Newsletter – September 2022
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PRESIDENT’S COLUMN
Finally, a commitment to mitigate climate change and its effects
By Marilyn Raphael
On Wednesday August 10th, AAG alerted its US members to urge our representatives to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, a bill that promised the most major investment in climate action that the United States has ever made. On August 16th 2022, President Biden signed that bill into law. It is being hailed as “the most ambitious climate bill in United States history.” This law has been a long time coming, is different in many ways from the original Build Back Better Bill, and has a number of controversial elements that can and should be debated. As its name suggests, it is more broadly focused than climate change but, of relevance to our society is that it provides $369 billion in funding to mitigate climate change and its effects.
ANNUAL MEETING
Registration open for the 2023 AAG Annual Meeting
Join us for a meeting the will be a mile high and thousands of miles wide. The hybrid AAG 2023 will take place virtually and in person in Denver March 23-27. Two ways to experience the meeting will be available to attendees, in-person or virtual. The call for papers and registration is also open!
ASSOCIATION NEWS
2023 Committee and Council Vacancies
Openings are available to serve on either the AAG Honors Committee or the AAG Nominating Committee. Nominations and self-nominations of members who wish to serve on these committees should email Candida Mannozzi.
The AAG Nominating Committee for the 2023 AAG Election seeks nominations for Vice President (one to be elected) for National Councilor (two vacancies), and for International Councilor (one vacancy) for the 2023 election. Those elected will take office on July 1, 2023. Nominations are due no later than September 15, 2022. The AAG encourages nominations of a broad range of colleagues who reflect different disciplinary specialties, regional locations, gender, race, ethnicity, diverse ability, stage in career, and institutional diversity (e.g., candidates at non-PhD-granting or 2-year degree-granting institutions, and/or candidates who serve in Historically Black, Hispanic Serving, and tribal colleges).
Nominators should, to the best of their ability, ascertain that nominees are AAG members with unrestricted rights to be eligible for these elected positions (i.e., persons who are known to be in compliance with the AAG’s Professional Conduct Policy).
Please submit the names and addresses of each nominee and your reasons for supporting the nomination to the AAG Nominating Committee, no later than September 15, 2022. As part of your nomination statement, please confirm that the person is willing to be considered for the position for which you are recommending them. Nominations by email are strongly preferred.
Nominations for Vice President should be directed to Sarah Blue, Nominating Committee Chair. Nominations for National Councilor should be directed to Danielle M. Purifoy, Nominating Committee Member. Nominations for International Councilor should be directed to Sara Smith, Nominating Committee Member.
AAG Honors and Awards: Recognize your Colleagues
There are only a few days left to nominate a colleague—or yourself—for an AAG Honor, as an AAG Fellow, or for several other awards. Most deadlines are September 15, so please respond soon.
AAG Honors are the highest awards offered by the American Association of Geographers, and AAG Fellows recognize geographers who have made significant contributions to advancing geography. Please note that both of these programs are now operating under recently revised guidelines. Individual AAG members, specialty groups, affinity groups, departments, and other interested parties are encouraged to nominate outstanding colleagues by September 15.
Deadlines for several other AAG Grants and Awards are also approaching:
Sept. 15
Sept. 22
Sept. 30
Get Ready for 35th Annual Geography Awareness Week
This year, AAG’s theme for Geography Awareness Week will be World of Possibilities: Geographers at Work. Celebrating the vast career possibilities for geographers, Geography Awareness Week (#GeoWeek2022) will showcase the work of geographers in strikingly diverse areas, from agriculture and food security to tracking illegal mining; from foregrounding the geographies of health to the work of correlating cancer and air quality and applying GIS to patterns of substance abuse; from assuring the integrity of population counts to safeguarding wildlife ecologies; from advising on climate resilience to protecting fair voting maps.
Make your plans now and let AAG’s resources and information help you celebrate GeoWeek in your workplace and at your school. Sign up now to become a GeoAdvocate (individuals) or a GeoWeek partner (institutions and organizations).
Policy Update
Last week, the Consortium of Social Science Associations released its analysis of proposed Senate funding for federal science agencies, with increases that sometimes exceed even those proposed by the House. An agreement is expected by the end of the year.- The White House’s new policy guidance on public access to federally funded research builds on 2013 guidance, but, notably, lifts the 12-month optional embargo on free access.
PUBLICATIONS
NEW Annals Alert: Articles with topics ranging from West German housing projects to urban agglomeration, from climate gentrification to sparsely populated areas
The most recent issue of the Annals of the AAG has been published online (Volume 112, Issue 6) with 17 new articles on contemporary geographic research. Topics in this issue include humanistic GIS; Goldman Sachs; super typhoons; geography program learning outcomes; social vulnerability models; robustness and transportation networks; gender and cross-border labor; air pollution and COVID-19 mortality; and aggregate mine decision-making. Locational areas of interest include Uganda; Anglo-Ethiopian borderlands; Miami; and Cambodia. Authors are from a variety of research institutions including University of Oxford; The Chinese University of Hong Kong; and Université Paris.
