AAG Welcomes Risha RaQuelle as new Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Risha RaQuelle, Ph.D. has been named the new Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for AAG. Among her responsibilities will be acting as the staff liaison for AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion plan, adopted in December 2021.
“I’m excited to start my work with the American Association of Geographers,” said Dr. RaQuelle. “Geographers work on critical issues that are shaped by questions of equity and justice, from climate change to immigration to war and peace to hunger and poverty. It will be an honor to work with AAG to strengthen its response to the field and to the world’s great needs through the practice of geography.”
Dr. RaQuelle brings to her new role at AAG the knowledge and expertise resulting from 30 years of research, strategic direction, and leadership development addressing structural inequalities and racism and their collective impact on educational attainment and economic mobility. Among her many accomplishments, she is the founder and expert of the theory of organizational containment, which is defined as the “continual barriers that members of an organization encounter as they attempt to advance their career paths in pursuit of access to organizational resources critical to job effectiveness and career advancement” (from her dissertation, cited as Berry 2014).
A native of and current resident of Richmond, Virginia, Dr. RaQuelle was a founding member of that city’s Mayor’s Office of Community Wealth Building (the nation’s first such office). She was responsible for creating and establishing the educational alignment strategy for wealth building, which resulted in the creation of the RVA Future Centers initiative, placing post-secondary planning centers at each of the comprehensive high schools in Richmond.
She also co-chaired the creation of the Social Justice Core and Urban Education and Families Core as a visiting scholar with Virginia Commonwealth University. While there, she was appointed Interim Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for Human Services by the Mayor of Richmond, creating a strategic plan for aligning Community Wealth Building with citywide Human Services outcomes.
Dr. RaQuelle also has led her own leadership coaching firm and several projects across the U.S. focused on community education and equity building, including working with a neighborhood equity group in Baltimore, Maryland; a national organization focusing on supporting city leaders in executing goals for equity in early childhood systems alignment; and she is also a Community Advisory Board Member and chair of the Housing and Health Equity Subcommittee of the Virginia Commonwealth University Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research.
She is a national fellow with the National League of Cities (Aligning Early Childcare Systems).
With many grants, awards, and publications of research to her name, Dr. RaQuelle brings valuable insights and ideas to her new role at AAG. We are excited to welcome her, and to follow up with a conversation about her perspective on working with AAG when we return from the holidays.
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Careers
The State of Geography: Data and Trends in Higher Education
By Mark Revell and Mikelle Benfield
This year, AAG debuts The State of Geography report, presenting trends and indicators in post-secondary geography education in the United States. This report uses Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) codes, established by the National Center for Educational Statistics, to provide a snapshot of geography degree conferral patterns at the undergraduate and graduate levels. These data help identify trends and areas in need of additional attention, such as decreasing degree conferral in geography, racial and gender diversity across the discipline, and more.
Recent changes in geography majors and graduation rates observed in this report take place against a broader backdrop of change in higher education, where uneven or declining growth in enrollments and degrees has taken place in numerous majors since 2012, and has been aggravated more recently by COVID-19. Our findings indicate a similar slowing of the robust growth in geography majors that began in the 1990s and peaked in 2012. The overall number of geography degrees has steadily declined since then, tracking with declining degree conferrals in many other disciplines, with the greatest impact felt in the social sciences and humanities, and at the undergraduate level. The trends for post-graduate degrees are more encouraging, with steady growth until very recently, almost certainly due to the impacts of COVID-19.
Geography by Many Other Names
This report only captures trends for the six CIP codes that are currently related to geography, acknowledging that geography is also interdisciplinary and embedded in other disciplinary studies not clearly addressed by CIP codes. As new codes have been added over the years, we can see trends in disciplinary growth. In particular, GIScience and cartography degrees take up a larger proportion of current degree conferrals, particularly among master’s degrees. The proportion of GIS-related degrees is less dramatic at the bachelor’s and doctorate levels.
Master’s degrees have shown higher proportions of GIScience and cartography degrees in recent years.
Reviewing CIP categories that have been added since 1980 yields insight into directions for the discipline. Three categories that are used most often date from, respectively, 1980 (Geography), 2000 (Geography, Other), and 1990/amended 2010 (GIScience and Cartography was Cartography from 1990-2010). Three additional categories created in 2020 have yet to be widely adopted, but identify known directions for geography practice: Geospatial Intelligence, Geography and Environmental Science, and Geography and Anthropology.
While the interdisciplinary nature of geography makes it widely appealing for study, it also makes the discipline a challenge to track due to the variety of non-geography CIP codes that departments can apply to their programs. For example, GIScience programs may use a computer science CIP code; physical geography may be classified through a natural sciences CIP code. The reason behind the choice of codes by program coordinators could range from codes that are better suited to visa programs to choosing high-growth non-geography CIP codes more likely to be favored by college administrations. In fact, AAG’s Guide to Geography Programs in the Americasalready notes some CIP codes used by geography programs that were not included in this initial report, such as public health. Then, too, geography is being taught in other programs that are experiencing very high growth, such as atmospheric sciences, natural resources and conservation, and computer science and IT. These could be masking geography study, or could represent combined programs and departments.
