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NIMHD: Advancing Health Disparities Interventions Through Community-Based Participatory Research

Research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has resulted in an increasing growth in knowledge of the complexity of the interactive factors influencing health across the life course. There is extensive research evidence that report poorer health outcomes for socially disadvantaged populations, including low-income and racial and ethnic groups. Many community health promotion and disease prevention programs fail for various reasons that include the lack of a participatory approach or cultural sensitivity, despite the recommendation for tailored and multilevel interventions.

The National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) within NIH has released a funding opportunity announcement (FOA), Advancing Health Disparities Interventions Through Community-Based Participatory Research (RFA-MD-15-010), seeking applications designed to support promising community interventions using community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles and approaches aimed at reducing and eventually eliminating health disparities. The FOA follows a 2012-issued FOA, NIMHD Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Initiative in Reducing and Eliminating Health Disparities: Planning Phase, (RFA-MD- 12-006).

NIMHD’s CBPR program goal is to promote and support collaborative interventions that involve all of the relevant components in the translational research process: planning, implementing, evaluating, and dissemination. In the health disparities framework, this includes partnership approaches that focus on changing the determinants of health or the community conditions and environment. It is a research approach that may begin with a needs assessment to identify a health-related issue for action, or a community-led proposal on an identified need or matter of importance to the community.

For NIMHD’s purpose, the FOA identifies “community” as referring to a population that may be defined by geography, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, illness or other health condition, or to groups that have a common health-related interest or cause. Appropriate research intervention topics include, but are not limited to: adversity and chronic stress, tobacco use and substance abuse, healthy sexual behaviors, intentional or unintentional injuries and violence, preventive behaviors, and healthy lifestyle behaviors. The Institute is also interested in the specific research areas of multi-level interventions that include a combination of individual group and/or community-level intervention components, interventions that include health information technology applications and/or social media elements, and interventions that draw upon existing community resilience or strengths.

This FOA is open to current NIMHD CPBR planning grantees and their community coalitions, and to other applicants poised to implement and evaluate promising broad scale interventions using CBPR methods. The intervention study is required to take place in the U.S. or U.S. Territories or Possessions. Applications are due August 3, 2015.

Courtesy COSSA Washington Update

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NIH: The Health of Sexual and Gender Minority Populations

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) focused on sexual and gender minority (SGM) populations, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex populations.  Participating institutes and offices include: Cancer, Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Deafness and other Communication Disorders, Dental and Craniofacial, Mental Health, Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research.

The FOA, The Health of Sexual and Gender Minority Populations (PA-15-261), responds to a March 2011 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People, that found that the “existing body of evidence is sparse and that substantial research is needed” (see Update, April 18, 2011).  The report described numerous extant research gaps. While acknowledging improvements, the FOA responds to the need for further research on the health of these populations. Recent data from national health surveys and targeted studies suggest that prevalence rates for some health conditions are higher among SGM populations than for the general population.

The FOA encourages research proposals that describe the biological, clinical, behavioral, and social processes that affect the health and development of SGM populations and individuals and their families, and that lead to the development of acceptable and appropriate health interventions and health service delivery methods that will enhance health and development of these populations.  It also encourages researchers to investigate new research questions related to the health and development of SGM populations and individuals and their families, and to develop and/or apply innovative methodologies to improve understanding of mechanisms affecting their health and development.

Four main types of research are emphasized in the FOA:

  1. Basic social and behavioral science research addressing the processes involved as individuals discover, uncover, address and/or adapt to their sexual orientation and claim or do not claim identity as SGM and how these processes affect the mental and physical health of the individual.
  2. Research leading to interventions to ameliorate health disparities in SGM populations.
  3. Large-scale design, implementation, and evaluation of preventive and/or treatment interventions addressing health issues in SGM populations.
  4. Research on how family structures and processes, including both families of origin and families of choice, affect the health of SGM individuals and their family members, including whether and how being raised in a family headed by SGM individuals affects the health, development, and well-being of the children.

Courtesy COSSA Washington Update

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President's Column

Why is our Geography Curriculum so White?