All AAG members have full online access to all issues of the Annals through the Journals section of the AAG Member Dashboard. Each issue, the Editors choose one article to make freely available. In this issue you can read Tracks of Death: Elephant Casualties along the Habaipur–Diphu Railway in Assam, India by Rekib Ahmed, Anup Saikia, and Scott M. Robeson for free.
Questions about the Annals? Contact annals@aag.org.
New Books in Geography — Fall Available
The Fall 2022 Edition of the New Books in Geography list is available online. The AAG compiles a quarterly list of newly published geography books and books of interest to geographers. The list includes a diversity of books that represents the breadth of the discipline (including key sub-disciplines), but also recognizes the work which takes place at the margins of geography and overlap with other disciplines. While academic texts make up most of the books, we also include popular books, novels, books of poetry, and books published in languages other than English, for example.
Some of these books are selected for review in the AAG Review of Books. Publishers are welcome to contact the AAG Review of Books Editor-in-Chief Debbie Hopkins, as well as anyone interested in reviewing these or other titles.
Check out the latest from the other AAG journals
Member News
September Member Updates
Dr. Chansheng He, professor of geography, environment and tourism and a Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Western Michigan University is the recipient of the Fulbright University of Leeds Distinguished Scholar Award, one of only 38 Distinguished Scholar Awards granted globally out of more than 440 Fulbright Scholar awards for 2022-2023 academic year. He will spend six months at the Water Center at Leeds University to advance the watershed science framework he and his colleagues have proposed; brainstorm approaches to support participatory policy and decision making; and compare and analyze the water resources policies between the U.K. and the U.S.
Bo Zhao, associate professor of geography at University of Washington, was interviewed on King5 News in Seattle about his study, published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, showing a brief lift and then a decline in patronage of Black-owned businesses in the U.S. during the pandemic.
Borderless magazine interviewed Reece Jones, chair of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa Department of Geography and Environment, about the findings from his new book, Nobody Is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States.
RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Visiting Geographical Scientist Program Accepting Applications for 2022-2023
The Visiting Geographical Scientist Program (VGSP), which sponsors visits by prominent geographers to small departments or institutions with limited resources, is accepting applications for the 2022-2023 academic year. The purpose of this program is to stimulate interest in geography among students, faculty members, and administrative officers. A list of pre-approved speakers is available on the website, however participating institutions select and make arrangements with the visiting geographer. VGSP is funded by Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU), the international honors society for geographers. Questions and complete applications may be directed to Mark Revell.
AAAS Science, Technology and Human Rights Conference
Registration for the 2022 AAAS Science, Technology and Human Rights Conference is now open. The conference will be held online October 17-19.
GISCI Exam Period Opens in December
The next testing window for the GISCI Geospatial Core Technical Knowledge Exam® is December 3-10, 2022. Part of the GISP Certification, the exam will once again be administered by PSI Online through its worldwide testing facilities in a computer-based testing (CBT) format.
Featured Article
Enhancing Qualitative Social Science with GIS
Many people understand the power of GIS for quantitative research, but fewer know of its practical applications for qualitative social science work. In a broad effort led by Esri’s Chief Scientist, Dawn Wright, Ph.D., a number of researchers at Esri are looking at the many ways qualitative social science can benefit from GIS. While ArcGIS can help with an array of quantitative approaches, it also brings many capabilities to enhance qualitative methodologies to address longstanding issues of social and environmental concern. This article explores where and how common GIS approaches and common qualitative approaches intersect and provides resources for learning more.
In Memoriam
The AAG is saddened to hear of the passing of Yi-Fu Tuan and Akin Mabogunje this past month.
EVENTS CALENDAR
- October 6-8, 2022 – Association of Pacific Coast Geographers (APCG), Bellingham, WA
- October 14-15, 2022 – Great Plains/Rocky Mountain (GPRM), Denver, CO
- October 20-21, 2022 – Mid-Atlantic Division (MAD), Crownsville, MD and West Lakes (WLDAAG), Edwardsville, IL
- October 20-22, 2022 – Applied Geography Conference, virtual
- October 27-28, 2022 – East Lakes (ELDAAG), Muskegon, MI and Southwest (SWAAG), Fayetteville, AR
- October 28-29, 2022 – Middle States (MSAAG), virtual
- November 4-6, 2022 – New England – St. Lawrence Valley (NESTVAL), Salem, MA
- November 20-22, 2021 – Southeast Division (SEDAAG), Atlanta, GA
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