Dr. Sarah
Elwood to Deliver Treacy Lecture on March 11 - “Negotiating
the role and power of community organizations: spatial, institutional
and knowledge politics”
Graduate Student Representatives Todd Courtenay
and Adam Simcock provide the follwing about the March 11 Treacy
Memorial lecture:
"As
in past years, the Geography Department and the Geography
Graduate Students have the privilege of honoring the memory
of John Treacy by inviting a prominent young scholar to give
a lecture as part of the Yi-Fu Tuan Lecture Series.
This year we welcome Dr.
Sarah Elwood, Assistant Professor of Geography at the
University of Arizona. Dr. Elwood's lecture is titled: “Negotiating
the role and power of community organizations: spatial, institutional
and knowledge politics.” Her research focuses on the
use and impacts of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in
neighborhood revitalization and urban problem solving.
The lecture will be held Friday, March 11th at 3:30 pm in
Room 180 Science Hall.
John Treacy (PhD '89) was a promising Madison graduate who
tragically passed away early in his career. The Geography
Graduate Students celebrate his memory by selecting a scholar
who they admire and feel represents a dynamic facet of the
field. Due to cross-disciplinary interest, we are grateful
to have the co-sponsorship of the Rural
Sociology Department as well as the University Lectures
Committee.
In addition to her Friday lecture, Sarah Elwood will also
lead a brownbag discussion on Thursday March 10th at 12:00
pm. Her brownbag talk is: "The development, care, and
feeding of participatory research: Strategies and skills for
researchers".
We encourage graduate students, as well as interested faculty,
to attend."
Outstanding UW-Madison
Cartography Students Again Dominate ACSM National Awards
Student
Division winners for the 2004 ACSM-CaGIS Map Design
Competition have been announced, and again UW-Madison
cartography students have dominated the results.
The ACSM-CaGIS awards promote interest in map design and
recognize significant design advances in cartography. The
competition is open to all map-makers in the United States
and Canada. Noted cartographers and designers judge the entries
based on the following criteria: color, overall design and
impression, craftsmanship, and typography. Entries will be
displayed at a number of other national and international
professional functions and will then become part of the permanent
collection of the U.S. Library of Congress.
Prof. Mark Harrower and the Department of Geography extend
their congratulations to our outstanding department cartographers!
Student Division, National Geographic Society Award –
Printed
"The Okanagan Wine Industry"
Jared Wiedemeyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"The World Heritage Sites of Peru"
Angi Goodkey, Sir Sandford Fleming College
"Commercial Air Disasters of the Lower
48 United States 1950-2003" Read previous news story on this team >
David O. Bratz, Aaron J. Stephenson, and Zach J. Nienow, University
of Wisconsin-Madison
UW-Madison Geography
To Host 2005 AAG Party
Nick Bauch has organized the 2005 AAG party for the UW-Madison
Department of Geography. All old and new friends are invited
to meet on April 7 from 8-10 pm the Wynkoop Brewing Co., 1634
18th St. in Denver. A free shuttle to and from the location
is available. Print
the flyer >
Symposium Seeks to Generate
Debate About European Higher Education
-- From Symposium Press Release 18 Mar 05
The
globalization of higher education and research has become
a high profile issue both in the U.S. and in Europe. In the
context of current debates and issues, the University of Wisconsin-Madison
is sponsoring a two-day international symposium on April 8-9,
2005 on a fascinating and complex knowledge space that is
emerging - the European Higher Education Area.
“The objective of this symposium is to generate debate
about the nature, scope, form and tensions associated with
the construction of the European Higher Education Area, and
its role in powering the creation of a competitive and ‘cohesive’
Europe,” explains Kris Olds, Professor of Geography,
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Olds is co-organizer of the
symposium with Susan Robertson, Professor of Sociology of
Education and Coordinator of the Centre for Globalisation
Education and Societies at the University of Bristol.
Organizers aim to generate debate about issues such as institutional
capacity, the implications of the European Higher Education
Area development process for American higher education, and
factors such as "leadership" in providing the momentum
to construct new knowledge spaces.
The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is the outcome
of recent attempts to "create a European space for higher
education in order to enhance the employability and mobility
of citizens and to increase the international competitiveness
of European higher education" as set forth in the 1999
Bologna Declaration. National education ministers have signaled
their commitment to reforms aimed at converging national university
systems and developing the European Credit Transfer System
(ECTS), which will ensure the recognition of coursework and
degrees across educational institutions in different nations.
