Stories

Member Profile: Neal Lineback

November 17, 2023

Neal Lineback's SUV and RV displaying Geography in the News logos

The GITN Mobile, outfitted by Lineback for geographic adventures.

As an adventuresome boy growing up in the 1940s and 50s in Forsyth County, North Carolina, Neal Lineback became a geographer before he knew what it was. Working summers for his uncle, a surveyor, since Neal was 11, he learned about topography and mapping by cutting brush and helping identify property lines, eventually training to operate the surveyor’s transit for observations.

“I was constantly exposed to maps and surveys. I loved maps and cartography and spent days plotting bicycle and car trips,” Lineback recalls. By the time he was 14, he had plotted an 80-mile backroad bicycle trip with a friend to earn Boy Scout merit badges. The trip was interrupted by Hurricane Hazel, the deadliest, costliest hurricane of the 1954 season. “We had to camp out in a dilapidated house at the foot of the Blue Ridge as the hurricane brought driving wind and rain,” says Lineback. “Our parents had no idea where we were.” Fortunately, the boys arrived at their destination unharmed the next day, and earned their badges.

At sixteen, Lineback bought a used Model A Ford for $100, intent on driving to Alaska. He changed his mind after the car broke down while he was still in North Carolina, resold it for the same amount he bought it for, and turned his attention to a more formal education. In the meantime, he worked a year in manufacturing as a millwright before he seriously began his college education.

Then as now, geography was a “discovery major.” It was not until his second year at East Carolina College that Lineback met two young and dynamic geography faculty, “Fritz” Gritzner and Louis DeVorsey and departmental chair Robert Cramer. “Thanks to them, I realized I had already been a geographer for 10 years and didn’t know it. Maps were my life and still are.”

In 1963, Lineback took his first teaching job, as a high school teacher in Henry County, Virginia. “I was told I was the first trained geographer to teach in the state. I entered the classroom with four things on my desk: a roll book, an out-of-date geography textbook from the 1950s, a 1930’s world map, and a paddle.” The Vietnam War was ever-present, and Lineback soon found the need to keep himself and the 30 students in five classes — many of them boys who might be drafted — up to date on the Southeast Asia daily news. That’s when he first had an epiphany about the work that would become a passion project of public scholarship: Geography in the News, which finally came to fruition nearly 25 years later and continued for more than 1,200 published articles. (In 2023, Lineback transferred the trademark and archives of Geography in the News to AAG, which is developing a repository of the articles and publishes highlights from the collection.)

College Teaching, Atlas of Alabama, and Field Work in Syria

Lineback went on to receive his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and also taught there for two years as a graduate student and adjunct instructor before taking up a post at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. For 18 years, he served as editor of The Atlas of Alabama (1973, The University of Alabama Press) and several computer atlases, among the first of their kind. He served as department chair for 12 years, and also did field work as a hydrologist in Syria, studying the Figeh spring, which brings water to Damascus.

In 1986, when Lineback became chair of the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University, he was finally able to bring GITN to life. His idea for GITN’s journalistic approach to blending geography and current events met with the enthusiasm of dean William Byrd. What clinched it was when Lineback met political and environmental geographer Harm de Blij. “I told him that I was contemplating starting work on Geography in the News that summer. He listened intently, then said, ‘Great idea! If you don’t do it, I know of someone who will.’ I immediately pitched the idea to my local newspaper, The Watauga Democrat.”

The column was a hit with local readers and was increasingly requested by teachers. Within four years, Lineback had signed a contract to publish GITN online with Maps.Com in Santa Barbara, California. The Internet made it still easier to produce the column and send maps and text by email from coast to coast weekly.

I took considerable pride in involving both my undergraduate and graduate students in GITN and other work, particularly to the point of making sure their names were on my research papers and published maps.”

Using Geography to Delve Beneath the Headlines

How did Lineback address breaking issues in the news with thorough, thoughtful geographical perspectives week after week? The process went something like this: The first draft for the week would be written every Sunday evening, in time to meet his graduate or undergraduate cartographer on Monday morning for instructions for a map. Then he sent the draft to his long-time University News Bureau editor. Lineback used his lunch hour between classes to edit the article. After a few days of edits back and forth, Lineback would be ready to email the final version to California by 10 a.m. Friday. By this time he was doing 52 articles a year, never missing a week.

