Dr. Michael Lindberg michaell@elmhurst.edu    Greetings fellow EC GEO Alums, This is the second GEO Alumni newsletter I've headed up and I begin once again with acknowledging the accomplishments of our two recent retirees from the department, Dr.'s Ries and Brehob.  Both were awarded the honor of being made emeritus professors this past year.  This prestigious status was conferred upon them by a unanimous endorsement of the entire EC faculty at the May 2007 faculty meeting.  Emeritus status is awarded to faculty who have made significant contributions to the institution during their careers.  A hearty congratulations is extended to both Dr.'s Ries and Brehob on this well-deserved honor. I would also like to extend a personal congratulations to our current (2007) graduating seniors on a job well done.  We had two mid-year majors graduate and two minors who graduated in May.  Good luck to each of you in the future! I would also like to congratulate one of our current students, Christy Colontoni, who received this year's Illinois GIS Association Outstanding GIS Student in Illinois Award.  This is the second year in a row that an EC student has won this award.  The department is now down to two full-time faculty members, myself and Dr. Rich Schultz.  Our plans are to fill the position vacated by Dr.'s Ries and Brehob in the future, but authorization needs to come from the college's administration.  We will try again next year to get this authorization.  In the meantime, Rich and I continue to rely upon a strong group of adjunct faculty to assist with teaching courses in the department.  This group includes long-time adjunct and EC alum Danette Tesch, Judy Bock, Karl Schultze and Ralph Feese.  These four individuals teach courses within the department's normal course offerings, both at night and during the day.  Carmie Neiger and Joe Aducci teach in the GIS Certificate Program.  Dr. Jotin Khisty will be joining the department as an adjunct this fall.  Dr. Khisty is a professor emeriti from IIT where he taught course in transportation and urban design, policy and geography.  He will be teaching GEO112 – Regional Study of the Developing World for us in the fall and he will be teaching a course in Urban Studies in the Spring 2008 term.  Owing to his background in urban geography, we hopefully will be resurrecting that course at a later date.  We have not taught urban geography in the department for over a decade. The department continues to be heavily involved in various initiatives and activities campus-wide both at the institutional level and in conjunction with other departments.  Both Rich and I are collaborating with faculty in other departments on various initiatives and well as teaching in the Intercultural Studies minor program.  We are also involved in various administrative duties which impact the entire campus.  Rich has served as interim Director of Intercultural Education this past semester and has also chaired the Advanced Learning Committee.  He is also on the search committee to find a new Executive Director of the School for Advanced Learning.  My summer will be filled once again with my duties as the Director of the First Year Advising Program.  As the college is anticipating another record in-coming class of freshman (500-520 students), it will be a hectic summer indeed.  I am also heading up the college's new First Year Seminar Program which will begin with four sections of a full-credit course in the fall as a pilot program.  Rich will be teaching one of these sections.  The expectation is that this first year seminar course will become a required course for all freshman beginning in fall 2009. Last, but certainly not least, I will just mention the department's creation of the Karl A. Robert Memorial Geography Education Scholarship.  To honor Dr. Robert's legacy to the department we, in conjunction with his family, announced this scholarship at an official function in April 2007.  The scholarship will be awarded annually beginning in 2008 to an EC geography major or minor who intends to pursue a career that will contribute to geographic education.  Alumni are welcome to contribute to this scholarship (see page 18). Keep in touch and let us know how and what you are doing these days.  It is our intention to keep all of our alums updated on the progress of these changes to the department and to periodically ask for your support in the future.  Please check our website at http://www.elmhurst.edu/~geo for updated information on alums. As always, keep in touch and feel free to come and visit your alma mater. Take care, Mike Lindberg Chairperson - Department of Geography and Geosciences   Dr. Richard Schultz richs@elmhurst.edu   Greetings to all alumni. This has been a most productive and enjoyable year for me in many ways. My third year as a full-time faculty member in the Department of Geography and Geosciences has afforded me the opportunity to become involved in a number of professional organizations and with initiatives that will eventually lead to even greater success for both the Department and me personally. I have become increasingly involved in the scholarship of teaching and pedagogy, which has made my classroom activities more enjoyable and educational for my students. I felt honored and most surprised when I was nominated for the Elmhurst College Excellence in Teaching Award in May, 2007. I attribute that to the collegial and mentoring efforts of Dr. Lindberg as well as attending numerous teaching workshops and short courses. Thanks to my students for nominating me. A highlight of 2007 was the establishment and formal announcement of the Karl A. Robert Geography Education Scholarship. Karl's legacy will live on in all of us in one way or another, so it was natural to preserve that with a scholarship in his name to be awarded annually to a student in geography education. A hearty congratulations to Drs. Paul Ries and Ken Brehob as they were both awarded the distinction of becoming Professor Emeriti following their retirements from the College. Personally, my most noteworthy accomplishments this year relate to the success of my students, including the presentation of eight (8) GIS posters at the Spring Student Research Showcase.  