A Departmental Approach to Professional Growth for Faculty Members*

Faculty development in the fullest sense depends largely on the faculty member's learning environment. This article suggests ways in which departments can provide a context for professional growth through management of faculty assignments, professional rewards, departmental activities, and internal support. Leadership, consistency, and patience are discussed as the keys to a departmental approach to faculty development. The professional growth and productivity of its faculty members are obviously important determinants of a department's stature and hence its ability to remain viable in a period of academic retrenchment. Other elements of departmental policy that affect a unit's survival capabilities will be the subject of another article by these same authors to appear in the February issue.     

Faculty Reappointment,Tenure, and Promotion: Barriers for Women

Women faculty continue to experience academe differently than male faculty. A review of recent literature indicates that women's representation on university faculties has advanced slowly; women are less likely to be tenured or promoted compared to male faculty; and women faculty earn less than their male colleagues. A recurring theme is that the intellectual and social isolation of women faculty affects their research productivity. Gender stereotypes held by colleagues, departmental and college administrators, and students also contribute to the difficulties women face in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process. A personal perspective on the reappointment process is provided in order to illustrate how isolation and naïvete regarding the social structure of academe can affect a woman's career advancement. The benefits of greater representation of women on university faculties are reviewed, and departmental and college administrators are reminded of the important role they play in ensuring future gender‐balanced faculties.     

Faculty Reappointment,Tenure, and Promotion: Barriers for Women

Women faculty continue to experience academe differently than male faculty. A review of recent literature indicates that women's representation on university faculties has advanced slowly; women are less likely to be tenured or promoted compared to male faculty; and women faculty earn less than their male colleagues. A recurring theme is that the intellectual and social isolation of women faculty affects their research productivity. Gender stereotypes held by colleagues, departmental and college administrators, and students also contribute to the difficulties women face in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process. A personal perspective on the reappointment process is provided in order to illustrate how isolation and naïvete regarding the social structure of academe can affect a woman's career advancement. The benefits of greater representation of women on university faculties are reviewed, and departmental and college administrators are reminded of the important role they play in ensuring future gender-balanced faculties.     

Study Abroad: A Review of the Kentucky Institute for International Studies (KIIS) and Geographers' Role in the Consortium

Abstract

The Kentucky Institute for International Studies is a consortium of colleges and universities that provides semester length and short summer semester over-seas study programs. This article traces the growth of the consortium from its ro-ots at Murray State University in 1975 through the celebration of its thirtieth anniversary in 2005. Aspects considered include the overall growth of the consor-tium and the type and number of progr-ams offered, as well as the composition of the faculty and students who participate. Contributions of consortium geography faculty members are examined.     

Geography,the Integrating Discipline: Explaining China's Population-Driven Geopolitics to Students

Abstract

This article demonstrates geography's role as an integrative discipline and its utility in connecting students to the world around them. A case study links China's demography and its geopolitics to the lives of U.S. students. The relationship of China's population pressures to its resulting economic growth, need for economic resources, and geopolitical efforts are examined using the concepts and holistic capabilities that are the academic strength of geography.     

Developing Mission-Focused Outcomes for a Professional Conference: The Case of the National Conference on Geography Education

Conferences are principal mechanisms for professional organizations to advance their missions. Conference evaluations can measure mission-related outcomes in order to gauge an organization's impact on the professional growth and development of its community and other stakeholders. Using data from two recent conference evaluations, this article examines the impact of the National Conference on Geography Education in an effort to encourage a discussion about possible future directions.     

Rethinking the Growth Machine: How to Erase a Chinatown from the Urban Core

Abstract

This article explores Houston's two Chinatowns within the context of the city's recent urban reinvestment and revitalization initiatives. It provides a history of the Chinatowns and examines their changing condition during the years that Houston was promoting ethnic diversity and urban revival. The analysis is framed within the growth machine perspective, as initially explored in Houston by Joe Feagin, and later by Jan Lin and Igor Vojnovic. Houston's late-20th-century urban redevelopment initiatives occurred during a period in history when Houston's Chinese entrepreneurs lost their influence over the local growth machine. The eventual outcome was the erasure of Houston's downtown Chinatown and the displacement of its residents from their lucrative urban core location. The disappearance of Old Chinatown and other urban ethnic neighborhoods—including Little Saigon and Freedmen's Town—from the urban core all took place as the Houston media and public were celebrating diversity, pluralism, and ethnicity in the city.     

