Kenneth E. Foote

Concerns, Attitudes, and Abilities of Early-Career Geography Faculty

Abstract Professional experiences during graduate school through the first few years of an academic appointment shape patterns of work and social behavior that prefigure the long-term success of new faculty members, including prospects for tenure and promotion. We explore these experiences through interviews and surveys with a sample of early-career faculty in postsecondary American geography. Our analysis reveals that teaching is the primary source of anxiety among new professors, many of whom begin their first academic positions with little or no preparation in learning theory, course design, or pedagogy. Many new faculty members struggle to maintain healthy personal and family lives, while adjusting to unfamiliar norms of their new institutions. New professors benefit from support offered by their department chairpersons and from working in collegial environments. Among women, we found a greater sense of self-doubt about their scholarly abilities and futures despite having records comparable in accomplishment to their male peers. Many women cope with this sense of marginalization by forming supportive mentoring relationships with other women faculty on campus and through disciplinary specialty groups. Networking with colleagues on campus and at academic conferences enhances the job performance and satisfaction of all faculty members irrespective of gender. Our findings underscore the importance of examining the social, professional, and disciplinary contexts of higher education to acquire a broader understanding of faculty development. This knowledge can help departments prepare new faculty for successful and satisfying academic careers.

HUNGARY AFTER 1989: INSCRIBING A NEW PAST ON PLACE*

Since the fall of the Communist government in 1989, Hungarys political monuments and historical shrines have undergone great change. Although popular attention focused on the removal of overtly political monuments, new shrines were also created, and forgotten memorials were restored. In a departure from earlier political eras, decisions about contested places are issuing from local authorities and private citizens, rather than from the central government. The result is a sometimes subtle rearrangement of public memorials and shrines that interprets the national past by drawing symbolic and spatial parallels between some historical events while rejecting connections among others. The meanings of events and places, particularly those linked to twentieth‐century wartime and civil upheavals, remain contested.

Foreign-born Scholars in US Universities: Issues, Concerns, and Strategies

This symposium focuses on foreign-born geographers pursuing careers in US colleges and universities. Though foreign-born scholars make up a significant portion of the US geography professoriate, little is known about their experiences, the cultural problems and legal issues they confront in the US, and policy and institutional changes that might be implemented to support them. These papers address some of these challenges—particularly in American classrooms—as well as some of the opportunities these scholars have to offer international perspectives on geographic issues to students and colleagues. While we address the situation in the US, the symposium suggests the need to consider the experiences of foreign-born academics in other nations experiencing similar growth in intellectual immigration.

Creating a community of support for graduate students and early career academics

This paper focuses on strategies for enhancing the preparation of geographers moving into academic careers. Based on research and experience gained from the Geography Faculty Development Alliance and Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in geography projects, several suggestions for improved practice are detailed. These move beyond self-help models and argue for a systematic, community-based approach to professional development. Reasons for change are disparities that sometimes exist between the implicit knowledge needed for career success and the topics addressed explicitly in graduate curricula. Although the focus is geography, the argument is set in the context of interdisciplinary debate about improving doctoral education.

The Geographer's Craft: Teaching GIS in the Web

The Geographers Craft is a two-semester course introducing GIS and geographic research methods using active-learning, problem-solving techniques. All of the materials for the course were developed in hypertext form in the World-Wide Web (WWW). The organization of this electronic textbook and laboratory manual is explained and related to principles for using the WWW to enrich GIS education. Teaching strategies are discussed as are lessons learnt in developing hypertext courseware. The value of enlisting student participation in the development process is stressed. Note is made of the ways in which Web-based materials may lead to the emergence of distance of education programmes in GIS. The project homepage is http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/contents.html

Graduate Education in U.S. Geography: Students’ Career Aspirations and Faculty Perspectives

The career aspirations of U.S. graduate geography students and how these are perceived by faculty and addressed in departmental curricula and programs have important implications for sustaining and enhancing geographys position in higher education in the current period of economic, political, and social change. Recent interdisciplinary research on academic socialization identifies differences in expectations between students and faculty as an important factor affecting departmental climates, completion of graduate degrees, and assessments by graduates of their preparation for the workforce. Based on qualitative analysis of interviews conducted in five doctoral and five masters departments selected to reflect a range of programs across the United States, we found considerable difference between students’ aspirations and faculty perceptions. Approximately half the doctoral students interviewed were considering careers in academia, although many were also considering opportunities in other sectors or were uncertain of their future directions. Students in masters departments were predominantly interested in careers outside academia. Doctoral faculty and curricula tended to stress preparation for research-oriented academic careers. Masters faculty generally recognized students’ aspirations and adapted curricula to meet them, especially by the provision of internship programs. We take into consideration campus location and the gender, ethnicity, and international origins of students. The results suggest improving graduate programs and advising by aligning them with student career plans and aspirations.

Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education in Geography: A Disciplinary Project in Professional Development

This paper describes the development, implementation, and preliminary outcomes of Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) in Geography, a multiyear project begun in 2005 to study the process of professional development in graduate geography in the U.S and sponsored by the National Science Foundation. As a research and action project responding to the needs of graduate geography programs, EDGE seeks to provide academic geographers with an empirical perspective of disciplinary as well as interdisciplinary and generic skills that M.A./M.S. and Ph.D. students develop as a result of graduate education. Related objectives are to understand how disciplinary skills are applied by geography graduates once they enter the professional workforce in both academic and nonacademic professional settings, and to gauge the extent graduate programs are sufficiently preparing geography graduates for those careers. We begin by summarizing the research goals and design of EDGE, highlighting the roles and contributions of geographers and educational researchers, and noting the interplay and synergy between disciplinary and interdisciplinary methodologies and practices. To date, research has focused on: (1) assessing contemporary workforce competencies in professional geography and (2) examining the role of department climate and culture on student experience and faculty development within masters and doctoral programs. Although the EDGE research efforts are still underway, we present some preliminary research findings and discuss the implications of those outcomes for professional development in geography and related social and environmental sciences. Also discussed is the complementary nature of disciplinebased and interdisciplinary professional development efforts.

Concerns, Attitudes, and Abilities of Early-Career Geography Faculty.

Professional experiences during graduate school through the first few years of an academic appointment shape patterns of work and social behavior that prefigure the long-term success of new faculty members, including prospects for tenure and promotion. We explore these experiences through interviews and surveys with a sample of early-career faculty in postsecondary American geography. Our analysis reveals that teaching is the primary source of anxiety among new professors, many of whom begin their first academic positions with little or no preparation in learning theory, course design, or pedagogy. Many new faculty members struggle to maintain healthy personal and family lives, while adjusting to unfamiliar norms of their new institutions. New professors benefit from support offered by their department chairpersons and from working in collegial environments. Among women, we found a greater sense of self-doubt about their scholarly abilities and futures despite having records comparable in accomplishment to their male peers. Many women cope with this sense of marginalization by forming supportive mentoring relationships with other women faculty on campus and through disciplinary specialty groups. Networking with colleagues on campus and at academic conferences enhances the job performance and satisfaction of all faculty members irrespective of gender. Our findings underscore the importance of examining the social, professional, and disciplinary contexts of higher education to acquire a broader understanding of faculty development. This knowledge can help departments prepare new faculty for successful and satisfying academic careers.

Cultivating Student Research and Study Skills in Web-based Learning Environments

The use of Web-based learning environments involves cultivating new types of study and research skills among students. Students must be able to find authoritative sources efficiently, evaluate the quality of documents thoroughly, and use and cite materials properly. Students may also need guidance in what constitutes appropriate conduct in respect of the Internet and Web. They need to understand the difference between citing a source and plagiarizing it, how to communicate effectively and courteously by email, and how copyright law applies to resources they wish to use. These issues can be addressed in classroom discussion or in exercises woven into online learning materials and assignments.

Sense of Place

Sense of place refers to the emotive bonds and attachments people develop or experience in particular locations and environments, at scales ranging from the home to the nation. Sense of place is also used to describe the distinctiveness or unique character of particular localities and regions. Sense of place can refer to positive bonds of comfort, safety, and well-being engendered by place, home, and dwelling, as well as negative feelings of fear, dysphoria, and placelessness. The concept of sense of place has served an important role in debate in human geography over the past 30 years. When first introduced, the concept drew attention to the often subjective nature of human environmental experience, as well as to the perceptual and cognitive dimensions of those experiences. Sense of place remains a bridge among a number of subdisciplines, as well as a link between humanistic and positivistic geographies.