“I wrote them on vacation in Mexico, during Christmas week with the family, on a two-week cruise ship speaking tour around Scotland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, and on fishing trips to Cape Hatteras. “Nobody else would be so stupid,” he laughs now. “It was almost non-stop for more than 20 years.”

The 27-year success of “Geography in the News” has given Lineback his greatest source of achievement. At its height, through school adoptions, subscriptions and media publications, the column enjoyed an estimated weekly readership far exceeding three million in the early 2000’s, winning awards from the AAG, SEDAAG, Travelocity and more, including a 2-year run on the NGS Newswatch blog.

Portrait of Neal Lineback and his daughter Mandy Lineback Gritzner, who has followed in her dad’s footsteps and become a geographer. — Neal Lineback and daughter Mandy Lineback Gritzner, who has followed in her dad’s footsteps and become a geographer.

During the last five years he teamed with his daughter, geographer Mandy Gritzner. “A Godsend,” he says. He continued to teach two or three classes per semester, preside as Department Chair, and serve on AAG and University committees, as well as writing for research projects, including a co-author of Global Change in Local Places, funded by NASA through the AAG. He debuted the World Geography Bowl to SEDAAG (1990) and two years later at AAG after witnessing it as a simple game among North Carolina college students and realized that it could be a thrilling exercise for both geography students and faculty. It was immediately a resounding success. The World Geography Bowl is now a popular event at the AAG annual meeting.

In his experiences, “Geography departments should adopt the academic model of a three-legged stool: promoting well-rounded faculty who carry out good teaching, provide good academic service to their disciplines, and accomplish/publish research in their field,” says Lineback. “In all of these tasks, they should involve their students. I took considerable pride in involving both my own undergraduate and graduate students, particularly to the point of making sure their names were on my research papers and published maps. University teaching shouldn’t go on solely in the classroom.”

News

Opening Up the Research Enterprise

November 6, 2023

Person holding their hands in the shape of a heart with sunlight in background

By Risha RaQuelle

This fall, AAG got good news: The National Science Foundation has awarded AAG and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) a collaborative grant to confront and address implicit bias in the research enterprise, broadly defined as the research activities across and within institutions. This grant will strengthen AAG’s pursuit of an ethos of care within the discipline of geography and scientific disciplines.

In 2024 and beyond, we will work with members and partners, especially at emerging research institutions, drawing on our collective knowledge, skills, and talents to reform research practices with a culture of care in mind, from proposal and principals to study design and participation, all the way to final results. A forum of up to 30 participants will take place September 19-20, 2024 to bring together our body of knowledge and determine specific, scalable steps toward change.

Our work will build on the insights of our co-PI in the grant, Emily Skop of UCCS, and her co-authors who wrote a call to the discipline and to all in the research community in an article for Inside Higher Ed in 2021. In particular, we aim to bring to life the central principles of belonging, access, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (BAJEDI) literature to galvanize the research enterprise community.

We are seeking collective answers among scholars of all backgrounds, ages, and experience to inform this project. Outreach to find participants will start in 2024.

This month, I’d like to focus the JEDI Office Hours on the vital questions and observations on creating an ethos of care within the research enterprise. Do you have insights to share, ideas to explore? Please take a moment to sign up for a time to chat about creating a culture of care in the research enterprise.

JEDI Committee Updates

Here are highlights from among our seven subcommittees. Here is a glimpse into the activity of three AAG JEDI subcommittees this month.

Focused Listening

Our focused listening subcommittee chair is convening a panel discussion at the Race, Ethnicity and Place Conference October 11-13, in collaboration with our JEDI Chair, and committee members this month, and is exploring how to engage with members through focused listening sessions at annual and regional meetings.

Governance

The governance subcommittee is seeking additional members to support a more diverse representation on the governance subcommittee and is developing a workplan with three dimensions focusing on: utilizing an equity lens to review policies, practices, and procedures in AAG governance; while identifying opportunities to support inclusion; and continuous improvement (ex. quick, response, annual review, and protocol for equity auditing).