Minding the Undergraduate Gap
Along with geography degrees at all levels, undergraduate degrees climbed steadily from just over 3,000 in 1986 to peak at roughly 5,000 in 2012. Growth has declined since then, reaching the level last seen thirty years ago at roughly 4,000 degrees conferred. When compared with all social and physical sciences, however, The State of Geography reportfound that geography has held its own, with a similar rate of growth to the combined rates for all social and physical sciences. Notably, natural resources conservation is the top physical science degree, and growing swiftly. This is a relevant finding to the capacity of geography studies to appeal to undergraduates, since spatial skills are indispensable to natural resources conservation. Almost all the sciences have experienced a dip in degree conferrals since 2008, and most lag far behind fields such as business management, marketing, computer sciences, and engineering. Part of this is likely the fallout from the Great Recession: The share of students majoring in social science and humanities degrees dropped steadily between 2008 and 2018, while the share of majors perceived as “recession-proof” grew.
Geography’s performance relative to select other social and physical sciences.
In short, geography as a major makes a good showing within both families of science to which it has affinities. This indicates the enormous opportunity that lies in breaking geography out of silos and rethinking the breadth of its appeal to undergraduate students. In fact, Stoler et al. found in their 2020 study of student preferences that the actual word ‘geography’ rated far lower in undergraduate students’ minds than words suggestive of many geographic focus areas, such as ‘environment’ or ‘sustainability.’ The news about conventional geography degrees for undergraduates is sobering, and the discipline’s influence among college students seems far from waning.
Graduate Study Strong Despite Setbacks
While the net number of bachelor’s degrees conferred has grown by only one-third since 1986, effectively falling from historical highs to 2000-era levels, graduate studies grew by almost 100% (96% and 98%, respectively). Since 2016, however, graduate degrees have dipped sharply along with other disciplinary degrees in social or physical science compared with other disciplines, possibly a partial consequence of economic factors that are now aggravated by COVID-19.
Geography majors across all levels of study (bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate), compared with select other fields of study.
Among the comparison fields in the report, geography graduate studies outperform virtually all other social sciences we examined at the graduate level when it comes to percent growth: they are second only to economics at the master’s level, and the number one choice at the doctorate level among the social sciences we compared. Among the physical sciences we compared, geography is second only to the rapidly growing field of natural resources and conservation at the master’s degree level (the same scientific field that has also greatly grown in undergraduate degrees). Doctorates in geography are outpaced by those in three physical sciences that all have close affinity with our discipline: natural resources and conservation, geology, and atmospheric science. It is worth asking why, if geography is such an attractive post-graduate degree, it has less traction among undergraduates. Are many geographers drawn to the discipline too late to change majors for their bachelor’s degree? Does the major even exist at their college? A student cannot earn a geography degree if none is available. Bjelland (2004,) found that only 7% of undergraduate liberal arts colleges offered a geography degree. For their part, the state university systems have made program changes since 2008, including combining or eliminating programs, due to increasing budget pressure and austerity. These changes yielded many more hybrid departments that may not explicitly recognize their geographic components (this is especially true in departments of urban planning and environmental science).
Notes on the Future
The overall decline in growth in geography degrees in the U.S. in recent years, especially among undergraduates, is concerning. Yet the relative strength in advanced degrees demonstrates staying power for the discipline, even at a time when so many disciplines and degrees are also declining. This could indicate that geography, often referred to as a “discovery” major, is resonating with students once they have discovered the field. Additional promising news, although outside the scope of this first report, is the apparent growth among associate degree geography or GIS programs at community colleges. There are now 210 community colleges in the United States that grant associates’ degrees in geography and GIS, compared with an estimated 158 in 2018. Shabram and Housel have found that many community colleges are “agile and demand-driven,” responding to the growing, unmet workforce need for spatial skills, noted by Solem et. Al. (2008).
Geography is also better positioned as a STEM science in future: the Geography and Environmental Studies CIP offers an important chance to increase geography’s visibility in this popular scientific area. Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security recent added Geography and Environmental Studies to its list of STEM degree programs.
These new developments can contribute to heightened awareness of geography, as well as better understanding of its power as a major and a career choice.
Note: The State of Geography Report also covers the conferral of degrees by race, ethnicity, and gender. These dimensions are crucial to a full understanding of the momentum of the discipline, and will be covered in future articles.
Get Involved in the Next State of GeographyReport:
We look forward to further expanding on our findings in the State of Geography Report in the future, with data from a variety of sources, including NCES, AAG surveys, and AAG member expertise. We welcome questions, ideas, or suggestions about the findings at [email protected].
Stoler, J. D. Ter-Ghazaryan, I. Sheskin, A.L. Pearson, G. Schnakenberg, D. Cagalanan. (2021) What’s in a name? Undergraduate perceptions of geography, environment, and sustainability keywords and program names. Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Vol 111, Issue 2.https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2020.1766412
Paul Edward Phillips, 79, Hays, died Tuesday, November 22, 2022 at his home surrounded by family, after a long battle with pancreatic and liver illness.
He was born on January 25, 1943 in Peoria, Illinois to Dale and Frances (Icenogle) Phillips. In 1961, he graduated from Woodruff High School in Peoria and then earned his BS and MS degrees at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois in 1965 and 1967. He was united in marriage to Patricia Jean Purkey at Christ Lutheran Church in Normal, Illinois on May 29, 1965. Paul earned his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 1978, and he taught Cultural Geography at Fort Hays State University for 50 years, retiring in 2017.
While at FHSU, he taught a multitude of geography courses, led numerous geography field trips for students and teachers, was chairperson of the Department of Geosciences, initiated the teaching of geography for students across the globe courses at FHSU via distance learning, was instrumental in developing the Kansas Geography Alliance to educate K-12 teachers in effective methods to include geography in the state’s social studies curriculum, as well as serving on many university committees throughout his tenure.
