Minutes of the Annual Meeting of the Biogeography Specialty Group, Association of American Geographers, April 18, 2007, San Francisco, CA

Submitted by Taly Drezner, Secretary-Treasurer

Welcome

Joy Mast, President of the BSG, opened the meeting at 7:12pm. She noted that the BSG has over 500 members and promoted the AAG’s new 5 minute interactive sessions.

SESSIONS: This year, 40 sessions were sponsored or co-sponsored by the BSG. embers are encouraged to come up with ideas for sessions for next year’s meeting in Boston as well as any field trip ideas.

LISTSERV: We replaced the old BSG listserv with the AAG’s forum set up for BSG.

WEBSITE: http://people.cas.sc.edu/kupfer/bsg.html. This is presently under John Kupfer’s, webpage and he is the organizer. He requested syllabi to post online for biogeography courses to help new faculty.

Cowles Award

Joy thanked Catherine Yansa for organizing, as both thanked the judges. Catherine presented the 2007 winners of the Henry Cowles Excellence in Publishing award in Biogeography, to John Kupfer, George Malanson and Scott Franklin, entitled Not seeing the ocean for the islands: the mediating influence of matrix-based processes on forest fragmentation effects. John Kupfer was not present, and the plaque was presented to George Malanson. George thanked the committee and the Biogeography Specialty Group, and discussed how much he enjoyed with working with some of his former graduate students.

Student Research Grant Awards

Joy introduced and thanked Charles Lafon for organizing, and Charles thanked all of the reviewers for their good critical comments. Charles presented the winners and offered congratulations, including two awards for the tie in the Ph.D. category:

Masters: Sarah McLane of the University of South Carolina for An integrated approach to modeling invasive species as a part of a watershed management partnership in the Kohala Mountains, Hawaii ($500)

Ph.D.: Grant Elliott (University of Minnesota) for Spatiotemporal influences of climate on upper treeline dynamics along a latitudinal gradient in the Rocky Mountains, USA ($1000).

Ph.D.: Daehyun Kim (Texas A & M) for Spatial zonation of vegetation on a salt marsh ecosystem: implications of micro-spatial scale processes and land use history ($1000)

Student Presentation Awards

Joy introduced Jim Speer, who noted that 8 M.A. and 10 Ph.D. students applied this year for the best paper awards, as well as 2 undergraduate applications for the best poster. Jim noted that the best poster is open to graduate students as well, it just happened that the two applications were from undergraduates. This year’s winners cannot be announced as judging is still in progress but they will be announced next year. Jim thanked the judges for their work. Jim presented winners from last year’s competition and thanked the students:

Masters: Chelsea Teale of Syracuse University for Holey ground: the distribution and status of earthworm populations in Yukon Territory, Canada.

Ph.D.: K. Anchukaitis of the University of Arizona for Calibrating annual isotope chronologies in Octea tenera (Lauraceae) from the Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica.

BSG Elections

Joy thanked Rosemary Sherriff who organized and coordinated the 2007 BSG board elections. The new board members were invited to the board meeting held earlier today. Joy thanked Jim Speer and Charles Lafon for serving the last 2 years and thanked those that are willing to serve. Congratulations to all of the winners! Rosemary announced the winners:

The new graduate student representative: Jennifer Marlon (University of Oregon)

Two new board members: Henri Grissino-Mayer (University of Tennessee) and Michelle Gomen (Cornell University).

The new president: Lori Daniels (University of British Columbia)

New Graduate Representative

Joy thanked Chad Lane for his service and for getting the BSG student listserv up and running. Graduate students that wish to be added may email him. Joy noted that Chad did a great job putting together this year’s grant-writing session. Chad noted it was great and thanked the panelists who participated in that session. Let Chad or the new grad representative know if you have any ideas for sessions for next year or let him know if you’d like to get onto the graduate student listserv.

BSG Finances and Treasurer’s Report

Joy thanked Taly Drezner for serving as BSG Treasurer. Taly presented the treasurer’s report (attached). The funding for the student research grant awards for this year is two $1000 awards for the Ph.D. and one $500 for the Masters. The best M.A. and Ph.D. and poster presentations are set at $200 each. In addition, the BSG provides $500 to the graduate student representative on the board for support for travel to the AAG annual meeting.

