From the Chair

that marks the 100th anniversary of our department. On April 5th, 1913, the first Geographer, David Olson, was hired. The following Fall, the Department of Geography offered its first courses to the inaugural class. I am thrilled to announce that we launched an entire year of celebrations starting at the 2013 AAG meeting in Los Angeles. We have many events planned including a reunion for all alumni, coinciding with homecoming in October. We ask you to share stories and photos of the years past via our Facebook page or by sending them to geography@ kent.edu. It is remarkable that during the timeframe that marks our centennial that we have hired seven new full-time faculty, a new graduate secretary, and fulltime technical support. In Fall 2012, three new faculty joined us: Jacqueline Curtis, Andrew Curtis, and Jennifer Mapes. This Fall three new faculty arrived: Kelly Turner, Xinyue Ye, and Eric Shook. These hires have been strategic with a focus on applied GIS, heath and hazards, Computational GIS, and Urban and Community Geography. In addition, Dan Ross who has taught for us for over 15 years converted to a full-time lecturer, and Kent alum Kay Amey became the first full-time geographer at the Ashtabula Campus.

GROWTH IN MCGILVREY

2013 is an exciting year

Kay Amey, Dan Ross, Eric Shook (top, left to right), and Kelly Turner and Xinyue Ye (bottom, left to right) joined the Geography Department at Kent State in Fall 2013.

Five new geographers at Kent State in 2013

This semester, five new faculty members join the Kent State University Geography Department. Eric Shook arrives in Kent with a PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research combines geographic information science and computational science to study the complexity of coupled natural and human systems. To address various computational challenges, he often employs cyberinfrastructure-based geographic information systems (CyberGIS) and supercomputer-based spatial modeling to investigate large- and multiscale geospatial phenomena. Erics interests focus on advancing the state-of-the-art in geospatial technologies that underpin geographic information science (GIScience) thus opening new areas of scientific inquiry. V. Kelly Turner joins us having received a PhD from Arizona State University, where she studied the environmental outcomes of urban design and the role of social processes in mediating those outcomes. Part of a coordinated hire in urban ecology and hydrology (with three others in geology, biology and architecture), Kelly has previous interdisciplinary experiences at ASU with the Decision Center for a Desert City (NS-DMUU), Central Arizona Project (NSF-LTER, and the Urban Ecology Program (NSF-IGERT). She has focused on the environmental implications of master Continued on Page 2

Mandy Munro-Stasiuk

GROWTH IN MCGILVREY
New Faculty, continued from Page 1
planned developmentparticularly those built under the directives of the sustainable urbanism movement in planning practiceand the deep challenges of innovating within the existing institutional infrastructure that favors sprawl-style expansion. Xinyue Ye comes to Kent State having taught for four years at Bowling Green University. His research focuses on open source geocomputation, spatial econometrics, GIS modeling and urban/regional analysis. Xinyues work on comparative space-time analytical implementation won the national first-place award of research and analysis from the U.S. University Economic Development Association in 2011 and he received the emerging scholar award from AAGs Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group in 2012. Xinyue earned his Ph.D. in Geography/Spatial Analysis from the University of California, Santa Barbara and San Diego State University. In addition to our three tenuretrack hires last year, we also added two new non-tenure track positions. Dan Ross, who has taught for the Department of Geography and Department of Biology part-time for the past 20 years, was promoted to be a full-time instructor. Dan is a retired USDA National Resources Conservation Service employee. His interests include urban conservation, forestry, wildlife, sediment transport, and golf course design. We also added a geographer on the Ashtabula campus, Kay Amey. Kay is an alumn of Kent State University, having received her PhD in Geology here in 2011, working with Mandy Munro-Stasiuk in the NSF-funded GK12 program in science education. She will be teaching physical geography and geology at Ashtabula.

Kat Smith, Tracee Young, and Mary Lou Church at work in the newly-renovated office space at McGilvrey 413.

