GEONEWS The newsletter of the IUPUI Geography Department Fall, 1998 Co-Editors: Joyce Haibe, Artimus Keiffer

A Note from the Chair:

I am very pleased to say hello again to one and all. As Haitians say: M espere ke tout moun enfrm! (I hope you're all doing well!) As you will see, this is the largest newsletter the Department has yet produced. It rightly indicates that we are more active than ever. We believe that the newsletter reaches almost all of our alums, and we hope you find it useful in keeping up to date on what we do. However, it's a one-way communication. We would like to hear more from all of you. You can communicate with us individually, of course, particularly if you have e-mail; we regularly communicate with everyone on the e-mail list about jobs, internships, and events here. Nevertheless, we would like to make more opportunities to draw you together. Last spring we invited all alums to the Department picnic in Garfield Park, and quite a few came. We would like to repeat the event this spring since it seems to be a good way to get together. Please let us know! A second means of drawing you all back to see us, which we have just decided on, is an annual departmental bus trip, run by the faculty and open to majors, alums, and friends. In conjunction with that field trip, we plan to mount a modest fund drive to help defray the cost of the bus. We hope both of these events attract your interest as worthwhile and interesting ways to get together!!

Thanks to Geography Donors

We are delighted to recognize donations to the Geography Alumni Scholarship Fund by Mychelline Fiadhiglas and Joyce Haibe. Their contributions are bringing the fund near the point at which a continuing annual scholarship can be awarded to an outstanding Geography major.

We are planning a fund drive this spring to support what we hope will become an annual departmental bus trip. The idea is to invite alums, majors, and other Friends of Geography to participate in an all-day geographic field trip each year to sites of both physical and human geographic interest in and around the state. The faculty would collaborate to plan and run the trip, each time to some place new, and we would rent a large, comfortable bus with driver and speaker system to go in style. We hope that you will all want to come along, and that you will contribute a few dollars to the new trip fund. An official letter about the fund drive will go out soon. In response to a suggestion we have received from several alums, the campaign will be arranged so that whatever you choose to contribute will be earmarked specifically for this fund; you will know where your contribution goes.

Geography Awareness Week

Fall means the return of Geography Awareness Week. This year's dates are November 15-23 and the theme is People, Places, and Patterns: Geography Puts the Pieces Together. This year we will have activities on several different days. On Wednesday, November 18 at 3:30 p.m. in Cavanaugh 508, several of our faculty will be giving short presentations on their areas of interest. Bob Beck will speak about Smith Cemetery, Tom Fedor will talk on the financial crisis in Russia, Art Keiffer will review wine production in Indiana, Catherine Souch will discuss effects of human disturbance on wetlands at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and Tim Brothers and Jeff Wilson will show slides of their trip to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. These presentations will be followed by an informal gathering for pizza and soft drinks.

On Thursday, November 19, at 2:30 p.m. in the University Library auditorium, an eminent Russian biogeographer, Roman Zlotin, will talk on the environmental degradation of the former U.S.S.R. Lake Baikal, Chernobyl, and the Aral Sea are conspicuous examples of the environmental problems the former Soviet Union is facing. There will be a reception at the library following his talk.

In conjunction with Geography Awareness Week, on Friday, November 20, at 9:00 a.m. Sonja Duelberg will present a general introduction on applying to graduate school during the G309: Frontiers in Geographic Thought class. The class meets in Cavanaugh 215. All majors are invited to participate.

For more information, you can e-mail us at geogdept@iupui.edu, call (317)274-8877 or look on our website http://www.iupui.edu/~geogdept/geog.html

GIS Symposium

The Geography Department will host a Colloquium Series in Geospatial Technology this fall. Our first event, on October 30, was an introductory GIS workshop for faculty and staff. We expect the keynote speaker for the series, Dr. Kamlesh Lulla, Chief of Earth Science, NASA, Johnson Space Center Mission Control, some time in November. Other speakers will include Christian J. Johannsen from Purdue, who will speak on precision farming, and representatives from Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES), POLIS, and the library to talk about their respective projects. These talks will continue through the spring and will be announced on the Geography Department webpage (http://www.iupui.edu/~geogdept/geog.html). Or you can call the Geography Department at (317)274-8877.

Geography Club

The new officers of the Geography Club are Rachel Coolbaugh, president; Marc Jefry , first vice president; Lucy Abel, second vice president; Karissa Swenson, secretary; and Jay Eiteljorge, treasurer.

The Geography Club has been very busy this year. Already they have viewed a French-language movie and been on a caving/camping trip to Mammoth Cave. They are planning a one-day caving trip on November 14, a trip to Chicago on December 5, a trip to St. Louis in the spring and their annual whitewater rafting trip and campout in May 1999. Alumni are always welcome to attend club activities. If you have any questions you can e-mail Rachel Coolbaugh (rcoolbau@iupui.edu) or Marc Jefry (mljefry@iupui.edu).