BSG Newsletter

Joy thanked Editor Duane Griffin for all of his work on the BSG newsletter, located at: http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/geography/The_Biogeographer/

Duane asked that any materials of interest to be sent to him to add to the newsletter. Duane has returned from England and the next newsletter should be out relatively soon. Duane said he can provide instructions to help him with submissions. Please send him any submissions! They are strongly encouraged.

Discussion for BSG

BSG members are invited to share their hopes for the future of the specialty group and their concerns. How might the Biogeography Specialty Group move into new growth and better serve our membership?

Discussion Item: The International Biogeography Society

Joy Mast promoted attendance to the IBS in January 2009 in the Yucatan. The last meeting was in the Canary Islands in January and was very good (although only 6 BSG members were able to attend the 300+ person meeting). This is an excellent organization made up of ca. 500 biogeographers (primarily of biologists). North American geographers are notably underrepresented, despite Glen MacDonald from UCLA being instrumental in getting it going and Jack Williams from UW Madison starting a role as secretary on the IBS board. Vicki Funk (IBS president) and Joy Mast have been brainstorming on bringing in BSG speakers for the 2009 symposiums, and Joy has written a guest column for the IBS newsletter inviting their members to BSG sessions at upcoming AAGs. Joy will also introduce the IBS in her spring column. There are no overlapping sessions; there are five symposia on big theory themes; the rest are poster sessions. Mary Ann Cunningham noted that members get a free access online for many biogeography journals online, and attending meetings provides an opportunity to learn about new aspects of biogeography like evolutionary biology. Duane Griffin noted that biologists are happy to have geographers and also noted the exposure to new ideas and connections at the annual meeting.

Syllabi

Send syllabi for biogeography classes to Charles Lafon.

Other discussion items?

Annals and Physical Geography Submissions

George Malanson encouraged people to send physical geography papers to the Annals and to Physical Geography.

Landscape Ecology Workshop

Michael DeMers mentioned that in Tucson there is a half day workshop on teaching landscape ecology and about resources for new faculty.

Discussion about BSG Finances

One suggestion was made to put money towards helping students doing international travel to facilitate international research.

Sally Horn suggested more runner-up awards for awards we already have.

Taly Drezner, BSG Treasurer, described the financial situation in more detail; we have a large build-up of money from previous years which we need to draw down (and AAG discourages large balances). Our spending this year for awards is greater than our net intake, so we are drawing down our finances, but not very quickly. It was suggested that 1 M.A. and 1 Ph.D. award are given each year, but perhaps in some years we may give two.

George Malanson supported the idea that we give more to international students, being flexible from year to year.

Jacob Bendix said he prefers to award money for research rather than student travel.

Joy Mast suggested that we could cover the $20 membership to the AAG for students in third world countries (now a special AAG deal).

Sally Horn suggested we might cover the $7.50 membership dues for some members.

Jim Speer suggested a competitive award for research grants and that we put the money in a pool like the NSF.

Charles Lafon said that there have been problems with not enough Master students turning in applications, and suggested we push the deadline back for more Masters students to finish working out, writing and submitting their ideas. The audience showed strong agreement.

Jim Speer offered his second suggestion which was to pay the IBS membership (of $35) for students. Sally Horn thought money going to student awards would be better.

Lori Daniels commented that it would take several years to draw down the funds even with increased awards.

David Cairns said that while we have a surplus to spend down, we are already overspending at present as the Treasurer, Taly Drezner, had discussed earlier.

Sally Horn suggested that we decide in advance how many awards per year that year’s budget will allow, and offer that many.

Joy Mast called the question: Spending the money more on research grants and more for international travel at the discretion of the board, for both Ph.D. and M.A. students. In essence, the board would fund students as we can per year. The motion passed.

Announcements:

Physical Geographers Reception

The annual physical geography party will be held Friday night, from 8-midnight in the Imperial A room of the Hilton. The BSG co-sponsors this party, which includes generous amounts of free beer, sodas, and snacks. It is open to everyone at the AAG meeting, so bring your friends.

BSG Social

Following the business meeting, Joy Mast invited all members to meet at John Foley’s Irish House Pub at 243 O’Farrell Street) one block from the conference hotel.

New graduate student rep (Jennifer Marlon)—discourse-new Ph.D. grads? It provides good career development, and the deadline has been extended to April 30.

Session Organizers

Please use the web and listserv for discussing different sessions for next year’s AAG and for organizing sessions.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 8:01pm to John Foley’s Irish House Pub (one block away on 243 O’Farrell Street) for some fellowship and good cheer.