TUITION AND TEACHING

 

I am off to a meeting today, where I will meet with an old professional friend who teaches at an Ivy League university. Also today, the first bill arrived for my daughter’s tuition at a prestigious Midwestern private university. My colleague has lots of time for travel, as he teaches, over the course of a year, about half of what those of us in state universities teach. But what struck me today was not sour grapes about teaching loads (I actually think teaching is important, and usually enjoy it—it’s the administrative BS of the state university that drives me up the wall). It was wondering how much of the outrageous sum I’m about to shell out is actually funding my daughter’s education, vs. paying professors at that university not to teach very much.

One thing I can say about my university—and many other state universities—is that while we do not have as many big-name academic superstars as some of the prestigious private schools, we do have some. And if your kid comes here, she or he has a reasonable shot of actually encountering them in the classroom. I wonder to what extent that is true in the Ivies and their peer institutions. I hope, for the sake of my daughter and my own consumer self-esteem, that my cynicism is misplaced. 

Chris van Dyke (University of Kentucky): "Landscape Memory in a Time of Amnesia -- Recovering the Clark Fork River at Milltown, Montana"

"Landscape Memory in a Time of Amnesia -- Recovering the Clark Fork River at Milltown, Montana"

Date:
Location:
Classroom Building Room 238

GeoJeopardy

GeoJeopardy is an annual Geography department event (held each fall).

It is very similar to the popular television show “Jeopardy” in which contestants answer trivia type questions except that the questions have a distinct geographic flavor and the contestants are all geographers (undergraduate and graduate students primarily).

Three teams of three each compete for prizes that typically come from the National Geographic store (e.g. Concise Atlas of the World, NGS Road Atlas, The Answer Book, etc.).

Door prizes are raffled off after the competition!

Can you name the city that is at the intersection of Interstate 75 and Interstate 40?

Date:
Location:
Classroom Building Room 238

Carolyn Finney (University of California at Berkeley)

 "Difference at the Crossroads: Impovisation, Radical Writing & Risk-taking as Rigor"

Carolyn Finney, Ph.D. is a writer, performer and cultural geographer. As a professor in Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the College of Natural Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, she explores how issues of difference impact participation in decision-making processes designed to address environmental issues. Although Carolyn pursed an acting career for eleven years, a backpacking trip around the world and living in Nepal changed the course of her life. Motivated by these experiences, 

she returned to school after a 15-year absence to complete a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. Informed by her early life experiences, the aim of her work is to develop greater cultural competency within environmental organizations and institutions, challenge media outlets on their representation of difference, and increase awareness of how privilege shapes who gets to speak to environmental issues and determine policy and action. Carolyn has appeared on Tavis Smiley, MSNBC, NPR and has been interviewed for numerous 

newspapers and magazines. Along with public speaking, writing and consulting, she serves on the U.S. National Parks Advisory Board that is working to assist the National Park Service in engaging in relations of reciprocity with diverse communities. Her first book, Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors explores the relationship of African Americans to the environment and the environmental movement (UNC Press).

 

Date:
Location:
Classroom Building Room 238
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