Developing an agenda

Hi folks, a week ago I was in San Diego for the annual meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers.  It was wonderful to catch up with people, listen to presentations and discuss related intellectual issues .... and to, of course, enjoy the fantastic San Diego weather :-)


This is my third year as a member of this committee, and the initial appointment was for a three-year term.  I have no idea about AAG's policies on re-appointment and, therefore, I do not know whether I will be able to participate in discussions after June 2010.  Perhaps Michael can clarify this.
Over the last two years, I have come to understand that this Committee has less of a responsibility to initiate AAG actions, but is more about responding to ideas that the AAG plans to pursue.  Despite that limited scope, over the last two years, the Committee's chairs and a few of us tried to do something above and beyond.  (Let me know if you want details on what we tried.)  But the reality is also that we did not accomplish some of the larger goals we thought were possible.  And given my relatively late start here as the Chair for this year, I am not sure whether it is prudent to launch anything big.

So, here are a few suggestions that maybe we can start with:

• First, we will try our best to meet in DC at the AAG Annual Meeting.  My first year, we did manage to meet for an hour or so.  Even if that did not result in any specific actions, we could at least get a clearer idea of geography--from different people and places--as it relates to college and careers.
• Second, I wonder if even now--or at least by the AAG meeting--we might be able to (s)elect a chair for 2010-2011.  A first- or a second-year member will definitely return to the Committee next year, and with an earlier identification of a Chair, more productive discussions might be possible.  Again, Michael could clarify for us whether such a procedure will be consistent with AAG's operational policies.
• One of the advantages to such a head-start is that we might even be able to sponsor sessions at the AAG, or even call for papers focused on themes that are related to this Committee.  We attempted to do this last year and were moderately successful despite the limited time we had.  
• Finally, Michael, is there anything from the AAG that this Committee needs to think about and respond to?
  

I will wait for your feedback and suggestions before I bug you with more :-)

A quick note of welcome

Hi everybody:

Am glad to serve as the chair of the AAG's Committee on College Geography and Careers.
I am an associate professor at Western Oregon University.  Prior to this I was in Bakersfield, California.  I have been a US citizen for a while now, after immigrating from India in what seems like a long time ago now :-)  More details at my work home page.
A few words of self-intro from you, maybe?

In a couple of days, I will contact you and initiate discussions on what we might want to accomplish this year and into the future.  For now, a few communication/administration notes:

• To make it easy for us to address the Committee, I have set up an email distribution list.  So, to email the Committee, you do not have to put together email addresses anymore; all you need to do is address the email to: aag-cgc@wou.edu
• There is one other advantage with such a distribution list: the emails will always have a prefix in the subject line: [AAG-CGC].  This will make it convenient to keep track of conversations related to this Committee.
• I have also created a blog for this Committee.  In fact, this email itself is coming to you directly from the blog, which is at http://aag-cgc.blogspot.com/
  I have already blogged there the Committee's responsibilities and membership.  (I have intentionally not listed your email addresses.)  Let me know if you have suggestions on items to include at the blog.
  
• If you also prefer to blog your input and/or responses, please let me know.  I will add you to the list of bloggers there.

Looking forward to productive conversations.

Committee Membership

The Committee's members for 2009-2010 are:

Name	Institution	Year term expires	Comments
Phil Klein	U of Northern Colorado	2012	Member
Dagmar Budikova	Illinois State University	2012	Member-Council
Michael Solem	AAG	Indef.	Ex-Officio
Ann Johnson	ESRI	2010	Member
Diana Casey	Muskegon Community College	2010	Member
Jeffrey Osleeb	University of Connecticut	2010	Member
Sriram Khé	Western Oregon University	2010	Chair
John Knox	University of Georgia	2011	Member
Jennifer Rahn	Samford University	2011	Member
Jeffrey Young	LizardTech	2012	Member
Steve Cunha	Humboldt State University	2012	Member