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50 Years Young for Geography and Regional Development

New Faces and Spotlights

“Geographers study causal processes in their spatial contexts, and they recognize that those contexts are in part determinant in explaining how the processes unfold. Any explanation of social or natural science that ignores these contexts is akin to doing science on the head of a pin.”
- J.P. Jones,
head of the Department of Geography and Regional Development

50 Years Young for Geography and Regional Development


The fourth floor of Harvill is buzzing these days as the Department of Geography and Regional Development (GRD) prepares for the March 2008 celebration of the 50th anniversary of its first graduate. The celebration will also be a time to acknowledge the exciting things currently going on in GRD.

The department boasts the second largest GRD undergraduate program in the United States; its graduate students regularly win grants and fellowships from some of the most competitive funding organizations in the country; and its faculty are internationally recognized for their quality research and education.

“What is particularly striking about this department compared to others I know,” says J. P. Jones, head of GRD, “is the extent to which its excellence emerges from both the special integrative character of the discipline and from its faculty connections to a host of other areas of excellence at The University of Arizona.”

GRD faculty and graduate students research such disparate topics as: the ecological factors affecting the distribution of Valley Fever; the spatial diffusion of buffelgrass in the Sonoran Desert; the different amounts of human capital that migrants bring to the urban hierarchy; the maintenance of community identity among refugees in world conflict zones; the optimal placement of cell phone and emergency response towers; the best way to engage citizens in designing large public infrastructure projects; and suburbia’s obsession with green, weed-free lawns.

What holds all these topics together? For Jones, it is the idea that “there is no object, event, or natural or social process that does not occur in and through space. Not only is everything located in particular contexts, but they all have connections that are inherently geographic.”

Jones summarizes the discipline’s expansive character by noting that “space — in the sense of geographic settings and connections — is never an inert foundation, but an active force in shaping all objects and events. This means that geography is not just ‘where’, but ‘how’ and ‘why’.”

This integrative perspective makes GRD’s faculty one of the most interdisciplinary on campus. Not only does it collaborate with other units in SBS, it has formal affiliations with Atmospheric Science, BIO5, the College of Public Health, the graduate certificates in GIS and in Water Policy, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, the Office of Arid Lands Studies, Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, the Water Resources Research Center, and the graduate interdisciplinary programs of Statistics, Global Change, Arid Lands, and Remote Sensing & Spatial Analysis.

These sorts of connections provide GRD’s faculty and students with a unique opportunity in the history of the discipline: to envision a new type of geography department that brings multiple interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies to bear on important social and environmental problems, and to work toward solutions that bridge the traditional chasms between the natural and the social sciences.

“Work in the department on mosquitoes is one example,” says Jones. Supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the GRD team includes Jones and faculty members Andrew Comrie and Paul Robbins. Their goal is to both map the ecology of the insect in Arizona and, at a higher resolution, Pima County, as well as to understand the geographic strategies — or “geographic imaginaries,” as Jones puts it — that inform responses by state and local health and environmental agencies. “In a nutshell, the spatial question is this: Does the geography of the insect in any way match the geography of agency responses to their growth and spread over the past decade, and what are the implications for any ‘spatial mismatch’ between the two?”

Another example can be found in the department’s recent hiring of three faculty focused on water. “Our faculty specializing in water run a continuum from social science and policy perspectives to more biophysical approaches, but they work in tandem in generating a better understanding of how societal and environmental processes interact in place to affect the quality and availability of water,” says Carl Bauer, one of the new ‘water hires’ within GRD. The other two are Connie Woodhouse and Christopher Scott (see “New Faces”).

“Without a doubt, these three faculty members, together with the University’s traditional emphasis on water, make GRD the best department in the country in the study of water, society and environment,” Jones says.

A final aspect that makes GRD unique, according to Jones, is the adoption of social and environmental justice as a central component of the department’s mission statement. “Working toward common betterment of our places and peoples is one of the reasons we do geography for a living. Justice is a goal that unites physical and human geography — better environments, natural and social, for everyone.”
