Advocacy

The advocacy subcommittee is focusing on developing a workplan to address the following deliverables: enhancing geography as a discipline, applying collective expertise and skills; and supporting policy issues at the intersection of Geography and JEDI advancement.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0142

The AAG Culture of Care column is an outreach initiative by the AAG JEDI Committee. Don’t forget to sign up for JEDI Office Hours. The theme in November is An Ethos of Care in the Research Enterprise.

Donald J. Zeigler

An Exemplary Geography for Life Explorer

Don Zeigler’s colleague, Jonathan Leib, reports that Don knew at an early age that he wanted to be a geographer. While in high school he joined the American Association of Geographers (AAG) and was a member for the rest of his life. His career began with teaching high school geography for three years. After earning his Ph.D. in 1980 from Michigan State University, he became a professor in the Department of Political Science and Geography at Old Dominion University until he retired in 2016. He was department chair from 1990 to 1994.

In 1986, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Education, Don wrote a proposal to create the Virginia Geographic Alliance (VGA). He worked to secure funding from Gilbert Grosvenor, Chairman of the National Geographic Society (NGS) and Gerald Baliles, Governor of Virginia. He helped lead the VGA for more than 30 years and the organization continues to serve students, K-12 educators, and higher education faculty across Virginia.

Don was president of the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) in 1997. He was president of Gamma Theta Upsilon, the international geography student honor society in 2009 and 2010. During the 1990s he worked to create the Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) program. In addition to a term as Chief Reader, he led annual readings and conducted workshops, institutes, and travel seminars for high school teachers. Thanks to his consistent efforts APHG is offered in thousands of high schools across the United States.

The first National Standards in Geography in the United States, published in 1994, were aptly named “Geography for Life.” The title encompasses the profound meaning of places and environments in every human life and recognizes that each person is engaged in a lifetime adventure of meaning making through exploration, discovery.

Don was an exemplary “geography for life” explorer. Earth was his primary source of inquiry, his knowledge, analytic skills, and diverse perspectives. All his senses were on alert as he traveled widely and attentively across many time zones, cultural landscapes and physical environments. He developed a keen sense of place while immersed in unique places, always knowing that the places were all interacting in a complex web of global physical and cultural systems. He could skillfully trace and explain those multiple interactions.

Wherever he found himself, he was a keen observer of his surroundings. He saw details others missed or disregarded, he listened intently to other people and to sounds in the environment. He tasted and touched his way across many countries. In his mind he carried an extensive atlas of mental maps to draw upon when doing research or presentations. He developed his own geographic information system and personal navigation system before the widespread use of computer-based GIS and GPS. Don had an extensive repertoire of five-minute lectures through which he explained complex concepts in simple terms or provided a detailed description of a landscape he had experienced.

Although we may be sometimes alone in our explorations, we are also embedded in communities in particular times and specific places. We need geographic knowledge, skills, and perspectives to inform us as we journey together seeking our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of our life companions.

Geography is for life and for a lifetime. Don embraced this perspective and lived it out in several professional and personal communities. He invested many years serving and leading geography organizations. Examples include, Gamma Theta Epsilon, 53 years; Association of American Geographers, over 50 years; National Council for Geographic Education, over 50 years; Old Dominion University, 36 years; Virginia Geographic Alliance, 36 years; and Advanced Placement Human Geography, over 20 years.

Don received numerous well-deserved state and national awards for research, teaching, and service. Among the major honors he earned are a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) Outstanding Faculty Award in 2006, Gilbert Grosvenor Honors in Geographic Education in 2009, the inaugural AAG Harm J. de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Geography Teaching in 2016, and NCGE George J. Miller Award for Distinguished Service in 2017.

During his career, Don taught more than 50 different courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels. They included large lecture sections, graduate research seminars, foreign area field studies, transects across Virginia for teachers, world geography and history webinars, and televised courses for students, teachers, and the public. Additionally, he served as Fellow at the American Centers of Oriental Research, Amman, Jordan in 2001, Fulbright-Hays Scholar, Morocco, in 1989, Visiting Scholar, Aleppo University, Aleppo, Syria in 1993.

In his personal and professional life, Don offered no negative judgments of others, praised generously, criticized sparingly, and seldom complained. He always offered others support, encouragement and compassion. As he spent his life exploring Earth’s diverse and constantly changing environments, I am certain that along with his backpack, he carried an attitude of gratitude at every latitude.

