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In June 2003, the Hoffman Environmental Research Institute, in conjunction with the Center for Cave and Karst Studies, Cave Research Foundation, and Mammoth Cave National Park, hosted Karst2003, the International Conference on Karst Hydrogeology and Ecosystems. The conference drew about 90 participants from 16 countries, including scientists from China, Russia, Ireland, Switzerland, Slovenia, Spain, France, and Hungary. Supported in part by United Nations funding, Karst2003 was the primary meeting this year for the four premier international karst research groups, including UNESCO’s International Geological Correlation Program, Project 448: Global Correlation of Karst Hydrogeology and Relevant Ecosystems, and the Karst Working Groups of the International Geographical Union, the International Association of Hydrogeologists, and the International Union of Speleology. The meeting proved a great success, even in the face of several timely challenges to organizing such a conference: the downturn of the global economy made funding travel difficult for many; new procedures associated with U.S. Homeland Security made visas more difficult or impossible for some to get; and, the worst blow-the 2003 SARS epidemic-resulted in only four of our Chinese colleagues being able to attend the meeting out of an originally planned contingent of 22.
The first day of the conference was filled with the annual business meetings of the four groups, with about 50 attendees who had an opportunity not only to participate in the workings of their own organization but to sit in on the others to see where there could be shared goals and resources. That, overall, represented the primary purpose of the meeting-to encourage communication among people with lots of ideas about where karst science should be heading, but who rarely get together at the same spot in person. Indeed, while we had a great variety of presentations during the meeting, much of the most valuable exchange of information took place between folks over a meal, a cold beer, or a stroll in the field.
 At the Echo River Overlook |
 Will White at the Karst2003 Conference |
 Deana Groves, with Song and Yuan Dioxian from China |
In Fall 2001, the Department of Geography and Geology joined the Earth and Space Science Education Alliance (ESSEA), a national initiative to
provide professional development opportunities to teachers in Earth System Science. The Department’s involvement in this initiative was made possible by a 3-year grant to geologist Dr Fred Siewers from the Institute for Global
Environmental Strategies and NASA’s Center for Educational Technology. Joining Dr. Siewers on the grant is Dr Joan Whitworth, a science education specialist at Morehead State University, Kentucky. The goal of the grant is
to provide Kentucky teachers with an understanding of Earth System Science concepts and ability to teach those concepts via NASA-created educational materials, with new approaches to classroom instruction. All courses are
team-taught online by Drs Siewers and Wentworth.
Thus far, Drs Siewers and Wentworth have successfully offered two ESSEA courses to Kentucky middle grades teachers. In Fall 2002, they team-taught an ESSEA course for K-4 teachers. In Spring 2003, the team offered an ESSEA course for pre- and in-service high school teachers and any persons interested in Earth System Science and the brave new world of on-line education. In the Spring 2004 semester, Dr Siewers will offer a new version of this course [Geology 497, 511 - Earth System Science for Teachers] through both Western Kentucky University and the Kentucky Virtual University (http://www.kyvu.org/).
All persons completing the course will receive 3 hours of undergraduate, graduate, or continuing education credit from Western. Anyone interested should contact Dr Siewers for more information (fred.siewers@wku.edu;
270-745-5988). To learn more about the courses, see the ESSEA web site at http://www.cet.edu/essea/.
KATIE ALGEO has just completed her second year on the faculty of the Geography & Geology Department at Western. This year brought exciting developments in teaching, research, and service. She developed two new courses: GIS Analysis and Modeling, one of the core courses of the increasingly popular GIS Certificate program, and Cultural Geography, an upper-division course that examines such manifestations of culture as the built environment, symbolic landscapes, and representation of place in film, literature, photography, and music.
A new research program on the historical geography of tourism to Mammoth Cave has already yielded three conference presentations, one of which is scheduled to be published. Dr. Algeo was delighted to present work on links between tourism, economic development, and landscape change in the cave region at the British-American-Canadian Rural Geography Conference, held in Exeter and Plymouth, England, in July 2003. After the conference, she traveled to Betws-y-Coed, a stronghold of traditional Welsh culture and language in the northern part of Wales, and to the Lake District in northwest England, an early mass- tourism destination popularized by William Wordsworth and other Romantic poets. Dr. Algeo has just been selected to serve on the editorial board of Southeastern Geographer and continues to serve on the board of directors of the Rural Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers.
JOHN ALL writes that his first year with the Department has been an extremely busy one. He has taught all of the classes in the Environmental Planning and Management track and developed a number of new courses as well. Future courses include Environmental Ethics, Satellite Remote Sensing, and Global Environmental Change. He is teaching an Environmental Ethics class this semester for the Honors Program. John offered a summer workshop on Stormwater Management for Western students and for continuing education credit. He was an instructor for the Summer Camp for Academically Talented Junior High Students (SCATS). Finally, he taught a supervised internship course that allowed undergraduates to work on a real world research project as part of a research team. Four students presented research at the Sigma Xi Student Research Conference that they had developed in consultation with Dr. All.
John submitted external funding proposals on topics as diverse as Global Climate Change and Human Health; Global Climate Change and Pest Insects in the Northern Rocky States; Vegetative Change Detection, Management, and Climate Regime in Eastern Protected and Private Woodlands; and Residential Radon in Karst Regions. He also submitted several proposals for classroom infrastructure projects. In addition, John has been working with the Hoffman Institute and the Water Resources Center on sourcewater protection and on stormwater management.
