Chauncy Harris Distinguished Lectureship at BYU
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Volume 39, Number 1 • February 2004 In This Issue Chauncy Harris Distinguished Lectureship at BYU n the fall of 2003, former AAG President and geography. He was Chauncy Harris, his wife Edith, their daughter BYU’s first Rhodes Scholar I Margaret, and her husband Phillip A. Strauss and the valedictorian of his Jr. endowed the Chauncy Harris Distinguished graduating class; he later From the Meridian ................2 Lecture at Brigham Young University (BYU). earned a second B.A. from President’s Column ..............3 The lectureship is an annual lecture given by a Oxford and a Ph.D. in geog- Grants & Competitions ........7 distinguished geographer who spends a few days raphy from the University Member Profile ....................11 on campus lecturing, teaching, advising, and of Chicago. Professor Harris Specialty Group News ......14 visiting with students and faculty in the BYU Harris taught at Indiana University, Geographic Centers ..........15 geography department. It provides an excellent the University of Nebraska, and the University of Award Deadlines ................15 opportunity for geography faculty and students to Chicago, where he served as the Samuel N. Harp- Members of Note..................16 interact with other geographers, and for non- er Distinguished Service Professor, Chair of the Grants & Awards ..................16 geographers to become better acquainted with Geography Department, Dean of the College of Necrology ..............................17 the geography program. Social Sciences, and Vice President for Academic Call for Papers ......................19 Chauncy Harris graduated from BYU in 1933 Resources. Harris is best known for his work on Books Received....................20 at the age of nineteen with a degree in geology Continued on page 5 Quarter Century ..................20 New Members........................21 Jobs in Geography..............22 Events ......................................31 Philadelphia: Beyond the Liberty Bell housands of geographers worldwide are preparing to converge on the T City of Brotherly Love for the Centennial Conference of the Associa- tion of American Geographers March 14-19, 2004. Many will take this opportunity to see such Philadelphia classics as Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Betsy Ross House, and Elfreth’s Alley. The Marriott Hotel conference site at Twelfth and Market streets is five blocks east and one block north of Independence Hall. Great sites to be sure, these famous colonial landmarks and the history that surrounds them have cast such monumental shadows as to virtually blot out every other aspect of the city. Despite its storied colonial history, Philadelphia matured as the industrial Take time to explore Philadelphia and environs while attending the AAG Centennial “Workshop of the World.” By 1900, Philadel- Meeting. To register and sign up for field trips see page 8. phia’s population exceeded 1,200,000, Continued on page 4 www.aag.org AAG Newsletter 1 February 2004 From the Meridian AAG Newsletter Financial Progress at the AAG of the Association of American he AAG’s audited financial state- These kinds of changes don’t happen Geographers ments are just in and I’m pleased to accidentally. I would like to thank our staff T report to the membership that we for working extremely hard this past year have made substantial financial progress to improve productivity. We also under- Douglas Richardson, Publisher during this past year. The Association had took a major re-design of work flows and and Managing Editor been losing money for several years run- technical systems within the AAG, and the Megan D. Nortrup, ning, culminating in a loss of over staff had to adjust to a great deal of change, Editor $325,000 in fiscal year ending (FYE) 2001. which is never easy. As a result, however, I AAG Voice 202-234-1450 Working together, Ron Abler and I were believe we have laid a solid foundation for AAG Fax 202-234-2744 able to stanch that loss and reduce it by the AAG’s future, both financially and [email protected] $200,000 in FYE 2002. With through the establishment www.aag.org the results now available for and training of a very profes- FYE 2003, I am happy to sional and talented staff. USPS 987-380 ISSN 0275-3995 report that the AAG is now When you see AAG staff well into the black, with a members in Philadelphia next The AAG Newsletter ISSN 0275-3995 substantial operating profit, a month, please take a moment is published monthly with July/August positive change in net assets to thank them for their combined, by the Association of Amer- of $507,448, and a total extraordinary contributions ican Geographers, 1710 16th Stree improvement from the previ- this past year. NW, Washington, DC 20009-3198. ous year of over $630,000. The leadership provided The cost of an annual subscription is The AAG’s revenues also