Don Zeigler inspired us with his unfailing humility, grace, and enthusiasm for the next exploration. As “geography for life” explorers, let’s follow his example.

Submitted by Robert W. Morrill, Professor Emeritus, Geography, Virginia Tech

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President's Column

Climate Change and the 2024 Annual Meeting in Honolulu

September 11, 2023

NASA aerial of the Lahaina fire on Maui.

This summer has been suffused with visceral reminders of the consequences of climate change: intense and extended heat waves, poor air quality, high ocean temperatures, and the list goes on. As geographers, we knew climate change was already here, but even so the last few months have caused grief and shock.

The fires in West Maui continue to be particularly upsetting. As I write this column nearly a month after the fire, emergency organizations have confirmed the death of 115 people and have posted the names of another 385 who are believed to be missing. It is one of deadliest wildfires in U.S. history. And history clearly matters here. The Maui fires were enabled by economic and ecological imperialism, as Kanaka scholar Kamana Beamer explained in a recent piece in The Guardian.

Until the nineteenth century, a dense Hawaiian population thrived in an abundant Lahaina landscape that featured flowing streams, waterways that irrigated taro and other crops, and a fishpond. But this sustainable food system was appropriated, manipulated, and in some cases destroyed to enable extractive plantation monocropping that lasted over a century. When the former sugar plantation shuttered its business in 1999, increased diversion of surface waters and the absence of active agricultural cultivation resulted in overgrowth of invasive non-native grasses, shrubs and trees that fueled the fire. As geographers have been arguing for more than half a century, there is no such thing as natural disaster.

Local resident's tribute of tagging "Lahaina Strong" on a wall beside a road. Credit: State Farm Insurance — Local resident’s tribute, Lahaina Strong. Credit: State Farm Insurance

While there has been an outpouring of public support, other responses to the fires have been profoundly disheartening. Indigenous and environmental groups are contending with opportunists exploiting the tragedy to grab water and land rights. Residents of West Maui have instead advanced post-recovery visions for reducing inequality and increasing the strength and interconnection of human and non-human communities. That is a future worth fighting for (see the Maui United Way’s response to the fires; the Na’Aikane o Maui Cultural Center, a key player in the fight for Kanaka land rights; and ongoing efforts by the Hawai’i Alliance for Progressive Action).

All this means that climate change and AAG’s role in mitigating or exacerbating it are heavy on my mind.

AAG’s Work on Climate Thus Far

Thanks to the big-picture thinking of the Climate Action Task Force and the efforts of staff, AAG has made some important initial steps in mitigating its climate impacts. The entire AAG endowment has been de-carbonized, so that we no longer financially support the fossil-fuel industry. AAG has moved into a LEED Gold building, notably reducing its day-to-day emissions. The first cohort of the Elevate the Discipline program, intended to increase geography’s impact on public policy, is focused on climate change. Through these and other programs, Gary Langham and the AAG staff have made it clear that they are serious about climate change.

AAG’s remaining climate impacts come primarily from the annual meetings. That means that AAG as an organization and we as a discipline will need to make some hard choices if we are to have any hope of bringing our net emissions down to 0 by 2050 as spelled out in our climate action commitment.

Mitigating the Climate Impacts of Annual Meetings

There are multiple options that we could pursue to mitigate the impacts of our annual meetings.

While many other professional societies have backed away from hybrid conference models because they are expensive and logistically challenging, AAG is continuing to make it possible to attend the annual meeting virtually. Thus, one approach would be to eliminate or reduce travel emissions via virtual attendance and the node model pioneered this spring. Nodes would have the added benefit of allowing us to contract with smaller hotel chains and vendors with better approaches to mitigating their impacts.

Another option would be to change the pattern of our annual meetings more radically, holding large in-person conferences every other year. In the alternate years, AAG could organize a set of smaller “hubs” connected by video-conferencing, perhaps linked to the existing regional meetings; an entirely virtual meeting every other year would reduce emissions further. In either case, it would take creative thought to enable the intellectual community building that is such an important component of the annual meeting, but I believe it is doable.

A third option would be some sort of offset. As geographers and others environmental scientists have demonstrated repeatedly, offsets have a terrible track record. Leaders of the Energy and Environment Specialty Group recently suggested instead that AAG make a long-term investment in an alternative energy project that might actually offset some of our emissions, preferably one with a strong social justice component. If it were possible to find a legitimate project, this could be an important component of AAG’s climate mitigation strategy.

