To say college students have strange priorities might be an understatement.
Chances are most students wouldn’t think twice about going to a party that lasted all night, but staying up until 2 a.m. cramming for an exam is cause for 3-4 angry Facebook updates. And those people in line for green beer at 7 a.m. on St. Patrick’s Day? Most of them probably haven’t made it to a class before noon since freshman year.
When it comes to the information most of us remember, chances are if it’s not pop-culture related it’s probably going to be forgotten the day after final exams. It’s a bit sad, but not event the least bit surprising, that the majority of college students could probably tell you everything you wanted to know about Jay-Z and Beyonce, but couldn’t locate Iran on a map.
If you find yourself in the geographically-clueless category you might want to think about heading over to the Student Center this week to take part in Geography Awareness Week.
Established in 1987 by President Reagan, Geography Awareness Week is an annual event which promotes geographic education in public schools.
At Eastern Michigan University this means a week full of geography games, informative lectures and overall education on the important role geography plays in society.
“Geography Awareness Week is important because it draws attention to the importance of the discipline itself, and I think there are related themes that play out very well right now,” said Dr. Rick Sambrook, head of the Department of Geography and Geology at EMU.
“Geography, particularly, in terms of the globalization theme, is really one of the dominant geopolitical paradigms really changing the world today,” he said. “So it’s a good opportunity to kind of remind everybody that we live in a very geographic or geopolitical world, and drawing attention to that.”
This year the event’s theme is “Get Lost in Mapping: Find your Place in the World,” which for Sambrook represents both the past and the future of geography, including historic mapping and the constantly evolving fields of information science and satellite positioning.
The week’s festivities begins Monday night from 6-8 p.m. in the Student Center Grand Ballroom for a Geography Slide Quiz, where students will compete for prizes trying to identify famous locations around the world.
On Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first floor of the Student Center there will be tables set up with Geography trivia and Mapping quizzes.
The first of two big lectures will be held Tuesday from 12-2 p.m. in Student Center room 352 with visiting Fulbright scholar Faisal Al-Rfough, of Jordan. Al-Rfough will discuss a range of topics in the Middle-East, including the current drought and U.S. – Jordanian relations.
Thursday night EMU’s Dr. Robert Jones will be giving a discussion on the Michigan Brownfield Redevelopment Innovation, a program which restores abandoned industrial sites so that they can be used again in the future.
For Sambrook, who became department head in July, this week is about educating the campus community on geography while also raising awareness for the department’s many prestigious programs, which includes the largest Historic Preservation program in the country and one of only 12 nationally accredited Urban & Regional Planning programs.
One of the other highlights of the week is an open house for the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) lab in Strong Hall room 226 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Thursday.
“According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Geographic Information Systems—a powerful spatial analytic subset of the rapidly evolving Information Sciences—is considered among the three most desirable career paths in demand for the next several decades,” Sambrook said.
For those who haven’t considered geography as a major, this week will be a great opportunity to get information on the many undergraduate and graduate opportunities the department offers. At each of the events students and faculty will be available to answer questions and pass out information on the department.
“Geography’s one of the disciplines that a lot of students don’t find out about until kind of later,” Sambrook said.
“It’s an idiosyncrasy or a bit of a problem we have in the U.S. vin Europe and the British system, geography is just one of those classes that everybody takes every year, so they get twelve or so years of geographic background and really know the world intimately.”
“We’re just aware of the fact that many college students, especially in other parts of the world, are much better informed about geography as a whole. So this is an opportunity
for us,” Sambrook said.