New Staff, New Office

As our faculty grows, so too has our office staff. Department Secretary Mary Lou Church was joined this year by a graduate secretary and an information technology user support analyst. Tracee Young serves as graduate secretary, a part-time position that helps process applications and budgets serving the departments 21 masters degree and 34 Ph.D. students. Kat Smith also joined the staff as our full-time IT specialist. Kat is a 2011 Kent State graduate who majored in English (look for her book on Amazon!). The position was added as part of the departments expansion of their Geographic Information Systems program. Kat will help maintain and troubleshoot GIS programs, maintain the department server, and also work with faculty to match research needs to existing software and hardware. The Geography Department office also added a new student assistant, Issac Barry. Issac, a junior accounting/pre-law major, follows his sister Anya into this position. The staff is housed in a newlyrenovated facility. While in the same location (413 McGilvrey), many walls were torn down last Fall to create an open floor plan that better facilitates use of the office by Mary Lou, Tracee, and Issac. Kats office is in the main GIS computer lab on the 4th floor of McGilvrey.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

CURRENT GRADUATE STUDENTS

Masters students
Spencer Baker Cory Coakley: geoarchaeology, GIS, Ground Penetrating Radar Kyler Cowgill: geography of education Gordon Cromley: post-colonialism, diaspora Christabel Devadoss: cultural landscapes, soundscapes, cultural transmission, the Tamil diaspora, India Natalia Domino: climate, hazards Alice Eastwood Samuel Henkin: violence, genocide, Holocaust studies, sexuality and gender Bryce Kastelein: hazards, hurricane impacts, climate Mihran Kazandjian: urbanization in China, expressions of Chinese softpower, geospatial technology David Korte Krystal Levstek: communities, GIS, cultural geography, landscapes Brandon Luke: GIS, cultural geography, health and medical geography, physical landscapes, political geography Jackie Luke: shrinking cities, post-industrial urban environments, foreclosure crisis, vacancy, land use changes, urban gardens Sage McMillan Mark Rhodes: historical geography, cultural geography, landscapes, British studies Jen Ruper: climate, hazards, environmental quality in national parks Savina Sirik: cultural landscape, genocide Glen Stubbs: memorialization of workplace disasters, how memorials define small and cohesive communities, southeastern Ohio/Appalachian coal mining communities Rachel Will: water security in Peru, local knowledge, political ecology Chris Woolard Patrick Zhao: geospatial programing, GIS, cultural geography

Ph.D. students
Michael Allen: seasonality, human health, climate variability, anomalous temperature events Mohammad Al-Nasrallah: medical/ health geography BJ Arnold Bradley Austin: social media, weather, social constructivism Tom Ballinger: polar climate variability and change Andria Blackwood: Urban geography, inequalities, community cohesion, U.S. social welfare policy Aaron Burkle Jennifer Burrell: disaster recovery, crime geography Jaerin Chung: political geography, geopolitics, geophilosophy, public policy, spatial justification of a concept of neoliberal state Adam B Cinderich: natural disasters, response and recovery in post-disaster environments Alex R. Colucci: political geographies, social geographies, social theory Charles Frederick Mark Guizlo: land suitability modeling for wine grapes, remote sensing, GIS Mike Harris Rafiq Islam Catherine Jones Johnathan Kirk: weather and climate impacts Louie Kiskowski: immigration, migration, geopolitics, ethnic enclaves, geographic education, economic geography, urban geography, and regional geographies of Europe, Southwest Asia and North Africa, and North America Cadey Korson: critical geopolitics, cultural geography, political development, francophone regions Weronika Kusek: migration, European Union, ethnic communities Cameron C. Lee: applied climatology, synoptic climatology, climate change, bioclimatology, air quality Amanda Mullett: prehistoric mobility and subsistence strategies, application of geographic techniques in archaeology Anthony Nasuta Marius Paulikas: atmospheric hazards impacting populated areas, urban sprawl, severe weather vulnerability Melissa Phillips: natural hazards/ disasters, natural hazard education, climate and natural hazards, weather phenomena, synoptic meteorology, mesoscale meteorology, landscapes of North America Munshi Khaledur Rahman: hazards and disasters, climate change and climatology, geography of health and public health, GIS, remote sensing, GPS Laura Schuch: health and medical geography, environmental justice, barriers in accessing health care Cory St. Esprit: political geography, cultural geography, sustainability, international development, human rights, child trafficking in Haiti Kevin Skerl Jeremy Spencer: hypothermia, weather, cold-related mortality Dave Stasiuk: political geography, labour, contested place, indigenous populations Andrea Szell: green spaces, their use, behavior, perception; post-disaster environments, and GIS Thomas Veldman David Widner: stream ecology, environmental remediation, cultural ecology, social collisions between popular and traditional culture

