October Brown Bag--Slides from Field Studies in Ghana

The October lunch gathering of Geography Department students and teachers, was enlivened by a slide presentation of the Summer Field Studies in Ghana—Department Chair, Dr. Peter Kyem shared experiences and scenes from this exciting trip. See slides below:

September Brown Bag Lunch: Professor Samson

Our September Brown Bag slide show featured scenes from the Chiapas region of Mexico-- presented by Professor Eric Samson. Along with slides of the people and region, Professor Samson shared insights from his dissertation (nearing completion) titled, “Rebellious Geopolitical Division and Environmental Quality in Northeast Chiapas, Mexico.”
During his study of ecopolitics in this region of Mexico, Professor Samson also became interested in the need to better protect the archaeological resources of the area. Today he is director of the Mayan Esteem Project, “established for the recovery of stolen artifacts and the restoration of a pyramid site at Chilón, Chiapas, México.”

Brown Bag Topic -- The Snow Leopards of Sarychat National Park

For the April 7 brown bag gathering, Professor Richard Benfield delivered a slide show that he has used with various community groups to raise consciousness/funds for the snow leopards of the Sarychat-Ertash National Preserve in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia.
The program titled, "Places of the Heart: Sarychat National Park and the Snow Leopards of the Northern Himalayas," appealed to the geographic sense of inquiry--with it's fascinating shots of the mountains and people of one of the most remote places in the world.

For further information on the organization that is working to save this endangered species--or to make a donation, Contact:
Snow Leopard Trust 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North Suite 325 Seattle, WA 98103 USA
info@snowleopard.org
206-632-2421

A New/Old Tradition: The Brown Bag Lunch

In spite of icy roads and rainy weather last Wednesday, December 9, our department’s kick-off event for re-initiating “brown bag” gatherings drew a roomful of geography students and professors. As an incentive to take a break from end of semester projects, the Geography Graduate Society funded a luncheon of sandwiches and pizza and invited Professors Kyem and Button to share slides from their recent group trip to Iceland.

The tone was distinctly geographic—and photos of dramatic landscapes of geysers, scarps and new volcanic soils drew appreciative remarks. There was also the occasional wry comment -- as when one slide appeared sideways (with a vertical horizon) and a student was heard to utter in solemn tones, “It really is the edge of the world.”

The Geography Graduate Society (GGS) has plans to organize several more brown bag events in the spring semester –with dates and slide themes to be announced at the start of the semester. The only difference in those events, says an anonymous source, is that people will really have to bring-their-own lunch (in true brown-bag tradition).

[Above Photo: In front row from left--Steven Birney, Melissa Pierce, Phil Pierdomenico, Steven Cosgrove. In the second row, third from the left is Dr. Xiaoping Shen, Department Chair. ]

Iceland Post Script

People are still raving about the Geography Brown Bag Lunch! See student and professor responses below:

I enjoyed learning about the characteristic geological formations of Iceland, which, as a human geography professor, I don’t know as much about as I do regarding other aspects of Iceland. Drs. Kyem and Button are excellent guides to those sorts of things.

If I had gone to Iceland (sadly I didn’t), I probably would have focused more on the economic /cultural/political sorts of things that are the sorts of things I usually teach about. In particular, I would have been looking for signs of Iceland’s response to the recent world recession (which hit Iceland very hard and very early in the development of the crisis), I would have been taking pictures of brightly-colored Scandinavian-influenced buildings (of which Peter said he did see quite a few), and I would have probably went to see the parliament of Iceland (the “Althing”, which is one of the world’s oldest parliaments…founded in the year 930…and which is currently led by the world’s first openly lesbian Prime Minister). Also, they still use two letters in their alphabet, the “thorn” (Þ, þ) and the “eth” (Ð, ð) which were once letters in Old English.
Dr. Zachary Klaas
Geography


Some of the photos students took were positively artistic. They also got me thinking about deforestation--and whether the lack of trees in the dramatic landscapes of Iceland was a natural phenomenon or at least partly due to man-made causes.
The answer (for our store of geography trivia): Apparently 95% of the original forest cover from the time of Iceland's settlement has been lost because of human impact.
link:http://www.un.org/esa/agenda21/natlinfo/countr/iceland/natur.htm

Special thanks to Dr. Kyem for the slide presentation and to everyone who joined in with the Geography Graduate Society!
Dr. Patricia Houser



The food was good and the slides were educational and informative. It was nice to see the professors in a social setting.
A student in attendance.

Adjacent Photo, from left: Graduate Student Advisor Dr. Richard Benfield, Graduate Student Aaron Budris (2009 Winner of CCSU's Outstanding Graduate Scholar), Geography Tourism majors Chris Leahy and Kimberly Helaire, and the President of the Geography Graduate Society, Saroeun E.