Many of us teach courses that are shaped by anti-colonial and antiracist scholarship. We include readings and topics in our classes that provide our students with frameworks for better understanding issues of inequality. We have compelling ‘how-to’ stories of what it means to incorporate race, ethnicity and anti-colonial perspectives into our classrooms.[1] We have monographs, edited collections, special issues, and a lengthy list of pertinent journal articles that explicitly and implicitly interrogate the social construction of race, black geographies, and anti-colonial struggles.[2] But I would argue that still, with all of this, for the most part, we are writing, teaching, and recreating white geographies: by ‘we’ I mean almost all of us (including me); by ‘white’ I mean ways of seeing, understanding, and interrogating the world that are based on racialized and colonial assumptions that are unremarked, normalized, and perpetuated.

T-shirts from the AAG Subconference For Black Lives Matter ‘T-shirt Book Bloc’ noted in Angela Last’s blog, “Mutable Matter.

I understand that what I am saying is provocative. According to the Merriam Webster online dictionary, to provoke is, “to cause the occurrence of (a feeling or action): to make (something) happen,” and that is indeed what I hope this column will do. I want to raise the question of the whiteness of geography’s curriculum as part of the larger picture of geography’s whiteness, and to ask what we (as individuals, as geographers, as departments, as the AAG) have done about it and what we can do. As Audrey Kobayashi and Linda Peake noted 15 years ago, “no understanding of geography is complete, no understanding of place and landscape comprehensive, without recognizing that . . . geography, both as discipline and spatial expression . . . is racialized.”[3] I’m suggesting that we are still working with an incomplete and non-comprehensive understanding of geography, and I’m hoping to provoke us to change that.

I’ve borrowed the title of this column from an initiative based at University College London [4] that struck a deep chord with me for many reasons. First, we all know that demographically speaking geography is indeed a very white discipline,[5] and changing that fact – despite the whole-hearted and resourced efforts on the part of many folks through many years – has proven quite difficult.[6] As one of our AAG councillors noted at our recent meeting, there are many interlocking pieces that need to be addressed and it’s difficult to know where and how to intervene. But rethinking what we teach – an important piece of that puzzle – seems a very tangible and do-able thing; in fact, if we consider ourselves any good at all as teachers, this rethinking is something we do all the time. Second, the provocation of calling a curriculum ‘white’ works to shake up our notion of the purported objectivity of the scholarship we make and teach, of the unremarked and therefore normalizing assumptions built into our syllabi, and at least for me, serves to question how I’ve conceptualized my courses including my choice of topics and readings. And third, the timing is right; we now have a considerable body of scholarly literature within geography to draw on (in addition to literature in related fields), and, equally important, the energy and commitment to do the work from key parts of our discipline – from graduate students through academic leaders.

I’m certainly not the first person, of course, to raise this important issue. Drawing on an already active movement, the AAG diversity task force recommended in its 2006 report that “departments should review their curricula to determine the degree of commitment to diversity and, if necessary, create courses that make the curricula more relevant to today’s racially diverse society. Courses that address certain areas may be needed, for example:

  • Race and space in the maintenance of structures of domination, subordination, and inequality
  • Intersectionality and space (i.e. the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality)
  • The ideology of white supremacy and the use of space to maintain it
  • The spatialities of white privilege
  • Racial residential segregation and racial inequality: the causes and consequences
  • The ghetto, barrio and ethnic enclave: their origin, persistence, and consequences
  • The racialization of immigrants of color
  • Environmental racism
  • Critical race theory
  • Space-and race-based public policies
  • Race, concentrated poverty and economic restructuring”[7]

Following through on this recommendation, in conjunction with the others made in this important report, is vital to addressing the whiteness of geography and its curriculum. But since 2006, our departments and universities have faced severe financial and organizational challenges concomitant with the global recession and the increasing neoliberalization of academic life. As I’ve noted in previous columns, the pressures on us as teachers, scholars and mentors are often immense; academic success is counted in numbers of publications, not numbers of students that we’ve challenged.