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS

Andrew Curtis
Andrew Curtis joined the department in 2012. He is the current Director of the GIS | Health & Hazards Lab at Kent State University and is a former Director of the World Health Organizations Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and GIS for Public Health. His work employs geospatial technologies and geographic information system (GIS) analysis to support neighborhood scale intervention strategies designed to reduce health disparities. In 2005 after the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, he and his students were part of the academic team that helped with geospatial support for search and rescue operations in the Louisiana Emergency Operations Center. His geospatial recovery work continues in New Orleans and the post-tornado landscapes of Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Joplin, Missouri. In the summer of 2012 in Haiti he developed fine scale field mapping strategies to assess water risks in urban Cholera hotspots. Examples of his health related GIS consultation include the Department of Public Health in Los Angeles County, diabetes clinics, non-profit organizations and ground-level community groups. He is also recognized as a leader with regard to spatial privacy.

Jacqueline Curtis
Jacqueline W. Curtis arrived in Kent in 2012. She is the Associate Director of the GIS | Health & Hazards Lab and Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography. Dr. Curtis studies post-disaster recovery, particularly as it impacts mothers and children. Her current projects focus on the use of geospatial technologies and spatial analysis to understand perception of derelict neighborhood environments and how it affects residents behaviors. Dr. Curtis holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Louisiana State University (LSU). She has served as a faculty member at LSU in the Disaster Science and Management Program, as well as in the Departments of Geography at the University of Southern California (USC) and California State University Long Beach (CSULB). She is an Editorial Board Member and Book Review Editor for the journal Cartography and Geographic Information Science (CaGIS), as well as a recipient of the Association of American Geographers Meredith F. Burrill Award for her work in bridging basic and applied research.

David Kaplan
Among other things, Dave continues his interest in sustainable transportation, with the most recently funded project focusing on expanding bike-sharing systems. He also just published a new textbook entitled Human Geography (McGrawHill) and is working on a third edition of Urban Geography (Wiley), which is the most widely used text in the subdiscipline. But the highlight of the last couple of years was the opportunity to teach and do research at the University of Paris as the visiting Chair of Geopolitics during all of 2011. During this time Dave was able to collaborate with a number of French colleagues, to teach and conduct research on ethnic segregation, and to live the Parisian lifestyle. On a personal note, Dave is excited to see his son Elliot thrive as a math major at Ohio University and to have his daughter Serena enjoy the first year of middle school.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS

Jay Lee
Jay Lee has left Chairs office and returned to teaching and research full time. Since then, he completed the development of an Urban Crime Simulator with funding from National Institute of Justice. This simulator adds to the functions of the Urban Growth Simulator (funded by the US EPA) by taking simulated growth in urban neighborhoods to estimate how crime rates may change. Jay Lee is expanding his research interest to geography of health by working closely with a group of physicians to build a model that simulates with agent-based models that examines neighborhood health disparities using patient discharge data from the 9 hospitals in Summa Health System. A Summit County Disparity Model has been developed which uses agent-based simulation to examine health issues such as obesity and asthma. Jay Lee had also developed different quantitative models for processes of spatial diffusion with data drawn from dengue fevers, mushroom farms, and retail chains.

Jennifer Mapes
Jennifer Mapes arrived in Kent in Fall 2012, having previously taught at Plattsburgh State in New York State and University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Jens dissertation examined the effects of global contemporary change in small towns, connecting theoretical understandings of place and space to on-the-ground outcomes. She spent nine months in seven towns in the American West, interviewing local residents and key decision-makers to learn how their towns experience and react to socioeconomic and environmental change. Her primary research and teaching interest is connecting global and national change to local outcomes, with a focus on urban sustainability in small cities. Living in downtown Kent, Jen hopes to continue her work on small towns by studying the recent downtown redevelopment. As a community geographer and internship coordinator, Jen is working to connect our students to local projects. Next semester, she is teaching a new course, Online Mapping for Community Outreach in which students will create interactive maps for local non-profits.

