JACOB
R. SOWERS
CURRICULUM
VITAE
Department of Geography
126 Seaton Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas 66502
Email: jsowers@ksu.edu
Phone: (785) 317 4595
________________________________________________________________________
EDUCATION
2007* PhD
Candidate, ABD, Geography, 4.0 GPA
Kansas State
University
Dissertation
Title- An exploration of place identity within a cultural ecotone
*Scheduled Defense Date: September 2007
Committee (Kevin S. Blake (chair), James R. Shortridge, Karen De Bres, David Seamon)
2003 M.A. Geography, 4.0 GPA
Arizona
State University
Thesis Title-Wind
farms on the farm: Local acceptance of wind energy in
Committee (Martin J. Pasqualetti (chair), Daniel D. Arreola,
Kevin McHugh)
2001 B.A. History, Minor in Geography, 3.6 GPA
University of Central Oklahoma
TEACHING
EXPERIENCE
Seminar
Geography of Religion and
Sacred Places
GEOG 490, Kansas State
University, taught one section
·
Duties: Sole instructor for seminar with 10 students. Created
reading lists and lectures; led discussion; created and graded essay/project
assignments; conducted field trips; held office hours.
·
Description: The class surveyed, discussed, and critically
assessed: sacred places, sacred place experience, themes in the geography of
religion, and the historical geography, movement, distribution, and current
status of the major world religions.
Lecture
Geography of Tourism
GEOG 300, Kansas State
University, taught three sections
·
Duties: Sole instructor for lectures with approximately 25
(summer) to 200 (spring) students. Chose text materials; created lectures;
created and graded quizzes and tests; held office hours.
·
Description: The class focused upon the geographical elements of
tourism, the historical geography of tourism, and through a regional survey
explored the effect tourism has on place, culture, and economy at the regional
and national scale.
World Regional Geography
GEOG 100, Kansas State University, taught five sections
·
Duties: Sole instructor for lectures with approximately 250
(day class) to 10 (night class) students.
Chose text materials; created lectures; created and graded quizzes, map
assignments, and tests; held office hours.
·
Description: The focus of this introductory class is to familiarize
students with the basic elements of geography, how they combine in actual
places, and then compare and contrast the resulting synthesis on a regional
scale.
Lab
Environmental Geography
GEOG 220, Kansas State
University, taught six sections
·
Duties: Led computer based environmental geography lab
sessions, graded lab work, created and graded tests, and held office hours.
·
Description: The lab was used as a way to break down large lectures
(usually over 150) into manageable lab sessions (20-25 students) to allow for
active learning of key climatological aspects via
computer applications and hands-on activities.
Human Geography
GCU 120, Arizona State University, taught six sections
·
Duties: Led computer based human geography lab, graded lab
work, graded lecture tests, led lecture class in absence of primary instructor,
and held office hours.
·
Description: Used spreadsheet and GIS programs to aid in the
understanding of basic human geography concepts and their application to
current real world situations.
RESEARCH
INTERESTS
Cultural
Geography Place Identity/Meaning Rural Geography
Cultural
Landscapes Sacred Places U.S. Midwest
Cultural Ecotones Qualitative
Field Methods Desert Southwest
PUBLICATIONS
Sowers,
Jacob. 2006. Fields of Opportunities: The return of wind machines to the
plains. Great
Plains
Quarterly. 26(2)
p.99-112.
_____. 2006. Black Rock (Review). The Professional
Geographer. 58(4) p.502-503.
Seamon, David and Jacob Sowers. 2007. “Place and Placelessness” in Key texts in human
geography. eds. Phil
Hubbard, Rob Kitchin and Gill Valentine. London: Sage.
DeBres, Karen and Jacob Sowers. (Anticipated 2008). Wish You Were Here: A historical
geography of
Manhattan, Kansas and Kansas State University through 20th century
postcards. Commissioned
by the Riley County Historical Society.
Seamon, David and Jacob Sowers. (Anticipated 2008).
“Existential geography” in International
encyclopedia of human geography. eds. Rob Kitchin and Nigel Thrift. Oxford:
Elsevier.
Under Review
DeBres, Karen and Jacob Sowers. Greetings
from Main Street! The role of postcards in the
production of a symbolic
landscape. Professional
Geographer. Submitted: January 2007.
Sowers,
Jacob. The informal sacred places on a college campus.
Environmental & Architectural
Phenomenology. Submitted: April 2007.
To Be Submitted
Marston,
Richard, Anne Donovan, David Koch, Chris Laingen,
Sumanth Reddy, and
Jacob
Sowers.
How do geographers collaborate? To be submitted to Professional Geographer.
Anticipated submission date: May 2007.
Sowers,
Jacob. The enduring jackrabbit homestead landscape. To
be submitted to Journal of
Cultural
Geography. Anticipated submission date: May
2007.
PRESENTATIONS
Professional
Meetings
2007
Annual Conference of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers.
Will
Present Paper: Place Identity in Cultural Ecotones
Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Presented
Paper: Desert but not Deserted
Chaired Paper Session: Regional
Identities: Western Cultures
Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Co-Present
Poster: Themes of Collaboration in Geography
2006
Annual
Conference of the
Great Plains-Rocky Mountain and West Lakes Divisions of the
AAG.
