Making-Every-Week-About-Geography-Awareness-and-Advocacy

I also wish to use Geography Awareness Week to take stock of the broader, year-around importance of disciplinary advocacy, the specific promotional strategies, successes, and struggles

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Making Every Week About Geography Awareness and Advocacy

Article  in  AAG Newsletter · November 2017

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0017

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Derek H Alderman

University of Tennessee

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November 1, 2017

Making Every Week About Geography Awareness and

Advocacy

news.aag.org/2017/11/making-every-week-about-geography-awareness-and-advocacy/

This column comes to you just a couple weeks before Geography

Awareness Week’s 30 birthday Founded by presidential proclamation in

1987, Geography Awareness Week (GeoWeek) is observed the third week

of November each year

This year’s observance, which takes place November 12-18, highlights the

“geography of civil rights movements.” The theme of civil rights fills

important voids in school curriculum and geographic education, but

importantly it also makes a public statement that geographers care about

and have something meaningful to say (and learn) about the struggle for equality and justice—

particularly in these turbulent and violent times During GeoWeek, all donations made to the

AAG Enhancing Diversity Fund are to be matched, dollar for dollar, by the Association If you

have not already made plans to celebrate GeoWeek, please consider doing so

The purpose of my remarks is to reflect on what we might want to accomplish through

GeoWeek in terms of not just building an awareness of geography but also advocating for

geography I also wish to use Geography Awareness Week to take stock of the broader,

year-around importance of disciplinary advocacy, the specific promotional strategies, successes,

and struggles of geography programs and departments, and what AAG is doing (and can do

further) to assist in providing resources and funding the development of innovations in public

promotion of geography

Not Just Awareness, But Also Advocacy

Geography Awareness Week’s initial focus was primarily limited to geography as a body of

knowledge, the dismal state of geographic literacy among United States students, and the

strategic role that a geographically educated citizen plays in national and world affairs An

assessment of the first GeoWeek in 1987 found that while it “generated much media attention

and stimulated many celebratory activities, the image of geography as a serious academic

discipline in higher education may not have been helped.” More recently, geography educators

and proponents have broadened Awareness Week to promote the legitimacy and efficacy of

geography as a profession and science

These current efforts to enhance the efficacy of GeoWeek notwithstanding, there continues to

be a need to refine how we think about this special November celebration To begin with,

advancing “awareness” is too passive of an idea to capture the kind of broader and deeper

public investment in geography that needs to occur A GeoWeek formally devoted to advocacy

rather than simply awareness would elevate the importance of articulating the value of a

th

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geographic perspective to other disciplines and the larger society, which the AAG identifies as

a critical goal for the 21 Century

Without such advocacy, the sustainability, growth, and in some cases, survival of the field of

geography is in jeopardy Even as some geography programs expand, others prove to be

vulnerable to reorganization if not elimination Moreover, we have witnessed the steady

dilution of geography curriculum at the K-12 level within many states My recent discussions

with departments and programs across a variety of regions and institutional settings point to

the necessity of aggressively “making the case” for geography within higher education and

other public arenas

Building a Departmental Culture of Promotion

Key to creating impactful disciplinary advocacy is building a culture of promotion within and

beyond GeoWeek To learn more about the current state of this culture in geography

departments and programs, I reached out to chairs and heads through an AAG-sponsored

listserv The response was superb and I cannot do justice to all of the submitted comments,

but allow me to share some of the findings

Many responding department leaders indicate regularly encountering and battling against

academic and lay misunderstandings of geography Especially irritating for some leaders is

finding administrators and colleagues in their own colleges or universities who seem to have

little interest in knowing about our discipline For some programs, disciplinary advocacy is

especially imperative given declining numbers of majors and drops in student enrollment

Understandably, department leaders define public promotion largely in terms of student

recruitment and retention

Department leaders provide extensive lists of techniques and tools they use to spread the

word about geography The quantity and quality of this advocacy naturally increases with

GeoWeek, resulting in welcome tables, guest speakers, outreach into public schools and

community colleges, geography bowls, and film screenings Yet, most departments carry out

recruitment and promotion every week by reaching out to the best students in geography

classes to encourage them to consider a degree, redesigning their programs’ web sites and

developing promotional materials (newsletters, brochures, banners, flyers, rack cards, swag,

etc.), and hosting professionals who can communicate the career opportunities awaiting

geography students

Some department leaders emphasize the importance of reaching out to parents at job/major

fairs and orientation sessions, supporting research that suggests that the “perceptions of

parents are critical in their children’s decisions to pursue academic majors.” Many programs

focus on ensuring that geography has a strong place in the university general education

curriculum—although some leaders note that this does not guarantee student recruitment and

a larger public respect for the field

Responses from department leaders reveal a number of effective promotional practices that

might be of interest to others wishing to enhance student recruitment and geography’s

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Hallway digital signage welcomes students and visitors to the Department of Geography at SUNY-Geneseo Decorating and “branding” places and spaces of departments often play an important role in promotion as well as creating a sense of community

within a program.