Yet the harmonization of European educational systems has
not proceeded without tension. University administrators,
faculty, and students have expressed reservations about convergence
and the relinquishment of control. Proposed changes in program
length and content, credit systems, and even learning styles
challenge established national traditions.
Leading experts from the European Higher Education arena
will be addressing the Symposium delegates. These include:
Eric Froment, President of the European University Association;
Pavel Zgaga, Director of the Centre for Educational Policy
Studies at the University of Ljubljana and former Minister
of Education and Sport for the Republic of Slovenia;
David Ward, President of the American Council on Education
and Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
and
Discussion panels will include university presidents
from England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands along
with scholars from the USA, Finland, and England.
-- Text excerpted from Maureen McLachlan's
meeting report
A-Xing
Zhu gave graduate students an update on the key issues from
the Graduate Affairs Committee at a town-hall style meeting
on March 14, 2005, and received feedback from grads.
First and foremost, the department is revising and expanding
the older Graduate Student Handbook as a resource guide and
to help make processes transparent as far as financial aid
and other issues.
The Master’s to PhD program is considering a preliminary
proposal for a revised "re-entry process" and some
aid changes. Zhu received inputs on a variety of issues from
students at the meeting on transitioning to PhD programs and
funding issues. In the proposal, MS students would be required
to send a letter of intent for the PhD program in order to
hold the original aid commitment intact.
Other student comments sent forward to the Graduate Affairs
Committee were business cards for graduate students, projecting
course offerings for future semesters, and possibly revamping
Geog 765 to introduce more theory.
Campus
departments can now provide a temporary NetID to visiting
scholars, prospective students, seminar attendees, contract
employees and others who need short-term access to UW-Madison's
Wireless WiscWorld and VPN (Virtual Private Network).
Guest NetIDs are provided as a convenience to campus visitors
and their sponsors, who need access to computing resources
without bureaucratic delay or the need to find their own network
access path. At the same time, the system promotes security
by discouraging password sharing, and creating an audit trail
that tracks system users and those who authorize them.
On
March 31 and April 1 graduate students will give practice
talks at the April 1 meeting. Faculty and students not going
to AAG this year are welcome to attend HERD on Thursday and
THUGS on Friday for a sneak preview of these presentations.
THUGS (Theoretical, Human, and Urban Geography
Scholarship) is a discussion group consisting of grad students
and professors that meets weekly during the semester. Each
session is organized by a different grad student and the topics
range from presentations of current research projects to analyses
of cutting edge theoretical and methodological issues in human
geography.
Reece
Jones is organizing THUGS this year and the meetings are
held Fridays at 1:00 PM in the Hartshorne Room of the
Geography Library. Anyone is welcome to attend.
Spring 2005 Schedule:
April 1st - AAG Practice Talks (Todd, Dawn)
April 8th - No THUGS, AAG
April 15th - Kim Coulter, Topic: Field Work and Methods
April 22nd - No THUGS, Geography Student Symposium
April 29th - Nick Bauch, Topic: Ron Johnston and the State
of Human Geography
Dr. Lisa Naughton Receives
Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award
We
are delighted to announce that Geography faculty member Dr.
Lisa Naughton has received the Chancellor's Distinguished
Teaching Award for 2005. These are extremely competitive awards,
and a very high honor. We have appreciated Lisa's abilities
for a long time and it's wonderful that the larger community
will soon be aware of our good fortune.
CONGRATULATIONS LISA!
The award will be presented at a public ceremony on Tuesday,
April 26 at 3:30 pm in the Fluno Center.
"As
in past years, the Geography Department and the Geography
Graduate Students have the privilege of honoring the memory
of John Treacy by inviting a prominent young scholar to give
a lecture as part of the Yi-Fu Tuan Lecture Series.
A-Xing
Zhu gave graduate students an update on the key issues from
the Graduate Affairs Committee at a town-hall style meeting
on March 14, 2005, and received feedback from grads.
We
are delighted to announce that Geography faculty member Dr.
Lisa Naughton has received the Chancellor's Distinguished
Teaching Award for 2005. These are extremely competitive awards,
and a very high honor. We have appreciated Lisa's abilities
for a long time and it's wonderful that the larger community
will soon be aware of our good fortune.