And so we need help. We can start by sharing syllabi, readings, bibliographies, topics, relevant media, etc. But this alone won’t lead to change; we need assistance in learning to recognize our ‘white’ assumptions, and we need training in how to take those new understandings into the classroom. It’s been clear to me for a while that teaching/mentoring is by far the most political act – in the sense of enacting social change – that I can ever hope to accomplish. I will be able to accomplish more with a less ‘white’ geography curriculum. How should we proceed? I’m looking forward to hearing your responses.

DOI: 10.14433/2015.0015

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Mona Domosh
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Janet Franklin inducted into National Academy of Science; joins the other NAS members at Arizona State University

April 25, 2015 saw the induction of Janet Franklin, professor of geography at Arizona State University, into the National Academy of Sciences, following her election in April 2014. This was a memorable week for Dr. Franklin, who two days later was informed that she had been named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America. The title of Fellow is given to a select number of ESA members each year to honor those who are recognized by their peers as distinguished for their contributions to the discipline.

As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Janet Franklin joins three other ASU geographers: Luc Anselin and B.L. Turner II, and Stewart Fotheringham.

Janet Franklin’s research focuses on the dynamics of terrestrial plant communities at the landscape scale. Her work addresses the impacts of human-caused landscape change on the environment.  She is the author of Mapping Species Distributions: Spatial Inference and Prediction, and co-edited the newly-published second edition of Vegetation Ecology.  Franklin has published more than 130 refereed papers in a wide variety of scholarly journals.  She served as co-editor of The Professional Geographer and Associate Editor for the Journal of Vegetation Science, and has served in editorial roles for 18 other journals.  Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA and the National Geographic Society.

Luc Anselin is one of the principal developers of the study of spatial econometrics, and is an innovator in many realms of spatial data analysis and development of appropriate methods, their implementation in software and application in empirical studies. Stewart Fotheringham’s research expertise is in the analysis of spatial data and in particular the local modelling of spatial relationships with geographically weighted regression. B. L. Turner II is internationally-recognized for his work researching human-environment relationships and land-use change.

“It’s exciting and wonderful to see geographic research continuing to receive recognition among the academy of sciences,” commented Elizabeth Wentz, director of ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

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Senate ESEA Reauthorization Bill Includes Geography Grant Program

The Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), the given name of the Senate’s legislation reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – which is currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – includes a program that awards competitive grants “to promote innovative history, civic, and geography instruction, learning strategies, and professional development activities and programs.”

The ECAA, which has been approved by the Senate’s education panel, also specifies geography as a core academic subject for K-12 instruction. The inclusion of the grant funding is a promising development for geography given the discipline was the only core subject in NCLB to not receive any dedicated funding authorizations as part of the 2002 law.

The original version of the ECAA, which was released by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chairman of the education committee, in January, mentioned geography in introducing the grant program, but omitted any mentions of the discipline in several subsections detailing the actual grants. When the Committee reviewed the bill in mid-April, however, geography was included in the implementing language as follows:

The Secretary shall award grants, on a competitive basis, to eligible entities for the purposes of: (1) developing, implementing, evaluating and disseminating for voluntary use, innovative, evidenced-based approaches to civic learning, geography, and American history, which may include hands-on civic engagement activities for teachers and low-income students, that demonstrate innovation, scalability, accountability, and a focus on underserved populations; or (2) other innovative evidence-based approaches to improving the quality of student achievement and teaching of American history, civics, geography, and government in elementary schools and secondary schools.

 In February, AAG Executive Director Douglas Richardson sent a letter to Chairman Alexander asserting the importance of including authorizing programs for geography within the ESEA framework. We have also been working to respond to requests for information from Senate staffers and have had many productive conversations with key folks on Capitol Hill.

The ECAA will still have to be approved by the full Senate – a step that could come in May or later in the summer – and even then it would face a series of negotiations with House leaders before Congress could send a final bill to President Obama.   We will continue to keep you up to date on this critical issue.