Productivity Profiles of PhD-Granting Geography Departments in the Unites States: 1980–1994

In our study, 48 U.S. departments that grant geography PhDs are compared along four measures of academic productivity. Using 1980–1994 as the base period, research productivity of faculty was assessed by counting book titles, as well as authorships in 77 journals. Teaching productivity was determined by placement of PhDs in graduate programs of geography in North America, and by a weighted index of teaching outcomes. Data were summed for departments, but are reported primarily as productivity per person (per FTE count). The results point to a wide variety of departmental profiles, from those departments that appear to emphasize teaching outcomes to those that are more productive in book publishing and journal authorship, with several exhibiting a balance between teaching and research.     

Making Space for Community-Engaged Scholarship in Geography

Geography has a long tradition of community-engaged research and teaching. Conventional institutional and departmental norms in many U.S. universities and colleges, however, often discourage such engaged scholarship and teaching, especially among junior faculty. We argue that geographers are well poised to unravel society's twenty-first-century intractable problems if engaged scholarship is more intentionally supported. As community geographers in junior faculty positions at research-intensive universities, we discuss our experiences with placing community engagement at the core of our scholarship, highlighting opportunities for a more robust integration of engaged scholarship in academic geography.     

Promoting Lifelong Professional Development in Geography Education: International Perspectives on Developing the Scholarship of Teaching in Higher Education in the Twenty‐First Century*

Whereas the global march towards the professional development of geography teachers in schools was, perhaps, the major achievement in geography education of the twentieth century, promoting the professional development of faculty teaching geography in higher education is one of the major challenges that faces us in geography education for the twenty‐first century. What little educational development is currently provided for faculty teaching in universities is largely generic. There is a need for a disciplinary specific component in educational development, both for the initial training of faculty and for their continuing professional development. This article explores how the professional development of faculty is related to the international debate about developing the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. It reviews some recent initiatives, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom, and examines the role of national associations and international networks in supporting faculty teaching geography in higher education. Some of the challenges involved in professionalizing teaching geography in higher education are discussed. The article ends with some suggestions for promoting lifelong professional development in geography in higher education nationally and internationally.     

The Boston Park System

Abstract

This article is a study of early women geography educators between the years 1783 and 1932. Many women were working in the field at that time, but with varying degrees of activity. Twenty-six were especially active in geography contributing significantly to the growth of geography in universities, colleges, and public schools. Some of the women wrote geography textbooks in the pre-professional geography period before 1875. As such, they would be considered geographers, but it was not until the 1890s that women became involved in professional geography. The professional activities of seven women are highlighted as representative of women who were especially active in the discipline.     

BIOGEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

In the February 1977 issue of THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER Leonard Guelke proposed a new approach to regional geography. This article questions the logic of Guelke's “idealist alternative'’and its applicability to geographical problems.     

Gaps,Intellectual Enthusiasms,Personal Insecurities: Response to “Stages on Journeys”

Abstract

The Department of Geography at Arizona State University implemented a field exam as part of its PhD program requirements. This field exam requires students to develop an independent field-based research project based on a general question in the student's specialty area. A survey of current and former PhD students and faculty members document how the field exam assists students in developing skills necessary for continuing graduate research and for preparing them for the rigors of academic employment. The outcomes of the exam include both long-term, process-related benefits and more immediate tangible rewards. For some students, the preliminary fieldwork and results redirect student interests and form the basis for their eventual dissertation. The field exam is adaptable to a diversity of geography research methods, subject areas, and graduate degree programs, while remaining grounded in the discipline's vibrant, widely respected fieldwork tradition.

     

Geography Current

Abstract

This article explains a professional development experience of fifth to twelfth grade teachers in using geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS) technologies to enhance classroom teaching and learning environments. A key challenge faced by the developers was whether teachers would value the technology tools enough to warrant the time necessary to develop the skills for productive use of the technology. Based on five years' experience, researchers identified seven key components and elaborated on them with examples and related processes.     

