Within the department, I am responsible for most undergraduate and graduate GIS and mapping courses. I also teach the graduate-level Geography of Water Resources class. My first teaching priority was to “modernize” the geospatial technology courses in order to strengthen the breadth and depth of understanding for our students in the GISciences.
Examples of this effort includes developing learning objectives for six new course preparations, purchasing new hardware and software for the department computer laboratory, creating laboratory exercises for each class to reflect software changes and course objectives, and re-numbering some of courses so that students would progress from basic cartography to advanced GIS in a logical fashion. Laboratory exercises require revisions on an annual basis to reflect current software.
I also submitted the proposal for the Graduate Certificate in GIScience which was cited by Dean White as one of Geography’s major accomplishments in 2002. A companion Undergraduate GIS Certificate was approved by the Faculty Senate in 2004.
While continuing to make small adjustments to my existing courses based upon the rapid advances in the field of GIScience and geographic visualization, I also plan to develop new courses within the department. For our undergraduates, a new ecoregions or biogeography course is needed strengthen our geography curriculum and to bridge EG I/EG II material with geospatial techniques and 700-level seminars. Further coursework in GIScience is also essential to adequately serve the needs of both undergraduate and graduate students, including additional study of topics such as internet mapping services, geocomputation, and computer programming techniques using Visual Basic and Python.
With my track record of extramural funding, constant need for high quality graduate research assistants, and our own graduate program objectives, I also will be assuming a more proactive role in recruiting M.A. and Ph.D. students interested in pursuing research in environmental modeling and agricultural biosecurity. A need exists also to explore opportunities to increase the gender and racial diversity of students with interests in GIScience, remote sensing, and computer mapping.
Students who successfully complete my classes or who work in GISSAL have left K-State better prepared to enter, and succeed in, the professional GIScience workforce. In addition, I have assisted several students earn department awards and prestigious regional/national academic scholarships and fellowships including:
Lortz Memorial Scholarship, Central Region of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
Undergraduate Fellowship, Department of Homeland Security
Graduate Fellowship, Department of Homeland Security
Summer Research Internship, NASA
Poster Award, Applied Geography Conference
Poster Award, Association of American Geographers
Wildlife Disease Association's Graduate Student Research Recognition Award