Richardson by the AAG Officers and Council has also been critical $25.00 The subscription price is increased to over $3 million to the success and progress the Association included in the annual dues of the for the first time in its history last year. This was a result primarily of increases in enjoyed last year. I am continually amazed Association. Not available to non- external grants, contracts, and contribu- by the sheer amount of volunteer time that members. Periodicals postage paid in tions. At the same time, even while the AAG officers and members devote to Washington, DC. All news items and initiating new programs and rebuilding enhancing the well being of geography and letters, including job listings, should be with an excellent new professional staff, our Association. All of our officers and sent to the Editor at the address below we were able to keep our expenses under council members are fully engaged in strug- or to [email protected]. control, at about the same level as the gling with the myriad issues that confront All Newsletter materials must previous year. Continued on page 5 arrive at the Association office by the 1st of the month preceding the month AAG Finances of the publication. This includes job $600,000 Change in Net Assets listings. Material will be published on (profit/loss) $507,448 $500,000 a space available basis and at the dis- cretion of the editorial staff. $400,000 When your address changes, please $300,000 notify the Association office immediate- ly. Six weeks notice is necessary to $200,000 insure uninterrupted delivery of AAG $100,000 publications. To assist the AAG office in your address change, include the address $0 label with your change of address. -($69,811) -($100,000) -($72,795) Postmaster: Send address changes -($123,179) to AAG Newsletter, 1710 16th Street -($200,000) NW, Washington, DC 20009-3198, or -($300,000) -($325,813) [email protected]. -($400,000) 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2 AAG Newsletter www.aag.org President’s Column Volume 39, Number 2 Thoughts on Geography’s Diversity glance at the program for the more diverse than other disciplines. Per- how and why they relate to one another, upcoming annual meeting confirms haps this assumption made some sense sev- and how and why they come together to A the obvious: geography is a diverse eral decades ago, but it seems much less produce distinctive places and landscapes. discipline. Some believe that geogra- convincing today. Of course, one might This geographical perspective can tran- phy’s diversity works against its accept- protest by pointing out that sociology does scend the physical and human, and it opens ance as a discrete discipline worthy of not have a physical component to it, just as the door to studies that range from the attention and support in the modern the traditional physical sciences do not geospatial to the ethnographic. academy. Yet this view is arguably based have a human component. Yet to sustain This is all common sense to most geog- on a conception of diversity that is both such an argument, one’s conception of raphers, of course, but we tend not to give dated and overly narrow. diversity must be narrowly focused on top- it its full due. To my mind, we should be The idea that geography is more ics of study, as opposed to less ready to concede the diverse than many other disciplines dates the perspectives from which diversity point than we often back to a time when the conceptual lines inquiry proceeds. are, for it is not at all clear to among the various social and physical Yes, geographers work me that our diversities give us sciences were relatively sharply drawn. on very diverse topics (even any less coherence than most Sociologists studied society, economists though, as I have already other disciplines. And in some the economy, biologists the living world, argued, that can easily be ways our commonalities of and chemists the components of the mate- exaggerated). But what perspective may give us an rial world. In recent decades, the bound- about the matter of per- edge. (Indeed, various new aries between these categories of inquiry spective? One doesn’t have initiatives are headed in pre- have come under increasing scrutiny. How to buy into a neat Kantian Murphy cisely this direction—witness can we study society without economy and compartmentalization of form, time, and the Earth Systems Science initiative that politics? How can we unravel the secrets of space to recognize that geography’s seeks to promote topical diversity around a the living world without moving across the integrative spatial perspective gives it a set of interrelated themes.) divide between biology and chemistry? certain integrity that is lacking in tradi- Of course, any effort to advance geog- As questions of this sort have come to tional disciplines whose topical foci raphy in this way will be unsuccessful the fore, the disciplinary matrix that was appear increasingly fuzzy.