Good Monday morning, folks…

The good news keeps rolling in! I’m thrilled to announce that Rafa Gonzalez has been accepted to the graduate program in Geography at the University of Kansas on a full ride, and Joe Frimel has been accepted to the graduate program in Geography at Oklahoma State University, also on a full ride. Rafa will be pursuing his work in Indigenous geography with Jay Johnson, while Joe will be working with Reuel Hanks on the geography of Russia and Eastern Europe. If you see either Rafa or Joe in the hallway, make sure to give them a hearty congrats! We are so happy for the both of you.

Last week, graduate students Seth Kannarr and Caitlin Sliva presented at the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting, which was held virtually this year. Seth’s presentation was entitled “National Park Deserts: A Look into Metropolitan Accessibility,” and Caitlin’s presentation was “Using Deep Learning for Land Classification and Change Detection within the Konza Prairie, 1985-2011.” I hear both presentations went exceptionally well! Additionally, Associate Professor Mark Palmer was a panelist on the “Towards Computational Practice for Social Justice” panel, sharing his expert knowledge of the social dimensions of GIScience. Well done, all!

Please join the Beta Xi chapter of Gamma Theta Upsilon (the international geographical honor society) for our 2021 initiation. On Thursday, April 15 we’ll be meeting in Stewart 216 and also Zoom:https://umsystem.zoom.us/j/95271454471?pwd=blN6SVRxNVRqbExjK2NUd2xZTWRVQT09.  After we induct our nine new members, a short business meeting will be held.  Contact chapter president Jefferson Daubitz (jldnpv@mail.missouri.edu) with questions.

Please also join in for the final Geography Club-GTU meeting of the academic year—this Wednesday, April 14.  We’ll be meeting in person (in Stewart 216) and also Zooming (see invite below) at 3 p.m. There are a few items on the agenda, including:

• updates for this week’s events
• Reading Day Geography Graduation festivities
• tearful goodbyes, thank yous, and calls for 2021-2022 Club officers
• two lonely t-shirts left for sale (make an offer!)
• the final Geo-gameapaloza with Jefferson (with prizes!)

For those unable to attend, we’ll distribute meeting minutes soon after.

To celebrate Missouri’s 200th birthday, Tom Vought and the Missouri Spatial Data Information Service (MSDIS) are creating an interactive map featuring 200 locations from around the state, and they now need your help! Originally proposed by former MSDIS intern L Wiley, Vought and current MSDIS team – Jefferson Daubitz, Abby Hunt, Harry Le, and Carson Stone – have built the foundation of the application and added some of their own photos. Click THIS LINK to get a sneak preview! Anyone interested in volunteering photos for the project should email them and a 2-3 sentence description for each location, to msdismail@missouri.edu. There is no limit to how many images individuals can contribute, but you need to submit by June 1, 2021. The MSDIS team will review the photos and decide which to include based on a number of factors, including uniqueness and a wide distribution of images across the state. Questions about the project can be sent to the MSDIS email address as well.

I am pleased to announce that our Geography Spring Celebration will be held in person, Friday, May 7 at 3:30pm in Stewart Hall Parker Auditorium, followed by a Bar-B-Que at the Clubhouse at Cambridge Place starting at 6pm. We will have our usual awards and recognitions at the ceremony in Stewart before migrating over to Cambridge Place for some good old-fashioned fun.

We can only have 50 total people in attendance, and we will need names and cell phone numbers for contact tracing. So, if you are interested in attending either the Awards Ceremony and/or the Bar-B-Que on May 7, please fill out this survey to get your name on the guest list:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1rbufUfbvrywNeTjo9KSRnWEn8KmyZzynCQ_0u7oapJk/edit?usp=sharing

There will be a separate email announcement coming out later this week with the link to the survey as well, and we will be Zoom broadcasting the awards ceremony if you would rather attend virtually.

M-I-Z!

G-E-O!

Soren