Alumni News

Ken Bielen ('71) writes: I continue to do grants writing for infrastructure improvements for small villages in Northwest Ohio. Whenever I work on maps or gather demographic data for the applications, I realize that my whole career has its basis in my undergraduate studies.
"Lyrics of Civility: Biblical Images in Popular Music" was published in 1999 by Garland. I am finishing up two book length manuscripts: one is a cultural chronicle of the record album cover from the 1950s to the 1990s. Another is a more personal study: A Reflective Journey Through American Culture Using 40 Years of Popular Music. Two of our children are in High School here in Bowling Green, and our youngest is a sixth grader.

Marla Emery writes: I'm pleased to report that I was appointed Adjunct Associate Professor in the University of Vermont's Department of Geography last year. I am currently acting as Chair of the committee for a Masters student who is studying forest conservation easements in the Northeast. At long last, I have some publications rolling out. Two articles, "Brief Overview of Historical Non-Timber Forest Product Use in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and Upper Midwest," (with Shandra L. O'Halek) and "Who Knows? Local Non-Timber Forest Product Knowledge and Stewardship Practices in Northern Michigan" have recently been published in the Journal of Sustainable Forestry, vol. 13, nos. 3/4. I am also senior editor of the recent Food Products Press book entitled "Non-Timber Forest Products: Medicinal Herbs, Fungi, Edible Fruits and Nuts, and Other Natural Products from the Forest." The latter is the first full-fledged book on nontimber forest products in the United States. At present, I'm working on a Forest Service technical report that uses gatherer case studies to look at the political ecology of nontimber forest products in the eastern United States. Together with colleagues from the UVM School of Natural Resources and the Forest Service's Southern Research Station, I will shortly begin research on the political economy of a floral green that is harvested in western North Carolina. My contribution to the project focuses primarily on ethno-graphic work with Latino harvesters. There's lots of happy news on the personal side. It's been a bit more than a year since I remarried and what a joy and blessing that partnership is. Jim Palmer (not the pitcher) and I were recently in Copenhagen for a site visit to 5 of his students, who are studying various aspects of design and landscape architecture in the city. It was a real bus man's holiday for me. Both my sons are currently thriving in college -- younger son, Martin, at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN and older son, Adam, finishing up at a community college here in Burlington before transferring to UVM.

Hassan Hodges ('00) writes: I am living in New York City's Hamilton Heights neighborhood (136th st. and broadway). In my 9 months of living in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, I've seen my favorite local restaurant replaced by a Starbucks. Instead of paying $4.25 for a plate of beans and rice, I can now get a venti iced decaf soy latte (with 2 shots of epsresso) for the same price. I work in the graphics department of The Associated Press where I make maps and information graphics.

Doracie Nantes writes: I have to apologize for being a bad letter and email writer. I was so busy the past two years that I found it hard to sit down in front of a computer (inside a computer lab that is open only from 8 am to 5 pm, the same hours that I was doing so may other things, like teaching, serving in committee work, etc.) for a long period of time. I really miss those days when I can just go to Lucy Stone Hall anytime of the day to do my work in our computer lab-one luxury that I cannot have here in the Philippines. I just returned from Toronto, Canada, where I served as a visiting scholar in York University for two weeks. I gave lectures in a geography class (Geographies of the Pacific Rim) and presented my research to York University's Department of Geography's weekly Colloquia upon the invitation and sponsorship of the Joint Center of Asian Studies of the University of Toronto and York University. Right now I am back to my teaching duties and research activities in the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City.

Michael Niosi writes: I have been with the U.S. Census Bureau in Philadelphia for four years. I have been a Geographic Specialist for the past two and a half years. I supervise the digitizing staff and manage the projects that involve updating the TIGER files.

Melissa Pawlowski ('00) writes: I landed a contract position with URS Corporation. I work on site at Fort Dix Military Reservation in the Pinelands of South Jersey as the sole GIS analyst. I work primarily with the Natural Resources and Training Divisions. On the Natural Resources side I have created maps for environmental assessments; which need to be completed before the army modifies any area on post to be sure sensitive areas such as wetlands or endangered species habitat are not disturbed. I have also done some maps for a NJDEP biological assessment on the pair of bald eagles we have nesting in our impact area. We created surface danger zones (SDZ’s) for the ranges near the nest site and assessed the safety of the eagle in such a routinely disturbed area.

I have also created from scratch the 2001 Fort Dix Hunting Area Map, affectionately called the Fort Dix HAM. This project represented exactly what is wonderful and what is horrendous about cartography. On the wonderful side I was given a tremendous amount of cartographic freedom. On the horrendous side I was also responsible for finding a printer and that was a nightmare. Apparently a certain large GIS software manufacturer does NOT have very good export capabilities. Though frustrating it was definitely a great learning experience.

For the training department the majority of my time is spent creating maps for incoming units. The units need maps of the ranges they will be using for their training and the bivcouac sites they will be setting up on. Currently I am working on digitizing all the streams, lakes and managed water features on the Post using aerial photography flown in March of 1999 at 1:2,500. Next we will go out in the field with a GPS to complete the data.

Tamar Rothenberg writes: I'm still working as an editor of New Youth Connections, a magazine written by and for teens in New York City. Geographical connections over the past year include organizing, with Jasbir Puar, a pre-AAG conference at the CUNY Graduate Center in February called "Sexuality and Space: Queering Geographies of Globalization." It was a great interdisciplinary one-day conference that introduced geographers working on issues of sexuality to scholars in a wide range of other disciplines who are thinking about and working on issues of sexuality in terms of space and place. Marie Cieri was on the steering committee of the conference (and spent a day with me labeling fliers) and also presented her work there. I've been working a bit on developing afterschool workshop modules of geography- and writing-related themes, like writing about place, conducting oral histories of people in a neighborhood, and drawing and discussing mental maps.
And I call my freeform radio show on WFMU (7-9 pm Saturdays, 91.1 FM and (wfmu.org) "Are We There Yet?" which people told me was a better name than "The Subduction Zone."
And I'm marrying Rich Hazelton, (Livingston College '85, oddly enough), who I met through WFMU (he's got a show Friday night/Saturday morning 2-6 am), this spring, if we live that long.

Lenore Slothower writes: I am now the Director of Building, Planning, Engineering and Economic Development in the City of Rahway, NJ, after 15 years being the Director of Community Development in Piscataway, New Jersey (in charge of Engineering, Planning, Construction and both Land Development Boards)...Rahway is 4 square miles, with 26,000 people; Piscataway is 20 square miles with 53,000 people...)

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