Research and Creative Activities
Although the Geography faculty see their primary role as that of teachers, some level of scholarly activity is nonetheless expected as well. The only formal expectations about scholarly and creative activity apply to faculty being considered for retention, tenure, and promotion. The Department’s “Procedures for the Evaluation of Faculty for Purposes of RTP” lists scholarly and creative activity as the second most important criterion after teaching pertinent to evaluation of faculty members for RTP purposes, although no specific weighting is ascribed to such activities. The policy identifies the following activities as examples of scholarly and creative activity: research or other creative projects, including those related to instruction; participating in the activities of professional organizations; the products of consultantships; presentation of professional lectures; publications.
For tenured full professors, given that the university’s process for review of tenured faculty only considers teaching its evaluation, the Department has no formally defined scholarly expectations for tenured full professors.
The nature and amount of scholarly activity vary significantly among Geography faculty, in large part based on how they and their departments define “scholarly and creative activity” and on the importance they assign to it in their professional responsibilities. As described elsewhere, the Geography faculty is, in many ways, a bimodal one with half of the faculty hired before 1991 (Dillon, Hallinan, Fitzwater, Krabacher, Richardson, and Roberts) and the remainder hired since 2001 (Cidell, Wu, Datel, Gervais, Wanket); a decade long gap during which the Department was unable to hire separates the two. Both groups view the importance of scholarship in light of the career models that prevailed at those times. The earlier group joined the University at a time when the standard CSU career model expected faculty to carry a 12-unit teaching load and stay widely read in their discipline (often augmented by fieldwork) to maintain their currency. Scholarship as research in support of teaching was then the emphasis. Scholarship based around formal dissemination ideas, like service, was seen as of secondary importance. For the more recently hired junior faculty, there is a noticeably different attitude taken toward the role of scholarly and creative activity. While teaching is still their primary responsibility, some level of scholarly activity that includes publication or some other form of professional dissemination, is now deemed a necessary activity, as well.
Even though expectations differ and the amount of assigned time and travel monies to support research and creative activity are limited, the Geography faculty have engaged in a variety of scholarly and creative work in the six years since the last program review:
Julie Cidell, who has just joined the Geography faculty this year (Fall 2004), brings with her a record of quality scholarship. In 2001 she received the AAG (Association of American Geographers) Transportation Geography Specialty Group Master’s Thesis Award, while in 2004 she was recipient of the AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group Dissertation Award. In addition, since 2003 she has published two articles in the Journal of
Transportation Geography (one forthcoming) and one in Critical
Planning Journal.
Robin Datel has published three books reviews (two for Material Culture, one for The Professional
Geographer), published three abstracts, two jointly-authored abstracts (one with Tom Krabacher, one
with Victor Wu) and one single-authored, for conference papers presented at meetings of the Association
of American Geographers and the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. She also presented a poster
(with Robert Richardson) on the History of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers at the
Association of American Geographers centennial meetings in Philadelphia in 2004. She prepared a series
of 33 student exercises to accompany the 2000 junior high school textbook World Geography Today. She
also served as a professional consultant in litigation on California’s 2001 legislative redistricting plan.
Bruce Gervais joined the Department in Fall 2003. Since that time he has had one jointly-authored book
chapter and two multiple-authored journal articles appear (one in Quaternary International the other in
The Holocene), all dealing with environmental change in the arctic and subarctic. In March 2004 he
published the abstract of a paper presented on dendrchronological research at the 100th annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) in Philadelphia. He is scheduled to present another
paper at the AAG’s 101st meetings in April 2005 in Denver. In addition, along with Jim Wanket, he has
helped set up the Geography Department’s paleoecology laboratory.
Thomas Krabacher has published two abstracts for papers presented at academic conferences. One,
jointly-authored with student Deborah Daniels, was presented at the 2001 annual meetings of the
American Anthropological Association; the other, co-authored with Robin Datel, was presented at the
2002 annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. He also served as a manuscript
reviewer The Professional Geographer.
Miles Roberts, in 2003, prepared two reports, based on remotely-sensed data, for Ducks Unlimited on
land cover analysis at selected sites.
James Wanket, during his first three semesters here, has worked with Bruce Gervais to establish a
paleoecology laboratory in the Geography Department. In 2004 he presented a paper (and thus published
its abstract) at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers. He is currently planning
to present a paper (prepared jointly with student Heather Bills) at the upcoming meeting of the California
Geographical Society in April 2005.