Paul was also active in his church and in the community of Hays. At Messiah Lutheran Church, he served multiple times as congregational president and on the Board of Parish Life, more recently helping in the kitchen for the Wednesday Midweek evening education program and Vacation Bible School. His community activities included holding many offices in the Hays Lions Club, on the Board of Directors for the Farmer’s Credit Union, and many years of the Hays City Planning Commission, continuing to serve as chairperson until the time of his latest illness. His longtime interest in radio found an outlet as he served on the High Plains Public Radio (HPPR) board for many years.
Survivors include Pat, his wife of fifty-seven years of the home, his daughter Keri Lynn Applequist and husband Patrick, a granddaughter Jennifer Anne Applequist and a grandson Phillip James Applequist, all of Larned, Kansas, a sister Carol Anderson and husband Charles of Tucson, Arizona, as well as nieces and nephews in Illinois and Arizona.
He was preceded in death by his parents.
Paul loved traveling and enjoyed sharing stories and pictures from his many trips across the US and around the world. He strongly feels that first hand knowledge about the world is more important today than ever, so when he realized his time on earth was nearing its end, he and Pat established the Paul and Pat Phillips Abroad Award at FHSU to support students pursuing a BS degree and wishing to spend a semester abroad. This would help with student expenses not otherwise covered by the Study Abroad Exchange Program.
Closing the Gap between Curriculum and the Professional Realities of the Geospatial Technology Industry
Credit: MapGive, U.S. Department of State
Jessica Embury and Atsushi Nara
If you ever started a new job and felt unprepared for the role, you are not alone. According to a recent survey by Cengage, nearly half of recent graduates feel underqualified for entry level jobs. Although the mismatch between curriculum and the needs of professional industry is not confined to the field of geography, it becomes especially important in the context of low student enrollment in US geography programs. Continuing participation in geography programs hinges upon student awareness of viable career prospects. Curricular materials must align with industry requirements to maintain student interest and adequately prepare students for successful integration into the workforce. Students may be more likely to pursue a geographic education if they understand their career prospects and have the ability to assess the relevance of their developing skillset.
The Encoding Geography initiative is working to raise student awareness of career prospects and develop curricular materials in alignment with industry needs. Encoding Geography is a collaborative effort between Southern California schools, community colleges, and universities (San Diego State University [SDSU], University of California Riverside, San Diego Mesa College, Sweetwater Union High School District), and supporting stakeholder organizations (the AAG, the National Center for Research in Geography Education, Texas State University, and the California Geographic Alliance). The goal of the initiative is to connect students of all backgrounds with geography and geocomputation through an inclusive curriculum spanning multiple education levels.
To support Encoding Geography’s goal, researchers at SDSU conducted a survey of 140 professionals working in the geospatial technology industry. Participants answered questions about their demographics, education, current employment, and use of spatial and computational knowledge and skills at work. To supplement the survey’s findings, the research team interviewed geospatial technology professionals and compiled detailed descriptions about career preparation and trajectories, and the knowledge and skills needed during recent work projects.
Of the 140 survey respondents, 60% identified as male, 37% identified as female, and 3% declined to answer. 76% of the respondents described themselves as White, 8% described themselves as Asian, and 8% either did not identify with any of the options or declined to answer. The remaining 8% of respondents described themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, Filipino, a combination of choices, or with a self-description. 14% of the respondents are of Hispanic or Latino origin, 83% are not, and 3% declined to answer. Regarding academic degree attainment, 44% have master’s degrees, 37% have bachelor’s degrees, 18% have doctoral degrees, and 1% have an associate’s degree or vocational certificate. During their degree programs, 61% of the respondents studied geography (e.g., human geography, geographic information science, geospatial science) as a major, minor, or special emphasis.
Survey respondents listed a variety of reasons why they chose to study geography, but many expressed passion for the subject matter, related methods and tools, career prospects, and the geographic community. Interviewed professionals reiterated many of these reasons for choosing a geospatial career. Hsiao-Chen Shih, a data scientist, recognized that “geographic information represents real-world big datasets that can be used to solve real-world problems.” Chaz Olloqui, a GIS specialist, “chose to pursue an education in GIS because [he] was interested in making a positive change in our natural environment.”
Figure 1. When asked why they chose to study geography over other options, professionals working in the geospatial technology industry expressed passion for geography itself, geographic methods and applications as well as potential job opportunities and connection to the geographic community.
When asked to identify the tools that support geographic/spatial thinking at work, survey respondents pointed to geographic information systems (e.g., Esri software, QGIS), python programming, data processing software (e.g., Excel, SQL), statistical and spatial analysis techniques, and domain knowledge.
Keaton Shennan, a GIS web developer, stressed the importance of programming and database management skills:
It’s helpful to know a framework and have something that you’ve built, have examples of work that you’ve done, and [be able to] explain what’s happening behind the scenes – that’s pretty critical to getting a job in the field.
In contrast, Carmen Leedham, a senior GIS analyst, focused on the value of a flexible mindset and collaborative teamwork:
Be flexible because a lot of things aren’t going to work and you need a plan B, C, D, and so on. It’s very helpful to know people within your line of work so you can ask questions and be nudged along in the direction you need.
Figure 2. Geospatial technology professionals identified geographic information systems, python programming, data processing software, statistical and spatial analysis techniques, and domain knowledge as essential tools for work.
