CSUN Geography Department Featured at Trustees Meeting
Department Chosen for First of Academic Department Profiles Highlighting Outstanding Teaching and Research
Showcasing the campus' academic prowess, Cal State Northridge's Geography Department was chosen to make the first in a new series of presentations highlighting outstanding teaching and research in the Cal State system for the CSU's Board of Trustees.
The Geography Department (faculty at right)profile, presented at the trustees' mid-September meeting in Long Beach, drew a warm response from CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed, who called it "outstanding," and others attending the board's first meeting of the new school year.
CSUN Interim President Louanne Kennedy introduced the presentation that featured a 15-minute university-produced film profiling the department's activities, its faculty and staff achievements and the enthusiasm of its students. The department also produced an accompanying informational booklet.
"Our program is special because we have excellent faculty, talented and devoted staff, flexible programs and state-of-the-art facilities," said department Chair I-Shou Wang.
"I think we can all see it's a well-earned reputation," added David Spence, the CSU's executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer, after the half-hour presentation. "Thank you very much. We're very proud of the faculty and staff of this department."
In the past, the trustees have heard presentations from notable faculty members on their individual accomplishments. But for this fall, CSU officials decided to shift the focus to department presentations. The Chancellor's Office chose CSUN and its Geography Department to launch the new series.
Some of the highlights of the presentation included the following:
- Under the direction of curator Michael Swift, the department's map library has become one of the largest in the western United States, including nearly 300,000 flat map sheets. A unique component is the library's collection of Sanborn fire insurance atlases, which trace the urban development of more than 1,600 U.S. cities and towns.
- Professor William Bowen has created the California Geographical Survey (http://geogdata.csun.edu), a large, Internet-based resource of digital data and maps that has received international attention. The publicly accessible web site includes more than 1,500 detailed, on-line maps, including U.S. metropolitan area breakdowns for poverty, education, income and ethnicity.
- Professors James Allen and Eugene Turner have teamed to produce a series of highly acclaimed publications focusing on ethnic geography. In 1988, they co-authored "We the People: An Atlas of America's Ethnic Diversity," a 315-page book on the settlement and distribution of 67 ethnic groups in the U.S. that won the American Library Association's award for the outstanding reference book. In 1997, the pair produced a 282-page book, "The Ethnic Quilt: Population Diversity in Southern California," which analyzed the settlement of this region by 34 ethnic groups and explored their education, income and employment patterns.
- Led by weather observer Tim Boyle, the department operates an official National Weather Service cooperative weather station on campus. The station transmits via the Internet hourly weather data for Northridge. For his work, Boyle was chosen as CSUN's first Staff Employee of the Year.
- Under the direction of Chair I-Shou Wang, the department has worked to develop academic relations with the People's Republic of China, resulting in two international conferences with that country's Xi'an Foreign Language University and a third scheduled for 2001. CSUN and Xi'an also are working to develop a joint master's program in geography.
- CSUN graduate geography student Matthew Rosenberg has authored a 462-page book titled "The Handy Geography Answer Book."
Vol. IV, No. 3
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