Over the long term, we need to pursue some combination of these more interventionist approaches (along with other creative ideas from the Climate Action Task Force and AAG members), if we are to have any hope of moving AAG to net zero. The bottom line here is that AAG is going to have to change, and to change radically. That means we as geographers will have to, too.

Immediate steps AAG members can take to mitigate the annual meeting’s climate impacts

There are things AAG members can do immediately to reduce the climate impact of the annual meeting: attend virtually and/or help to organize a node.

Attending virtually is one straightforward way to reduce emissions associated with the 2024 annual meeting. We need to work on making virtual attendance more engaging, though. AAG’s data shows that in the past few years, the average virtual participant attended fewer than two full sessions: their own and part of another. Thus, I would encourage anyone going the virtual route to think carefully about viable ways to increase their engagement with the annual meeting. I would also encourage specialty groups to develop at least one virtual networking event for their members.

Another thing members can do to reduce the carbon footprint of the 2024 annual meeting would be to help organize a node. This approach was pioneered last year with a mini-conference that brought together geographers in Montreal, and a watch party for students at Cal State Fullerton. Both were very successful, but organizing them took a substantial amount of work. If more people volunteered to help organize it would make a big difference. If you are interested in co-organizing a node, please contact Patricia Martin or Betsy Olson, the current co-chairs of the Climate Action Task Force.

Our work to reduce AAG 2024’s impact on carbon and climate change is intertwined with the important work so many are putting into centering Indigenous Hawaiian history, knowledge, struggles, and victories at the meeting in Honolulu. I hope, too, that all virtual attendees and nodes will prioritize attending the talks, panels, and featured sessions that focus on Kānaka Maoli. As geographers, we know that climate change is inextricably social and biophysical: prioritizing one at the cost of another cannot move us forwards.

I am very grateful for Neil Hannahs and Aurora Kagawa-Viviani’s review of and suggestions for this column.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0137

Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at rlave [at] indiana [at] edu to enable a constructive discussion.

News

On Belonging, Action, and Accountability: An Update on JEDI at AAG

September 5, 2023

By Risha RaQuelle

It’s hard to believe that I will celebrate my first year at AAG in just a few months. As I close in on this eventful year of implementing AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) plan, I’d like to offer an update on our work so far, and to explain how it connects with the creation of a Culture of Care at AAG and in the discipline.

JEDI Plan Implementation

At AAG 2023 in Denver, I had my first chance to meet many of you in person, and to hear about your experiences and hopes for AAG’s JEDI initiative. In collaboration with our Communications team we designed a JEDI Booth at the Annual Meeting with a comment board for members to use to scan QR codes to provide feedback in six areas: Member Engagement, Virtual Repository, Truth and Reconciliation Task Force and production of Geography Videos to highlight JEDI scholars. We utilized this feedback to inform insights for incorporation into our implementation planning. A major milestone from that kick-off in Denver is that dozens of AAG members have volunteered for the seven JEDI working groups discussed below. I am grateful for your engagement.

Since April, the JEDI Committee has been at work creating and populating the seven working groups who are collectively activating the 32-point JEDI plan. We have created a framework for the work, called TLC GRAM, which stands for Training, Listening, Communications; and Governance, Reports, Advocacy, and Membership. These seven areas correspond exactly to the seven working groups. I’ll discuss those more in this article.

State of Geography and JEDI-Oriented Storytelling

AAG has woven action and education for JEDI values directly into its daily activities. Just a few highlights include the State of Geography report, which examined known and newer trends in the demographics and inequities of degree conferral; and the use of social media and website stories to showcase the diversity of our discipline through the voices of our members.

Advocacy

AAG’s Statement on Academic Freedom
Statement on the Targeting of Diversity Education and Critical Inquiry by U.S. States and a follow-up sign-on statement asking the College Board to maintain program integrity for the African American Studies AP course
A letter and follow-up resources list on police brutality. Letter On the Structural and Spatial Forces that Contribute to Police Brutality Access the resource list

AAG also integrated JEDI principles into its programming and cohort selection for the new Elevate the Discipline program, which provides geographers with advocacy and media training. This year’s theme was Climate and Society; 15 scholars were selected from 11 U.S. states and Barbados to participate.