During the interview series, most of the professionals expressed satisfaction from their work in the geospatial technology industry and felt that they contributed to the greater good. Carmen said, “I like working for an organization that is helping people and making sure that things are working as they should be. It makes me feel good — like harm reduction is occurring.” In a similar vein, Hsiao-Chen stated, “[My] knowledge of remote sensing, GIS, and geocomputation perfectly helps me achieve the goal of moving the world toward a decarbonizing future.” Statements like this demonstrate the applicability of geography to real-world issues and may inspire students to pursue geographic education.
These early findings clarify career prospects and highlight focus areas for the development of curricular materials. More detailed findings from SDSU’s survey and interview series will be available in an upcoming peer-reviewed journal.
This work is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2031380. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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President's Column
Geography and Geographers in a Changing World
Credit: Karsten Wurth for Unsplash
October and November are AAG Regional Meetings months, and I was preparing to go to my first as AAG President. As is customary, I asked what members would like to hear about, and was offered a number of different but related topics including “anything related to the future of geography and the role of the AAG.” The latter was especially important because a large proportion of the members attending the regional meetings are students — graduate and undergraduate. Instead of choosing a single topic, I integrated the two, and before I knew it, I had committed myself to speaking on Geography and Geographers in a Changing World.
Now, anyone looking at that title would instantly realize that this is not a 40-minute oral presentation; rather, it is the topic of a multi-authored manuscript (for example, this one) suitable for publication in a medium much like the Annals, or an edited book suitable for use in a “History of Modern Geography” class. In fact, a day or so after the presentation I casually googled the topic and found several related titles, including Gilbert White’s Geographers in a Perilously Changing World.
Graduate and undergraduate students in our discipline are trying to put their geographical education and their hopes for jobs into context as they prepare to leave university. They are entering a world that is more interconnected than ever — the speed with which information and misinformation are spread via social media is one example of that connectedness. Another is the reliance on mapping technologies for nearly everything, from finding the fastest route home through traffic to understanding public health trends. Our students face a world in which the economy is unstable, the global political state is tenuous, the climate is changing, and environmental degradation is a perennial problem. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, we have just experienced three years of a pandemic that has fundamentally changed the way we live and work.
Our students are so concerned about these issues that they are wondering how their geographic education is going to help them find jobs as well as answers to these pressing problems. Indeed, they are demanding a truly synthetic geography education that gives them a broad toolkit to tackle the world into which they will graduate. To meet their questions, it is worth reminding ourselves of who we are as geographers, from where we’ve come and to think about where we might be going. And how we fit into today’s world. It helps to take stock of what has happened in context, as we move to the next phase.
Changes in Geography and the AAG
“Change is a constant” is an overused phrase, but it is good to be reminded. Geography has been changing along with the world, very recently as well as over the last few decades. The discipline was once the static study of place concerned with how things are arranged on earth’s surface, with the map being the geographer’s tool. Geography’s quantitative revolution and the technological development of computers in the mid-20th century facilitated the development of geographic information systems (GIS), initially the tool of geographers but now used almost universally where spatial data analysis is needed. GIS, as well as new ways of thinking about things geographical, for example critical (human) geography and critical physical geography, means that geographers can ask different, arguably better, questions, potentially increasing the richness of their answers.
There has also been significant change in the leadership of the AAG, from one where men were far overrepresented, to one where women are more visible and active as leaders. The Association was founded in 1904. Seventeen years later, it elected its first female President. It took another 63 years before the second female president was elected (1984). Now, in the 21st century, a female president has become commonplace, so much so that I am the third female president in the last three years and next year there will be a fourth.
Other evidence of change within the AAG is apparent in the 2023 Annual Meeting theme: Toward More Just Geographies. This theme was chosen “in recognition of the urgency, centrality, and interdependence of equity, inclusion, diversity, and justice within our discipline and in the world” and reflects a core shift within the institution, matching changes that are occurring worldwide. This is not a singular action, but part of a fundamental change in the ways in which we operate. The AAG is now implementing a Council-approved 3-Year JEDI (justice, equity, inclusion and diversity) strategic framework.
The Outlook for Geography (as the Landscape Changes)
The point that I am making is that even with all of the changes that are occurring around us and within our organization, the core geographic ideas will not change. Geography, as in what we do, will change. A perfect example is how GIS has allowed us to ask new questions and to frame pre-existing questions differently, while still focusing on the richness of space moving from the static study of places on maps to the more revealing and arguably more interesting concepts such as the processes underlying the formation and interconnectedness of these places. A present-day working definition of geography is now closer to something like this: Geography examines human (e.g., social, cultural, economic, political) and physical (eg climatological, geomorphological, biogeographical) phenomena within the context of space, that is to say, how their location and their connections to others over space contribute to their characteristics and impacts and to the definition of the others.
The tools of geography are being used by other disciplines, and not just GIS. What I mean is that the interdisciplinary approach to understanding is becoming (or has become) commonplace. The contemporary movement in the social sciences, where I note many geography departments are housed, is towards addressing questions of global interconnection; migration, urbanization; environmental sustainability; climate change and its impacts, among others. There is a movement toward the use of more synthetic approaches to answer these questions. The synthetic approach is embedded in geography as is evident in the working definition that I outlined above and practiced in approaches like critical physical geography (and including critical remote sensing, qualitative GIS).
Finally, the demographic makeup of geographers is changing (or becoming more evident)
I am especially delighted that we see more geographers, representing many more identities: cultural, gender, ability/disability, and ethnic identities bringing with them a greater diversity of experience and knowledge. This expanding diversity means that different points of view are being introduced and incorporated into the body of geography. This can only make for a healthier discipline. There has never been a better time to be a geographer.
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 raphael [at] geog [dot] ucla [dot] edu to enable a constructive discussion.
