Chair's Blog

A 1776 English map in the UW-Eau Claire Archives. One of our many cool maps This past spring, UW-Eau Claire's McIntyre Library and the Department of Geography and Anthropology teamed up to develop an internship program for students interested in spending time with – and learning from – the University's map collection.  Under the guidance of Asst. Professor Greg Kocken, Head of Special Collections, Archives and Records Management, students can choose from between two internship alternatives, depending on what they want to learn and produce. Both the Cartographic Cataloging and the Digital Curation internships make valuable contributions to the work of the Library and the Department of Geography and Anthropology as the students investigate and learn about maps, their histories, stories, ideas, purposes and perspectives.  The internships open up the worlds and histories of cartography to students and the students gain important practical experience in interpretation...

Yes, the absence of any posts would suggest the absence of anything to post about, but that is hardly our department's reality.  Indeed, it has been a whirlwind since the end of April, between the end of the semester activities (CERCA week, Department Banquet, Final Exams, Graduation), some family needs that took me to Michigan a few times, work-related travel to Scotland, England and Turkey.   While I was in the United Kingdom, the department received the news that it had been awarded a big grant that will enhance our geospatial programming.  T hanks to Dr. Christina Hupy and numerous faculty in and out of our department, the Geospatial Education Initiative grant will have a big impact on our department and opportunities for our students. Please read the recent press release for the details and anticipate exciting outcomes. Now, mid-summer is behind us and preparations for the fall semester have already begun.  I will try to catch us up on some of the ev...