JEDI Approach to all AAG Activities

We are working with all AAG staff to elevate JEDI principles throughout the organization’s work, including membership, professional development, advocacy, and events.

For example, we have created internal checklists informed by various taskforces to guide staff as we improve member experiences at the Annual Meeting, incorporating feedback from the Mental Health Taskforce, and the Accessibility Taskforce to ensure a framework for reinforcing a harassment free AAG.

We have also worked closely with President Lave and Executive Director Langham to incorporate insights from the JEDI Committee into planning for our upcoming annual meeting, with awareness to inform our Culture of Care approach with this and subsequent Annual Meetings.

Our year-round webinar offerings often address JEDI topics, including the recent and popular webinar, in partnership with trubel&co, which introduced department chairs to the Mapping Justice workshop approach for high school students, focusing especially on providing students of color with GIS tools for mapping issues of consequence and importance to them, including public health, food justice, environmental justice, and more. So far, nine geography departments have approached trubel&co to work together on campus programming for high school students.

The seven JEDI committees’ work is growing in specificity daily; I anticipate much more progress to report in upcoming columns. In this one, I’d like to take another moment to say more about some of the terms we are using to describe our work on the JEDI plan.

Defining a Culture of Care

This year, I introduced the concept of “Culture of Care” into our discussions about achieving JEDI goals for the discipline and within AAG. The Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California-Berkeley offers this definition of Cultures of Care: “practices that create belonging in the context of othering. A Culture of Care is an affirmative, generative form of resistance and adaptation.”

In other words, a Culture of Care — whether at work, in a friendship network, or among members of an organization like AAG — creates a haven of care and inclusiveness, in contrast to othering and oppression. As AAG Lifetime Achievement winner and abolitionist geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore has said, “What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, in experiments and possibilities.”

The closely related term “belonging” is also a key goal of our work. The Othering and Belonging Institute says, “The concept of belonging describes more than a feeling of inclusion or welcome. Its full power is as a strategic framework for addressing ongoing structural and systemic othering, made visible, for example, in the wide disparities in outcomes found across a variety of sectors and identity groups.”

TLC GRAM

TLC GRAM is more than a handy mnemonic (although with a 32-point plan, that function is appreciated!). It is also the frame on which a Culture of Care can be built by AAG.

No single part of TLC GRAM is more important than another. All must work together. Although the TLC part of TLC GRAM — Training, Listening, and Communication — is the heart of our efforts to be more just and inclusive, these efforts are only as good as our accountability. GRAM (Governance, Reports, Advocacy, and Membership) help AAG maintain our responsibility for equity and diversity, alongside inclusiveness and justice. These areas correspond exactly to the seven subcommittees now assembled to work on aspects of the JEDI plan.

Training – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Robin Lovell, Ph.D.)

This subcommittee will provide opportunities for JEDI learning through resources online, existing training opportunities, and AAG workshops. Specialty and affinity groups may organize programs in support of their own JEDI mission and goals.

Listening – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Debarchana Ghosh, Ph.D.; JEDI Committee Member & Council Liaison)

This subcommittee is already underway with JEDI Office Hours. JEDI listening sessions will be offered at key meetings, including the AAG Annual Meeting, regional meetings, and in other venues. AAG will assess opportunities to reach out to marginalized students, work with community colleges, and, potentially, connect with K-12 teachers and students.

Communications – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Caroline Nagel, Ph.D., Chair of the JEDI Committee)

This subcommittee is optimizing the website, AAG Newsletter, and other platforms to be more JEDI-focused, share more information, and provide more opportunities for interaction. The subcommittee is also examining ways to tell a more complete story about the discipline’s history and current realities, through multimedia storytelling, a proposed new Truth and Reconciliation Task Force, and a virtual repository of JEDI resources.

Participate in AAG’s weekly JEDI Office Hours. You can reserve a time to talk with staff about your ideas for advancing JEDI.

In the areas of accountability – GRAM – AAG has laid out these objectives:

Governance – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Joseph Wood, Ph.D.)