Mandy Munro-Stasiuk
Mandy Munro-Stasiuk was promoted to full professor in 2011 and has served as chair of the department since 2010. Her research, now focused in Yucatan, Mexico, is on sinkholes (rejolladas). It has been hypothesized that these sinkholes were important to the ancient Maya, especially elites, as they may have been used to grow lucrative cash crops such as fruit trees or even cacao. Working with archaeologists she is using remotely sensed satellite imagery, ground penetrating radar, atmospheric and soil sensors, and GIS analysis to provide a comprehensive overview of the physical and spatial characteristics of rejolladas. She has taken several students to Yucatan to participate in the research. In collaboration with Kam Manahan, she is running the third field class to Yucatan in the 2013 Spring Break, where students immerse themselves in local culture while studying aspects of physical environment and archaeology.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS

Becky Parylak
Rebecca Parylak is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Kent State University since August 2008. Her research interests focus on historical precipitation trends, El Nino Southern Oscillation, natural hazards, physical geography, and teaching and learning. Some recent work focused on severe and violent tornado climatology, tornado activity and its relationship to teleconnections, outdoor sports and climatology, and annual and seasonal precipitation trends in Texas. Another area of research interest includes the scholarly examination of teaching and learning in the Physical Geography Lab environment. She is interested in finding out whether or not learning outcomes are achieved more in the distance learning science labs in comparison to the traditional in-class labs.

Chris Post
Chris Post joined the Kent State faculty to head up the geography program at the Stark Campus. We now officially offer our minor at Stark and five geography majors take most of their classes here. The Stark Campus program has also been active in our community, specifically working with the Friends of Ft. Laurens Foundation, Stark Parks and Beech Creek Nature Preserve near Alliance. Chris research continues to revolve around his interests in commemoration, heritage, and pedagogy. Recently, hes had work published in Historical Geography, Material Culture, and Southeastern Geographer with a paper forthcoming in Journal of Cultural Geography. The papers in Material Culture and Southeastern Geographer were in special issues that he guest edited. In addition to these articles, he contributed a chapter to the book, Company Towns in the Americas: Landscape, Power, and Working-Class Communities published by the University of Georgia Press.

Thomas Schmidlin
Toms interests continue in natural hazards and climate and he is advisor to 10 graduate students working on these topics. His research collaborations with current or former graduate students have appeared recently in Natural Hazards, Journal of Flood Risk Management, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and Journal of Climate. Tom had the opportunity to present research at conferences for disaster risk reduction in Tokyo and Dhaka, Bangladesh. As part of the departments program in short-term study away, Tom and Jeanne led courses to India in 2011, National Parks of the Southwest in 2012, and to Peru in 2013. They are empty nesters now as Emily has her own house and is in graduate school at Kent State and Kate is a senior at Ohio University.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS

Scott Sheridan
Scott Sheridan continues to work in applied climatology, with a continued focus on health outcomes. With his students, Scott has recently completed work projecting heat-related mortality in California out through the end of the 21st century, and he is currently working on a funded project examining the influence of weather on variability in hospital admissions across the state of New York. He also has continued to travel the world, co-leading student trips to Peru and Costa Rica, as well as a personal trip to the Galapagos. Scott and Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, along with PhD students Mike Allen and Cameron Lee, traveled to New Zealand in December 2011 to participate in the International Congress of Biometeorology in Auckland. While there, Scott Sheridan put in a bid for the next ICB to be sponsored by Kent State and hosted in Cleveland. The bid was accepted, and so Scott is heading up the planning committee to bring the biometeorological world to Cleveland in September 2014.

Sarah Smiley
Sarah joined the department in 2010 and is based at our Salem Campus. Her research examines how colonial legacies of segregation, housing and development policy, and amenity provision affect life in contemporary Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her current work explores access to water in Dar es Salaam. Specifically it highlights the need to consider the price, quality, and availability of water alongside its location when measuring access. Her household surveys show that water prices are extremely fluid and parts of the city lack consistent water provision. She is also interested in qualitative methods and has published on using mental maps and archival collections in her research. Since coming to Kent State, Sarah has traveled with Salem Campus nursing students to Switzerland and Tanzania. She also attended a KSU sponsored conference on tourism in Uganda and participated in a Rotary International exchange to Japan focused on population and healthcare.

