GEONEWS
Newsletter of the IUPUI Geography Department
Fall 1997

Many changes have occurred in the Geography Department since the last newsletter, including a change in the name of the newsletter itself. Most important, we have welcomed two new faculty members and a new secretary. Some of you already know Jeff Wilson, our new GIS specialist, but you may not have met Cynthia Berlin, who is taking Catherine Souch's place during her sabbatical.

Cynthia Berlin is finishing a Ph.D. in geography at Indiana State University. Her expertise is in meteorology, climatology and remote sensing, with a focus on environmental analysis. Her dissertation examines how climate change and an introduced marsh grass have altered a coastal wetland in Washington state.

Jeff Wilson is also finishing his Ph.D. in geography at ISU, while teaching part time in our department. He will join us full time in January, filling a new position in spatial analysis. Jeff's research interests are application of remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) to environmental monitoring. His dissertation combines remote sensing, GIS, and artificial intelligence to map Indiana forest remnants as part of a nationwide biodiversity assessment.

Joyce Haibe, our new secretary, is a recent IUPUI graduate in Art History. She has a background of courses in geography and anthropology, too, so she fits right in. Our new work-study student is Jenny Diekhoff, a geography major from Ball State.

Stop in and say "Hello" to our new Department members and have a cup of coffee. (Spoons don't stand upright in Joyce's coffee, as they do in Tim's, but you're welcome to have some anyway.)

We are delighted to report that the Department will begin offering courses this spring in the brand-new Social Sciences Computer Lab. We have had a major hand in designing the lab, which is intended for upper-division instruction in statistics, GIS, computer cartography, and remote sensing. Jeff Wilson's cartography and remote sensing courses will be offered in the lab this spring, and many other geography courses will use it in the future.

Geography Club Notes

Ken Spencer is the Geography Club president this year. Allen Thompson and Kathie Gullick are first and second vice-presidents, Rachel Coolbaugh is treasurer, and Melinda Grayson is Club secretary. The Club has already taken a canoe trip to Whitewater State Park. The next planned activity is an urban tour of Chicago in February--Brrrr, do you know how cold Chicago is in February? Come along and find out. At the end of the spring semester, the Club will take its annual whitewater rafting trip to New River Gorge in West Virginia. For more information, including dates and cost, contact Ken Spencer or the Department .

Department Open House

All majors, alumni, and friends of geography are invited to a Departmental open house on Thursday, Nov. 20, during Geography Awareness Week (Nov. 16-22). There will be food and drink, and the Department faculty will give brief presentations of their research and teaching projects. Events start at 2:30 p.m. in Cavanaugh Hall, Room 211. Please come!

Faculty Highlight: Sonja Duelberg

Those of you who graduated several years ago may still not know Dr. Sonja Duelberg, the Department's urban/social geographer. In addition to teaching a large fraction of our human geography curriculum, Dr. Duelberg has begun to focus on development of new geographic teaching materials and methods. This summer and last, she was invited to participate in a Virtual Geography Department workshop at the University of Texas in Austin. The VGD project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is establishing a national center for teaching materials in human geography on the Worldwide Web. Sonja is not only leading the introductory human geography working group but also developing teaching modules and conducting research on classroom use of the Web. She has also become involved in the new series of one-unit courses offered by University College to help students adapt successfully to college life. Beginning students take this course in conjunction with her section of human geography, but meet with her outside class to learn about university resources and develop study skills.

Sonja is also proud to report that she was certified this summer as a scuba diver. She successfully completed the requirements during a dive trip to the Florida Keys and had immense fun watching life on the coral reefs.

Sonja Duelberg finds ultimate wisdom deep beneath the Atlantic

Other Faculty News

Catherine Souch is taking a one-year sabbatical leave, during which she will continue her research on reconstruction of past environments from lake and wetland sediments at Indiana Dunes, in Minnesota, and in Canada. This winter she will head for the balmy climes of Australia and New Zealand, to learn more about wetland chemistry with colleagues there.... Tim Brothers spent a month in the Dominican Republic this summer continuing research on tropical deforestation near Los Haitises National Park. After a vacation in Trinidad-Tobago with his wife Janice, he gave a paper at the annual meeting of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers in Arequipa, Peru, and spent an extra week traveling with friends to Cuzco, Lake Titicaca, and Colca Canyon....Rick Bein is still in Papua New Guinea, in the second year of a two-year leave spent developing a university environmental studies program. He has recently designed a new outdoor classroom for the National Botanical Gardens in Lae....Visiting professor Art Keiffer taught a new summer course, the Geography of Wine in Western Culture, and served as a judge at the Indiana International Winefest. In July, Art returned to Cuba with five IUPUI students to examine changes in environment and land use caused by the growth of tourism at Varadero Beach, near Havana. Art has also organized a pilot recycling program in Cavanaugh Hall, which has replaced the existing wastebaskets with 15 recycling stations....After teaching in Summer I, Tom Fedor worked in his garden and visited relatives in the northern realms of the Midwest....Visiting professor Bob Beck also spent the summer teaching and participating in his favorite pastime, gardening. It is a little-known fact that Bob has one of the best designed greenhouses in the Western world!

New Courses for Spring

This year we began a major effort to diversify and enhance the geography curriculum, and we have an array of new or nearly new courses coming up this spring. Bob Beck will initiate a new permanent course, Rural Landscapes of North America, which focuses on the shaping of North American landscapes by land subdivision, economic activity, and settlement. Cynthia Berlin will offer Severe Weather, examining the formation, development, and human impact of thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, microbursts, and hurricanes. Tom Fedor will present the Geography of Italy, emphasizing the historical and modern processes that make Italy a unique entity. Art Keiffer will repeat a successful course from last spring, the Geography of Cuba. Jeff Wilson will activate Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, a course that has not been taught in at least a decade, and one which will be particularly valuable to those of you who want to increase your applied skills in geographic analysis. Tim Brothers will again offer Cultural Biogeography, an advanced seminar course that focuses this time on island biogeography. For fuller course descriptions, check out our new course web site.

Student and Alumni News

Congratulations to Suzanne Hinzy, Chris Moore, Darren Wilson, and Terry Yoder, all May 1997 graduates. And congratulations to Darren Wilson, chosen as the Department's 1996-97 Outstanding Graduating Senior.

Roy McClure graduated from IUPUI in 1990 with a BA in Geography. Since October 1995, he has been the Emergency Management Director for Fountain County, Indiana. His job is to prepare for natural disasters and incidents at the Newport Chemical Depot through planning, training, and annual exercises... Terry Yoder is a mentor for the newly formed University College at IUPUI, better known to most of you as the UEC, Undergraduate Education Center... Amy Deane, our former work/study student, is now a geography graduate student at the University of Florida, Gainesville. As some of you know, she is particularly concerned about the endangered status of wild chinchillas in the Andes, and has established a Save the Wild Chinchillas foundation to promote land acquisition for expansion of the existing chinchilla preserve.

Please keep us informed about changes of address and let us know what you're doing now. Send us your mailing address, place of employment and/or graduate school, and your e-mail address. We want to keep in touch!

If you hear of jobs (part or full-time) we will be happy to tell students about them. You can also find us on the Web.

Whatever Happened To...?

Several of last spring's newsletters were returned from the post office. Does anyone know how to contact the following people? Alicia Butler, Robert Comer, William Davis, Walt Holst, Marie Kemple, Jennifer Leiber, James Peotz, David Reifeis, John Rottner, Linda Shields, Amelia Venter.