Among the subcommittee’s focal points are regular audits of AAG governance structures to identify and address systemic or structural barriers to achieving JEDI excellence. AAG will use the results of these audits to adjust and amend policies to reflect guiding JEDI principles, and foster collaboration among committees, task forces, and other entities engaged in JEDI work (e.g., Anti-Harassment Task Force, Accessibility Task Force). JEDI will also be a standing agenda item at all meetings of the AAG Executive Committee and the AAG Council.

Reporting – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Risha RaQuelle, Ph.D.)

Using voluntary information from members, the subcommittee will work with AAG to better understand the discipline’s representation of diverse identities, research specialties, departmental affiliations, and institutional affiliations. Working with the Healthy Departments Committee, the subcommittee will develop an evaluation tool for departments and programs to assess their own status, policies, practices, and progress toward JEDI success.

Advocacy – JEDI Subcommittee

(Co-Chaired by Mia White, PhD, and Meghan Cope, Ph.D. – JEDI Committee Members)

This subcommittee will advise AAG on advocacy issues at the intersection of geography and JEDI advancement.

Membership – JEDI Subcommittee

(Chaired by Russell Smith, Ph.D. – JEDI Committee Member)

This subcommittee will advise AAG regarding its membership fee structure, recruitment, and retention strategy to attract and increase the proportion of members from formerly excluded groups and institutions (e.g., MSIs, HBCUs, HSIs, Community Colleges, and Tribal Colleges) across professional and academic spheres. The subcommittee will also explore new ways of recognizing JEDI best practices and leadership through its awards program.

Each committee meets every other month. The next meetings will be held in September, with workplan deliverables due in December. We will unveil our updates and approach to operationalizing the workplans at the Annual Meeting.

Get Involved!

The TLC GRAM working groups are ongoing, and AAG welcomes participation. You can also sign up for a visit with AAG staff during JEDI Office Hours (any topic is welcome; AAG will set some topics this fall, for example research partnership opportunities with us will be discussed in October.) You can reserve a time to talk with staff about your ideas for advancing JEDI with any thoughts, questions, or ideas.

Find out more about AAG’s JEDI Plan implementation at AAG Culture of Care to find out more.

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0139

Ross O’Ceallaigh

By Annie Liu, AAG Intern

Ross O’Ceallaigh, host of the Green Urbanist podcast, discusses amplifying green ideas and how that is an important step in fighting climate change. In High School, his favorite subject was geography, but he didn’t want to end up teaching geography after getting a degree. Thankfully, he found a course that offered him the chance to start exploring both planning and geography, which opened him up to the world of urban design and development. Ironically, he ended up becoming an educator in both his day job and podcast anyway!

We all know you run a very popular podcast [The Green Urbanist], but tell us some more about your day job and your responsibilities

My day job, which I do four days a week, is working as a Learning Program Manager at a nonprofit called Design South East, which is based in the Southeast of England. We exist to try and improve the quality of design and development and places in general across that region of the southeast of England…My role is running training programs and learning events for built environment practitioners like planners who work in local authorities so they can upskill in design, urban design, sustainability, and just whatever is like the latest planning reform that is happening, which we’re having a lot of the last couple of years in the UK basically.

A non-linear career path

I’ve been sort of having a bit of a squiggly career in that I went on to study urban design at a master’s level, and I got a job as a planner in a local authority working on very small-scale stuff in in the South of England. Then I moved into a job in London that was working for a big multidisciplinary practice and working on international projects. The two main projects I worked on in my year and a half were in Nigeria, and one of them was for a spatial plan for a city of 6 million people. I went from assessing people’s applications to change their windows on their house to working on this massive spatial plan and still being quite inexperienced. I went on to work for a nice small urban design consultancy called Urban Initiatives Studio and worked much more in the UK and Ireland and on projects with local authorities doing things like urban design strategies for town centers or for London boroughs so they could plan their growth and get the best results out of coordinating the development that was coming forward.

“I just thought I quite like speaking, I quite like doing podcasting and sort of teaching people; I wonder, is there a way I can get into that?”

How does geography play a role in your job?

I think having a joint geography and planning background is very useful in terms of understanding the big picture and the natural systems that influence planning and urban design.

How did you end up starting your podcast?

I think it’s a familiar story for many podcasters in that when the pandemic happens, we’re all stuck at home, we had loads of free time…Then lots of people thought, ‘Ah, I’m gonna start that podcast I’ve always wanted to.

