News from the Graduate Program

The Graduate Program began the new academic year well with the arrival of nine new students from as far away as Taiwan and as near as New Jersey. Their interests range from coastal geomorphology, resource management, and climate change to environmental justice and feminist theory. RAGGS members took new students on a two-day camping orientation to see highlights of the State. The first annual convocation in the Zimmerli Art Museum provided the opportunity for socializing and meeting the new executive dean of the Graduate School, Holly Smith. Short talks on the state of the discipline of geography were given by

Elvin Wyly (for the faculty) and Verdie Robinson (for the students).

Bria Holcomb noted that the program includes students from India, Pakistan, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Sweden, The U.K., The Ukraine, Turkey, the Gambia, and Mexico. Students are engaged in research in research in Cote d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Brazil, the Caribbean, Armenia, Ecuador, the Philippines, Venezuela, Mexico and Pakistan inter alia.

Congratulations to recent Master’s graduates Ken Corti, Tom Estilow, Dan Falvo and Tenley Conway. Ken and Tom are employed in consulting and research while Dan and Tenley are continuing in the Ph.D. program. Renaud DePlaen completed his Ph.D. this summer and is now Senior Program Specialist in Ottawa, Canada. Recent Ph.D. graduates include Salvatore Engel-DiMauro who is now Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point, Jason Hackworth is at Florida State, Karen Nichols is at SUNY New Paltz this year on leave from SUNY Geneseo, and Jim Kendra has a post doc. at the University of Delaware. John Hasse, who will complete the Ph.D. shortly, is teaching at Rowan University.
Students from the program dominated the scene at the AAG Middle States Division meetings at C.W. Post in October. The best student paper awards were swept by John Kasbarian and Julie Silva. In the Geography Bowl the Rutgers team (Tom Mitchell, Gennadi Poberezny, Peter Kabachnik and Bob Donovan) placed first and a combined Vassar/Rutgers team (with Ben Bakelaar and Julie Silva on loan to make up numbers) placed second. High scorers Tom, Gennadi and Peter will represent the Middle States at the National Bowl in Los Angeles next year.

Wendy Mitteager and Tenley Conway have organized an excellent colloquium series on Friday afternoons, Peter Kabachnik and Joshua Halofsky host a travel slide show brown-bag lunch followed by a social theory discussion group hosted by Tom Mitchell and Peter Kabachnik on Wednesdays. John Kasbarian, Cheryl Gowar and Noriko Ishiyama organized a well attended teach-in on the World Trade Center crisis in October. Ph.D. student Marie Cieri published a book with co-editor Claire Peeps entitled Activists Speak Out: Reflections on the Pursuit of Change in America (Palgrave, 2001) and many of us enjoyed the launch party at the Andy Warhol Foundation last Spring. Congratulations also to Missy Holzer whose volume A Demo A Day: A Year of Earth Science Demonstrations written with G. Gross and E. Colangelo was also published.

The Graduate Program welcomes new members Kevin St Martin (Geography and CUPR), David Hughes (Human Ecology) and Sean DiGiovanna (Bloustein and CUPR), and bids adieu to Michelle Brocco who has emigrated with her family to Israel.

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