WOW! What a year! The Geography Educators' Network of Indiana, Inc., a not-for-profit organization promoting geography education in Indiana's K-12 schools, post-secondary institutions, home schools, and many businesses, has sponsored numerous programs enhancing options for learning geography. A one-week, field-intensive institute studying Indiana's canals and their impacts on the environment and economy of the state provided participants an opportunity to obtain up to three graduate credit hours in one week while traveling the state, all in exchange for a lesson plan that will be shared through the GENI Newsletter and web site.

The biggest event hosted by GENI this past year was the annual National Council for Geographic Education Conference, held in Indianapolis October 9-14. So many IUPUI students and faculty/staff assisted in making the event a success; THANK YOU!!! A variety of workshops, papers and special events were available for the approximately eight hundred participants. David Carter, President of Indianapolis' Carter Lumber Company and mountaineer, was the keynote speaker for the banquet; what a mind-boggling and determined experience was his trip up Mt. Everest! This coming year also brings a lot of interesting programs, including a weekend geography workshop at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College; a three-week institute to the Yucatan; technology workshops, Earth 2-U workshops and Family Geography Challenge workshops. If you are interested in participating or in lesson plans/resources, contact Kathy Lamb Kozenski at (317)274-8879 to obtain more information.

Student News

The Geography Department wants to honor our most recent graduates. In December 1997, Nicalaus K. Christiansen, Katherine M. Gullick, and Gregory M. Stucker received their degree. May 1998 saw Clifford Chapman, Kim Cronin, Jennifer Diekhoff, Daniel Johnson, Richard Frederick Metcalf, Allen Thompson, and Jason Tucker take the walk. Julie Sherman graduated in August 1998.

News From Our Alumni

Cynthia Berlin is not exactly an alumnus of the IUPUI Geography Department but those of you who had a course (or two) with her last year might be interested in knowing that she successfully defended her dissertation on October 2.

Darren Wilson (1997) is living in Gastonia, North Carolina, which is about a half an hour west of Charlotte. He works with the Land Records Division of the Gaston County Planning and Code Enforcement Department as a GIS Specialist, helping maintain the digital GIS database for the county as well as hard-copy topographic maps.

Bob Snodgrass (1984) has worked for IPS's Outdoor Education Program as an assistant director, moving on to work with the Soil Conservation Service during the Wetland Inventory and NRI Project as a cartographic aid. In the early 1990's he acted as map communication consultant and photographer on a book entitled Beloved Madison: A Pictorial Tour of Indiana's Historic Madison. Currently he is working with EnnPac, Inc. and substitute teaches at his old high school, Perry Meridian, in geography and history.

Val Swift (1991) is the GIS administrator for the Hamilton County (Indiana) Surveyor. In 1996, his wife gave birth to quadruplets, 3 boys and a girl, and it keeps the Swift household very busy.

Terry (Tess) Christy is working as a GIS Consultant with Intergraph Corporation, in Huntsville, Alabama, but we do not have her new address. If anyone knows how to contact her, please let us know.

Faculty News

Jeff Wilson, Tim Brothers, and Bob Beck have received a grant to finance the acquisition of Landsat satellite imagery and large-scale aerial photography from selected sites across Indiana. The plan is to use these data in classes to illustrate spatial patterns of physical and cultural phenomena not visible from the ground.

Sonja Duelberg continues to teach G110 and the core theory and philosophy course (G309) as well as the upper-level urban geography class, which will be offered in the spring. Sonja continues to develop her skills in GIS and Spanish. See the section about Geography Awareness Week for information about the workshop she will run on applying to graduate school to study Geography. If you are interested in attending, please contact Sonja (sduelber@iupui.edu or 317-274-8808) for more details.

Bob Beck taught two courses, Geography of Indiana and North American House Types, during the summer and worked in his greenhouse and garden. He also was on the editorial board of the recently published Columbia Gazetteer of the World. As a board member of the Indiana National Road Association, he has been attending its monthly meetings.

Catherine Souch has returned from leave and this year, in addition to teaching her regular courses (Physical Systems of the Environment, Weather and Climate, and Research Methods), she will be teaching the new 6-credit field course in the spring with Tim (see separate description). Catherine continues her research at the Indiana Dunes, now focusing on the effects of human disturbance on heavy metal contamination and the likely implications of different restoration strategies. This work will be presented at the Geological Society of America conference this Fall, and in Hawaii at the AAG in March. She has recently published papers in the journals "Wetlands" and "Geomorphology" and a number of others are under review.

Tom Fedor spent the summer teaching and rearranging his garden. He planted over 40 tetraploid lilies. He continues to teach World Geography, Geography of Europe, Geography of Russia and Adjacent Lands, and Geography of Italy, which will be offered again in the Spring semester. He is also teaching G110 Introduction to Human Geography, when needed.

