There is always a great deal of chatter among geography departments about our names. The Department Heads listserv had a lively conversation some months ago about re-branding departments through name changes, adding words that resonate today with students such as “environment” and “sustainability.” Sometimes name changes reflect significant revision of degree plans, program foci, and a renewed sense of departmental mission. But too often these are simply superficial attempts to attract new enrollees, via relabeling versus offering an improved program or experience. To return to my presidential theme of healthy departments, any change that takes place in a department should be organic and positive, not reactive, something that inspires cohesion, offers faculty and staff an opportunity to reflect and to develop a shared sense of mission.

A young colleague recently sent me a copy of a column written by John C. Hudson in the Journal of Geography in 1984 (83 (3) 100-101) entitled Geography’s Image Crisis. John’s first line is, “Has there been a time when geography was not in crisis?” He goes on to recount some of the “dire predictions” about academic geography to make the point that geography will persist because of peoples’ natural curiosity about the world, writing, “The subject and its practitioners are not one and the same, yet we nearly always confuse the two when we speak about the future of geography.” To be frank, it is our livelihoods that concern us when we fret about geography. And our concern with the image of geography? Hudson criticizes “new aggressivism” to advance the status of the discipline, and decries attempts to justify our existence based on our value to society. But in a section that I think is prescient, he writes:

Perhaps we go too far in making ourselves subservient to rewards invented to make bureaucracies function efficiently. We confuse good teaching with awards for good teaching. We confuse good research with money given for research, and then mistake publication for evidence of scholarship. We confuse accomplishment with medals our brothers and sisters vote us certifying our accomplishments. When recognition becomes the goal, then we set our priorities accordingly.

Keeping in mind Hudson’s sage observations, we are increasingly measured; awards, grants, and publications count in ways that they did not in the past, collected and sorted through rating services like Academic Analytics. We faculty are benchmarked, discipline by discipline, to compare universities and colleges based on a range of criteria, one of which is “honorific awards bestowed upon faculty members.” This situation places pressure on faculty and departments to seek awards that are included in the Academic Analytic database. It will benefit geographers in relation to our peers if we can expand the number of honors geographers receive. Whether we like it or not—and Hudson does an excellent job pointing out the inherent fallacies in the system—we do have to be concerned about our status as individuals and departments. One can rage against the system, but we must also be clever about working within it for survival. It is self-serving, but it is the environment in which we work. And in geography a paucity of “recognized” awards are available for us to win.

AAG honors its outstanding members in a number of specific categories through an organized nomination and award process overseen by elected members of the Honors Committee. This year we are honoring about 12 individuals, a very small number given our size. Additional awards are made through the specialty groups but the number, types, and prestige of these awards is uneven. Unlike many other professional organizations, we do not have an overarching, broader-based Fellows Program. This places geographers at a disadvantage in relation to colleagues in other disciplines in achieving status at our institutions and, consequently, in national and international organizations such as the National Academies.

I have proposed the development of an AAG Fellows program similar in scope and selectivity to Fellows programs in other organizations such as AAAS and AGU. The purpose of a Fellow Program would be to recognize the significant contributions to advancing geography of a larger group of geographers. The definition of contribution would be very broad and could include service to the AAG; outstanding teaching and mentoring that impacts the profession; innovative administration in academe, government, and industry; novel and sustained research; and outreach that communicates the importance and value of geography to the public. The definition of significant would have to be specified as well, that this exceptional honor is reserved for a limited number of members of AAG.

If we begin such a program, we would simply be following other professional associations. The American Mathematical Society initiated a new program in 2011, partly to “…make mathematicians more competitive for awards, promotion and honors when they are being compared with colleagues from other disciplines.” A proposal to Council is under development. I think it is a good idea but I would like to hear from you. I am mindful of voices like that of John Hudson (who I count as a friend), who concludes his article, “If geography faces a crisis today it is an inner crisis, an impoverishment of the spirit, and one that has come from listening to those who advocate aggrandizement rather than accomplishment.” An AAG Fellows program would have to be about honoring accomplishment.