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Careers
Program Profile: Lakeland Community College’s Geography and Geospatial Technology Program
Geography students receive instruction on UAS operation during a class lab. Credit: Bobby Oliver
“Keeping up with technological change in the industry is key to our program,” explains Bobby Oliver, M.A., GISP professor and department chair for the Geography and Geospatial Technology program at Lakeland Community College (LCC) in Kirtland, Ohio. “We’re constantly updating and revising our curriculum to meet all of the changing needs, to ensure our students have access to the most current and advanced geospatial technologies out there.”
At LCC, keeping pace with the geospatial industry is essential to ensure the success of the hundreds of students who enroll in the Geography and Geospatial Technology program. Not only do Oliver and the LCC faculty accomplish this goal, but they do it well. In 2020, the program was recognized with the AAG Award for Associates Program Excellence. We asked Oliver what it was that made them stand out from the rest and her response was threefold: service-learning opportunities, a community engagement focus, and a highly connected professional network.
Students at Lakeland Community College participate in an introductory geography class. Credit: Bobby Oliver
Community-oriented learning as a pathway to excellence
Since the program’s inception in 2011, LCC geography students have completed service-learning projects with the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, the City of Euclid’s Shore Cultural Center, and many other Cleveland-area nonprofit organizations. In response, these projects have often translated into internship opportunities for students.
We do a lot of community and college-wide engagement and make it a goal to create service-learning projects for students. We require our students to go out and be part of professional organizations within the community.
—Bobby Oliver
The involvement of LCC students within the local Cleveland community facilitates a symbiotic relationship centered around the value of a geographic education. For Oliver, this is a key component to the program. It enables students to apply their growing knowledge and skills in the real world while also building connections and bringing awareness to organizations that may not have previously understood the value of geography.
Finding success through championing the students and championing the program
Program faculty have also taken a proactive, integrative approach to teaching students about how the skills they’re learning in the classroom translate to professional careers, something geography students often aren’t aware of. Internships with local employers, job shadowing, alumni engagement, and professional meetings are well engrained elements of the program. “We have what’s called a career service checklist our students go through within each one of the courses in their program,” explains Oliver. “All of these things have helped build their job search skills for when they hit the job market.”
Developing and maintaining relationships with local professionals working in geography, GIS, and other related professions has been critical to the program’s success. Many of these professionals are on the program’s advisory board, which has strong and diverse representation from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. This has the added benefit of ensuring that students learn on the latest software platforms used by industry professionals.
GIS project by Lakeland Community College Geography student Caroline Petersen on Flow Map Analysis of Cambodian Refugee Migration, 1971-1995
How increased visibility is essential to program viability
As with many geography programs, maintaining strong enrollments is the foremost challenge the program faces, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the difficulty of recruiting and retaining students. However, Oliver and other program leaders have developed innovative solutions to attracting students, by exploring opportunities with other departments on campus, leveraging a dual enrollment program with area high schools, and making ongoing efforts to increase the program’s visibility on campus and in the community.
For our program to be successful, we have to make sure that people see what we’re doing, and how it impacts our community. Making sure the campus is aware that we’re here and [that] what we do is very essential—especially when it comes to [LCC’s] enrollments and long-term viability.
—Bobby Oliver
Video of LCC alumni Caroline Peterson sharing her experience in the LCC GIS program and how she uses those skills in her career.
An annual GIS Day event, Women in GIS luncheons, presentations to the Math Club and Model U.N., and collaborative projects with other departments across campus have all helped to highlight the program’s value. “We’re really trying to get the students to see how our community and region use GIS, and how geographic and geospatial skills are used in real jobs,” says Oliver. “These are the things that I feel really put us ahead, for a two-year program.”
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News
Powerful Geography at Work
By Michael Solem, Brendan Vander Weil, Richard G. Boehm and Joann Zadrozny
Growing and diversifying the geography discipline and workforce is a complex challenge that needs to be met with an “all-hands-on-deck” effort by teachers, geographers, and geography organizations. A recent AAG newsletter article made the case that this process should start well before students graduate from high school. That article included a Call for Participation for a panel session on this topic, being organized for the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting.
Here, we highlight some of the work at the National Center for Research in Geography Education to address the nation’s priorities for broadening participation and workforce development. Powerful Geography is an initiative involving students, teachers, community college faculty, university researchers, and professional geographers and employer organizations. The project aims to raise awareness and appreciation among students about geography and its applicability to a wide array of job and careers.
Logic model covering detailed steps for assessing and reinforcing the success and effectiveness of Powerful Geography approaches. Credit: Michael Solem
Powerful Geography’s teaching and learning approach begins with teachers acquiring knowledge about the life and career aspirations of their students. Using this information, researchers seek out and interview professional geographers working in related career areas (environmental management, energy, transportation, social work, agriculture, business, and so forth). The two datasets are then used by schoolteachers and college faculty to design and develop state-based curriculum resources for schools and undergraduate programs.
Two current initiatives supported with NSF funding illustrate Powerful Geography at work. The AAG’s Encoding Geography research-practice partnership in Southern California is applying the Powerful Geography approach to support the development of an inclusive curriculum pathway in geocomputation. The RPP is currently interviewing professionals with a combined background in geography and computer science, using a protocol with questions aligned to a model of issues-based geographic inquiry. To date the RPP has interviewed professionals who use geocomputation for a variety of purposes including to monitor health equity, promote sustainable agriculture, improve city transportation, and enhance habitat management.