Emariana Taylor
Emariana has conducted research on environmental perception in urban areas and has interests in understanding environmental perceptions, citizen action, and how these elements affect the political process and policy decisions. Her current interests lie in examining the infiltration of coyote populations into residential areas coincident with population loss and property abandonment in Cleveland. In collaboration with Biology faculty and the Center for Ecology and Natural Resource Conservation, Emariana is working to create an online geospatial database of longitudinal environmental and biological data for Kent State properties while also creating learning opportunities across environmental science courses in biology and geography.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS
Letters from emeritus & retired faculty
Greetings! Retiring in May 2004, I decided to develop interests that might be fulfilling in ways other than exclusively academic. Getting reacquainted with family was the first priority, even a challenge! Greater involvement with the community, as a volunteer, has been my cherished desire. Work in the Kent, Akron, and Cleveland areas has provided opportunities to interact with diverse ethnic and religious groups. For the last several years, I have been serving in the Pastoral Care Department of the Robinson Memorial Hospital, as an Associate Chaplain. After a 12 years gap, I had an opportunity to revisit India last year. Dr. Steve Butcher (Kent State Alumnus) joined me in Varanasi, the city considered most sacred by the Hindus. Steve and I visited Bangalore, the IIT Capital of India, to meet up with Dr. Chandra Balachandran (Kent State Alumnus), founder Director of The Indian Institute of Geographical Studies. If you are in the area, Vinay and I would love to see you. I am sure you will be impressed by the unprecedented quality and volume of intellectual productivity of the Department that you helped build in your time. Come, experience the fruits of a hundred years labor of generations of geographers.

James Tyner
James Tyner continues to teach and conduct research on issues related to violence and genocide. Recent book publications include Space, Place, and Violence: Violence and the Embodied Geographies of Race, Sex, and Gender (2012) and Genocide and the Geographical Imagination: Life and Death in Germany, China, and Cambodia (2012). Recent articles include the practice of health during the Cambodian genocide, the memorialization of violent landscapes in Cambodia, and surplus populations. Jim is also the recipient of the Ethnic Geography Specialty Groups Distinguished Scholar Award for 2013 and the Asian Geography Specialty Groups Distinguished Service Award for 2012. He is currently working on a book on violence, crime, and capitalism. This spring, Jim was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for his research proposal, The Malpractice of Medicine During the Cambodian Genocide.

Surinder Bhardwaj

We arrived here in The Dalles, Oregon just over one year ago. Looking out from our rental house we have great views of the Klickitat mountains across the Columbia River with glacier capped Mt. Adams [12,280] rising behind them. We also see the Dalles Dam [7th largest in U.S.], the city of The Dalles below and the green on the mountains about to burst into an incredible flower show. Last week we saw a bald eagle out the window and we have enjoyed hummingbirds all winter. We enjoy the warm, sunny weather here [Csa] and the world class wineries which are numerous and wonderful. Frank has begun volunteer work at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center museum. The first task was to organize the map collection and computerize the inventory. We will either be building a new house or purchasing an existing one this year. We travel to Portland (about 80 miles west of The Dalles) occasionally for great food and culture. We enjoy hiking in the Columbia Gorge, especially the waterfall hikes and Frank has been preparing for a hike into the Grand Canyon scheduled for next Fall. In middle April we will be going to Spain (Andalusia and Barcelona) for two weeks. After teaching Latin American geography for many years it will be most interesting to visit the Motherland. Our daughter Rachael is in Graduate School at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale finishing her MFA and is quite the glass artist. Our son Keith is a Sargent in the Marine Corp, (9 years) looking to make a career in the Corp. We would welcome any visitors wanting to visit with us and see this beautiful area.

