Department of Geography

News as of 13 April 2002

: Dr. Norman Thrower, Professor Emeritus at UCLA and a pioneering scholar in cartography and the history of geographic thought, gave an invited guest lecture on "Samuel Pepys and Cartography" to Dr. Judith Tyner's "Maps and Civilization" course. Samuel Pepys, who lived from 1633 to 1703, is famous for the often very frank diary he maintained during the critical Restoration period of English history, including such events as the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the ravages of the Plague in the 1660s.

: The Science Olympiad is an international movement that tries to improve the quality of K-12 science education and increase student interest in the various sciences through scholastic competitive events. The Department of Geography began participating in these events last year (thanks to graduate studentMr. Shaun Healy) and ran two events this year. Mr. James Woods was event captain for the "From a Distance" event for 10th-12th graders, in which students use maps and remote sensing imagery to infer the physical and cultural character of a given place. Dr. Chrys Rodrigue served as event captain for "Weather or Not," an event for 7th-9th graders, which gives students problems in understanding weather maps and practice in predicting weather and storm damages from them. Mr. Shaun Healy returned to help Profs. Rodrigue and Woods through their first experience with the Olympiad, notably the heavy grading and ranking involved in a very short time frame. A good (and exhausting) time was had by all, punctuated with the mixture of Olympiad students and Dr. Frank Gossette's GIS certificate students practicing using GPS gear in LA4! To learn more about the Olympiad and perhaps to serve as event captain or volunteer, please contact Prof. Sharon Writer in the Science Education Department.

: Mr. Glenn LaJoie, Vice President of Planning and Environmental Studies at RBF Consulting (and an alumnus) will discuss the transition, "From a Geography Major to a Career in Community Planning." The talk is on Monday, 29 April, from 5-6 p.m. in LA4-100.

: Dr. Judith Tyner has once more appeared in Mercator's World with an article entitled, " Folk maps, cartoons, and map kitsch: The role of cartographic curiosities." This is the March/April 2002 issue, and her article appears on pp. 24-29.

: Dr. Chrys Rodrigue has an article out in the Fall 2001 issue of Risk: Health, Safety, and Environment, Vol. 12, No. 3/4. The title of the article is "The Internet and plutonium on board the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft," and it appears on pp. 221-254.

: Prof. James Woods created a map for the Office of Enrollment Services, which shows the area beyond which new students will have to meet higher standards for admission, as part of the campus' strategy to deal with an explosion in demand for seats at CSULB. This map, attributed to the Geography Department, was featured in the leading front page story in the Daily 49er on Monday, 11 March! The article by Phil Witte is entitled, "CSULB Becoming More Exclusive," and you can read it and see Woody's map here. Thanks, Woody, for putting our department "on the map"!

: Dr. Christopher Lee presented a paper entitled, "Evaluation of the potential of Hyperion for Fire Danger Assessment by Comparison to AVIRIS." He is co-author with D. Roberts, P. Dennison, M. Gardner, and S.L. Ustin, and they made their presentation to the 2002 AVIRIS Earth Science and Applications Workshop, in Pasadena, on the 5 of March.

: Dr. Chrys Rodrigue has a new article out: "Patterns of Media Coverage of the Terrorist Attacks on the United States in September of 2001," in Quick Response Report 146 (2002). You can get to it by clicking here.

: Prof. Noel Ludwig is quoted in a front page article in the Long Beach Press Telegram on Wednesday, 20 February! The article, by Paul Young, is entitled, "Rainy Season Comes up Dry." You can read it by clicking here. Way to go! (and thanks to Dr. Noel Ludwig for spotting this story!)

: Dr. Chrys Rodrigue has recently learned that the University has granted her a sabbatical leave for Fall 2002 to pursue her research interests in media representation of hazards. Specifically, she will work on two projects, "Environmental Controversy around Mars Sample Return Mission" and "Hazard Literature and Events of 9/11/01."

: Ms. Joan Hackeling gave a guest presentation on Wednesday, the 13th of February, entitled, "Mobilizing Place in a Socialist City: The Case of Rostock in the 1980s."

: Dr. Robert Dull gave a talk on Monday, the 11th of February, discussing the research he has done in El Salvador and Nicaragua, using palaeoenvironmental data to reconstruct the history of landscape alteration in Central America over the last 8,000 years.

: Dr. Stephen Koletty's article, "The Samoan Archipelago in Urban America" has just appeared in the book, Geographical Identities of Ethnic America: Race, Space, and Place, edited by Kate A. Berry and Martha L. Henderson (University of Nevada Press, December 2001). The book is already available at Amazon or you can order it from http://www.nvbooks.nevada.edu.

: Dr. Judith Tyner's article, "Whither Cartography?" has just come out as the lead article in the winter 2001 issue of Cartographic Perspectives on pp. 3-6. Not only that, she has also been elected as vice-chair of the Cartography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. She has also been invited to give a talk to the Orange County Sampler Guild on the subject of "American Map Samplers," this on the 25th of February.