Fall 2011
August 29th, 2011

Dear Alumni and Friends of UK Geography,

The past couple of years have certainly been eventful ones in the life of the department. We have been through some sad times, but we have also begun to grow in exciting new directions. The sad news first: we lost Tom Leinbach in December 2009 and then in March 2011 Dick Ulack passed away. It is still hard to believe that these two colleagues and friends are gone. Even though both had recently retired, we now more sharply miss their energy and leadership.

On a happier note, our physical geography program continues to develop. In 2009 Daehyun Kim added his biogeography skills to the mix. Daehyun, together with Jonathan Phillips and Alice Turkington, crafted a strategic plan for the physical program, and we have been able to hire Tony Stallins (PhD Georgia; most recently at Florida State University) at the Associate Professor rank, and Liang Liang (PhD University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) as an Assistant Professor. Tony and Liang joined us in August 2011. Tony brings expertise in biogeomorphology and Liang adds his specialty in bioclimatology. Now we have a first rate team in place and we're excited about what these colleagues can do individually and collectively to further enhance physical geography at UK.

With the retirement of Michael Kennedy (to whom we offer congratulations on 46 years at UK!) we have been able to renew the GIS/geospatial technologies aspect of the department. To that end, with support from the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Mark Kornbluh, we have two new faculty in this area. We welcome Associate Professor Jeremy Crampton (PhD Penn State University; most recently at Georgia State University), with interests in mapping, critical cartography, and GIS, and Assistant Professor Matt Wilson (PhD University of Washington), with expertise in GIS and community mapping. Jeremy and Matt have already been working with Jeff Levy to ready the GIS Teaching Lab in the White Hall Classroom Building for a more intense and diverse roster of GIS and related courses at all levels. We are thrilled that UK Geography is now poised to make our own distinctive mark in the world of geospatial technology.

In the meantime, everyone has been busy! Our faculty and students continue to enjoy great professional success. We have a new book display in the department and there is an impressive array of books authored and edited by faculty. Karl Raitz's co-edited The Great Valley Road: Shenandoah Landscapes from Prehistory to the Present won The Allen Noble Book Award from the Pioneer America Society. We may have to install another bookcase for Stan Brunn's impressive three volume set on Engineering Earth: The Impacts of Megaengineering Projects!

I continue to feel proud when I review the tables of contents of top journals and notice the names of UK geographers, present and alumni, among the authors. Recent successes at NSF have been recorded by Anna Secor, Patricia Ehrkamp, and Morgan Robertson and PhD student Christine Smith won a multi-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. Additional awards have come in for faculty and students from Fulbright and the Inter-American Foundation, among others. It was also lovely to see colleagues Paul Karan and Karl Raitz recently recognized by the University for their many years of great scholarship and dedicated service. Paul was University Research Professor in 2010-11 and Karl is the University's Distinguished Service Professor (2010-13).

As you might expect, geographers continue to play leading roles in interdisciplinary programs and initiatives on campus. This year, for example, members of the newly formed student-led Political Ecology Working Group (PEWG) held a very successful conference at UK that attracted over 125 scholars who, by all accounts, very much enjoyed the papers, field trips, and discussions. PEWG members are already planning the next conference.

In response to opportunities presented by the university-wide restructuring of our core general education curriculum, Geography faculty have developed a suite of new courses at the introductory level designed to excite beginning students about geographical approaches to topics such as health and disease, inequality, conflict, information technology, migration and climate change. To provide more chances for active learning in small group discussion sections and labs, the College gave us eight additional Teaching Assistant lines which have put our graduate program on an even surer footing.

So, in many ways, the qualities that UK Geography is known for endure, although some of the names and faces are new. This combination of careful building on firm foundations on the one hand, and fresh ideas and energy on the other, means that UK Geography is positioned very well for the future. Whether it is working to create the most exciting, challenging, and coherent program of study for our undergraduate majors, or crafting the best graduate programs we can, the department faculty strive to bring the intellectual excitement of our research and scholarship into the classroom. This, along with the passion we have for working collectively ensures that UK Geography will be a special place to work and learn for many years to come.

Thanks very much for your interest in Geography at the University of Kentucky. Please feel free to check out our website (though forgive us for some parts that are "under construction"). Also, you might wish to "like" us on our Facebook page "University of Kentucky Geography Grad Alums". Of course, if you would like to visit us in person, you're always welcome here!

Best wishes,

Sue Roberts
(Professor and Chair)