Additionally, for the second consecutive year, the Elmhurst College Department of Geography and Geosciences had a student named as the Outstanding GIS Student in Illinois, as Christy Colantoni received the award at the Illinois GIS Association Conference in Springfield, Illinois, in May. I was also fortunate enough to be the organizer and chair of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Student Paper Competition, held in San Francisco at the annual meeting.  I will undertake that responsibility again next year as well as serve on the Board of Directors for the AAG Geography Education Specialty Group (GESG). Additionally, I have been asked to serve as chair for the Committee on College Geography for AAG beginning in August, 2007. Two of my GIS students have been working on noteworthy projects, including Brian Rigney, a senior in geography and a minor in GIS, who is currently undertaking a project to map a local golf course and produce a yardage flip chart for the course. Brian is working to create animated fly-bys of each hole that will be available on the course website and can be downloaded as video podcasts that can be used by golfers before they tee off on each hole.  Brian's efforts were written up in an article in the Chicago Sun-Times: http://www.suntimes.com/technology/guy/424952,CST-FIN-ecol13.article. Kris Schmidt, an urban studies major and GIS minor, just graduated from EC and produced an interactive web page of the Elmhurst College campus, including all 600+ trees.  Many will know that EC is a registered arboretum, of which Kris has now mapped all of the trees using a GPS and included such parameters as species, year planted, height, with each being hyperlinked to a digital photo of each tree. We expect it to be part of the Elmhurst College website in the near future. Dr. Mike Lindberg completed his second full year as Chair of the Department and did an absolutely amazing job in showing others across campus how important the discipline of geography can be. He also continued to direct the Freshman Advising Program and began a new First Year Seminar Program pilot study (to begin in Fall 2007). The new First Year Seminar Program will include a geography-based course entitled "Global Climate Change”, which I will teach in Fall 2007.  I will also attend a First Year Seminar Conference in Hilo, Hawai'i in July 2007.  Since losing Dr. Ries to retirement, the Department of Geography and Geosciences is down to only two full-time faculty members, so Dr. Lindberg's work to involve the Department in other cross-campus initiatives is crucial. The GIS Certificate Program continues to grow under the auspices of the School for Advanced Learning (SAL). We have had interested parties contact us from out of state and even internationally. Two (2) of our students were in the military and stationed overseas, but were sent to Baghdad, so they will complete the Program next year. ESRI has endorsed our Program on their Virtual Campus website: http://campus.esri.com/campus/catalog/casestudies/CaseStudy.cfm?o=Elmhurst&CFID=22910999&CFTOKEN=15029792 and the Chicago Sun-Times did a piece on our Program as well: http://www.suntimes.com/technology/guy/424952,CST-FIN-ecol13.article Personally, this has been the one of the busiest years of my life. While I have had little time to spend with my wife of nearly eight years, Leigh, and our two daughters, Erin (7) and Kayleigh (3), I have had an opportunity to be involved in many initiatives. Here are a few of the highlights for me in the past year: Chaired the Advanced Learning Committee, which deals with adult education issues. Since the GIS Certificate Program is under the auspices of the School for Advanced Learning (SAL), it was a natural fit for me.  Continued to recruit students for the GIS Certificate Program and serve as the Program Coordinator. Please visit the GIS Certificate Program website for further details: http://www.elmhurst.edu/~geo/GISCertProgram.html  Perhaps some alumni may be interested in learning about GIS?  Served on the Intercultural Education Action Committee (ICEAC) and college-wide Intercultural Task Force, which promotes the infusion of intercultural diversity across campus and the curriculum. I was fortunate enough to team-teach an Intercultural Basics course with Dr. Ann Frank Wake, English Department. I also served as Interim Director of Intercultural Education for Dr. Kathy Rust, as her sabbatical replacement. It was a rewarding experience and one that I learned a great deal from. I taught an Honors Directed Readings course in which faculty teach three to four Honors Program students about a book.  We discussed "Guns, Germs, and Steel” and even had the author, Dr. Jared Diamond, visit the class to discuss the book with us.  After attending a week-long workshop in northern California in June 2006, of which I was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to attend, I offered a January 2007 course on the "Geology of National Parks".   