Photo: Graffiti art as street protest in Oaxaca, Mexico. Photo by J.P. Jones.


STUDENT SUCCESS
Excitement for GRD’s programs is increasingly evident among under-graduate students. The department’s two undergraduate degrees, the B.A. in geography and the B.S. in regional development, have now attracted over 400 majors, which is more than a doubling over the past five years.

“We have a department where both geography and regional development students understand the pressures of population growth and change, know that the earth has a finite number of resources, and have the conceptual, methodological and technological tools necessary to develop sustainable cities and environments,” says GRD Professor Sallie Marston.

The department is in the process of adding a Bachelor of Science degree in geography, in which students will be able to focus on geo-technologies, water and society, or environmental science. The B.S. option is designed to serve students who will fare best in the job market with a science degree, particularly with respect to government jobs.

Part of the growth is due to the impact that geo-technology has had on the field. Research and teaching now routinely involve the use of geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, spatial modeling and spatial statistics, and spatial optimization and cartography.

“When I started, we had pen and ink cartography,” says Marston. “We now teach hundreds of students a week in the larger field of geo-visualization in a state-of-the-art computer lab.”

GIS is a huge growth area. In fact, the US Department of Labor reports that geo-technology is one of the three most important emerging and evolving career areas, along with biotechnology and nanotechnology.

The increased globalization of the world has also had an immense impact on the department and has raised interest in the field. Marston points to the project she did with her students in a recent class on American landscapes. The students interviewed merchants and non-profit leaders in the historic Fourth Avenue District in Tucson.

“There is an entirely global set of connections that populate that street. For example, the Guatemalan restaurant is connected to the refugee population that left during the civil war,” says Marston. “Studying one of the key objects of geography — landscape — is about understanding the world, and understanding that it’s small and it’s big. We live in our corners, but our corners are not isolated; they are connected to other corners in other parts of the planet.”

At the graduate level, success is measured by such things as publications, grants and fellowships, and student placement, and in this arena GRD is also succeeding. Last year, all four Fulbright-Hays scholarships received by The University of Arizona were given to GRD students, and there are currently five students with prestigious National Science Foundation dissertation research grants. Students also regularly win national and regional awards for research papers and posters.


PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
Jones is clear about his aim for the department: “Our number one goal is to be a top 10 geography department and to train Ph.D. students to take academic jobs in institutions as good as ours. Many will also become leaders in government and international agencies.”

In order to achieve that goal and to continue to provide a first-rate education to the growing number of students, the department has stepped up its fundraising efforts. (Please see below for GRD’s targeted funds.)

Despite the need for more funds, GRD is approaching its 50th anniversary celebration with all the advantages of top talent, focus and momentum. The research in the department has never been more relevant to the issues facing the world in the 21st century.


If you would like to donate to the Department of Geography and Regional Development, below are various department funds:
• Strabo Student Research Fund. Born in what is today central Turkey, Strabo (circa B.C. 64–A.D. 20) had an enormous impact on our knowledge of ancient geographers. This account is directed to student research projects.

• Varenius Technology & Infrastructure Fund. Named for the European scholar Benhardus Varenius (1622-1650), who made significant contributions to geography in his short life, this account is directed to technology and related infrastructure.

• Von Humboldt Faculty Research Fund. Named after the great German geographer Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), this account provides faculty with seed money for field and laboratory research.

• Ptolemy Development Fund. Named for the last of the great Greek geographers Claudius Ptolemaeus (A.D. 90-168), this is a general fund for strategic purchases.

• The Janice Monk Visiting Distinguished Professor in Feminist Geography. This fund celebrates renowned geographer and department faculty member Jan Monk’s lifelong contributions to feminist geography. It supports the annual visit of a prominent feminist geographer to campus

For more information, contact Lori Harwood at 520-626-3846 • Editor