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John Wertman
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Newsletters

Newsletter – May 2015

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

ec189f98-c150-48ab-8081-6d219da7af06
Domosh

How We Hurt Each Other Every Day, and What We Might Do About It

By Mona Domosh

For those who do not experience their ill effects, it is difficult to recognize the ways in which a glance, a comment, something mentioned or overlooked, made invisible or hyper-visible, a seat not taken or a body too close, inflicts pain on others. For those who do experience these often subtle acts of othering, the visceral knowing-ness is immediate and the effects cumulative. And they take a large toll on our bodies and our psyches. As the poet Claudia Rankine says, “You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard.”¹ Overt acts of sexism, racism, and homophobia in Geography are far less apparent than they used to be, but not so their subtle, small, everyday enactments, what Chester Pierce called microaggressions, that serve to keep people in their place (and that oftentimes means out of Geography). Continue Reading.

Recent columns from the President

AAG Presents Books Awards

John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize

This award encourages and rewards American geographers who write books about the United States which convey the insights of professional geography in language that is both interesting and attractive to lay readers.

Randall Wilson of Gettysburg College for his book America’s Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography

This award is given for a book written or co-authored by a geographer that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world.

Paul Knox, University of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, for editing The Atlas of Cities, published by Princeton University Press

AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography

This award is given for a book written by a geographer that makes an unusually important contribution to advancing the science and art of geography.

Matthew Gandy, University College London, for his book The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity and the Urban Imagination, MIT Press (2014).

Learn More.

ANNUAL MEETING

Pacific Coast Division Team Takes 2015 World Geography Bowl Title

The Pacific Coast team won first place in the 2015 World Geography Bowl, an annual quiz competition for teams of college-level geography students representing the AAG’s regional divisions. This was the 26th year for AAG hosting during its annual meeting. Learn More.

NEWS

Registration is Open for AAG Department Leadership Workshop

June 24-27, 2015, Storrs, Conneticut

You are invited to the 12th annual workshop devoted to strengthening departmental leadership across the discipline. The workshop is for all geographers interested in improving their programs—chairs/heads, associate chairs/heads, deans, academic advisors, provosts and other administrators, as well as all faculty interested in leadership issues. The workshop is particularly well suited for individuals who may soon assume leadership positions. Learn More.

2015 Workshop for Early Career Faculty, Graduate Students

June 21-27, 2015, Storrs, Conneticut

Registration has begun for the 2015 GFDA workshop for graduate students and faculty who are beginning their careers in higher education — instructors, lecturers, assistant professors, and other untenured faculty. The workshop is open to faculty from all types of teaching and research institutions inside and outside the US. The workshop, sponsored by the Association of American Geographers, focuses on topics which are frequently the greatest sources of stress in the first years of a faculty appointment. Learn More.

Help Identify Candidates for AAG Honors, Nominating Committees

The AAG Council seeks nominations for candidates to serve on the AAG Honors Committee and the AAG Nominating Committee. The Council will prepare the final slate of candidates for both committees from the nominations received, and committee members will be elected by a vote of the AAG membership.

The Honors Committee submits to the Council nominations for awards at least two weeks before the council’s Fall meeting, accompanied by a statement indicating the contribution which forms the basis of the proposed award. Nominations for the Honors Committee may include persons (i) from the membership at large and (ii) from those members who have previously received AAG Honors (a list of previous honorees can be found online. Honors Committee members serve for two years. Learn More.

Inspired by Outstanding Teaching, Service, Research? AAG Seeks Your Nominations by June 30

AAG Honors, the highest awards offered by the Association of American Geographers, are offered annually to recognize outstanding accomplishments by members in research & scholarship, teaching, education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement. Although the AAG and its specialty groups make other important awards (see Grants and Awards), AAG Honors remain among the most prestigious awards in American geography and have been awarded since 1951. Learn More.

MEMBER & DEPARTMENT NEWS

Two Geographers Receive ACLS Fellowships for 2015

Two geographers, Jessica Barnes and Eric Carter have received American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) fellowships for the 2015 program.

ACLS, funded in 1919, is a private, nonprofit federation of 72 national scholarly organizations, is the preeminent representative of American scholarship in the humanities and related social sciences. Advancing scholarship by awarding fellowships and strengthening relations among learned societies is central to our work. Other activities include support for scholarly conferences, reference works, and scholarly communication innovations. ACLS fellowships fund research in the social sciences and the humanities where the ultimate goal of the fellow is by the end of the year to produce a major piece of scholarly work. Read More.