Frank and Lynn Erickson

frankaerickson@gmail.com, lynnejerickson@gmailcom 541-769-0093, 1011 E. Scenic Dr., The Dalles, OR 97058

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

FACULTY NEWS
Updates from retired faculty
Greetings to all who have passed through the Geography Department, especially if you did so between 1967 and 1995. It is hard to believe that I retired 18 years ago, but the regular passage of time is one of the few things we can always count on. Notable features of my retirement years begin with the fact that Jan and I have reached over 57 years of marriage and we are still in the house we bought in 1970 on the west side of town. In addition, weve both stayed healthy throughout these years, with an occasional minor exception. Regular exercise at the KSU Wellness and Recreation Center helps maintain this condition. Also several things contribute our peace of mind, including the overseeing, from a distance, of the lives of 10 wonderful grandchildren, as well as reading, listening to classical music, and working on crossword puzzles. We stay off the streets by volunteering in various waysat Kent Social Services, the County Clothing Center, the Kent Environmental Council, and the KSU Retired Faculty. Singing in the choir and directing an adult class at Kent Presbyterian Church add to our retirement fun. And we have been fortunate to travelvisiting friends in Argentina, Japan, Netherlands-Germany-Switzerland, Australia-New Zealand, and meeting third cousins in Wales. Aside from those long distance trips, we make annual visits to Captiva, Florida; Indian Lake in the Adirondacks; Chautauqua, NY; and to see our children and their families. All in all, it has been a great 18 years, to be followed by many more. Stop in if you are ever back in the Tree City. Jim and DorothyRinier send their best wishes from Wilmington, North Carolina, where theyhave moved to be closer to their daughter. They cannot attend Homecoming this year but they continue to provide generous support to our geography students. If you would like to write to the Riniers, their address is 2324 S. 41st Street, Wilmington, NC 28403-5474.

BEYOND MCGILVREY, 2013

Professors Xinyue Ye, Dave Kaplan, and Tom Schmidlin join graduate students Louie Kiskowski, Gordon Cromley, and Jen Ruper, along with young future geographers, in a sack race at the Spring Picnic in Fuller Park in May.

Dick Lewis

Dr. Chris Post discusses the Cleveland Cultural Gardens with undergraduate student Emily Fullerton, a member of his class on Memory & Heritage, while graduate student Savina Sirik explores. The Cultural Gardens was just one of many stops in Cleveland on the annual field trip led by Professor Emeritus Surinder Bhardwaj in September.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

NEWS AROUND KENT

KSU expands relationship with CVNP Jan. 24, 2013 Kent State University has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Park Service, providing for enhanced collaboration in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The agreement, signed last month, calls for collaborative projects and joint research primarily focused on geology, biology, hydrology and educational programs. The theme of the collaboration is The River We Share, aptly named because the Cuyahoga River flows through both the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and through Kent, creating a physical connection between both areas. The new agreement will mean expanded internship opportunities for Kent State students, including geography majors. May 4 Visitor Center Opens Oct. 20, 2012 More than 42 years after the events of May 4, 1970 , the university opened a visitor center that tells the story of the Vietnam War protests and subsequent shooting of students by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent campus. The $1.1 million visitors center was funded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and contributions from campus deans. The exhibit design was a collaboration between the campus, community, students, and scholars including Assistant Professor of Geography Chris Post, who studies memorialization and consulted on this project.

The May 4 Visitor Center is located in Taylor Hall and is open noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Saturday. (Photo: Chris Post) Its exhibits use multimedia to put the events of the day in context and provide a detailed spatial and temporal narrative of the shootings. Campus adds new Student Green Oct. 18, 2012 The new Student Green extends from the recently renovated Risman Plaza to the lawn area south, creating a contiguous green space from the current student center plaza to Summit Street. The Student Green project with the expanded lawn area creates an attractive, student-centered space at a major front door to campus. It will include a performance stage that is intended to support student use. The stage will project back into the main campus with the new Student Green area and student center plaza serving as a backdrop.

President Obama visits Sept. 26, 2012 President Barack Obama spoke at Kent States Memorial Athletic and Convocation Center as part of his campaign for re-election. As a swing state, Ohio received many visits from both candidates, but this was the first time since 1912 that a sitting president has visited the Kent campus. The last president to visit Portage County was Richard Nixon in 1972. Obamas visit resulted in long lines and the MAC Center quickly reached its 5,000 occupancy.

