Chair's Blog

A group of UW-Eau Claire geography graduates and some of their faculty, after commencement, 25 May 2019.  Photograph courtesy of S. Opatz, UWEC. The Department of Geography and Anthropology congratulates our 29 Spring 2019 graduates.  With our 13 graduates in December 2018, we had a total of 42 geography graduates for the year!  We are very happy for our students and thank them for their many contributions to our vibrant and growing community. We concluded the year with 158 geography majors -- a record number for our program.  We are one of the the largest undergraduate geography programs in the Midwest.

Dr. Joe Hupy with teaching his field methods class The Department of Geography and Anthropology is excited to learn that our colleague Dr. Joe Hupy has just been selected as one of three 2016 UW System Regent Scholars .  The Scholarship is intended to encourage and reward cutting-edge undergraduate research and collaboration that has the potential to spur regional economic development and entrepreneurial possibilities.  The scholarship comes with summer funding to support research and scholarly activities while stimulating innovation and industry outreach.   Specifically, Dr. Hupy's research involves using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for economic and environmental applications in the mining, and has the potential for much wider geospatial applications in construction, insurance, real estate, and beyond.  For more details on Dr. Hupy and his work related to the grant, see the UW-Eau Claire news article .  To learn about how to geographically apply UAS, you may want to take

Two years ago, our department embarked on a department to department relationship with the Geography and Environment Department at the University of Aberdeen.  In summer of 2014, I visited to Aberdeen to initiate this unique and mutually beneficial relationship.   St Mary's Hall - Home of Geography at University of Aberdeen In Spring 2015, Piotr Niewiadomski, a human geographer at Aberdeen, visited our campus to give a couple of lectures and get to know UW-Eau Claire and our department, faculty, students, and programs. We explored ways of growing the relationship, making student exchanges more accessible and, maximizing the mutual benefits to our students and programs.  As examples, Aberdeen is interested in having their students participate in our geospatial certificate program and we are interested in exploring the feasibility of taking a GEOG 368 to Scotland.  This year, we have two students from Aberdeen in Eau Claire and four of our geography students at Aberde

Oh my goodness, it has been more than a year since posting to the blog.  That is not good.  It is as if nothing of consequence to UW-Eau Claire Geography has occurred since October 2014.  That is hardly the case.   In October 2015, the department hosted another regional conference of the West Lakes Division Association of American Geographers (WLAAG).  See geography major Andee Erickson's nice article reporting on this event. Last April, we also co-hosted a mini-conference on the “geospatial confluence” of GIS, remote sensing, and photogrammetric professionals with the Western Great Lakes Region of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (easier to say WGL-ASPRS) on campus. Also in the spring, we hosted a colleague from our sister geography department at the University of Aberdeen as well as a geographer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru , with whom we are also building a relationship. This past year, two graduates of our department, who are now

Drew Briski, cymballic leader As such expressions as this blog, UW-Eau Claire departmental websites, and university press releases regularly demonstrate, student success and accomplishment make us happy.  When one of our students is recognized for work well done, or gets a job for which they have prepared, or lands a funded graduate school placement, or passes any number of milestones (or overcomes obstacles) on their road to graduation, we rejoice.  We like what we do and like it when our students find value in it and build on it. Adam Wysocki bustin' a move But, as hard as our students work in their majors, we are often reminded that our students also have activities, aptitudes and aspirations beyond our disciplines and that add other dimensions to their lives.  It should come as  no surprise, really, given the value and emphasis we place on a liberal education, t hat they pursue and develop extra- and co-curricular interests.  In fact, we enable and encourage it. B

Per the previous post, the Department of Geography and Anthropology is very pleased to announce that the University Honors Council has given final approval to our program for department honors.  We thank Jeff Vahlbusch, Director, University Honors and the Honors Council for their suggestions to refine our program.  With their help, our department honors is open to majors and minors.  In other words, we now have Department Honors in both Geography AND Anthropology.  As Joey Quintana, UWEC/GEOG '14, recently wrote when he learned of our department honors,       I love the new opportunity for students through the Departmental Honors program.        I think it will help spark creative thinking, foster new more in-depth        learning process, and help great students become superb geographers. Moreover, with the selfless effort and expertise of Beth Kranz in LTS, in consultation with our ADA Yvonne Plomedahl, our department has launched UW-Eau Claire's first eform applic