The American Association of Geographers (AAG) is committed to enhancing diversity, promoting inclusion, and broadening participation in Geography. We are open, welcoming and encouraging of differences in perspectives across the broad spectrum of backgrounds or origins within our membership. An organization where everyone feels valued and possesses a keen sense of belonging, creates a vibrant community and advances the discipline of Geography.
Here we provide a record of the past, current, and upcoming efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion at the AAG. The Diversity and Inclusion Committee advises and shapes these efforts. In 2020, AAG’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee renewed this commitment by developing a three-year strategic plan for the AAG, which provides a clear action plan to enhance and measure diversity and inclusion.
JEDI at the AAG
Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion is woven into the fabric of AAG’s strategic framework
Advancing Leadership Capabilities for JEDI
- Dedicating leadership resources
- Enhancing AAG policies and practices
- Enabling data-driven D&I excellence
Establishing Organizational Tools to Support JEDI
- Engaging through communication
- Curating JEDI knowledge
Integrating JEDI into Programming
- Embedding JEDI in AAG programming
- Fostering healthy departments
- Growing geography’s next generation
Our Culture of Care
Explore AAG’s impact and get involved
We take seriously the goal of creating a relational approach to dismantling oppression, discrimination, and marginalization that addresses multiple and intersectional barriers to inclusion and equity and have created a clear action plan to enhance and measure diversity and inclusion.
Be a part of the conversation with JEDI office hours
AAG seeks to bring members and partners into the discussions about our TLC GRAM approach. To broaden the dialogue beyond the working groups and subcommittees, we invite members to call for and participate in meetings focused on the important subject areas of our TLC GRAM working process through our JEDI Office Hours. Information shared during these opportunities will help AAG learn and exchange new ideas, implement actionable outcomes, and measure progress on our goals.
Women in Geography
Friends of the Golden Compass
This program is specifically designed for foreign national women working in geography-related academia and living in the United States. Initially funded by UCGIS and TRELIS through the Carolyn Merry Mini-Grant program, Golden Compass grew to become a collaboration led by Dr. Jieun Lee, University of Northern Colorado with other TRELIS alumni, including Dr. Mônica Haddad of Iowa State University and Dr. Huyen Le of Ohio State University, as well as TRELIS leader Dr. Laxmi Ramasubramanian of San José State University. AAG also provided support, as well as the University of Northern Colorado and the Korea-America Association for Geospatial and Environmental Sciences. For a perspective on the program, see Dr. Lee’s article in ArcNews.
initiatives
JEDI in our programs
Several efforts underway at AAG address diversity issues directly. In addition, AAG is working to integrate diversity and inclusion into all of its programming. Below are a few examples of current and established work, as well as numerous awards recognizing excellence in teaching and research toward diversity, inclusion, social equity, and anti-racism.
Through its job and career initiatives, policy stances, responses to current events, and themes in its journals, AAG frequently highlights how racialization, gender discrimination, ableism, marginalization and the need for inclusion have shaped or been shaped by the geographic discipline.
Addressing Locally-tailored Information Infrastructure & Geoscience Needs for Enhancing Diversity (ALIGNED)
Addressing Locally-tailored Information Infrastructure & Geoscience Needs for Enhancing Diversity (ALIGNED)
This three-year pilot study sought to align the needs of university departments and underrepresented students by drawing upon the intellectual wealth of the discipline to inform and transform ways in which departments envision and realize their own goals to enhance diversity.
Attracting Students of all Backgrounds to Geography Programs Before They Enter College
Attracting Students of all Backgrounds to Geography Programs Before They Enter College
AAG's efforts over the years have helped colleges reach students who have been underrepresented in their programs and continued to advance conversations around these challenges. The next important step is to measure overall progress toward including more perspectives and identities in our geography community.
Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography (EDGE)
Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography (EDGE)
Led by the AAG and sponsored by the National Science Foundation, EDGE was a research and action project designed to enhance the preparation of geographers for professional careers in education, business, government, and nonprofit sectors.
COVID-19 Rapid Response
COVID-19 Rapid Response
As the COVID-19 pandemic grew in severity, the AAG Council recognized that the work of geographers is more crucial than ever, yet the teaching and practice of geography is at risk. While the impacts to public health affect every geographer around the world, the economic impacts also threaten the institutions and businesses that support our discipline as a whole. In response, the COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force was formed to evaluate proposals that answer this question: What can the AAG do to address the systemic crisis facing geographers and geography?