DOI: 10.14433/2016.0001

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Susan R. Brooker-Gross

Susan Brooker-Gross, who spent almost 40 years at Virginia Tech, first in the geography department then in university administration, passed away suddenly on January 2, 2016, at the age of 65, due to complications after surgery.

Susan Ruth Gross was born in 1950 in Ohio. She was intellectually precocious and, after excelling in the Lake School District, she attended Bowling Green State University, where she earned both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in geography.

Having graduated in 1973, she moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue a doctorate, also in geography. Her thesis, completed in 1977, was entitled “Spatial Organization of the News Wire Services in the Nineteenth-Century United States.” Looking at the new technology of the telegraph in the mid-nineteenth century, she examined how the expansion of physical infrastructure brought about socio-cultural change, from a focus on local communities to a nationally integrated society. Aspects of her thesis were subsequently published and she continued her interest in the geography of news media throughout her career, publishing articles and chapters on topics ranging from 19th century newspapers to 24-hour global TV news.

Brooker-Gross joined the faculty at Virginia Tech in 1977 as an assistant professor of geography. She was promoted to associate professor in 1983 and chaired the geography department from 1990 to 1993. Geography professor and longtime colleague Jim Campbell said, “Susan, as one of our department’s early faculty members, was a major contributor to our growth and stature at the university.”

Her research centered on urban geography, and explored the impact of gender, technology, and socioeconomic factors on human populations. A particular strand of her work was commuting in non-metropolitan areas and the impact of employment on the household, for example finding child care in rural areas. Much of her field research looked at the area around Blacksburg, Virginia, where she lived, and specifically at households with university employees.

Over time, Brooker-Gross’s interests turned to the administrative aspects of higher education. In 1993, she moved from the geography department to the provost’s office. She started as associate provost for undergraduate programs and became deeply involved with the transition of student records to electronic formats. This work put her into contact with planners and developers in information technology, and in 1997, she joined the Division of Information Technology.

Her first role was as the student systems implementation leader for Banner, the university’s comprehensive application for managing student and personnel information. She later became the Director of Policy and Communications and was responsible for planning news and communications for the Division of Information Technology, as well as developing many of the policies that govern the university’s data access, maintenance, and security.

Her sharp intellect and broad experience at the university made her a valuable administration and planning asset for the division and her contributions to the university will be greatly missed. John Krallman, director of information and technology business and financial affairs said, “She was deeply intellectual, and had a way of thinking about problems that was truly different. Her consideration of IT challenges often yielded better, more thorough solutions than we could otherwise have provided, and we relied on her innovative approach, as well as her skill as a writer and editor.”

Brooker-Gross was a lifetime member of the American Association of Geographers, and actively involved in the Southeast Regional Division including serving as its President. She was also active in her home community of Blacksburg. Together with her husband, they built and then inhabited a winsome homestead in the Blacksburg countryside. In 2001, she decided to learn the flute, and quickly showed sufficient skill to join the Blacksburg Community Band, with whom she thoroughly enjoyed rehearsing and performing.

Susan will be fondly remembered by many friends and neighbors in Blacksburg, as well as colleagues at Virginia Tech. She was predeceased by her husband of 35 years, James E. Brooker, who died in May 2015. She is survived by their son, John Brooker, and her brother, Jeffrey.

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Awardees

2016 AAG Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award: Kenneth Foote

The AAG bestows an annual award recognizing an individual geographer, group, or department, who demonstrates extraordinary leadership in building supportive academic and professional environments and in guiding the academic or professional growth of their students and junior colleagues.

The Award was launched last year, and its inaugural awardee was the late Susan Hardwick. It has since been renamed in her honor and memory.

Dr. Kenneth E. Foote has been selected for this Award in recognition of his career-long dedication to not only being a mentor, but to helping others be successful mentors themselves.

