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| Another Year Comes to a Close This past year brought a number of exciting events, changes and opportunities to the Department of Geography at Rutgers. We were fortunate to hire two outstanding, new faculty members. Kevin St. Martin (Ph.D-Clark 1999) and Jasbir Puar (Ph.D-Berkeley 1999). Kevin is currently holding a NOAA Fellowship at Woods Hole. His research explores critical approaches to environment and economic development, with special emphasis on discourse and practice of fisheries, bio-economics and its implications for resource management, and community-based economic development in New England. Kevin will join Rutgers in January 2001 and will have a joint appointment in Geography and Center for Urban Policy Research (CUPR). Jasbir comes to us from CUNY where she holds a Rockefeller Fellowship last year. Her research has focused on questions of location and identity. She has published several articles on diaspora, gender and sexuality, travel and globalization. Jasbir will be joining Rutgers in September 2000 and will share her time between Women's Studies (where the majority of her appointment will reside) and Geography. Kevin and Jasbir are accomplished and productive scholars and we are looking forward to welcoming them during the next academic year. 1999-2000 was a year of 50th anniversary celebrations. Here are just some highlights of the exciting events we have enjoyed. The Rutgers Undergraduate Geography Society organized the first event, GIS day on November 19. We began the day by hosting a group of 30 students from Colts Neck High School. Michael Medler and undergraduates JC Klena, Kris Kolodziej, and Hassan Hodges, among others guided students through the secrets of GIS and Remote Sensing. The New Jersey Network video taped these interactive demonstrations for their nightly news show. A very successful day was culminated by Joseph Watts (US Army Corps of Engineers) presentation on "Environmental Vizualization and Topographic Modeling of Biophysical Charecteristics". On December 3, students, alumni, faculty and Rutgers administrators gathered to celebrate officially the 50th Anniversary of the department. This was also an opportunity to discuss preliminary results of the Great Raritan Flood of 1999 (GRF) Project. The GRF Project is a student-faculty collaborative study of the impacts and consequences of Tropical Storm Floyd (September 16-17, 1999) in the Raritan River Basin of central New Jersey. This departmental research effort is coordinated by Ken Mitchell and includes Marjorie Clarke, Robert Hordon, Robin Leichenko, Michael Medler, Dave Robinson, Elvin Wyly, Michael Siegel and Mark Ontkush (Fall 1999 only). Over 500 undergraduate students and several graduate students contributed to the GRF project. The extensive mass media coverage in local and regional news and feature outlets (e.g. new York Times, NPR Radio, NJ-PublicTV and several local papers) provided an opportunity for geographers to talk about their current research. regional news and feature outlets (e.g. new York Times, NPR Radio, NJ-PublicTV and several local papers) provided an opportunity for geographers to talk about their current research. In the Spring semester we were fortunate to have numerous distinguished speakers and alumnae/i. Don Mitchell from Syracuse University (PhD, Geography1992 ), Thomas Wilbanks, Corporate Research Fellow, Global Change and Developing Countries Program, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Linda McDowell from the London School of Economics and Amy Glasmeier (Pennsylvania State University) brought us together for an intellectu  ally inspiring afternoons of discussions. In mid-February we held a panel "Women and Geography: Space, Place and Time" honoring the Society of Woman Geographers, who over the last ten years have contributed on an annual basis a fellowship for a woman graduate student in our department. This was an afternoon of reminiscence by Chris Drake from Old Dominion University (first woman Ph.D 1957), Susan Millar from Syracuse University (first recipient of SWG Fellowship, Ph.D 1995), Maria Lambasa (SWG member) and Laura Liu currently completing her PhD (SWG Fellowship recipient). See page 6 for the excerpts.And in March, Marie Cieri and Mark Pendras our Ph.D graduate students and RAGGS (Rutgers Association of Graduate Geography Students) organized an intellectual feast "Emerging Geographies" by bringing Ralph Dubayah (University of Maryland), John Pickles (University of Kentucky) and Laura Pulido (University of Southern California). But this was not enough, we went to Pittsburgh and we celebrated more. Our 50th Anniversary Reception at the AAG meeting was attended by about 100 people. It was great to see friends, alumni and former faculty. We are looking forward to the visit of many our Alumnae/i and friends on April 28/29 during our first Alumnae/i Day, the culminating event of the year and a possibility to revisit what geographers from Rutgers have been up to over the last five decades.  The considerable accomplishments of our faculty and students are reported elsewhere in this newsletter. Here I want to mention that in March, Peter Wacker was given the N.J. Teacher's Award. Peter holds the record for the longest service to the department (he was hired by Rutgers in 1963). Congratulations Peter! I want to thank our technology team Michael Medler, Chuck Colvard and Tom Estilow for successfully bringing new technologies into the undergraduate classroom and creating web labs for all of our 100 level classes and John All and Elvin Wyly for integrating these labs into the curriculum.I also would like to thank John All for a formidable commitment to undergraduate teaching during the Spring semester. Students say it truly has been one of the best experiences having John as a teacher. Best wishes go to Marjorie Clarke, our Instructor for this year, who I am sure will be busy in developing new approaches to environmental policies in Tri-State area. Many of our seniors and graduate students are leaving us (see note by Ken Mitchell on page 1). We wish you many successes and adventures, but before you go please leave your address with Betty Ann. We don't want to loose contact with you. On a more mundane level, the department received a new coat of paint, we have new computer equipment, and more goodies are coming. Finally this is a moment to say goodbye, as Dave Robinson will take over as Chair of the department. It was a good year for me and I hope I managed to accomplish a few things. I certainly would not have been able to get things done if it wasn't for the guidance and help provided by many of our students, TA's, faculty and most importantly Elaine, Betty Ann and Mike S. I appreciate all your support very much. Joanna Regulska, Chair regulska@rci.rutgers.edu |
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