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Dr. Rina Ghose was invited to lead mentoring sessions at the 2015 Geography Faculty Development Alliance workshop (sponsored by National Science Foundation and the Association of American Geographers) at the University of Connecticut (21 June-27 June).

The workshop was initiated in 2002 and has been organized and led by the past president of the AAG, Professor Ken Foote (University of Connecticut), and Professor J.W. Harrington (University of Washington). Key objectives of the workshop are to foster a culture of support and success for early career faculty, and was attended by tenure track faculty members across the nation. Dr. Ghose led or co-lead sessions on (1) strategies for successful writing and publication (2) preparing for tenure and promotion (3) time management (4) teaching upper-division/graduate level courses (5) balancing personal and professional life (6) female professors in the classroom (7) Assessment and grading strategies in teaching activities.

Dr. Ghose was also invited to present a plenary talk on “Promoting Diversity and Inclusion” to departmental chairs, attending “leadership development” workshop, from institutes in the USA and Canada.

Prof. Anne Bonds, Anna Mansson McGinty, Kristin Sziarto, and Hyejin Yoon (Department of Geography) organized the conference Gendered Rights to the City: Intersections of Identity and Power together with International Geographic Union Commission on Gender and Geography and Geographic Perspectives on Women AAG Specialty Group last April, 2015. The conference attracted 130 participants from 20 different countries.

The conference promoted the exploration of gender, difference, and power relations in contemporary and historical urban landscapes. The papers and panel discussed the intersections of gender, identity, and power across diverse and contested spaces. The keynote panel consisted of scholars, Professor Linda Peake and Professor Shirlena Huang, and local activists from Wisconsin Chapter of 9to5 and the Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition.

Distinguished Professor Mark Schwartz WUMM radio interview on Phenology and online tracker measure the start of Spring, .

Anna Mansson McGinty, Kristin Sziarto, and 51���� colleague Caroline Seymour-Jorn (French, Italian, and Comparative Literature) have received the 2015 Morris Fromkin Memorial Award for their Muslim Milwaukee Project, a collaboration with Muslim community leaders in Milwaukee.

This grant encourages and assists 51���� scholars in all fields of study to conduct research on individuals, groups, movements, and ideas, in the Americas and elsewhere, which have influenced the quest for social justice and human rights in the United States. As part of the award they will deliver the Morris Fromkin Memorial Lecture in the fall of 2015, discussing the interviews and focus groups conducted for the project’s third stage: “Da’wa in Milwaukee: Social Justice Activism among Muslims in Milwaukee.” Anna Mansson McGinty and Kristin Sziarto also gave a public presentation of findings from the individual survey stage of the Muslim Milwaukee Project at Milwaukee’s Islamic Resource Center on January 28, 2015.

Zengwang Xu served as a mentor for the project “Integrating Emergency Department Data with Law Enforcement, Emergency Medical Service and Community Data to Reduce Violence,” a collaboration with the Medical College of Wisconsin, supported by an award from the National Institute of Justice.

Linda McCarthy visited the School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Policy at University College Dublin (UCD) in February to work on a collaborative international research project as part of her two-year visiting professor position at UCD.

Woonsup Choi was appointed as International Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Korea from March 2015 to February 2016, and he was in residence during March 2015 for research and teaching with financial support from KHU. He also gave special lectures to geography graduate students at Chonnam National University and Korea University during this time.