Accessible two-page digests are created for each interview with examples of questions, data, geography applications, a suggested learning activity, and a profile of the interviewed geographer. Schoolteachers and college faculty use the digests and other sources to design and develop grade-level curriculum resources that engage students in authentic applications of content to solve problems they care about.
The second project, Geoscience Exposure and Training in Texas (GET Texas), is working to create a place-based geoscience learning ecosystem (GLE) that includes informal educational institutions (Houston Museum of Natural Science and a local YMCA), high schools, a Hispanic Serving community college institution (Lone Star College), and a regional four-year, undergraduate-focused Hispanic Serving institution (Sam Houston State University). The fundamental purpose of this GLE is to raise awareness and appreciation of geoscience and geoscience careers among high school students in the greater Houston region, potentially encouraging them to consider and pursue geoscience-related postsecondary degrees. The GET Texas team uses student aspirations data to inform the content of the project’s informal and formal geoscience learning activities.
As the Encoding Geography RPP and GET Texas projects experiment with the Powerful Geography approach in a variety of courses and settings, researchers are measuring the extent that students gain confidence and interest in related degree programs and careers. Early indicators from external evaluations show promising returns on investment and geography educators at all levels have offered testimonies of their experiences with implementing Powerful Geography in their courses.
Powerful Geography’s “bottom up” and inclusive approach to teaching and learning can be replicated anywhere to design and develop curriculum resources attuned to student aspirations and workforce needs. In addition to the U.S., we are working with geography educators in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas to coordinate the creation and implementation of Powerful Geography resources. The outcomes of this work will be published in an edited volume for the Springer Geography book series.
In the spirit of Geography Awareness Week (November 14-19), we hope the message of Powerful Geography resonates with a broader group of parents, policy makers, and other key stakeholders. We know from the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s 2015 report on geography education that geography is often perceived by the public to be a trivial subject and that it perennially suffers from relatively low levels of funding support. Changing this will not be easy, but it starts with understanding students’ aspirations and attitudes and conveying the relevance and applications of geography in schools across the country.
We consider the challenge of growing and diversifying the geography discipline and workforce to be a “north star” for geography education. In the coming year the Powerful Geography website will expand to include new state-based curriculum resources connecting students and teachers with professional geographers and geography degree programs. We continue to pursue external funding to support this work and invite anyone interested in being involved to contact us at [email protected].
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 2031418, 2031407, and 2031380 (Collaborative Research: Encoding Geography – Scaling up an RPP to achieve inclusive geocomputational education). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
NCRGE is a research consortium with headquarters at the American Association of Geographers and Texas State University.
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Attracting students of all backgrounds to programs in geography or geocomputation starts before they enter college
By Coline C. Dony, Atsushi Nara, Michael Solem
Faculty at geography programs in the U.S. regularly reach out to the AAG to ask which strategies they can use to attract more students, and especially how to reach students who have been underrepresented in their program(s). AAG worked on projects and efforts over the years to help us answer these questions, such as the ALIGNED project, the Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) in Geography initiative, and the Diversity Ambassadors program. Some of our past efforts also generated resources (e.g., a few books from the EDGE project) and advanced conversations on these challenges (e.g., during sessions at our Annual Meeting). What these efforts have not been able to do yet is measure our overall progress toward including more perspectives and identities in our geography community and the effectiveness of certain strategies.
General observations from AAG members (and from AAG staff), however, are that even if some progress toward diversity and inclusion (D&I) is visible, it is not sufficient, and it has been too slow. First, if we want to move past a “general observation,” we need to better measure where we are today, and systematically measure our progress toward attracting the next generation of geographers. The AAG D&I Committee recognizes this too, and has recommended “Enabling Data-Driven D&I Excellence” in the 3-Year Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Strategic Plan released in October of 2021. Second, if progress has been too slow, we may need to recognize that the strategies we have used thus far may not be as effective as we think, or may not have addressed challenges at their root.
Low enrollment in U.S. geography programs is mainly caused by the lack of awareness among incoming college students that geography is a discipline and a career pathway. This lack of awareness can then contribute to the lack of diversity in our programs. Here is one example how: Because of their lack of geography awareness, college students who do “discover” geography, only do so after a year or two into their studies (if they happen to take a geography course, for example). Even if that course inspires them to pursue geography, by that time, students typically already have their major declared. At that point, it can be a hard financial case to make to change majors or to add a minor or certificate. If good career earnings are not obvious on top of that, or if students do not see themselves represented among professions, the case to switch majors becomes even harder, particularly for those already underrepresented. For that reason, it becomes especially important to raise the awareness of students who are underrepresented before they enter college.
Figure 1: Choosing a degree or career path is a careful consideration (particularly for underrepresented groups) that starts with being aware of possible paths. Awareness can develop into an aspiration to pursue one or more paths if it is clear the skills and knowledge will help make a difference. The clear prospects (careers and representation), however, weigh heavily in our choices.
That lack of awareness among college students about our discipline and its career opportunities is rooted in the limited geography instruction in the U.S. school system. The focus of instruction in K-12 is on reading, math, and science, with a more recent push to make space for computer science instruction at all levels. Geography, on the other hand, is not a subject that is required (nor high in priority) in most states. In their consistent Survey of Social Studies and Geography in Middle and High Schools, the Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education reported that in 2020-2021 only 4 states required a stand-alone geography course in middle school (down from 16 in 2009-10) and 11 states required a combined geography and social studies course. From the same report, only 3 states required a standalone geography course for high school graduation (down from 6 states in 2009-10) and 10 states required a combined course. The remaining states either do not require geography or offer geography as an elective course.
