| People, Places, & Patterns |
| Roger Balm and Briavel Holcomb
 The 1999/2000 year was spent at the University of Exeter in southwestern England but we are now back at Rutgers. The geographers at Exeter were extremely gracious in indulging our sometimes obscure research agendas while asking little in return and we are now looking forward to hosting here in New Jersey some new-found Exeter colleagues who are attending the AAG meetings in New York next February. We took advantage of being back in Europe by traveling extensively (to France, Holland, Malta and Egypt). From mid-January to mid-February we went from town to town along the Nile valley by train and bus (no camels this trip, but more than a few pickup trucks) from Cairo down as far south as Aswan and Lake Nasser. As an early tourist destination and southern extension of the Grand Tour, Egypt held great appeal for Bria. For Roger it was a great opportunity to see at first hand the sites of some nineteenth-century artists' expeditions, particularly in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, and to do plenty of drawing and painting (no concerns about rainy days in Egypt). The Egyptians we met were wonderfully welcoming, if a little puzzled by why we insisted on walking everywhere while turning down their offers of "exclusive tours." A co-authored chapter discussing iconic imagery and the funerary mask of Tutankhamun is due to be published next year. A journal article on expeditionary art that Roger completed in England is to be published in the Geographical Review sometime in 2001. Also completed in England was a set of illustrations by Roger that will be published in a book by Hal Jackson (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque) about the Santa Fe Trail.
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 Michelle Goman writes: I spent an arduous (but thoroughly enjoyable!) two weeks in Mexico this summer. I am working with Arthur Joyce, an archaeologist from Boulder, on an NSF funded project. Human occupation and fluvial geomorphology in the Rio Verde drainage basin of Oaxaca have changed dramatically over the last 3000 years, yet little is known about the environmental and climatic history within which these changes occurred. I took sediment cores from several sites within the drainage and along the coast, which I will analyze for pollen in order to build up a picture of the prehistoric environment. Living arrangements at the archaeological base were "pastoral"- my son was fascinated by the concept of pigs and sheep wandering through the yard, that chickens laid eggs in our beds, and that tarantulas set up home in our shoes!
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Robert Hordon is continuing his work with water resources and NJ hydrology. One interesting item that has occurred is the disparity in FEMA funding for local flood events. For ex., FEMA has not funded studies that relate to the floods associated with Trop. Storm Floyd that occurred in 9/99, but somehow found money for flood studies for several lakes in Sussex County that were damaged recently by severe precipitation. This means that the USGS cannot proceed with some form of final rep't. on the flooding in central NJ fm Floyd.
In addition, the USGS has still not issued an estimate of the recurrence interval for the Raritan at certain key gages. The main gage on the Raritan nr Bound Brook is simply listed as an event greater than 100 yrs or 1% recurrence interval. Previous major floods on various streams in NJ usually resulted in some type of report that had the pertinent facts and estimated flows. It would be regrettable, to say the least, if discharge information about a major flood event (Floyd) in central-north NJ that occurred in 9/99 were not made the subject of a special report.
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Robin Leichenko writes: I am an economic geographer. My research and teaching addresses the urban and regional dimensions of global and national economic change. In the area of research, I am currently involved in two ongoing studies of U.S. regional growth and change. The first, in collaboration with David Listokin (of the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers), is a study of housing and economic development on American Indian Tribal Lands, funded by the Fannie Mae Foundation. Geography students Bernie Jamroz (undergraduate) and Julie Silva (graduate) are working with me on this study.
My second ongoing project, in collaboration with Robert Lake (Center for Urban Policy Research and Graduate Faculty in Geography), is a study of the role of the U.S. Economic Development Administration in efforts to alleviate regional economic distress since 1965, funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. Louise Stanton, a graduate student in Geography, is working with me on this study.
I have also recently received funding support for a new study entitled, Trade, Employment, and Inequality: An Investigation of Rural Economic Change. The study, which is funded through the National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture will examine the relationship between globalization of the U.S. economy and rising levels of income inequality across U.S. regions. The study will also assess the employment impacts of international trade involvement on rural counties across the country.
Concerning teaching, my teaching approach stresses application of geographic theory and quantitative methods to investigation of real-world problems and issues. I have recently developed a new, upper-level undergraduate/graduate course on advanced research topics in economic geography. The aim of this course, which will be taught in the Spring, is to provide advanced undergraduates and graduates with the opportunity to participate in a seminar-style course on current research issues in economic geography. For this spring, the topic of the course will be the regional dimensions of economic globalization.