Attended and gave papers at the following conferences: National Council on Geographic Education (NCGE) in Lake Tahoe, NV in October 2006 Illinois GIS Association (ILGISA) at Oak Brook, IL in November, 2006 AAG in San Francisco, CA in April, 2007 ESRI's Educator's Conference in June, 2007 in San Diego, CA I have been selected to be part of a national program called EDGE, "Enhancing Departments and Graduate Education (EDGE) in Geography", a three-year project to study the process of professional development in graduate geography. One initiative I am involved in is the production of an instructional CD-ROM for teaching assistants and early-career faculty in geography.  I am collaborating on the development of interdisciplinary GIS lessons using the Arc Explorer Java Edition for Educators (AEJEE) with Diana Sinton of National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE) located in Vermont. I continue to teach the GEO 101 Introduction to Meteorology in an online format (some of you may remember it as "GEO 101:  Weather and Climate"). This will be the fourth year in which the American Meteorological Society (AMS) licensed course has been offered. There has been a waiting list each time it has been offered.  Other activities this past year include: Presenting at The Herb Gross Geography Teaching Workshop, held in River Forest at Concordia University.  I gave a workshop to K-12 educators on the use of Google Earth to institute a sense of geographic and spatial concepts to young students. This conference was significant for me because I linked up with a renowned geography education expert whom I am now collaborating on a manuscript with, to be published in The Journal of Geography.  Attendance at The Lilly Conference on Excellence in Teaching held in November in Oxford, OH at the University of Miami. I was one of four other Elmhurst College faculty to attend and meet with other college and university educators discussing the scholarship of teaching and learning. Many of you remember Dr. Robert's Jamaica course.  Through a cooperative effort with the Center for Professional Excellence, the Department of Geography and Geosciences will now offer GEO 390 "Beyond Tourism: "Hawai'i's Cultural Traditions and their Geographic Influences” in June and July, 2008.  I will team-teach the course with Dr. Kathy Rust of the Center for Business and Economics. An off-campus course has not been offered in the Department since Dr. Robert's course, so this is a milestone for us. I look forward to another challenging year at Elmhurst College, which will be a transitional year as the College's President, Dr. Bryant Cureton, will retire at the end of June 2008. Looking forward to hearing from some alumni and what you are doing with your background in geography! Cheers, Dr. Rich Schultz   Dr. Paul Ries paulr@elmhurst.edu    Rather than write a whole "new goodbye" (my farewell to all of you was actually in last year's "Epicenter" but I lied and stayed another year) I thought that I would do something different. At our Elmhurst College Recognition Breakfast held May 8, 2007, retirees and others were recognized for their years of service. Dr. Michael Lindberg, as chair of our department, gave a summary of many of my EC activities stretching from 1968 to this year, or 39 great years! His comments are reproduced here and I would like to thank Dr. Lindberg for his kind words.  "Paul Ries, whose career at Elmhurst College has spanned nearly forty years, is the quintessential physical geography professor.  His knowledge of the physical landscapes of  North and South America is encyclopedic—it should be as he has traveled to many of them and has the slides to prove it.  He is a recognized authority on the Salt Creek Drainage Basin and Door County Wisconsin.  In addition, along with his wife Linda, he is an accomplished genealogist.  Like all well-rounded geographers, Paul has a regional specialty—Latin America evidenced by the fact that he has taught an upper level Latin American regional course no fewer than a dozen times in his career. Paul's primary teaching responsibility has been the Physical Landscapes class.  Having taught at least one and sometimes as many as three sections of this course per term throughout his time at EC, he has introduced countless students to the varied and beautiful physical features which make up our planet and to the processes that create them.  In addition, he has sparked an interest in and appreciation for the discipline of geography for many EC students.  A confessed "low-tech” kind of instructor, Paul has actually used technology in his classroom throughout his career.  His innovative style of incorporating visual aides (i.e. slides) in his classes as a means of bringing the world to our students, his extensive knowledge of "pen and ink” cartography and his associated dark room skills provided students with real-world skills they could take with them into their professional lives.  Perhaps his most notable contribution to EC was developing, coordinating and teaching the Environmental Management major.  Responding to interest and demand from the environmental industry, he, along with several other EC faculty from the sciences, designed a comprehensive, skills based major that would provide students with the knowledge and skills to work in both the private and public sectors of the growing environmental industry of the 1990s.  Paul was a pioneer in advancing the synergy between liberal learning and professional development here at EC. Paul's many contributions to the Department of Geography and to the college as a whole are a reflection of his loyalty and love for EC.  A long standing member of the BlueJay Backers, he has been a strong advocate for student athletes and has enthusiastically supported their efforts whether in football, basketball, baseball or track.  