Encoding Geography
Encoding Geography
An AAG initiative to increase diversity and computational literacy among all geographers to strengthen our discipline for the future by working with school districts and instructors across disciplines to broaden the diversity of geographers and to equip them with computational skills.
Powerful Geography
Powerful Geography
This program offers teaching and learning tools to connect geography to the most relevant topics for students of many backgrounds.
Mental Health in the Discipline
Mental Health in the Discipline
AAG's Task Force on Mental Health reported on the culmination of its work. This group ultimately transformed into the Mental Health in the Academy Affinity Group.
Harassment Prevention and Intervention
Harassment Prevention and Intervention
In April 2018, the Harassment-Free Taskforce was by the AAG's Executive Committee to develop a survey focused on harassment at our national meeting. The AAG Council approved the survey in April 2019.
Resources
Repositories and bibliographies
Below is a list of recent journal articles about Building Places to Thrive In: Toward More Just Geography Graduate Departments:
- Shepherd, J. M., Bendix, J., & Urban, M. A. (2024). Increasing racial and ethnic diversity in physical geography. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 105.
- Virgüez, E., León, L., & Freese, L. M. (2024). The climate sciences need representation from the Global South. One Earth.
- More Reflections on a White Discipline, The Professional Geographer
- Grappling with barriers in geosciences from the lens of two Latina geoscientists, Journal of Geoscience Education
- A Long Way to Go: Collective Paths to Racial Justice in Geography, The Professional Geographer
- A framework for addressing the lack of diversity in the Geosciences through evaluating the current structure of institutional efforts, GeoJournal
- We need accomplices, not allies in the fight for an equitable geoscience, AGU Advances
- Exploring Persistent Racial and Ethnic Representation Disparity in U.S. Geography Doctoral Programs: The Disciplinary Underrepresentation Gap, The Professional Geographer
- The Advancing Geography Through Diversity Program: A Framework to Address the Persistent Underrepresentation of Domestic Racial and Ethnic Minorities in U.S. Geography Doctoral Programs, The Professional Geographer
- At the limits of critical geography: Creative interventions into the exclusionary spaces of U.S. geography, Gender, Place & Culture
- The Stories We Tell: Challenging Exclusionary Histories of Geography in U.S. Graduate Curriculum, Annals of the American Association of Geographers
- Coming of age in a straight white man’s geography: reflections on positionality and relationality as feminist anti-oppressive praxis, Gender, Place & Culture
- Hostile climates are barriers to diversifying the geosciences, Advances in Geosciences
- US universities are not succeeding in diversifying faculty, Nature Human Behavior
- Reflections on a White Discipline, The Professional Geographer
- Geography Achievement and Future Geographers, The Professional Geographer
- Evolution in the Foci of Academic Disciplines: Geography at Binghamton University as an Exemplar?, Higher Education in a Changing World (currently in press)
- Resources Citing the Forces that Contribute to Police Brutality
Events
AAG 2024 Sessions
The AAG annual meeting brings together scholars and teachers from around the world to discuss diversity in geography and higher education, as well as teaching more inclusive histories of geography.
Past meetings
Spatial Analytics and Abolitionist Futures
Awards
AAG Harold M. Rose Award for Anti-Racism Research and Practice
AAG celebrates geographers who have a demonstrated record of advancing the discipline through their research and who have also had on impact on anti-racist practice, in honor of Harold M. Rose, who devoted his career to expanding the discipline of geography into anti-racist scholarship.
Read more
AAG Diversity & Inclusion Award
AAG honors those geographers who have pioneered efforts toward or actively participated in efforts toward encouraging a more diverse discipline over the course of several years.
Read more
Glenda Laws Award
AAG recognizes early to mid-career scholars’ outstanding contributions to geographic research on social issues in memory of Glenda Laws, who brought energy and enthusiasm to her work on issues of social justice and social policy.
Read more
Advocacy
AAG Letter to Members on the Forces that Shape Police Brutality
A letter to AAG members about geographers’ roles in recognizing and documenting the structural biases that lead to police brutality.
AAG Statement on the Targeting of Diversity Education and Critical Inquiry by U.S. States
The AAG strongly opposes targeted, state-sponsored attacks on diversity initiatives and on critical studies of racial inequity across the United States.
