Newsletter – June 2015
PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
Why is our Geography Curriculum so White?
By Mona Domosh
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. Continue Reading.
Recent columns from the President
Annual Meeting Registration Opens July 31
Registration for the AAG Annual Meeting in San Francisco opens on July 31, 2015. AAG will also begin accepting abstracts and proposals for presentations. The 2016 conference will take place March 29-April 2. Researchers, scholars, professionals, and students are welcome to present papers, posters, and panel discussions on all topics relevant to geography. Abstracts are due by Oct. 29, 2015, but may be edited through February 18, 2016.
NEWS
GeoMentor Spotlight on Paisly Di Bianca, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Each month, AAG will feature one of its GeoMentors volunteers who help schools and teachers introduce GIS and associated geographic concepts into classrooms across the country. The GeoMentors program is a joint effort by Esri and the AAG to develop a nationwide network of volunteers to support the U.S. Department of Education’s ConnectED Program, for which Esri has agreed to donate free GIS software to all K-12 schools in the U.S. In this inaugural entry, AAG spotlights Paisly Di Bianca, an Environmental Protection Specialist/GIS Coordinator with the US EPA. Learn More.
Nominations for Awards, Committee Service Due June 30
- Committees – The AAG is now accepting nominations for members to serve on the AAG Honors Committee and the AAG Nominating Committee. Learn More.
- AAG Honors – Submit your nominations for outstanding accomplishments by members in research & scholarship, teaching, education, service to the discipline, public service outside academe and for lifetime achievement. Learn More.
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
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. Read More.
NIMHD: Advancing Health Disparities Interventions Through Community-Based Participatory Research
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). Read More.
NIMHD: Building Population Health Research Capacity in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands
The National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) has issued a funding opportunity announcement, Building Population Health Research Capacity in the U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands (RFA-MD-15-011), designed to (1) build capacity of organizations in the USAPI to conduct population health research, and (2) support population health research projects that will provide novel data for the United States-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) populations and serve as the foundation for future research efforts. Read More.
GENIP Calls for Proposals to Research Status of K-12 Geography Education
The Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP) Coordinating Committee seeks proposals from non-profits, educational institutions, or individuals to conduct guided research on the status of K-12 geography education in the US and report findings to the committee. GENIP is offering to fund up to $12,000 for research work to collect data and submit it to an online committee resource. Funding is for a 12 month period with the potential to renew for a second year of funding and research. This is an excellent opportunity to work closely with the GENIP Coordinating Committee which represents the four national geography organizations.
Proposals should be submitted by June 10, 2015. Learn More.
MEMBER & DEPARTMENT NEWS
Anne Knowles Named Guggenheim Foundation Fellow at University of Maine
Anne Kelly Knowles (Geography Department, Middlebury College) has been awarded a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation for a project titled Telling the Spatial Story of the Holocaust. This project grew from her ongoing work with the Holocaust Geographies Collaborative, an international group of geographers and historians exploring the geographical dimensions of the Holocaust with spatial methods, notably GIS (geographic information systems). Read More.
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, B.L. Turner II, and Stewart Fotheringham. Read More.
GIS Professor Daniel Griffith Elected ASA Fellow
Daniel A. Griffith, Asbhel Smith Professor of Geospatial Information Sciences at the University of Texas/Dallas, was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), the preeminent professional statistical society in the United States, in recognition of his reputation in and outstanding contributions to the field of statistical science. His citation by the ASA reads: for influential contributions to the theory and practice of spatial statistical analysis and the effective dissemination and popularization of these methods in geography and environmental science through research, teaching, and editorial endeavors. Read More.
IN MEMORIAM
PUBLICATIONS
AAG Seeks Papers for New “GeoHumanties” Journal
GeoHumanities is a new journal being launched by the Association of American Geographers and will be published by Taylor and Francis. GeoHumanities publishes original peer-reviewed articles that span conceptual and methodological debates in geography and the humanities; critical reflections on analog and digital artistic productions; and new scholarly interactions occurring at the intersections of geography and multiple humanities disciplines. GeoHumanities includes full-length scholarly articles its Articles section, and shorter creative pieces that cross over between the academy and creative practice in the Practices and Curations section. GeoHumanities is seeking papers in both of these sections. Learn More.
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, 201500. Read More.
AAG Seeks Proposal Authors, Reviewers for New AP Course in GIS&T
The Geography Education National Implementation Project (GENIP) has received a request from The College Board for a proposal to develop a new Advanced Placement course in Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T). The AAG will lead a course proposal development team on behalf of GENIP.
To apply for consideration as a proposal author and/or reviewer, please submit a short (250-word maximum) statement of interest and a current resume/CV to Dr. Michael Solem, AAG Director of Educational Research and Programs, at msolem [at] aag [dot] org by June 15, 2015. Proposal authors and reviewers will receive a stipend to support their work. Read More.
Call for Authors: International Perspectives on Learning Progressions in Geography Education
The current status of learning progressions research in the U.S. was the focus of a recent GeoProgressions panel and workshop at the AAG Annual Meeting in Chicago. Those sessions revealed for the participants that a “learning progression” in education and educational research can take many forms, as can the ways learning progressions have been applied with students in school classrooms. The picture becomes even more complex when viewed from the perspectives of educators in different parts of world.
Sensing an opportunity to learn from the experience of a more diverse community of geographers and educational researchers, the GeoProgressions project aims to produce an edited volume exploring the concept of learning progressions in the context of curriculum development, teaching and assessment practices in different countries.
Application materials from prospective authors are due on June 30, 2015. Learn More.
MORE HEADLINES
AAG Seeks Observers to Attend UN Climate Change Conference
Apply by June 15
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). Learn More.
EVENTS CALENDER
- IMAGIN 2015 Annual Conference, Traverse City, MI, June 7-9
- Annual Conference of the European Society for Literature, Science and the Arts 2015, Malta, June 15-18
- Earth Educators’ Rendezvous at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Boulder, CO, July 13-17
- GIS in Transit Conference, Washington, DC, September 1-3
- 2015 ILGISA Annual Conference, Springfield, IL, September 14-16
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