When geography is not offered as a stand-alone course, it typically finds a small space in the social studies curriculum. In “Most Eighth Grade Students Are Not Proficient in Geography,” the Government Accounting Office reported in 2015 that over 50% of teachers who spent 3-5 hours per week on social studies instruction spend 10% or less on geography. Given the pressure new subjects add to instruction time (e.g., Computer Science), geography finds itself in a perennial struggle for curriculum space. Keep in mind too, that most teachers instructing social studies or stand-alone geography courses do not have a background or degree in geography.
If we want diverse youth to come to college campuses with an awareness and aspiration to study geography, then we need to find effective strategies to foster that awareness and aspiration at the K-12 level. Some geography programs already recognize this and have developed connections with local schools (e.g., by inviting their students to their campus, organizing a GIS day, or spending a few days in local schools to help with geography instruction). These efforts are important, but faculty often lack sufficient time to invest in these events on a consistent basis. By the time a student applies for or starts college, the geography event(s) they participated in may no longer sit fresh in their memory.
If anything, geography teaches us that our local context matters, and it helps us connect to concepts, even if they are complex.
Under our Encoding Geography initiative, the AAG initiated a collaboration in 2018 that now includes 2 universities (San Diego State University [SDSU] and University of California Riverside), a community college (San Diego Mesa College [SDMC]), and a high school district (Sweetwater Union High School District [SUHSD]), all in Southern California. The goal is for students of all backgrounds to find geography more consistently along an inclusive curriculum pathway connecting multiple levels of education. Initiating sustainable collaborations across educational levels and institutions is complex, which is why we follow both the Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) approach and the Collaborative Impact Framework, which recommends “backbone” organizations. The stakeholder organizations supporting this collaboration are the AAG, the National Center for Research in Geography Education (NCRGE), and the California Geographic Alliance (CGA).
This summer, this Encoding Geography RPP organized a workshop at SDSU for instructors (high school and college) that are already along students’ pathway towards careers in geography, namely instructors of geography, GIS, and computer science courses in SUHSD and SDMC. Indeed, in the local context of California, geography careers in the tech sector are numerous and require a combination of geography and computer science skills and knowledge (which we refer to as “geocomputation”). One advantage we have in the SUHSD is that geography is a standalone and required course, which means there are geography teachers, and all high schoolers have an opportunity to learn geography. Then, working with computer science teachers to incorporate spatial thinking in their courses creates additional places for students to learn about geography. During the workshop, we engaged in discussions and activities around geography, spatial thinking, computational thinking, and geocomputation. To set the stage for these discussions, Kelly León, a doctoral student in education for social justice at SDSU and geography teacher and cohort leader at SUHSD, coordinated a virtual series of Teacher Professional Learning earlier this Spring.
Figure 2: Map showing the locations of the educational institutions participating in the Encoding Geography Research Practice Partnership (left) and a picture taken at the workshop organized at San Diego State University (SDSU) in August 2022 (right).
The workshop also covered ways to build awareness, develop aspiration, and show degree or career prospects, which are the main elements needed for students to choose a degree or career. The Powerful Geography approach to teaching and learning helps combine those elements in the classroom. It takes into account principles of culturally/community-driven teaching to help student aspirations, and it recognizes that students change every cycle while their local context also changes (e.g., local workforce needs, and social challenges) which means instructors are best positioned to adapt lessons that will develop their aspirations. Too often, we see solutions in the form of pre-packaged lessons with the intent to save instructors’ time. Yet, these lessons can completely miss the local context and can disempower instructors and make them lose confidence in the pedagogy experience and expertise they bring. If anything, geography teaches us that our local context matters, and it helps us connect to concepts, even if they are complex.
The participating instructors in our workshop will help us this academic year to collect baseline data about their students’ awareness and aspirations around geography, computer science, and geocomputation. Next summer, they will participate in a lesson development workshop and implement their lessons in their classrooms. We will collect data again to measure the impact of these lessons on their students’ awareness and aspirations. Because of the National Science Foundation’s interest in research on strategies to broaden participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), its CSforAll program is funding our collaboration (NSF Active Award Nos. 2031418, 2031407, and 2031380. Past Award No. 1837577).
Recognizing that teachers don’t always come with a background or degree in geography or computer science, we are also measuring how their involvement in Encoding Geography impacts their awareness around these concepts. Participating instructors in this project will receive more professional development opportunities from our partners to continue building the strength of this RPP. For example, more virtual professional development series are planned by SDSU and SDMC this Fall. Additionally, the Center for Human Dynamics in the Mobile Age at SDSU (directed by Professor of Geography Ming-Hsiang Tsou) has been organizing the “Big Data Hackathon\San Diego” for a few years now. This year geography and computer science teachers were invited to help coordinate activities for the hackathon to give them additional ways to keep engaged on geocomputational challenges. On the long run, strengthening these connections may help attract more high school students to participate in the hackathon, adding an additional space for students to build awareness, develop aspiration, and see prospects to choose a degree or career path in geography or geocomputation.
At the upcoming AAG Annual Meeting in Denver (March 23-27, 2023), we will organize panels to discuss strategies to create inclusive pathways for geography from schools to colleges. If you are at a community college or university and you are in the process of building connections with local schools, or you already built some connections, we invite you to participate in one of our panel discussions. If you are interested, please contact Julaiti Nilupaer, our AAG Research Assistant, at [email protected], who can provide more details and will coordinate the organization of those panels.
Yi-Fu Tuan, a towering intellectual figure and University of Wisconsin–Madison professor emeritus of geography died Aug. 10 at UW Hospital in Madison at age 91, with a dear friend and former student, Charles Chang, by his side.