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Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

NEWS AROUND KENT

Downtown redevelopment connects campus, city
Downtown Kent is changing rapidly, with a public-private-university partnership transforming the landscape. The project is a patchwork of new restaurants, offices, and parking that promises to expand the retail offerings of downtown and better connect the city and campus. We jokingly call this a 30-year overnight success, said Kent City Manager Dave Ruller, speaking with WCPNs Idea Stream. City officials said that while many studies of downtown had been done, and plans drawn up, a few key factors led to action. Local investor Ron Burbick is credited with building Acorn Alley, a retail development that connects Main Street with Erie Street. Burbicks purchase of this parcel adjacent to the old Franklin Hotel allowed the city to force changes to the long-vacant building. This spring the restored 1919 building will reopen as a new location for Buffalo Wild Wings. A second contribution came from the federal government with a $20 million stimulus grant to build a multimodal transit facility on Erie Street between Depeyster and Haymaker. The LEED-certified facility includes shops and restaurants, bike lockers, a bus transfer/waiting area, and parking. The university played an important role in the project, building a hotel and conference center on one parcel, and connecting the Esplanade, a walking and biking path that runs through campus, to downtown. A new architecture building will be constructed along the Esplanade, and a park will sit at the end of pathway, while modifications to Haymaker Parkway will make it easier to walk across and into downtown. Two additional multi-story buildings were constructed downtown by Fairmount Properties, the company that built First & Main in Hudson. In addition to shops and restaurants, these buildings will house offices for AMETEK and Davey Tree, moving two new employers to the heart of downtown.

Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013

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SCHOLARSHIPS & AWARDS

Honoring our students
The Department of Geography has increased the number of scholarships and awards available to our students through generous donations from alumni and from former and current faculty. The James and Dorothy Rinier Scholarships are granted annually to two or three junior Geography majors. Scholarship winners for 2013 were Brian Beyeler and Jessica Poremba. The Isenogle Memorial Award is a scholarship given to an outstanding Geography major. The awardee in 2013 was Cliff Myers. Our Geography Major Award is a financial award to several undergraduates who have the highest grades in Geography courses. Six students received this award in 2013 Elizabeth Eaton, Shelby Huth, Donald Mirolli, Cliff Myers, Jessica Poremba, and Andrew Rasner. New this year is the Geography Centennial Scholarship given to an undergraduate student who encapsulates the spirit of the Geography Department. Spencer Baker received the inaugural 2013 Geography Centennial Scholarship. Also new this year, two graduate student financial awards were created and named for the first Masters students and first Ph.D. students from the Geography Department at Kent State. Mihran Kazandjian received the Weston-Jones Centennial Masters Award, named for Evelyn Weston and Edward Jones who received the first Masters degrees in Geography in 1940. Michael Allen received the Nash-Enedy Centennial Ph.D. Award, named for Thomas Nash and Joseph Enedy, the first Ph.D. degrees from Geography in 1973. Dr. Nash joined us in presenting the award! Graduate students Tom Ballinger, Natalia Domino, and Cameron Lee received the Beck Research Award.

The Spring Honors Celebration was hosted in the newly-renovated Raup Library.

Cameron Lee also received an Isenogle Memorial Award. Three outstanding Geography students were inducted into our honor society, Gamma Sigma Upsilon in 2013. These were Brian Beyeler, Cliff Myers, and Haley Wachholz. Several students requested and received travel or equipment grants from the Beck Fund for Research. In addition, the Gandhi Fund, created and supported by Dr. Surinder Bhardwaj, provided research travel funds to South Asia for two students this year. If you would like to help us support

these scholarships and awards or create new scholarships, please contact: Kent State University Foundation 1061 Fraternity Circle P.O. Box 5190 Kent, Ohio 44242-0001 330-672-2222 advancement@kent.edu If you write, please include your name, address, telephone number, and information about how you would like to direct your contribution.

STAY IN TOUCH
Help us share your good news! Send us an update about your location, work, and family (and photos!) email geography@kent.edu (or mail to 413 McGilvrey Hall, Kent OH 44242) and well include your news in our next newsletter. Also, please send us your address for our files so we can send you a copy of the newsletter. In the meantime, keep up with all our latest news on Facebook (you dont need a Facebook account). We post regular updates on faculty, students,events, and opportunities at: http://www.facebook.com/GeographyKentState and on our college website: http://www.kent.edu/CAS/Geography/ Alumni are always welcome to join us for our Friday colloquium series, spring picnic and awards ceremony, and all other events. Let us know when youre in town!

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Kent State Department of Geography Fall 2013