John will have a chapter in the 100th Centennial American Association of Geographers Meeting Publication celebrating geographic research. His chapter is entitled The Colorado River Delta of Mexico: 'Endangered' Species Refuge'. Locally, John lectured at a Kentucky Rural Water Association Training Session, at the International Conference on Karst Hydrogeology and Ecosystems held at Western, and at the Kentucky Academy of Science annual meeting. Internationally, he traveled to China and made presentations at the Karst Dynamics Lab in Guilin, China Northwest Sci-Tech University for Agriculture and Forestry in Yangling, and at the International Symposium on Climate Change held in Beijing, China.
With Andrew Wulff, Dr. All launched the Human-Environment Linkages Program (HELP), which represents a new direction for the Department of Geography and Geology. HELP is not just a new research lab, although cutting-edge research will occur here. The Mission of HELP is to extend the benefits of research into the community by conducting research of local, national, and global significance and then disseminating that research to a variety of outlets. Environmental issues commonly have both a scientific and a policy dimension and we hope to overcome the traditional failure to incorporate each in academic analysis. Coursework will focus upon small sessions of motivated students doing research on environmental issues. A key component of the courses will be dissemination of the findings by the students through presentations at local high schools and to other interested stakeholders.
We're offering students training in computer skills, mapping, synthesis of data, and presentation skills, all focused on research issues with “real-world” significance. This training and experience will be useful for students across their disciplines, improve retention, and will open career and graduate school opportunities.
John was elected Vice President of the Geography Section for the Kentucky Academy of Science and was a Guest Lecturer for the Sino-US Institutes for Soil and Water Conservation and Environmental Protection. As a new member of the University Senate, John was elected to the faculty welfare and Professional Development Committee, where he is pushing for better salaries, more realistic teaching loads, and better parking. John also helped in the creation of a new Graduate Geoscience Society to help enhance the esprit de corps for the graduate students.
Locally, he led teams of students who presented at Bowling Green area high schools on environmental research, he was interviewed on the radio for Earth Day, and was a science fair judge. During his free time he worked as a Red Cross Local Disaster Response Team Member to help prepare for natural disasters or terrorist attacks.
John has settled into Bowling Green and loves it. He and wife Sara are expecting their first child in October and they are setting deep roots into the community. They look forward to a long and productive life in Bowling Green and at Western.
KEVIN CARY completed his first year as a faculty member in the Department. Throughout the academic year, he taught Introduction to GIS and GIS Application Development, which are required for the GIS Certificate program. This year, he looks forward to expanding his list in GIS courses by teaching GIS Analysis & Modeling, along with that old gen. ed. favorite, World Regional Geography. He is currently working on advanced courses in GIS such as Internet mapping services and programming in GIS.
As the GIS Manager for the state-of-the-art GIS Facility, he is supervising GIS student workers on the campus-digitizing project. The first stage of the project is to digitize the subsurface features such as telephone wires and video cable for the Information Technology Department, which is funding the first stage of the project. The next stage will encompass digitizing features on the surface and creating a 3D model of campus for Facilities Management. Future projects for the GIS facility will include developing an Internet mapping service and hyper- linking the WKU building footprint features to the existing database of floor plans.
Over the summer, Kevin had the opportunity to give a presentation titled A Project-Based Approach to Incorporating GIS into the Education Curriculum at the ESRI Education User Conference in San Diego, California. At Kentucky's 2003 GIS Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, he participated as a panelist in a discussion on GIS Day and gave a presentation titled GIS in Emergency Management: A Case Study of the Long Bay Fire in South Carolina.
GLEN CONNER
retired in July 2000 but has taught Aviation Meteorology each fall semester since then. He remains active in research and other professional and scholarly activities. In August 2002, he attended the American Association of State Climatologists meeting in Asheville, NC. In November, 2002, he attended the annual meeting of the Kentucky Academy of Science held at Northern Kentucky University. He presented a paper Kentucky's Climate During the Civil War and presented the same topic in January, 2003, in the Department's faculty/seminar series.
Glen attended the 83rd annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, convened in Long Beach, CA, in February 2003, and attended the AMS Chapters meeting. In March 2003, Glen attended the annual meeting of the American Association of Geographers held in New Orleans, LA. He presented a paper titled The Weather Journal of Dr. Samuel D. Martin, 1852-1868. Glen also co-authored a paper with Michael Trapasso and Keith Stallins titled Computer Exercises in Meteorology, presented at the same meeting by Michael.
In June 2003, he wrote a new product for the Kentucky Climate Center's website. With the help of Seth McDowell and Christina Henry, Kentucky's Weather During the Civil War is now on-line. It provides a narrative description of the weather conditions during each of sixteen military engagements in Kentucky during 1861-1865. He used data from the original observer records available in the Kentucky Climate Center. Of the ten Kentucky weather stations during that era, the station nearest the battle was used for the narratives. Read the story online at: http://kyclim.wku.edu/factsheets/civilwar/.
Glen's article Why Not Observer History? has been accepted for publication in the premier edition of the Station History Newsletter, expected in September 2003. The article describes the use of census information to construct biographies of weather observers from the nineteenth century. /h4>
NICK CRAWFORD enjoyed a sabbatical during the Spring 2003 semester and continues working on karst- and water-related issues in the Center for Cave and Karst Studies.
RICHARD DEAL is beginning his third year at Western Kentucky. This past year he taught several sections of Human Geography and the perennial student favorite, Data Analysis and Interpretation. He taught one class for the first time, Political Geography. As usual, many slides were shown, including a number of ones taken at an anti-globalization protest in London, England.
His research continues to focus on efforts to establish elected regional governments in England. He presented a paper at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in New Orleans titled English Devolution: A Solution in Search of a Problem? The British Government has recently announced plans to hold referenda in England, so after five years of study there may actually be something on the ground to examine in the next few years.
He also wrote questions for the World Geography Bowl, a geography knowledge contest for students held at the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers meeting each fall. He hopes to get some Western students to compete this year. They should do well, since he tends to write questions about places and things he likes. "If they pay attention to my ramblings in class about England, beer, and the Pacific, they should be able to answer half my questions."
His summer was supposed to be spent in China, but this trip was canceled due to SARS. This trip has tentatively been rescheduled for next summer. Instead, he returned to the South Pacific to visit Tonga and Samoa. He also went to Niue, Kiribati, and Nauru for the first time (see the story earlier in this issue of the Geogram. Richard likes visiting unusual places, as very few people actually visit these three countries. Only twelve people got off the plane in Niue, while Nauru doesn't currently allow tourists. (He managed to convince the immigration officials to let him in the country.) While the three islands are very small, they are all quite interesting. Niue, a very scenic limestone island with many caves, suffers from a declining population, now 1500, due to lack of economic opportunities. Kiribati has severe environmental problems, due to an extremely high population density and a lack of fresh water. Nauru has a variety of environmental, economic, and political problems, which are discussed in an article elsewhere in this issue. Dr. Deal very much enjoyed hiking and walked around Nauru each afternoon. (It is the world's smallest republic!) Now that he has achieved a long-time goal of visiting Nauru, he vows to visit Tokelau, an island so isolated, it has no airport and is visited by ship only once a month.
SCOTT DOBLER
has completed his third year at Western Kentucky University. This past year he presented a paper at the Kentucky Academy of Science that addressed the incorporation of subtropical cyclones into a thematic unit for Kentucky P-12 schools. This paper is the second in a series that discusses geoscientific issues influencing the state of Kentucky. The first paper isolated orographic precipitation related to Pine Mt., Kentucky. Scott's continuing research interests will address how Kentucky college and university geoscience programs are preparing P-12 students for the future.
A number of geoscience faculty members have helped Scott develop a series of one-hour classes that address natural hazards. Among the topics are: earthquakes and volcanoes, tornadoes, floods and droughts, and hurricanes. These classes were designed with three goals in mind:
STUART FOSTER
continues to serve as the State Climatologist and director of the Kentucky Climate Center. He attended the annual meeting of the American Association of State Climatologists in Asheville, North Carolina, and the Midwestern State Climatologists meeting in Champaign, Illinois. He presented an update on the Kentucky Climate Center's GeoProfiles Initiative at the Kentucky Academy of Science Meeting in Highland Heights, Kentucky. At the local level, he has been active in the Southern Kentucky GIS Users Group.
As a result of Dr. Foster's efforts, in conjunction with officials at Mammoth Cave National Park, the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) will be installing a climate observation station as part of the U.S. Climate Reference Network just outside the park. This station will play an important role in efforts to develop a long-term, high-quality record of temperature and precipitation to support research and policy regarding climate change and variability.
CHRIS GROVES
had, overall, a fun and productive year. Outside of the classroom, probably the most significant activity has been the con-tinually accelerating evolution of the Hoffman Institute's environmental research program in southwest China. Collaborative geochemical and hydrologic research between the Hoffman Institute and the Institute of Karst Geology in Guilin continues at a spectacular tower karst site near Yaji in Guangxi Province, where Chris and Mammoth Cave Hydrologist Joe Meiman installed automated monitoring equipment during two trips to China in 2002. The first peer-reviewed paper from the project, Controls on South China Karst Aquifer Storm-Scale Hydrochemistry, will appear soon in a special issue of the journal Ground Water devoted to hydrologic research in China.
The other related development has been the establishment of a consortium to develop a center for the study of Environmental Health in China between the Hoffman Institute, the US Geological Survey, and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Chris made seven trips to Washington DC during the year to help design the project, and consortium members are currently waiting with their fingers crossed to hear about potential major funding from the US Agency for International Development. During this time Chris became a member of the China Environmental Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, where he and his colleagues gave a seminar Natural Geologic Conditions, Environmental Challenges, and Human Health in Southwest China in December. In other Asian work, Chris is working with Belgian and Viet-namese colleagues as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee to help organize the "International Transdisciplinary Conference on Development and Conservation of Karst Regions" to be convened in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2004, and where Chris will give an invited keynote lecture Prospects and Challenges for Asian-American Cooperation in Karst Resource Research and Protection.
Another exciting collaboration moved forward this year between the Hoffman Institute and scientists at Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska, where remote, spectacular karst areas are being explored to reveal cave systems that have great significance as headwater areas for key salmon fisheries, as well as containing important archeological and paleontological remains. Hoffman Institute graduate student Bill Curry finished a thesis this year from work there, where he measured cave sedimentation rates using radioactive cesium remaining in the environment from open-air testing of hydrogen bombs as a tracer. Chris spent a week in the Alaskan field (both above and below ground) in March with USFS geologist Jim Baichtal, where they made plans for collaborative research and worked out the details of a cooperative agreement between the Forest Service and WKU. This should lead to great student opportunities in this wonderful landscape, which among other things contains some of the largest remaining stands of old-growth timber left in North America.
A bittersweet note for the Institute was that Alan Glennon, who for several years has served as the Hoffman Institute's Assistant Director, was accepted into the Ph.D. program in the Geography Department at the University of California at Santa Barbara, a highly-ranked program where Alan will continue his research into the development of Geographic Information Systems technology. We all appreciate very much that Alan was the founder and primary moving force of the Institute's GIS program and wish him well. Graduate student Rhonda Pfaff also completed her thesis this spring, and began a great position, also in California, developing GIS software at ESRI, the premier GIS software producer.
For the fourth year, Chris and Deana spent several months during the summer at the University of Hawaii. where Deana happily completed a Master's Degree in Information and Library Science, and where Chris continued to work on his Chinese reading and writing skills in between keeping up with WKU grant and other responsibilities by email. Also happily, upon returning to WKU three days after graduation, Deana began her new faculty position in WKU's library system as the Cataloger for the University's Educational Resource Library.
DAVID J. KEELING
reports that his tenth year in the Department brought challenges, excitement, and great students, with several productive research trips, many fun classes, informative conferences, and hard-working students to keep him hopping.
Travel remains an important part of Dr. Keeling's life, and over the course of the past year he enjoyed some fabulous research and lecture trips to the four corners of the planet. In July, 2002, Dr. Keeling (along with Debbie Kreitzer) headed for the Southern Hemisphere with 20 students on the first Geography and Geology Study Abroad program of the 21st century. The program spent eight days in Cairns, Australia, a week in the Northern Territory camping in Kakadu National Park and environs, and eight days in Sydney, visiting the Blue Mountains, Canberra, the wine country, and the city beaches (see the summary report in last year's GEOGRAM at Australia Story.
In November, 2002, Dr. Keeling headed south once again, this time to the Chilean fjords for a series of lectures on an American Geographical Society educational tour. The 10-day journey visited Santiago, the Chilean Fjords, Cape Horn, and the Falkland Islands. After the end of the Fall semester, David headed across the Atlantic to London and Manchester, England, to continue research on transport development issues in rural Wales. In early January, Dr. Keeling headed to Tucson for the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers meeting and participated in a field trip that visited the small Mexican border town of Sasabe. A few days after returning from Arizona, Dr. Keeling headed across the Atlantic again for a quick visit to London before continuing on across Asia to New Zealand.
Spring Break saw Dr. Keeling flying back across the Atlantic, this time to Stuttgart, from where he drove into the Burgundy region of southeastern France for a week of research on transport, economic development, and social change in rural communities. In late May, David took his fourth trip across the Atlantic, this time heading to Budapest for the beginning of a 10-day educational tour of Central and Southern European cities sponsored by the American Geographical Society. During the tour, he lectured on European city types, the changing European Union, and the role that Seville and southern Spain played in the development of the "New World." In between all of the international trips, Dr. Keeling managed several flying visits to New York, New Orleans, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Washington DC, and Sioux Falls for a variety of meetings, conferences, and personal activities.
David participated in several conferences and workshops during the year. In October, 2002, he gave a paper titled Argentina after the Collapse at the annual meeting of the Midwest Association of Latin American Studies convened in Nashville. In December, Dr. Keeling joined Chris Groves at a forum on southwest China convened by the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC. At the Latin Americanist Geographers conference in Tucson, he presented Globalization's Challenge for Latin America in the 21st Century, and in February he attended a workshop for Academic Chairs in San Diego. In New Orleans, he presented Geography Rocks! Place, Culture, and Popular Music at the annual conference of the Association of American Geographers, drawing on the first chapter of his book project currently underway. He closed out the year with an AGS-sponsored workshop at the USGS EROS Data Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Within the community and on campus, Dr. Keeling gave several talks on issues ranging from Argentina's economic development to democracy in Iraq. He appeared several times on WKYU-FM's Midday Edition, gave talks at the Universalist Unitarian Church, Barnes and Noble, and at various schools, and contributed lectures to a number of departmental courses. Dr. Keeling continues to serve as a National Councilor for the American Geographical Society, and as the webmaster for the Society .
As Department Head, Dr. Keeling attended way too many meetings, but during the year he contributed to the development of the Leadership Studies Committee (creating its website at www.wku.edu/leadership) and to the International Education Council (creating its website at www.wku.edu/iec). Department Head duties have severely restricted his ability to write and publish research, but during the past year Dr. Keeling served as co-editor for the new Journal of Latin American Geography and made some progress on his book Geography Rocks!, a geographical analysis of the development and change of popular music in American society.
As always, Dr Keeling encourages past, present, and potential students to come by and share travel stories, information, and geographic tidbits. He can be reached easily in cyberspace at: david.keeling@wku.edu or by phone at (270) 745-4555. Also, visit Dr Keeling's homepage on the World Wide Web- just enter:
http://www.wku.edu/~david.keeling/index.htm.
DEBRA KREITZER
spent a very productive year teaching, researching, taking classes, and planning new geographical experiences. She presented a paper at the Kentucky Academy of Science conference at Northern Kentucky University titled The Heritage Corridor: Local Endeavors, Global Implications, coauthored with James Bingham and Stuart Foster. She also presented a poster along with two geography students, Laurie A. Myjak and Jamie A. Lancaster, titled Globalization Trends in Kentucky's Heritage Corridor at the New Orleans meeting of the Association of American Geographers (AAG).
Debbie also completed the department's GIS Certificate Program and is now teaching a GIS class. The classes were challenging and full of new technologies, theories, and applications. On top of the knowledge she received in these classes, Debbie says that this experience reminded her of the some of the challenges faced by the students she teaches.
Debbie is still the advisor to the growing Geography Club. During the past year the Geography Club was involved in some fundraisers and (with the help of Scott Dobler and Katie Algeo) a field trip to the AAG meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. Students attended meetings at the conference, presented posters, and learned more about their discipline. They also learned about the culture and history of New Orleans by taking a tour of the city, dining in fine restaurants, and observing the nightlife. During the coming academic year, the Geography Club plans on participating in many more educational and fun activities.
In May, Debbie and Scott Dobler drove eight students to the southwestern United States as part of a geography field camp. Many of the students had never traveled west of the Mississippi river. The students, who studied either physical or human geography, enjoyed learning geographical principles through observation and experience rather than in the classroom.
KENNETH KUEHN writes that "the 2002-03 academic year went by in blur and it doesn’t look like this year will be any different! Last November, Dr. May and I finished an exhausting election season in our bids to become City Commissioners of Bowling Green. When the ballots were counted we were not among the winners, but all four of the challengers in the race did very well. It was a great experience to make media appearances, record radio commercials, and get our message of ‘sustainable development’ out to the voting public. This fall, our exciting, true story of civic engagement was made into a feature article in the Western Scholar magazine and is available on-line at: http://www.wku.edu/Dept/Support/AcadAffairs/Magazine/fall03/Geology.pdf.
"Last September, I attended the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists (KSPG) Annual Meeting and Field Conference during which we examined the oldest rocks exposed in Kentucky and held a special celebration to designate Camp Nelson as our second "Distinguished Geologic Site." This September, former student Keith Milam and I will co-lead the Field Conference and designate Middlesboro, Kentucky, as our third Distinguished Geologic Site. As most of you know, the town of Middlesboro has developed in an ‘astrobleme’, or ancient meteorite impact structure.
Last October, Dr. May and I traveled to Denver to attend the national meeting of the Geological Society of America and present a paper on the proposed Kentucky TriModal Transpark. Though the meeting was quite busy we took some time for hiking among the flatirons in the foothills of the Rockies and to visit the famous track site known as ‘Dinosaur Ridge’. In November 2003 we will travel to Seattle for the GSA meeting to present a new paper on this controversial transpark development project.
March 2003 brought three students and myself to a meeting in Kansas City. Graduate student Joey Islas and I presented a paper on an interesting structural feature found at depth here in Warren County. The meeting included a field trip through Missouri to Oklahoma to observe some of the unfortunate environmental effects of mining in this world famous lead-zinc deposit. In April, Dr. Wulff and I led the annual 800-mile structure/petrology field trip into the southern Appalachians of Tennessee and North Carolina for about twenty students.
In May 2003, I completed my two-year tour in the Dean’s office and contributed to several College-wide initiatives during the year. Among them, I developed a recruitment strategy for the College and prepared a revision of Ogden’s new strategic plan. This year I will begin an interesting new adventure as Faculty Associate in the University’s Center for Teaching and Learning.
For my teaching, I continued with introductory geology courses and Structural Geology for our majors and minors this past year. So, that was my year.....how was yours? I am always glad to hear from my former students. Give me a call (270-745-3082) or send an email to Kenneth.Kuehn@wku.edu some time and let me know how you are doing.
REZAUL MAHMOOD
writes that it was a productive year. Teaching and research activities kept him quite busy. He continued to teach meteorology, weather forecasting and analysis, and physical climatology during the 2002-2003 academic year. Much of his research time was occupied with soil moisture modeling. He has also launched research activities in Monsoon dynamics and Appalachian flooding. Rezaul published results of his research in several peer-reviewed journals, including The Professional Geographer, Agronomy Journal, and Monthly Weather Review.
As in the past, Rezaul was also involved in several multi-departmental and multi-institutional grant writing activities for extramural funding to support research here at WKU. Some of his research activities were funded ($5,000) by the WKU Faculty Research Council. He also received funding ($13,000) to establish a high-density rain-gauge network in and around the Mammoth Cave National Park to measure mid-latitude rainfall variability at multi-temporal and spatial scales. These data will also be used to enhance classroom activities. In addition, Rezaul and Dr. Trapasso received new funding ($25,000) to upgrade and expand the meteorological lab and its computing facilities. This upgrade significantly improved the Department's teaching and research capabilities in climatology and meteorology.
Rezaul traveled to Richmond, VA, for the annual SEDAAG conference and to New Orleans, LA, for the AAG annual meeting. He organized a special session in hydroclimatology, chaired this session, and also presented research papers. He also attended the annual meeting of the Association of American State Climatologists (AASC) convened in Asheville, NC. Rezaul traveled to the University of Oklahoma to participate in the Oklahoma Meso-net Working Group Meeting. In addition, he visited the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC, to explore funding opportunities for his future research.
MICHAEL MAY
has completed his seventh year as a geology faculty member in the Department. He continued his public-service duties as a member of the Bowling Green/Warren County Storm Water Advisory Committee, and he has continued testifying at planning and zoning hearings associated with the Kentucky Trimodal Transpark (KTT) because of his concerns that environmental issues and cultural resources have not been adequately addressed. It is feared that this proposed industrial facility to be nestled between two designated Kentucky Scenic Byways (US 31-W and HWY 68-80) will not be in harmony with the idea of a scenic byway and, in fact, this area is now listed as an endangered historical area by Commonwealth historic preservationists.
Over the past year, Dr. May was a member of one of Kentucky's Brownfields Task Force to complement the Governor's own Task Force. Brownfields, to those who may not be familiar with them, are vacated, environmentally contaminated lands usually associated with old industrial properties in urban areas. The role of the task force was to rewrite the regulations and operating procedures for Kentucky's Brownfield areas so that these lands could be cleaned up and put back on the tax rolls. Prior to the Task Force being assembled, the state legislature unfortunately did not understand the clean-up standards that Kentucky needed in order to be successful and competitive with adjacent states who are well ahead of Kentucky in recycling urban lands. The Brownfields project cultivated interaction between the Kentucky Environmental Cabinet, the city of Louisville, WKU, U. of L., UK, the Kentucky League of Cities, the Kentucky Resources Council, the Agricultural and Environmental Subcommittee of the State Legislature, as well as various toxicologists, geologists, environmental engineers, health pro-fessionals, and biologists. Redeveloping Brownfields is a valuable anti-sprawl tool as it forces development responsibly toward urban centers and renews them, as opposed to encouraging development of green fields in suburban or rural areas.
Additional public service for Mike has included presenting local schools, civic groups, and churches with field trips and lectures related to geology and environmental issues. Dr. May also continues to get the Department's name out on local radio shows, TV, and in newspapers and even in Western's own publications such as the Western Scholar (for an article on Mike and Dr. Kuehn please see: Online Magazine). In particular, over the last year, he has supplied the media with much information in regard to earthquake safety and the causes of several earthquakes that occurred in the region such as ones in northern Alabama, the New Madrid Fault Zone, and in the Wabash Valley Fault Zone.
In the classroom, Mike only taught in Fall 2002 as he was on sabbatical leave this past spring, but he continues to teach intro geology, physical geology, stratigraphy, and environmental geology. He took a break from being an adjunct faculty member for the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, this past summer (on the tailend of his spring sabbatical) but anticipates once again teaching the UNC environmental regulations short course in Norfolk, Virginia, or perhaps in Florida, as has become customary.
Several meetings and field conferences were on the schedule for Mike this past year. Along with Dr. Kuehn, he enjoyed the annual Field Conference of the Kentucky Society of Professional Geologists (KSPG) in September 2002 in the Camp Nelson area and at the Perryville Battlefield in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. This trip also included an evening cruise on the Dixie Bell from Shaker Landing on the Kentucky River to witness the Kentucky River Palisades with their wonderful Ordovician outcrops. The KSPG Conference proved quite enjoyable as the geomorphology and karst landscape evolution were studied and placed in the context of the Battle of Perryville. During this Civil War battle, the Inner Bluegrass karst landscape confused troops and apparently resulted in relatively high casualties for both the Union and the Rebel armies. Nearby Camp Nelson was designated a “Distinguished Geologic Site” by KSPG because of its well-exposed Kentucky River faults, stratigraphy and geologic conditions that aided the Camp in being well-protected from enemy forces. In October 2002, Mike, along with co-author Ken Kuehn, presented in an environmental geoscience session at the national Geological Society of America (GSA) convention in Denver, Colorado, a poster entitled The Kentucky Trimodal Transpark: A Mammoth Problem
(for abstract see: http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2002AM/finalprogram/abstract_45660.htm).
In November 2002, Dr. May, along with other colleagues in Geography & Geology and students, attended the Kentucky Academy of Science (KAS) at Northern Kentucky University. He and Dr. Siewers chaired and conducted business for this meeting. Immediately following the KAS meeting in early November, Dr. May traveled to Carter Caves State Park and presented a talk on Geohazards in the Commonwealth for the annual meeting of the Kentucky (Cumberland Chapter) Sierra Club.
During Spring 2003, Dr. May stepped out of the classroom and enjoyed a sabbatical leave that was packed with lots of activities. In March, he participated in a textbook kick-off workshop at the American Geological Institute's (AGI) national headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, working with about a dozen other geologists from across the country on developing a new textbook to engage non-major students. Prentice Hall, the AGI, and the National Association of Geology Teachers (NAGT) are all cooperating on getting this book on Environmental Geology published within a year. During the sabbatical period, Dr. May mostly worked on petrographic aspects of limestone replacement by iron-rich clays, or what he dubs the terra rossa project. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Wulff, Dr. May was able to take advantage of a new digital camera set-up to take photomicrographs on a departmental microscope for the terra rossa project. This set-up provided high-quality photos necessary for showing early transformation of lime-stone to terra rossa. Dr. May worked closely with Dr. Enrique Merino at Indiana University during his sabbatical leave on this project and quite enjoyed traveling to Bloomington to work.
Mike and his wife Beth, and sons Peter (10), and Kevin (8), continued with various sports activities for the year and enjoyed a spring break trip to the San Francisco area and Yosemite National Park and the surrounding glaciated Sierra Nevada and the famous Mariposa Grove of giant Sequoias. The Mays also spent a couple of weeks in Colorado in July, with a highlight collecting granites above 14,000 feet and observing great alpine-glaciated areas replete with tundra meadows. The boys are just about outrunning their Dad now, with Peter clipping off miles at a 5:30 pace and both of them run close to 9:00 for a mile and a quarter. Just don't peak too early guys, college scholarships aren't passed out to too many 5th graders!
FRED SIEWERS'
enjoyed another productive year at Western Kentucky University. He offered courses in Introductory Geology, Historical Geology, Stratigraphy, and Sedimentology. As in years past, Sedimentology was very much a project-based course. Nine students conducted independent research pro-jects. Those projects ranged from local field investi-gations of the Girkin and Ste. Genevieve Limestones, geode formation in the Fort Payne and Salem-Warsaw Limestones, to laboratory investigations (including electron microscopy) of ooids from the Great Salt Lake and Bahamas. These projects were as much exercises in time management and project planning as they were research and writing experiences, as students had to develop their own deadlines and point distributions. Judging by the professional quality of their completed projects, the projects and course were a resounding success!
Dr. Siewers also successfully offered an on-line, graduate level course in Earth System Science for Kentucky teachers. The course, designed by NASA education specialists and funded by a grant from the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and NASA, introduced teachers to the interconnections of the Earth System. Teachers examined tropical deforestation, coral reef destruction, ozone depletion and global environmental change - all from an Earth System Science perspective. Knowledge about these environmental problems was obtained through individual research and group work, all of which was conducted and facilitated on-line by Dr. Siewers. Throughout the course, students used problem-based learning techniques for their own research and for the lesson plans they constructed for their classes. Judging from the evaluations of the course, a lot of learning about Earth System Science occurred. This course will be offered again during the Spring 2004 semester. Any person interested in taking the course should contact Dr. Siewers at fred.siewers@wku.edu or 270-745-5988.
In addition to these instructional activities, Dr. Siewers was very involved in the Geology Section of the Kentucky Academy of Science and the WKU Chapter of Sigma Xi. Dr. Siewers served as President of both of these organizations during the 2002-2003 academic year. His principal activity for both organizations was to organize research conferences; specifically, the Geology Section meeting of the KAS, held at Northern Kentucky University, and the Annual WKU Student Research Conference held at WKU's South Campus. As any recent graduate of the Department knows, Geography and Geology is always well represented at the Student Research conference. This year was no exception, with six oral presentations in geology, geography, and geoscience, including a best-of-session geology presentation by senior Mollie Laird for her work with geologist Andrew Wulff.
Dr. Siewers has been active in carbonates research as well as in geoscience education. Several major projects are nearing fruition and will be wrapped up during upcoming year. As always, Dr. Siewers loves to hear from past students and alumni. Send him some e-mail, or better yet, stop on by. His door is always open!
L. MICHAEL TRAPASSO
tends to his usual duties in the Department. He still teaches the introductory physical geography and meteorology courses. But he shares the upper-level and graduate-level atmospheric science courses with his colleague Rezaul Mahmood. His role as the administrator for the Meteorology Computer Laboratory keeps him busy during office hours, and his duties at the College Heights Weather Station keep him hopping as well. Trapasso is consistently utilized as a thesis committee member for Master's candidates in the physical aspects of Geoscience. So, in all, he remains an integral part of the Department and its functions.
Furthermore, on a professional note, this has been a record year for Michael. After a year and a half of work, his new textbook has just been released, the Essentials of Physical Geography by Robert E. Gabler, James F. Petersen and L. Michael Trapasso (Brooks-Cole Division of Thomson Publishing). Both Michael and colleague Nick Crawford will use this textbook for four sections of GEOG 100 (Introduction to the Physical Environment) this fall semester. Everyone certainly wishes Michael luck with adoptions and sales nationwide and in Canada.
While working on this textbook, Trapasso also managed to write several entries for the new Encyclopedia of World Climates (Kluwer Publishing). That volume will be coming out next year.
Last March, Michael and co-authors Glen Conner and Keith Stallins presented a talk at the Association of American Geographers annual meeting in New Orleans. Their presentation titled Computer Exercises in Meteorology explained and summarized the procedure by which the three developed the meteorology computer labs used for GEOG 121. The talk was so well received that Michael was asked to submit a written version of that presentation for publication in the on-line database called ERIC/ChESS (Clearinghouse for Social Studies and Social Science Education). That task has been completed and this work is now on-line for use by educators nationwide.
Sometime during the spring, a colleague from New Zealand, wanting to edit a book titled Tourism and Climatic Change, approached Trapasso about contributing a chapter. Having heard about Michael's work in the Antarctic, he asked if Trapasso would write something concerning tourism in the 'land of the ozone hole'. Michael agreed and submitted his manuscript, which will comprise Chapter 16 in this book, scheduled to come out in 2004.
If that wasn't enough, in May the publishers of Kentucky's Civil War 1861-1865, Volume II, asked him to write an article about Bowling Green during the Civil War. In only two weeks, he sent them a manuscript, which has since been published. It appears that Trapasso's status as one of Bowling Green's Civil War Historians still holds true.
On the travel front, Michael has been to another couple of out-of-the-way places this year. In January he headed out to Iceland. The island lies on the Mid-Atlantic Rift Zone (warm ground) and within the path of the North Atlantic Drift (warm ocean current), so the weather there was not as wintry as one might have thought. He managed to take some great photos and has already written and lectured about his trip to the land of the Vikings. Glaciers, geysers, volcanoes (active and not), fabulous waterfalls, and the aurora borealis: it was a geoscientist's dream. All that, and a history that goes back over 1300 years! The Vikings seem to have grabbed Michael's interest [see Michael's story on Iceland in this issue of the Geogram. In the near future he plans to travel to Greenland and then to Newfoundland in order to trace the Vikings' voyages to North America (ca. 1000ce). There is no doubt he will follow up on this new theme.
This past June, he took his usual trip to Montana and Wyoming to meet with friends, explore, and do some Indian Wars re-enacting. His travels took him back to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons National Parks. He also took some time to follow in the footsteps of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, as well as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Needless to say, he and his friends had a great time.
His big adventure of the summer took place in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. He went there to do some "Indiana Jonesing-Around," as he calls it. His major theme was to visit the pre-Inca Civilizations like the Tiwanaku, and the Aymaras. These cultures had established fabulous ceremonial cities long before the Incas conquered them all. He was fascinated by all the history. In addition there was great physical geography and geology everywhere! He visited silver mines in the city of Potosí, the great Salt Flats (about 4000 square miles worth) near Uyuni, extinct volcanoes, and beautiful snow-capped mountains - not to mention exploring around the beautiful and sacred Lake Titicaca. He even visited the site of a train robbery by none other than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (recall they were eventually caught and killed in Bolivia). High-altitude climbing was a bit hard, though. He said, "It's easy to climb 4 or 5 flights of stairs in Bowling Green (at 500-600 feet above sea level), but when you are starting at 12,500 feet above sea level, you tend to slow down a bit."
As mentioned earlier, Michael is still considered a local Civil War Historian, but people also know him as a Civil War re-enactor as well. Though he doesn't attend as many events as he used to, he still rides with the 6th and 7th Tennessee Cavalries, and tries to get out when he can. His last event was mid-May at the Battle of Sacramento, Kentucky, in McLean County. He had a great time, and several WKU faculty and students were there to witness the event.
In summary, it's been a good year for Michael Trapasso. There were several significant professional accomplishments, as well as some adventurous travel. He works hard, plays hard, and, as always, he looks forward to hearing from alumni.
ANDREW WULFF
has had a busy, but productive, first year anchoring the “hard-rock” side of the Department. He authored or co-authored eight grant proposals, five of which were funded very closely to levels requested. He re-designed eight labs for the Physical Geology (GEOL 113) course, submitted one manuscript for publication and has four others in various stages of preparation. One student (Mollie Laird) won Best Paper Award at the Sigma Xi conference in April for her talk on Geochemistry and Petrogenesis of Lavas from the Casitas Shield, Volcan Cerro Azul, Southern Volcanic Zone, Chile, and another (Jessica Campbell) won an honorable mention for her work Characterization Of A Li-Rich Pegmatite From The Keystone District, Black Hills Region, South Dakota.
Dr. Wulff was also able to purchase a state-of-the art IXRF-EDS system for the SEM housed in the Biology Department. This system dramatically extends the research/analytical capabilities of the machine and makes it far more useful for routine analysis of earth materials. Several undergraduate students have already used it over the summer of 2003 and are quite excited about its possibilities. He also purchased USGS silicate standards in order to set up calibrations for silicate materials on the XRF housed in the Materials Characterization Center. These standards will make possible the analysis of earth materials that could not be analyzed accurately before on this machine.
Dr. Wulff was named Director of the Wasatch-Uinta Field Geology Course. This has been one of the premier field-geology courses in the country since its inception 38 years ago. The best students from five Big-10 research universities attend and the top students are offered USGS and NAGT internships, in addition to cash awards and scholarships. Many of the smaller field courses watch the Wasatch-Uinta course closely for leadership in field-mapping training. WKU students may now attend the field course, which makes available to the students unparalleled field geology training, in addition to affording them the opportunity to be working with professors from these major universities, opening doors to exceptional graduate programs. This also provides an excellent forum for evaluating the training that WKU Geology majors are receiving, and placing WKU students among the best in the country. The field camp also provides an opportunity for other members of the Department to join the faculty for a time during the summer, granting opportunities for “networking” and possible collaborations with faculty from these larger research universities. The Department is potentially turning an important corner in terms of the quality of opportunities offered and the nature of the research that faculty members are doing. The exposure given to our students and faculty certainly is extraordinary for a university such as WKU.
Contributions to the Department of Geography and Geology Development Fund in 2002-2003 increased over the past year. The number of individual contributions to our Fund topped the 90 mark! Thanks to everyone for helping us achieve our goals this year, but we continue to need your help now more than ever as budgets remain extremely limited; your contribution will go a long way to ensuring that we have sufficient supplies and equipment for student use. When you receive a call from our students, or whenever the spirit moves you, make a contribution to the Department and to the University. You can also gift funds to the Hoffman Memorial Fund, in memory of Wayne L. Hoffman, who led the Department for over 20 years. Be sure to specify that the money be designated for use by the Department of Geography and Geology. Our profound thanks to our contributing alumni. We gratefully acknowledge gifts from:
David N. Alexander (Geography 1976) has retired at the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel after serving 20 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve. He now teaches 7th grade geography at Ramsey Jr. High in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. 
I predict a fantastic 2004 if you send in your Alumni Information sheet right
away............
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Mail to: Dr. David J. Keeling, GEOGRAM Editor
Department of Geography & Geology
Western Kentucky University
One Big Red Way
Bowling Green, KY 42101-3576