Jeff Wilson is bringing our spatial analysis courses up to speed in the new Social Science Computer Classroom and will be teaching G438: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and G336: Environmental Remote Sensing there in the spring. Jeff's general research interests are in the applications of remote sensing and GIS technology in environmental mapping and modeling. He is particularly interested in linking the environmental and cultural aspects of land cover change. He and Tim Brothers recently returned from an adventurous field excursion on the island of Hispaniola to begin study of land-cover contrasts along the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Jeff is also currently developing maps of environmental and cultural variables for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area to be used in urban climate modeling.

Rick Bein is spending a third year in Papua New Guinea. He reports his extension is going well, and he is training people to take over for him once he returns to the U.S. He expects to be in Indianapolis after Christmas. He will arrive on December 28th and stay until mid January. He would like to give a seminar on his work at UNITECH during his visit. If you are interested in attending, contact the Department during December for more details. Rick is also planning to give a paper at the AAG in Honolulu in March. The topic of the paper is the results of the bio-diversity inventory which he has been coordinating in a wildlife management area.

Courses for Spring

We are offering two new courses and two repeats from last spring, and we're dusting off a course that hasn't been offered for some time. The two new courses are G465: Field Methods in Physical Geography and G390: The Geography of Culture : Interpreting Ethnic Landscapes In Indiana.

G465: Field Methods in Physical Geography is a 6-credit hour course intended to provide Geography majors with an introduction to the fundamental methods and instrumentation used in field research in physical geography, including climatology, hydrology, soil geography, and biogeography. It will begin on April 2 and have six regular Friday meetings through May 7. The course will culminate with a five-day field project (May 10-14) and a week of individual project preparation, ending on May 21. The course will meet one of the technique requirements and will be co-taught by Catherine Souch and Tim Brothers.

The second new course will be G390: Topics in Geography: Geography of Culture: Interpreting Ethnic Landscapes in Indiana, taught by Artimus Keiffer. The class will examine cultural diversity and its imprint on the landscape of the United States in general and Indiana specifically. Students will be immersed in a variety of cultures by attending cultural events (religious services or festivals), talking to people of varied ethnic backgrounds, and tasting their cuisine. Two field trips will be taken during the semester to different areas of the state to study first hand the cultural fabric of Indiana.

Jeff Wilson will be teaching G336: Environmental Remote Sensing, a course that has not been offered for some time. Environmental Remote Sensing will look at the basic principles involved in remote sensing, including radiation character, instrumentation, and applications. Students will learn the technology of data collection, the platforms utilized, and examine the associated imagery. This course will count as a techniques course, for those of you who are working on your degree in geography.

Tom Fedor will once again offer his special insights into the Geography of Italy (G390: Topics in Geography). This course was new last spring and was so successful that the department decided to offer it again this spring. Italians have a particular viewpoint on the world and Tom Fedor has proven to be an excellent interpreter of that viewpoint.

Bob Beck will (for the second time) teach G328: Rural Landscapes of North America. This proved to be a very popular course last spring. Students look at rural settlements, culture, cemeteries, and land subdivision. As urban sprawl takes over more of our farmland, it becomes increasingly important to examine our rural culture and document the change and economic upheaval that accompanies the conversion from rural to urban.

Help!

Job/Position Availability

If you hear of jobs (part or full time) at your institution/organization, please let us know about them and we will use the email distribution list to advertise them to students. If any graduates would like to be included on an electronic job announcement list, let us know and we will add you to our list.

Recycling Goes Campus Wide

Celebrating a one-year anniversary, recycling is now spreading campus wide. The program was initiated by students in geography classes, who solicited 4,400 signatures on a petition. The collected signatures were taken through the chain of command by Art Keiffer and a committee of students. The success of the pilot project in Cavanaugh Hall prompted the University to back a campus-wide effort after it was shown how much material was collected, the amount of participation by students, faculty and staff, and the money saved by the University in unpaid tipping fees. The University has also begun a major program in other areas of toxic recycling as well as an overall conservation program. The program was not received well by solid waste handlers in Indianapolis since the county has a 20-year contract to burn solid waste in the downtown incinerator. Geographers and the Department should all be proud that something has been done in regards to the environment. Congratulations to all those who contributed either physically or in spirit.

Whatever Happened To...?

We have lost contact with several of our graduates. Does anyone know how to contact the following people? Jeannie Benz, Terry (Tess) Christie (information above was obtained from Val Swift but we don't know her address), Phyllis Delmonte, Joseph Gwinn, Walt Holst, Edward Hopkins, Brad Meeks, James Peotz, David Reifeis, Molly Ryan, Frederick Smith, or Amelia Venter.

Please keep us informed about changes of address and let us know what you're doing now so that we can tell your story in a future newsletter. Send us your mailing address, place of employment and/or graduate school, and your e-mail address. We want to keep in touch! You can also find us on the Web at http://www.iupui.edu/~geogdept/geog.html