Yi-Fu Tuan in March 2022 during a break in filming with a Dutch film crew. His work introducing and expanding the field of humanistic geography is influential across the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well outside academia. Photo by Kris Olds
People think that geography is about capitals, landforms and so on. But it is also about place — its emotional tone, social meaning, and generative potential.”
—Yi-Fu Tuan
Tuan was a prolific writer and deep thinker who was known as the father of humanistic geography. A movement within the field of human geography, humanistic geography arose in the 1970s as a way to counter what humanists saw as a tendency to treat places as mere sites or locations. Instead, a humanistic geographer would argue, the places we inhabit have as many personalities as those whose lives have intersected with them. And the stories we tell about places often say as much about who we are, as about where our feet are planted.
It was Tuan who gave rise to the recognition among geographers that the intimacies of personal encounters with space produce a “sense of place.”
“People think that geography is about capitals, landforms and so on,” Tuan said. “But it is also about place — its emotional tone, social meaning, and generative potential.”
Time, age, sadness, loss, goodness, happiness, and the concept of home are all themes Tuan explored at length in his more than 20 books, including his best-known work, “Space & Place,” as well as “Humanist Geography: An Individual’s Search for Meaning.” In his later years, Tuan turned to introspection with his most recent books: “Who Am I? An Autobiography of Emotion, Mind and Spirit” and an addendum, “Who Am I? A Sequel.” Both works look back on the author’s early life in China and his rise to become one of America’s most innovative intellectuals.
Born in 1930 in Tianjin, China, Yi-Fu Tuan was educated in China, Australia, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Oxford and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
Yi-Fu Tuan joined the faculty of the Department of Geography at UW–Madison in 1983, was named John Kirtland Wright Professor of Geography in 1985 and was named a Vilas Research Professor that same year, before attaining emeritus status in 1998.
His influence on the field of geography was enormous.
“For decades, Yi-Fu Tuan’s work shaped the thinking of generations of geography students and academics,” says Lily Kong, human geographer and president, Singapore Management University. “His place in the geographical canon is undoubted. His shaping of humanistic geography contributed to important philosophical shifts in the discipline.”
By emphasizing humans as thinking, dreaming, imagining beings who experience the world — capable of goodness, beauty and truth as well as greed, cruelty and domination — he showed us how all of these traits are reflected in our spaces, places and landscapes.”
—Tim Cresswell
Tuan was beloved by his students, both graduate and undergraduate alike. He often shared meals with undergraduates and enjoyed visiting the State Street Starbucks to listen in on, and sometimes join, students’ conversations about their studies.
“Yi-Fu Tuan insisted on the importance of the “human” in “human geography,” says Tim Cresswell, a graduate student of Tuan’s at UW–Madison who is now Ogilvie Professor of Geography at the University of Edinburgh. “By emphasizing humans as thinking, dreaming, imagining beings who experience the world — capable of goodness, beauty and truth as well as greed, cruelty and domination — he showed us how all of these traits are reflected in our spaces, places and landscapes.”
Tuan opened geography to scholars in other disciplines, according to Cresswell, and invited thinking on what geography had to offer our understanding of the human condition. Tuan’s work was cited and celebrated by scholars across the arts, humanities and social sciences, as well as by writers and professionals outside academia.
After his retirement, Tuan remained an emphatic presence on campus. Through his books, essays, and letters, as well as through innumerable conversations with students, Tuan continued to profoundly influence scholarship and thinking. An article about Yi-Fu Tuan in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 years after his retirement from UW–Madison, claimed that the geographer “may be the most influential scholar you’ve never heard of.” His world-renowned stature was complemented by a kind and generous demeanor, an intense curiosity about the world, and a keen interest in how his beloved department was evolving over the years. He was a model university scholar and citizen, says Kris Olds, a professor in the Department of Geography.
Yi-Fu Tuan at work in his Science Hall office in 1998. Tuan was a prolific writer. Photo by Jeff Miller
In Oct. 2012, Tuan was awarded the Vautrin-Lud International Geography Prize, the highest honor a geographer can receive. In 2013, he received the inaugural American Association of Geographers Stanley Brunn Award for Creativity in Geography, created to recognize “originality, creativity, and significant intellectual breakthroughs in geography.”
One of Tuan’s most unique contributions may be his “Dear Colleague” letters, composed over decades and sent to colleagues and friends, relating observations and changes in his daily life against a backdrop of larger political, educational, and social change.
“I do not know what Yi-Fu would like to say to everyone at the department in his last ‘Dear Colleague’ letter on Earth,” says Charles Chang. “But I do know that in his first ‘Dear Colleague’ letter from (hopefully) Heaven, he would like to thank them for their support over all these years.”
Chang also pointed to a story Tuan shared in an unpublished manuscript entitled “Summing Up,” in 2019.
“One day, as I walked down State Street, I heard the voice of a child behind me saying repeatedly, ‘Are you a student?’ Tuan wrote. “I ignored the question, for it could hardly be addressed to me. But I got curious, turned around, and asked the child, ‘Now, look here, do I look like a student?’ His reply, ‘Yes, you have a backpack.’ Well, that made my day! I have a backpack, which means that I am a student still open to life.”
“In a broad sense,” Chang says, “he was always open to life. He remained an active learner of the cosmos, of human goodness, to the end.”
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Risha RaQuelle, Ph.D. has been named the new Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for AAG. Among her responsibilities will be acting as the staff liaison for AAG’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion plan, adopted in December 2021.
