Geography conference aims to end stereotypes

Arizona Daily Wildcat Mark Patterson, organizing committee chairman for the Geography Graduate Student Conference

The conference is the first geography conference on the west coast run by students for students, said Paul Kaldjian, geography graduate student at the University of Arizona.

About 25 UA students from the Geography, Women's Studies and Latin American studies departments will present research papers at the conference, Kaldjian said.

"A wide range of issues" will be discussed, he said. Sexuality and gender, social and environmental issues and transportation were a few examples.

"This is the next generation of geographers," Kaldjian said.

"Geographical Frontiers," the conference's title, reflects a new era in the geography field.

"Science is very white, very male, very European," said Robert Brew, geography graduate student and a chairman of the conference.

Brew said he hopes the conference will help break the geography stereotype.

The conference will give students an opportunity to make connections and be exposed to the process of presenting a research paper, Brew said.

Graduate students who present research papers will receive feedback from other student presenters.

"It's much less intimidating than standing in front of a professor," said Mark Patterson, geography graduate student and organizing committee chairman for the conference.

David Harvey, geography professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, will begin the conference tomorrow at 4 p.m. with a keynote speech in Harvill Building Room 150.

Brew said Harvey is one of the top five geographers in the world.

About 60 students will present their academic research papers Saturday in the Memorial Student Union. The conference, open to the public, will be divided into 12 sessions, with three to five papers per session.

Four panelists also will speak on environmental issues of the Southwest - John Bernal, U.S. commissioner to the International Boundary and Water Commission; Octavio Chavez, industrial consultant for a number of projects on the Mexican border and northern Mexico; Diana Liverman, Latin American Area Center director; and Richard Kamp, director and founder of the Border Ecology Project Inc. in Bisbee.