Recent work
Strengthening our efforts through recent work across AAG and the discipline
Two recent AAG task forces have made recommendations that support elements of inclusiveness in terms of, respectively, mental health in the discipline and harassment prevention/intervention. The recommendations of the latter task force have been incorporated into AAG’s recently culminated revision of its Code of Conduct to create a harassment-free environment not only at its meetings but in the field, imposing new penalties for violations and putting in place training, support, and intervention frameworks to eliminate harassment from its gatherings.
Following are the most recent efforts in AAG’s ongoing work:
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February 2022
February 2022:
JEDI web page — New JEDI Committee page on AAG’s redesigned website
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October 2021
October 2021:
JEDI strategic plan framework — Committee plan approved by Council
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April 2021
April 2021:
JEDI strategic plan — Committee provided progress report at April 5-6 Council Meeting
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March 2021
March 2021:
Diversity page — Update of Diversity page on aag.org
AAG statement — The AAG released a statement condemning targeted violence against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in response to the murders in Atlanta
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February 2021
February 2021:
Membership Forms Review — Mark Revell shared draft changes to the AAG membership form for JEDI Committee review and discussion
Accessibility Task Force — Accessibility Task Force shared draft report with JEDI Committee for review
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November 2020
November 2020:
JEDI Committee Leadership — JEDI Committee formally assumed full leadership for the strategic plan, supplanting the need for a separate task force
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September 2020
September 2020:
Open Letter — Specialty Groups released open letter calling for change at the AAG.
AAG Council Response to Open Letter — the AAG Council responded to the SG Chair open letter
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August 2020
August 2020:
SG Chair Meeting — AAG staff calls meeting with chairs of Specialty Groups with connection to diversity to discuss the potential involvement in Diversity Strategic Plan (review the minutes)
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July 2020
July 2020:
Council meeting — The AAG Council votes to establish a Diversity Strategic Plan. This three-year plan will commit the organization to specific, funded, staffed actions
Call for Transformative Justice — Black Geographies Specialty Group releases call to action in response to white supremacy through policing
JEDI Committee — JEDI Committee elects co-chairs, Lisa Marshall and Ronald Schumann, begins work with AAG Executive Director on diversity strategic plan; committee agrees to play a major role in the task force
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June 2020
June 2020:
AAG Anti-racism Letter — The AAG released a statement in response to the death of George Floyd.
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May 2020
May 2020:
AAG statement — The AAG released a statement in response to the rising anti-Asian racism related to COVID-19
Leadership
JEDI committee
This committee coordinates and facilitates ongoing JEDI initiatives to enhance diversity and inclusion excellence. Diversity and inclusion in this sense is envisioned in its broadest demographic definition, indicating, ethnic, gender, disabilities, and other underrepresented groups and also diversity in thoughts, ideas and perspectives. The committee also considers nominations and selects awardees of the Glenda Laws Award to recognize outstanding scholarly contributions to geographic research on social issues and provides nominations to the AAG Council for the AAG Enhancing Diversity Award to honor those who have pioneered efforts toward or actively participated in efforts toward encouraging a more diverse discipline.
The JEDI Committee is guiding the development of the three-year JEDI strategic plan. This plan will define the improvement areas we want to address and define thoughtful strategies and proposals for D&I Initiatives in order to enhance sustainable justice, equity, diversity and inclusion excellence. As part of the planning process, we will identify short, medium and long-term JEDI-specific actions that can enhance JEDI excellence for AAG.
Members
- Jenna Loyd, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Co-Chair – 2026
- Stefano Bloch, University of Arizona – 2027
- Debarchana Ghosh, University of Connecticut, Council Liaison – 2025
- Lily Houtman, Pennsylvania state University – 2026
- Nick Koenig, University of Idaho – 2027
- Jieun Lee, University of Northern Colorado – 2027
- Adriana Martinez, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville – 2026
- Jennifer Mokos, Coastal Carolina University – 2027
- Rasul A. Mowatt, North Carolina State University – 2025
- Damon Scott, Miami University Ohio – 2027
- Russell Smith, Winston Salem State University – 2025
- Edgar Virguez, Duke University – 2026
- Mia White, The New School – 2025
- Gary Langham, AAG Executive Director, Ex Officio
- Risha RaQuelle, AAG Chief Strategy Officer, Staff Liaison