IN MEMORIAM

Charles “Chuck” S. Sargent

POLICY UPDATES

Senate ESEA Reauthorization Bill Includes Geography Grant Program

The Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), the given name of the Senate’s legislation reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) – which is currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) – includes a program that awards competitive grants “to promote innovative history, civic, and geography instruction, learning strategies, and professional development activities and programs.”

The ECAA, which has been approved by the Senate’s education panel, also specifies geography as a core academic subject for K-12 instruction. The inclusion of the grant funding is a promising development for geography given the discipline was the only core subject in NCLB to not receive any dedicated funding authorizations as part of the 2002 law. Read More.

PUBLICATIONS

Special Issue of the ‘Annals of the AAG’ on Mountains

The Annals of the Association of American Geographers invites abstracts of papers to be considered for a special issue on Mountains. This will be the ninth of a series of annual special issues that highlight the work of geographers around a significant global theme. Papers are sought from a broad spectrum of scholars who address social, cultural, political, environmental, physical, economic, theoretical, and methodological issues focused on the mountains. These could include original research in such areas as mountains as sites and corridors of cultural and environmental diversity and gradients, mountains as the “water towers of the world”, mountain as regions highly sensitive to climate change, the critical nature of mountain regions as borders and as regions of conflict, mountain regions as barriers to migration yet also home to large numbers of refugees, mountains as sources of hazards and risk, mountains as sites of sacred importance, and as destinations for tourism and as cultural icons. Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by June 15, 2015 to jcassidento [at] aag [dot] org. Read More.

New Books Received — April 2015

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

MORE HEADLINES

AAG Seeks Observers to Attend UN Climate Change Conference

The Association of American Geographers has been granted Observer Organization status to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. With this formal designation, the AAG is permitted to submit to the UNFCCC Secretariat its nominations for representatives to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference that will take place from November 30 – December 11, 2015 on the outskirts of Paris in Le Bourget, France (COP-21/CMP11).

Submit your nomination and all required materials by Monday, June 15, 2015.  Read More.

EVENTS CALENDER

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

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AAG Presents Books Awards

The AAG presented the following book awards during an awards luncheon at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting in Chicago on April 25.

John Brinckerhoff Jackson Prize

This award encourages and rewards American geographers who write books about the United States which convey the insights of professional geography in language that is both interesting and attractive to lay readers.

Randall Wilson of Gettysburg College for his book America’s Public Lands: From Yellowstone to Smokey Bear and Beyond, published by Rowman & Littlefield.

With this book, Randall Wilson has taken on topic that is central to our country’s existence – its public lands – and attempts to rethink an old and familiar story. He examines the contrast between viewing land as a commodity to be developed and land as nature to be preserved. This book leads the reader from the nation’s founding to the current era of land management issues shaped by debates over private use of public lands, ecosystem management, and climate change. This volume has a sweeping scope and is full of meticulously researched details but it is also clear and concise with accessible prose suited to public as well as scholarly audiences.

AAG Globe Book Award for Public Understanding of Geography

This award is given for a book written or co-authored by a geographer that conveys most powerfully the nature and importance of geography to the non-academic world.

Paul Knox, University of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, for editing The Atlas of Cities, published by Princeton University Press

The Atlas of Cities is a comprehensive and timely overview of urban geography classifications and considerations across time using inviting maps, charts, diagrams, tables, and photographs.  Knox’s categories are innovative, not only advancing the literature, but resonating with a broader audience.

For example, the ‘Celebrity City’ chapter is engaging, while simultaneously introducing network analysis and systems science.   The ‘Megacity’ chapter visually demonstrates the disproportionate number of cities and agglomerations in Asia and along coastlines.  The scale of recent rural-urban migrations and human suffering in densely-populated, infrastructure-challenged slums is made plain.

This atlas would be equally at home in a university urban geography course or awaiting leisurely examination on a coffee table.

AAG Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography

This award is given for a book written by a geographer that makes an unusually important contribution to advancing the science and art of geography. 

Matthew Gandy, University College London, for his book The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity and the Urban Imagination, MIT Press (2014 )

The 2014 Meridian Book Award is awarded to Matthew Gandy for his book The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity and the Urban Imagination published by the MIT Press in December of 2014. It is an innovative, fresh contribution with extensive scope and conceptual depth. It is case based with water as its connecting theme to illustrate the evolution of modern urban spaces. He draws upon many sources including poetry, film, and art to enhance our understanding of the city. Written in an engaging and accessible way this book is an outstanding contribution to the discipline.

This exceptional scholarly work truly advances the art and science of the discipline. For this reason we are pleased to present the 2014 Meridian Book Award to Matthew Gandy for his work The Fabric of Space: Water, Modernity and the Urban Imagination.

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Pacific Coast Division Team Takes 2015 World Geography Bowl Title

AAG Pacific Coast Regional Division 2015 World Geography Bowl Champions

The Pacific Coast team won first place in the 2015 World Geography Bowl, an annual quiz competition for teams of college-level geography students representing the AAG’s regional divisions. This was the 22nd year for AAG hosting during its annual meeting.

On April 24, nine teams, each representing an AAG regional division, competed at the Hyatt hotel in Chicago. All nine regional divisions were represented by a team: East Lakes, West Lakes, Great-Plains Rocky Mountains, Middle Atlantic, Middle States, New England-St. Lawrence Valley, Pacific Coast, Southeast and Southwest Divisions. A spoiler team comprised of students present at the competition was added to round out the brackets. One of the spoiler team members, fourth-grader Ari Vogel from Wildwood Elementary School in Amherst, Mass., even scored for the team.

At the beginning of the exciting competition AAG President Mona Domosh addressed the crowd with an uplifting message and  at the end presented the winners with prizes.

The winning Pacific Coast Division team’s roster was:

  • Brendan Gordon, University of Idaho
  • Jesse Minor, University of Arizona
  • Noah Silber-Coats, University of Arizona
  • Laura Sharp, University of Arizona
  • Tina White (coordinator), Cypress College

The first runner-up Southeast Division team’s roster was:

  • Pete Akers, University of Georgia
  • Ronnie Schumann, University of South Carolina
  • Claude Buerger, University of South Alabama
  • Alejandro Molina, University of North Carolina- Greensboro
  • Rebecca Groh, University of Tennessee
  • Matt Cook, University of Tennessee
  • Dawn Drake (coordinator), Missouri Western State University

The second runner-up Middle Atlantic Division team’s roster was:

  • Christopher Hart, George Washington University
  • Kean Mcdermott, George Washington University
  • Madeline Hale, George Washington University
  • Michelle Stuhlmacher, George Washington University
  • Gloriana Sojo, George Washington University
  • Ziqi Li, George Washington University
  • Avery Sandborn, George Washington University
  • Tracy Edwards (coordinator), Frostburg State University

The top five individuals with best personal scores were awarded an MVP prizes. Listed in order of most points earned:

  • Christopher Hart, George Washington University
  • Pete Akers, University of Georgia
  • Kevin Bean, Bridgewater State University
  • Brendan Gordon, University of Idaho
  • Kate Rigot, University Of Colorado, Denver

WGB Founder and Retired Geographers Association members make a special appearance

As a special surprise to all, the founder of the World Geography Bowl Neal Lineback and other members of the Retired Geographers Association, including Richard and Susan Nostrand, Will Rense and Marvin Baker delivered eight boxes of delicious Chicago-style deep-dish pizza for the gathering crowd of contestants and audience members.