Himself a star student athlete in his time, he has always been able to connect with student athletes and they with him.  Paul's career at EC has really been all about connecting with students.  Both inside and outside the classroom, Paul has always been student centered.  His sound advise, extensive knowledge base and congenial manner of interacting with students has always been greatly appreciated by all who have passed through our department.  While his students may best remember him for his extensive slide collection, his real legacy to the department, to EC and most of all to his students is having instilled in them a life-long appreciation for geography and the beauty and wonder of the earth's physical environment.”  To be sure, many more tidbits (besides my use of slides) of my 39 years of memories could be added (like my Green Bay Packer loyalty, or my enjoyment of Dr. Pepper) but enough is enough! It's been wonderful working with my geography colleagues over the years—Drs. Karl Robert, John Bohnert and Ken Brehob, and Mr. Bob Rouse and John Jurjevich and many talented adjunct faculty. Certainly our current faculty of Dr. Michael Lindberg and Dr. Rich Schultz are part of that group, and I wish all the best to them in carrying on a wonderful tradition of geographic education at Elmhurst College. In addition to my good fortune of working with a great bunch of geography colleagues, I would like to thank Barbara Kerber, our department secretary. For the many years of her affiliation with our department (10), she has been a good and loyal friend to all faculty and students, and critical to the day to day functioning of our little corner of Elmhurst College. Finally, I hope to see you at EC Homecomings, of which I will be a part. The coffee pot and some baked goodies will be available, as they have been in the past! Please stay in touch! Dr. Paul F. Ries paulr@elmhurst or p.l.ries@sbcglobal.net   Dr. Ken Brehob kenb@elmhurst.edu Hello Everyone!  It's been a full year since I opened the doors to the CSTC building to get to the Geography and Geosciences Dept. to go to work. It's also been a year since I got caught in Chicago traffic, paid high property taxes, and received a paycheck. Sue and I are pleased that we decided to retire last year. We love the simpler life in Indiana. Its busy here at the lake in the summer but very quiet in the winter.  Just perfect. I miss being around "young  people" and my colleagues, but I don't miss the College/Departmental politics. I still try to play tennis a couple of times a week year round and am getting back into golf. I gave my clubs away when I went to graduate school in 1971—so I have a lot of catching up to do. I had forgotten how difficult the game is. When you're a senior player you have to constantly remember—"accuracy rather than distance"—you just can't hit the ball as far as years ago. I am also active with our lake conservation association. The lake association just received an $80K grant from the State to decrease erosion in 6 ravines that empty into the lake. I can't get away from physical geography!! We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in January by spending (I really mean spending) the month in Hawaii. It was great. We stayed in a condo on the coast where we could see the humpback whales. Nothing like having morning coffee on the lanai and watching the whales breech. The plan for future winters is to leave Indiana for somewhere warm for about a month-hopefully breaking up the cold weather. I often think about how many of you showed up at last April's retirement party for Paul and me. It is a wonderful memory. I always try to get back to the campus for Homecoming. Hope I will see you at Homecoming this fall. You can always get in touch with me at my college e-mail address  kenb@elmhurst.edu . I just heard from a student that I had in class in the mid 70's—what's really amazing—I remembered him!! The Department of Geography and Geosciences appreciates your support. We have been able to stay up with the technology curve over the years because of your gifts.  Remember - when you give to EC you can specifically designate the receiving academic department.

Christy Colantoni Department of Geography and Geosciences 2007 Recipient of "Outstanding GIS Student in Illinois" May 2007 Illinois GIS Association Conference Springfield, IL   June 13, 2007 issue of Chicago Sun-Times: Business and Technology section. Story by Sandra Guy.  Dr. Rich Schultz, Elmhurst College assistant professor and coordinator of the GIS Certificate Program (right), discusses a mapping project at Sugar Creek Golf Course in Villa Park with Elmhurst College geography students Brian Rigney (left) and Dave MacKenzie, a graduate of Elmhurst College's GIS Certificate Program. (Jean Lachat/Sun-Times)

Congratulations 2007 Graduating Seniors

EC Geography/Environmental Management EC Geography and Geosciences Alumni Responses and News

Some of our alums responded to our newsletter of last year and in other cases, we have learned about alums by contact within our daily e-mails, phone calls, homecoming, etc. Therefore, we have the following information about some alums, information gathered from the past several years. The first line will give their name, year of graduation, town of residence, and email, if they sent it to us. The second lines gives a bit of information about them and a comment or two about their "memories" while at EC, especially in the Department of Geography & Geosciences. Thanks to you for responding and to others, please take a few minutes and send back the response sheet. FYI...we do not sell your names and addresses to telemarketers!!