His co-leadership in the AAG’s Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) and resultant books and articles uncovered and disseminated effective means of mentoring graduate students. His launch, organization, and dedicated hosting of the Graduate Faculty Development Alliance (GFDA) workshops (2002 – 2015) and of the Department Leadership workshops (2010 – 2015) have included sessions on working with and mentoring graduate students, as well as approaches to mentoring junior faculty.

Foote has worked diligently to mentor department chairs and other leaders, and he has tirelessly promoted and encouraged colleagues along their career paths. He constantly shows and acts upon his desire to transform the academy through mutually supportive environments for faculty and students of all backgrounds.

It is for these and so many more reasons that we are pleased to recognize Dr. Kenneth E. Foote as the AAG’s 2016 Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Awardee.

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Changing Human Populations Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff
Awardees

Matt Rosenberg to Receive AAG Media Achievement Award

The 2016 AAG Media Achievement Award is presented to Matt Rosenberg in recognition of his success in promoting greater understanding of geography through his work in the web and in social media. He has developed his website geography.about.com into one of the most popular in the internet devoted exclusively to geography. Through this work as well as his books and outreach activities, Rosenberg has become an outstanding spokesperson for geography, geographical literacy and geography education.

Matt Rosenberg, About.com

Matt Rosenberg is awarded the 2016 Association of American Geographers Media Achievement Award in recognition of his success in promoting greater understanding of geography through web and social media, as well as through his other publications and work. Over a period of 18 years, Matt’s hard work and enthusiasm built one of the most popular sites in the internet devoted exclusively to geography.

In addition to his site at geography.about.com, Matt has published two books about geography, including The Handy Geography Answer Book. Matt has been featured on PBS and NPR and has conducted many interviews about geographical topics for television, radio, and newspapers. In October 2006, Matt was awarded the Excellence in Media Award from the National Council for Geographic Education for his contributions over the years to the discipline of geography and to geography education.

Mr. Rosenberg holds a master’s degree in geography from California State University, Northridge and a bachelor’s in geography from the University of California, Davis. His master’s thesis was natural hazards in Ventura County, California; a topic close to Matt’s other professional work as a disaster manager for the American Red Cross. Matt has served on more than two dozen major disaster relief operations around the United States. He has traveled widely across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and is an active member of the Association of American Geographers and the National Council for Geographic Education.

For his exceptional contributions to geography in the web, for his engagement with media, and his contributions to geography education and the promotion of greater public understanding of geography, we honor Matt Rosenberg.

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Changing Human Populations Networks and Connections Planning and Development
Priya Bhame
Priya Bhame
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Temple University Press Selected for AAG Publication Award

The AAG Publication Award is presented to the Temple University Press in recognition of its support for scholarship in geography and urban studies. At a time when many smaller University presses are shrinking, Temple University Press has distinguished itself by its continued commitment and excellence in publishing insightful, thorough, and well written scholarship and research in geography and Urban Studies. For this and its outstanding collection, it is being award the organization’s 2016 Publication Award.

Temple University PressAt a time when many smaller University presses are shrinking, Temple University Press has distinguished itself by its continued commitment and excellence in publishing insightful, thorough, and well written scholarship and research in Geography and Urban Studies

The relationship between the Temple University Press and the discipline of geography goes back to the founding of the Press in 1969. Since that time the Press has continued to publish important and innovative work on current social issues. The publications in geography are focused on urban, political, and human geography.

Today, the geographic works published by the Temple University Press are recognized with major awards, from a wide variety of organizations. Two recent publications in geography were awarded the “Outstanding Academic Title” by Choice Magazine. Urban Studies titles have received awards from major academic and professional organizations in Anthropology, History, Sociology, Urban Studies and Planning, among others.

For their long-term commitment to publishing excellent research in geography, we honor the Temple University Press with the AAG Publication Award.

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Changing Human Populations Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff