Bowling Green, Ky. - Several faculty and students in the Department of Geography and Geology spent the summer months contributing to Western Kentucky University’s mission of internationalizing its teaching and research programs.

Over the past 10 years, the department’s faculty and students have studied, taught and researched in more than 60 countries on all seven continents, truly a global reach.
Pat Kambesis, a graduate geoscience student and Hoffman Institute assistant director, traveled to Borneo, Malaysia, as part of an international research program to map cave and karst landscapes in vulnerable locations around the world.

Debbie Kreitzer, Geography Study Abroad Coordinator, and Kevin Cary, GIS Center Director, took a group of students to Australia in June to explore environmental conditions in the Western Australian outback, and to examine urban planning developments in the major city of Sydney.

Department Head David Keeling led an American Geographical Society educational tour to the Mediterranean region and southwest Asia in May, where he discussed issues ranging from Turkey’s accession to the European Union to the impact of global climate change on small island societies.  In August, he also traveled to northeastern Italy and the Julian Alps region of northwestern Slovenia to develop a future study abroad program to that region.

Hoffman Institute Director Chris Groves (accompanied by Deana Groves, Education Catalog Librarian) traveled to China and Singapore in August as part of the department’s China research program. In Singapore, Dr. Groves presented research findings at an international conference sponsored by Harvard University and the China Environment Forum, part of the Woodrow Wilson Center. In China, he visited several locations, including Beijing and Hong Kong, as part of his research on water challenges in China’s karst regions, and he made preparations for a 2007 departmental summer study abroad program to China.

Geoscience graduate student Narcisa Pricope of Romania traveled to South Africa as part of her Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, funded by NSF.  In September, she begins doctoral work at the University of Florida.

Kay Gandy, Co-Director of the Kentucky Geographical Alliance and faculty member in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, participated in a Fulbright-Hays workshop to South Africa in July and plans to develop a study abroad program to the region in the future.

Undergraduate geography major Kenneth Malapote of Louisville traveled to the Philippines in July, where he conducted an independent research project on the geopolitical development of the island nation.

Undergraduate geography major Adam Hitt of Louisville participated in the annual KIIS study abroad program to Ecuador in June. This is his third study abroad program during his undergraduate career at WKU.

“WKU’s focus on international engagement is a central part of the geoscience curriculum,” Dr. Keeling said. “With our global research initiatives ranging from Argentina to China, and from Spain to Indonesia, and our study abroad programs spanning the six inhabited continents, the department is strongly supportive of the president’s mission to create a leading American university with international reach.”

More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

For information, contact David Keeling at (270) 745-4555.

-WKU-
"A leading American university with international reach"

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