Promotional banner developed by the Department of Geography and Geology

at Eastern Michigan University A growing number of programs use advocacy materials such as this at conferences, job and major fairs, and orientation sessions.

campus and community image

Update, renovate, and enhance departmental

signage and spaces to make geography prominent

to students and the visiting public A program’s

spaces can be important for highlighting faculty,

staff, and student achievements and marketing

what geographers do and contribute For example,

dotting the hallways of the Geography Department

at SUNY-Geneseo are “Kudos to Geographers”

displays and digital signage that continuously runs

promotional images to passers-by

Involve students and geography student

organizations in the recruitment process Illinois

State University’s geography club participates in

community and campus promotional events, write

notes to prospective students telling them why

they became geographers, and attends general

education classes to help faculty recruit majors

For this year’s GeoWeek, the Geography Club of

Kutztown University is co-hosting a

“Women in Science” panel discussion

with prominent local female leaders and

geography alumnae

Establish cooperative relationships with

university offices that have direct contact

with prospective students Some

responding departments host luncheons

with their university’s advising office to

keep them informed of geography

courses and majors The Department of

Geosciences at Fort Hays State

University maintains regular contact with

those in the recruiting and admission

offices

Actively cultivate a social media

presence Temple University’s Geography and Urban Studies Department uses Twitter,

Facebook, and Instagram to communicate with students, and uses Facebook ads to

promote open house events to prospective students The program just created a

promotional poster to send out to area high schools teaching AP Human Geography and

AP Environmental Science

Assist and interact with community partners outside the university, whether they are local

agencies, schools, non-profits, museums, or the media Striving to create a culture of

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Club Geography students “paint the rock” at the University of Tennessee in celebration of 2014 Geography Awareness Week Students are important advocates and ambassadors of

the discipline.

engagement as well as promotion, University of Missouri geographers use the

Geographic Resources Center to provide spatial data, map making capacity, and

educational workshops to public groups Colleagues at University of Toronto are

collaborating with a local school board to offer a workshop for high school teachers

Establish strong and productive relationships with college- and university-level

communications and media relations offices The Department of Geography at University

of Colorado-Boulder, for example, recently worked with its college communications

office to develop an alumni magazine article entitled “Not Your Junior High Geography.”

Attract public attention and interest

with experiential, hands-on learning

to explore and understand

geography A number of department

leaders report using Augmented

Reality Sandboxes (ARS) as part of

interactive promotional efforts

Geography programs at University

of North Dakota and University of

Tennessee are making effective

use of ARS on and off campus

Conduct community building with

alumni, who can be valuable in

promotion and recruitment efforts.

Clark University geographers

organize their own “Geography

Week” in the spring, which includes alumni speaking about their career in geography

This year, University of New Mexico hosted a “Geography of Beer” alumni event, marking

the launch of a new course called the “World of Beer.” University of Delaware also hosts

a Geography of Beer event for alumni along with a Geography of Pasta lecture aimed at

the broader public

Finally, effective disciplinary advocacy requires planning and the collective investment of a

program Colleagues at the University of Ottawa and the University of South Carolina have

established committees for developing student recruitment strategies Similarly, geography at

Penn State created a committee of faculty to survey alumni, interview advisors from across

the campus about their perceptions of geography, and consult with university public relations

officials Augustana College hired an outside consultant to assist with marketing the

geography program to prospective students and administrators in light of looming budget

cuts This along with a revised curriculum brought a 68% increase in geography majors in the

2016-17 school year

What AAG is Doing to Help

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Department leaders cite cost, time, lack of

faculty experience, and a scarcity of high

quality promotional materials as chief

obstacles to disciplinary promotion In

addressing the latter issue, the AAG has

produced over the past several years a variety

of outreach-related publications, brochures,

handouts, slideshows, and multimedia tools

Recently, program chairs and heads have

called on the Association to play an even greater role in the production of advocacy materials,

particularly short promotional videos on what is geography and what can students do with a

geography degree

As a first response to this call from department leaders, Meridian Place staff members have

begun inventorying and assessing a wide array of existing advocacy resources, with the hope

of providing centralized access to those resources and identifying gaps in geography’s

promotional profile The result is the AAG Multimedia Resources for Geography Outreach and

Engagement, which is a new compendium of resources (videos, podcasts, syllabi, documents,

websites, etc.) for recruiting students, enhancing academic curricula, and raising geographic

awareness among the public at large

The compendium, which AAG will launch during the 2017 GeoWeek, is searchable by keywords,

category (audience), format, and source to suit the user’s needs Promotional videos created

by geography departments and academic centers to recruit students are a chief component of

this new compendium I invite department leaders to share videos and other multimedia

resources to help grow the collection as well as provide feedback to the Association on how to

improve the compendium Send resources and feedback to David Coronado at dcoronado [at]

aag [dot] org

I believe that AAG can be a strong supporter of disciplinary advocacy in other ways At the fall

2017 AAG Council meeting, I will propose and begin working to establish a new grant program

for enhancing the public identity of the work of geographers It will assist in generating and

publicizing innovative media, techniques, and program ideas for strongly communicating the

everyday, policy, political, and scientific relevance of geography in our modern world

“Innovations in the Public Promotion of Geography” would be a competitive, peer reviewed

program that supports newly created tools or approaches with a strong likelihood of being

successful and replicated by other geographers Feel free to share your opinion of this idea

with your national and regional councilors

I am interested in knowing how AAG members plan to celebrate GeoWeek and the broader

geography promotional and advocacy strategies taking place within departments, programs,

and workplaces Please share your thoughts and experiences by emailing me at dalderma [at]

utk [dot] edu or sharing on Twitter #PresidentAAG

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— Derek Alderman @MLKStreet

Professor Geography, University of Tennessee

President, American Association of Geographers

DOI: 10.14433/2017.0017

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