Presented Paper: An Exploration of the
Jackrabbit Homestead Landscape
Annual Conference
of the Great
Plains-Rocky Mountain and West Lakes Divisions of the
AAG.
Co-Presented Poster: How Much Do Geographers Collaborate?
Annual
Conference of the
Great Plains-Rocky Mountain and West Lakes Divisions of the
AAG.
Co-author of Presented Paper: Greetings from Main
Street! Using Postcards
as Tools for Geographic Interpretation
Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Presented
Paper: Wonder
Valley: A Place In-Between
2005
Annual Conference of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers.
Presented
Paper: The Rise, Decline, and Current
Controversy of the Jackrabbit
Homestead Landscape
Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Presented
Paper: Molding the Mojave: Eras of Settlement and the Creation of a
Contemporary Mojave
Town
2004
Annual Conference of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers.
Presented
Paper: Chateaus & Shacks: An
Exploration of Telluride’s Changing
Residential Landscape
2002
Annual Conference of the Association of American Geographers.
Presented
Paper: Fields of Opportunities:
Exploring Rural Wind Energy
Landscapes of the Midwest
Invited Speaker
Spring 2007
Kansas State University,
Department of Geography Colloquium Series:
Greatest Hits and a Few Sour Notes: A Review of Graduate Student
Teaching Techniques
Kansas State University, Geographic Research and Methods, GEOG 821:
Collaboration
in Geography
Illinois
State University, Department of Geography/Geology Colloquium Series:
The Benefits of a Geographical
Perspective in Community Building
Fall 2006
Kansas State University, Department of
Geography Colloquium Series:
An Exploration of Jackrabbit Homesteading
Kansas State University, Geography of
Natural Resources, GEOG 340:
Wind Energy in the Midwest: The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Kansas State University, Human Impact on
the Environment, GEOG 760:
America’s Evolving Wind Energy
Landscape
Kansas State University, Mountain
Geography, GEOG 600:
The Changing Sacred Geography of Mountains
Kansas State University, Human Geography,
GEOG 200:
Exploring Religious
Conflict
Spring 2006
Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU) Presentation
Series:
Wild Dogs,
Methamphetamines, and Razor Wire: Surviving Field Research in the Mojave Desert
Kansas State University, Geography of Economic Behavior, GEOG 300:
Exposing Externalities
of Soft and Hard Energy Paths
Kansas State University, Geography of Natural Hazards, GEOG 765:
Kansas State University, Geography of Natural Resources, GEOG 340:
The Place of Wind
Energy in
Spring 2002
Arizona State University, Human Geography,
GCU 102:
Exploring the
Cultural Landscape
SELECTED
FIELD RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
Dissertation
Research, Kansas State University Spring 2005-Current
The research concerns the historical development of desert
homesteading in the Mojave Desert region of California and explores, in depth,
the place dynamics and desert landscape experiences of the residents in Wonder
Valley, the last remaining desert homestead community. In doing so, the
research explores: changing conceptions of the desert, variations in
urban/rural/wilderness expectations, connections between landscape experience
and place attachment, and the tensions that arise out of ambiguous place
identities.
Qualitative
Field Methods (GCU 780) Summer 2004
The purpose of this research was to understand the
social-spatial patterns of a town (Telluride, Colorado) transformed from an
“Old West” economy of mining to a tourist based “New West” economy. My specific
task was to investigate the impoverished working class population through
interviews, landscape interpretation, and mapping. It was discovered that
through time the landscape has become more and more segregated and the workers
have been increasingly hidden from view.
Thesis
Research, Arizona State University Fall/Spring 2003
Through interviews with key stakeholders (town
officials, energy company officials,
town residents, landowners with wind turbines on their
land, and landowners without wind turbines on their land but adjacent to wind
turbines) I discovered that not all wind energy projects are met with NIMBY
attitudes. In my research three wind energy developments in Northern Iowa were
met with PIMBY attitudes because of the economic, social, and symbolic fit of
the wind farms with the landscape and local place dynamics.
GIS/GPS
Graduate Research Assistantship Arizona State University Summer/Fall 2002
Worked as an on-the-ground team
leader during data collection that involved locating Ahwatukhee,
Arizona’s water and sewer features with paper maps and then geo-referencing the
points with attribute data using a GPS Trimble® unit. The data were then added to a spreadsheet for later
GIS analysis. The project improved customer service with time and cost
efficiencies for field locators and crews as well as spatial accuracy for the
inventory of water collection and distribution assets.
Natural
Resources Conservation Service (USDA) Internship Spring 2001
Digitized land ownership and land use of the
Soldier/Fitzgerald watershed in north central Oklahoma using GIS software. This
work led to a better understanding of the area’s flood and drought potential
and also determined which of the land owners were most vulnerable to these
disasters.
SCHOLARSHIPS/GRANTS
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
SELECTED ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBERSHIP
Academic
Professional
o
AAG specialty
groups: Rural Geography, Cultural Geography, & Geography of Religion and
Belief Systems