Thanks to 2015 WGB prize donors and volunteers

Organizers of the World Geography Bowl would like to express thanks to the countless volunteer question writers, team sponsors/coaches, moderators, judges, and scorekeepers who make the competition possible, and to the many students who competed throughout the country. We would like to recognize the volunteers this year as: Casey Allen (University of Colorado at Denver), Tom Bell (Western Kentucky University & University of Tennessee), Susan Bergeron (Coastal Carolina University), Michaela Buenemann (New Mexico State University), Laurence W. Carstensen (Virginia Tech), Jamison Conley (West Virginia University), Clinton Davis (Temple University), Richard Deal (Edinboro University), Lisa Dechano-Cook (Western Michigan University), Dawn Drake (Missouri Western State University), Rob Edsall (Idaho State University), Peggy Gripshover (Western Kentucky University), Tracy-Ann Hyman (University of the West Indies), Melvin Johnson (University of Wisconsin at Manitowoc), Frank LaFone (West Virginia University), Patrick May (Plymouth State University), Jon Moore (ETS), Jeffrey Neff (Western Carolina University), Lee Nolan (Pennsylvania State University), Colin Reisser (George Washington University), Wesley Reisser (US State Department & George Washington University), Angela Rogers (Pennsylvania State University), Zia Salim (California State University at Fullerton), Jodi Vender (Pennsylvania State University).

World Geography Bowl organizers thank its supporters who generously donated atlases, books, gift certificates, softwares, and MVP awards – Avenza Systems, The University of Chicago Press, The University of Georgia Press, Edward Elgar Publishing, Esri, Lonely Planet, MaxQDA, National Geographic Society, W. H. Freeman & Company and Waveland Press – who recognize the important role the competition plays in building a sense of community and generating excitement around geographic learning. Your continued support is truly appreciated.

Thanks to World Geography Bowl executive director Jamison Conley (West Virginia University) for his first year of leading the competition.

2016 World Geography Bowl – San Francisco

The 2016 World Geography Bowl competition will be held in San Francisco in April, 2016. Regional competitions typically occur during the fall at respective AAG regional meetings, where regional teams for the national competition are usually formed. For more information on organizing a team, contact the World Geography Bowl executive director, Jamison Conley, at West Virginia University at Jamison [dot] Conley [at] mail [dot] wvu [dot] edu or Niem Huynh at nhuynh [at] aag [dot] org.

Note: This post has been edited to reflect that it was the 22nd annual event. A previous version stated it was the 26th annual event.

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Matthias Kuhle

Matthias Kuhle, physical geographer and a leading expert on high mountain regions from the University of Göttingen in Germany, died in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal on April 25, 2015.

Kuhle was born in Berlin on April 20, 1948. His undergraduate studies at the Free University of Berlin spanned German philology, geography and philosophy. After graduating in 1972 he moved to the University of Göttingen where he was to remain for the rest of his career.

His PhD was in the natural sciences, specifically geography, geology and philosophy with a dissertation on the geomorphology and former glaciation of South-Iranian high mountains. Awarded his doctorate in 1975, he moved on to further research and achieved his habilitation in geography in 1980 with a monograph entitled Dhaulagiri- and Annapurna Himalaya: A Contribution to the Geomorphology of Extreme High Mountains.

In 1983 he became a Professor of Geography at the University of Göttingen and in 1990 was promoted to Professor of Geography and High Mountain Geomorphology.

Kuhle’s passion was high mountain regions but his academic interest was broad, spanning ecology, periglacial and glacial geomorphology, climatology, paleoclimatology and glaciology, as well as tourism and transport issues.

His specialism took him to the mountain ranges and plateaus of High and Central Asia, to the Andes and to the Arctic. In fact, he undertook more than 50 field expeditions to high mountain areas over the course of his career, many of them lasting for several months.

A particular research interest was seeking to reconstruct the former ice cover in High and Central Asia caused by the plate tectonic-induced uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountain areas above the snowline. Based on measurements of radiation energy and budget in these high altitude subtropical areas, he developed a theory that ice sheetcovered practically the entire Tibetan Plateau during the Pleistocene.

Kuhle produced a large number of academic papers on his field-based research in leading geography, geology and scientific journals. He also had an interest in science theory and co-authored a number of papers with his wife.

He was leading a student fieldtrip to Nepal, sharing his passion and knowledge for high mountains with the next generation, when the enormous earthquake struck. The group was in a remote area called Yaruphant just 10 miles from the epicenter and was caught in a rock fall; the students and assistant survived but Kuhle sadly died.

Kuhle leaves behind his wife, Sabine, and loving family.

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New Books for Geographers

New Books: April 2015

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

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

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

April 2015

 

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Changing Human Populations Spatial Narratives
AAG Staff
AAG Staff