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Ken Mitchell writes: During early June Ken Mitchell presented a paper on hazard modeling to an NSF-sponsored interdisciplinary Extreme Events Workshop at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. This was held in the architecture award-winning building made famous by Woody Allen's movie SLEEPER, perched high on a mesa south of the city where - on a normally clear day - you can see half way to Nebraska. A few days later he journeyed south to Santa Fe, New Mexico to inspect an area near the Los Alamos National Laboratory which was devastated by wildfires earlier in the summer. The damage was striking and the role of the wind most impressive. On one afternoon - when there was no fire - it took not much more than thirty seconds for a sudden wave-like commotion to appear in the trees near the head of a mile-long canyon and roar past to dissipate at the canyon's mouth. After dawn one morning Ken took coffee with a team of Wyoming Hot Shots who were billeted nearby before being allocated to damp down dry lightning fires. Most were young men and women in their late teens or early twenties who came from very small towns and relied on fire fighting for good-paying employment during school vacations. They were all "natural" geographers.
In July, Ken also gave a paper on Europe's earthquake hazards at a conference sponsored by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna. The meeting hall was once the ballroom of the Hapsburg's summer palace at Laxenburg and the conference organizer's office had been part of the royal apartments. Not quite Lucy Stone Hall: computers and fax machines rubbed shoulders with brocade-covered giltchairs under huge chandeliers and a thirty foot tall portrait of Empress Maria Theresa! Vienna itself was fascinating - covered with trompe l'oeil wall paintings and echoing with reminders of its time as a center of Cold War intrigue. Maybe the most unexpected sensations were the pervasive smell of horse droppings in the center of the old city and the appealing delicacies being prepared by Vienna's substantial Middle Eastern population in a market which loops along the course of the now-culverted Wien River. Finally, on the journey back to Toronto, passengers had a magnificent aerial view of dozens of icebergs drifting down from the Arctic in the Labrador Sound off eastern Canada, followed by nearly two more hours of flying across muskeg, forest and bare rock before catching sight of the first human settlement. There's an awful lot of uninhabited (by humans) territory up there!
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Joanna Regulska writes: Being on sabbatical is wonderful, but.... somehow the work load seems not to be lighter?? (I guess my own fault). Nevertheless, I am enjoying myself in California. My "home" is at the Center for Study of Women at UCLA where I am a Visiting Scholar. Since the end of August time did pass fast. First was a great trip (5,500 miles) across the US with my parents. The southern route brought amazing scenery, terrific food, plenty of poverty and pretentious glamor (needless to say Las Vegas stop didn't bring any luck, but what a place!!??!!). September took me back to Europe to Germany, Slovenja, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Belarus. It was as always rewarding, but also sad to see extreme poverty and environmental destruction in Macedonia that I have not seen in a long time, and a political hard hand of Lukashenko in Belarus (when Belgrade collapsed, many people in Belarus were saying we will be the next one!). So what next, well need to swim, read some books and then have a cup of latte, and then do some reading and maybe again a swim..... . I wish this was all true, but my new international collaborative project on eastward enlargement of the European Union and its gender implications on the accession countries (Poland, Slovenja, Czech Republic etc.) will keep me pondering over the collapse of the welfare system, aggressive capitalism and marginalization of disadvantaged.
See you next year. |
Dave Robinson writes: I have returned from sabbatical to begin my second three-year term as Chair. The latter portion of my year "off" was spent working on NOAA, NASA and NSF grants. This included a trip to Frank Popper's favorite place, North Dakota, where I am working with colleagues from several universities on a study of snow cover over grassland regions. We maintain a meteorological field site on a farm north of Grand Forks. I have also established a new hemispheric snow website, full of maps, tables, and soon to include a number of graphics and reprints http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover
I also am continuing to promote and develop the New Jersey Weather and Climate Network (NJ WxNet), a one-stop source for hourly weather data (current and archived) from all parts of the State. Progress continues to be made, but is too slow for my taste. However, events in recent weeks suggest that financial support may begin arriving to help pick up the pace. See where the network currently stands by visiting http://climate.rutgers.edu/njwxnet.
On the home front, I am completing my first year as scoutmaster for sons Doug and Drew's troop, and try to find the time now and again to get in a run. |
 Rick Schroeder traveled to Tanzania with his wife, Anthropologist Dorothy Hodgson, and son, Luke for 10 weeks this past summer. The highlights of the trip were the launching of two new research projects. The first is focused on contradictions embedded in Tanzania's community based wildlife management policy, while the second attempts to analyze the controversy surrounding the remarkable recent influx of South African capital into Tanzania. The lowlights included a flea infestation, malaria-like fever and a particularly harrowing experience involving the engine hood of Rick's rented Toyota land cruiser which came loose and blew back over the windshield while he was traveling at 100 km/hr along a major highway. Happily no major damage was done, and he and his family all lived to tell the tale. Rick's other news is that he and Dorothy are expecting their second child in February. |
Pete Wacker has assumed the position of principal coordinator of the New Jersey Geographic Alliance http://geography.rutgers.edu/NJ-Alliance, which will be based in the Department of Geography. He recently presented a paper on New Jersey's built environment at the meeting of the Eastern Historical Geography Association in Bar Harbor, Maine.
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