Chair's Blog

Emily Moothart in Scottish Highlands, Corrie Fee, Caringorms National Park So, how is it that an organizational communication student goes to Scotland for a semester and returns to UW-Eau Claire as an environmental geography major? Well, it seems to have much to do with dirt, and maybe something to do with coasteering – the outdoor activity of climbing, jumping, swimming, scrambling, bobbing along the intertidal zone of rocky coastlines – a kind of becoming one with the marine-terrestrial interface.  Coasteering has become quite popular in the United Kingdom, now even with an International Coasteering Association .  I don't know if Emily Moothart knew about coasteering when she was making her plans to study abroad (I'd never heard of it) , but she knew she wanted to hike the Highlands, so she chose Aberdeen for her semester overseas.  We are glad she did. Coasteering in the North Sea, near Stonehaven. Emily is bottom left. Before going to Scotland, in her f...

Some weeks back, the Department of Geography and Anthropology was happy to announce our student scholarship winners (see earlier blog post). After that, a few of us in the department started wondering about the scholarships and who they are named after. It seemed strange to honor current students with awards named after people of whom we knew little. Who was this Henry Kolka and how did we end up with a scholarship named after him? It seemed shameful not to know. Well, one thing led to another, and Bob Barth's daughter found an obituary of Henry Kolka. And that led to other things.  According to the obituary, Henry Kolka was a professor of geography at UW-Eau Claire from 1943 to his retirement in 1975. He passed away in 1991. No faculty currently in the department was here when Mr. Kolka was, so faculty have no stories of Mr. Kolka. But Yvonne, our secretary, does. She started in 1970 and remembers him as somebody who liked to bring her flowers. Let that be a lesson to me. Back...

Inaugural SAGGA members Hannah, Nathan, & Joey. We will get a picture of Corrin later. When I think of all the problems I have encountered here at the university, those times when tensions or conflicts have emerged, a "lack of communication" always seems to be implicated.  In contrast, when communication takes place, when faculty and staff or departments or administrators communicate, not only are problems avoided, they are solved. Relationships are enhanced, opportunities are identified, widely beneficial progress and great outcomes follow. We say yay! With that in mind, I am very thankful for the enthusiasm and commitment with which our geography majors Hannah Bristol (Sr.), Joey Quintana (Sr.), Nathan Schaffer (Jr.) , and Corrin Turkowitch (Sr.) have grown the Student Advisory Group for Geography and Anthropology (SAGGA).  Last summer, they were invited to consider serving on a newly formed student group that would advise the chair of the department and serve ...

Students on GEOG 368 field experience in NYC, Spring 2012 . Photo E. Zeitler . In the ongoing effort to improve and refine our geography programming and curriculum – with the goal of providing our students with the best education and experience possible for a fulfilling life and career as a geographer – we have made some changes to the requirements for the geography degree.   Perhaps most significantly, beginning in Fall 2014, all majors will be required to take GEOG 368, the Geography Field Seminar.  By student and faculty accounts alike, GEOG 368 is a highlight experience for those who participate.   So much so that we have decided it should be part of the experience of all geography graduates and a flagship feature of our program.  In GEOG 368, students get to apply their core geographic training in a field context, exercising their geographic imagination and their analytical and communication skills as they prepare for, conduct, and communicate the res...