Ross realized that the climate crisis is incredibly serious and that he and many people in the built environment sector were unprepared for the challenge. He decided to teach himself and read up on the topics of interest in sustainability, leading him to start a podcast to share the knowledge that he was learning and keep learning from expert interviews.

“The podcast is as much for my education as for anyone else’s, and it really has been a great opportunity to sort of open up a conversation with people that you wouldn’t necessarily have access to…”

In your podcast, how do you perceive the value and importance of geographic knowledge?

I think something that’s become really clear to me over the last two years of podcasting is that sustainability solutions are really geographically focused and that a sustainable approach to, say, architecture in London, will be different to Boston or Sydney or Lagos, Nigeria. I think that’s been such a frustration–that we try to find really blanket solutions and really broad solutions to things that actually should be really location specific. It comes down all sorts of things, like traditional knowledge systems and indigenous knowledge perspectives of people who have actually lived sustainably for thousands of years in a place. Through the processes of colonialism and globalization, that knowledge has been sort of swept aside. Now we’re looking back on it, and we need to relearn the sustainable ways that are specific to this place.

What do you think are the most important issues you discuss on your podcast? And how do you hope your audience reacts to the issues discussed?

I think the topics have shifted over the course of the three years I’ve done it. I started talking about mitigation and being like ‘Here’s what net zero means’, ‘Here’s how we can get to net zero’, and while that is still at the front of our mind and very important, I’ve sort of moved on to thinking, ‘OK climate change is here, how do we adapt.’ Climate adaptation, particularly in the built environment, is flying under the radar quite a lot. People talk about things like overheating, but I think [there are] profound changes that we need to do to adapt.

[I hope] to share more about transformative climate responses, such as urban rewilding, or sustainable co-housing—alternative methods of doing things that step outside the developer profit-seeking model.

“I hope that then inspires other people to see what other possibilities are out there, and then hopefully those possibilities can be implemented.”

What is your favorite part of your day job and the podcast?

I’m always learning and I’m always getting a chance to learn from people. When I run training events in my day job, I’m often bringing in the best speakers to talk about something they’re quite expert in and I get to sit there in the audience and learn from them for that moment as well. I think also getting feedback from people who come and say that was really helpful…That’s the gratification of being in an educational role.

I think with my podcast, my perspective has changed so much over the last three years just from all the people I’ve been able to talk to. I think that thing of like keeping an open mind and being open to saying like, “Whoa, like, you know, the way I saw the world is a bit different and actually I’m gonna sort of move forward with a different perspective on this.

What do your coworkers think about the podcast? Is it kind of a double life, are you pulling a Hannah Montana situation, or are they interested and involved?

I think it helped me get this job actually, because I was doing the podcast for about a year before I decided to change from my consulting job and then I decided to try something else. It’s actually been really useful because I have a lot of contacts that I can call on from the podcast to come and do events in my day job that I’m running… So, it’s definitely not a double life and I’m lucky in a sense that my employer and my colleagues have been very supportive of it because it has so many parallels and it supports the day job. I don’t think they worry that I’m getting distracted by it.

Would be what advice do you have for undergrads, grads and early career professionals interested in your day job…or starting a podcast?

[Regarding a podcast], I think the answer is to say just do it and you learn by doing it and start by recording a couple of episodes, and if you think they’re awful, you don’t have to publish them. The only way you get good at something is by doing it…like you need to get started scripting or interviewing people or just chatting with your friend with the microphones and that that will make it much easier over time.

I would honestly say that even if nobody listens to your podcast, it’s still worth doing because it’s really enjoyable, it’s really good fun and you’ll probably learn a lot doing it and you’ll learn skills that can then be transferred and that kind of thing.

[As for jobs in general,] I would say if you have the luxury, pick your employer wisely, and don’t be afraid to jump around jobs a little bit. If you have the option to try out a couple of different jobs that are very different in scale and very different in context. In your early career, I think that’s really, really useful to do actually and will give you a really wide perspective. Then, you can say after a couple years’ experience, “Actually, you know what, what I really like and what I’m really good at is this thing and I’m gonna now focus in on this a bit more.

Don’t be afraid of jumping in and doing a job that maybe you’re a bit unsure about with the knowledge that it won’t last forever if you don’t want it to.

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