Policy Boosterism,Policy Mobilities,and the Extrospective City

Abstract

This study develops the notion of “policy boosterism,” a subset of traditional branding and marketing activities that involves the active promotion of locally developed and/or locally successful policies, programs, or practices across wider geographical fields as well as to broader communities of interested peers. It is argued that policy boosterism is (1) an important element of how urban policy actors engage with global communities of professional peers and with local residents, and (2) a useful concept with which to interrogate and understand how policies and policy knowledge are mobilized among cities. A conceptualization of policy boosterism and its role in global-urban policymaking is developed by combining insights from the burgeoning “policy mobilities” literature with those of the longstanding literature on entrepreneurial city marketing. It is supported by illustrative examples of policy boosterism in Vancouver: the city's Greenest City and Green Capital initiatives, the use of the term “Vancouverism” among the city's urban design community, and demonstrations of new urban technologies during the 2010 Winter Olympics that were used to market a particular vision of the city's governance to people from elsewhere, but also—crucially—to local audiences. The article concludes by highlighting four foci that might frame future work at the intersections of policy boosterism and policy mobilities.     

The Council at Work

Abstract

The field of geography education is sadly lacking in empirical data that might inform and underpin decisions about standard setting, curriculum design, materials development, teaching strategies, and assessment procedures. Large quantities of high-quality data are necessary if geography is to be successfully implemented in the American education system. This article advances four needs that, if met, would generate the data necessary to make the case for geography in America's schools. We need a new attitude towards research, a series of baseline studies, a research agenda, and a research clearinghouse if we are to make a convincing case for geography in America's schools.     

Experienced Teacher Participation in Preservice Programs: A Model in Geography at the University of Northern Colorado

Abstract

This paper discusses a model program for preparing secondary geography teachers in the Department of Geography at the University of Northern Colorado. The key feature of the program is the presence of an outstanding secondary teacher in residence throughout the year who team-teaches the Teaching Methods in Geography and World Geography courses with geography faculty, modeling effective ways of teaching the subject. Students are paired with Colorado Geographic Alliance teacher-consultants in summer institutes and for student teaching. Analysis of formative evaluation data collected through the third year provides some measure of the program's success. Students have responded favorably to the use of a variety of teaching strategies, the opportunity to discuss with faculty why certain strategies are utilized, and how their own constructed lessons have worked in their student teaching. They have also reported that their understanding of geography has improved from taking the team-taught courses.     

The National Geography Standards and Your Undergraduate Curriculum: The Opportunity That Knocks More Than Once

Abstract

Geography For Life: National Geography Standards 1994 offers university geographers opportunities in the areas of program assessment and development. This article describes an assessment process that is applicable to both individual courses and geography programs. The process can strengthen programs by making them more consistent. As a result, geography may have a more powerful presence in teacher certification programs. Additional techniques for enhancing geography's role in preservice education curricula are also outlined. Finally, the article expresses concern that geographers at the university level will not take the recently published National Geography Standards seriously, thinking they apply only to K-12 education. They are challenged to extend the Standards' scope and content to the baccalaureate degree.     

Time,Territory and Man: A Geographic,Instructional Approach to Growth and Change in China

Abstract

China, despite its failure to modernize in step with Europe's industrial revolution, has a long and rich history of commerical and economic growth, development, and integration. Economic growth and environmental change are presented here, and two dimensions—space and time—are invoked to describe the process as it took place in mainland China. The objectives are to present generalized abstractions of the Chinese earth space and environment within a chronological framework of growth and change in China. Three salient phases of progression are noted:

1) A traditional transition

2) A Western and Japanese influenced Commercial/Industrial transformation

3) A Socialist planned development

At each stage of the sequence, significant landscape and environmental changes have been imposed, and these are explored in order to determine key themes and alterations at a local, regional and national scale. Such a sequential model should permit the accurate simplification and increased cross-national understanding of complex phenomena and facilitate presentation of these phenomena in classroom situations.     

Differential Adoption of Internet-based Teaching Practices in College Geography

Abstract

Innovation diffusion research has shown that users of innovations have identifiable characteristics that can be used to differentiate them from nonusers. This research classifies practitioners of Internet-based teaching in college geography and relates adoption patterns to faculty members' research specialty, place of employment, teaching experience, and academic rank. All variables except academic rank were related to faculty members' adoption of and approach to Internet-based teaching. The results of the study provide insight into how the Internet is being used to teach geography in higher education.