You are invited to:
2014 National Geography Awareness Week Distinguished Lecture
Thursday, November 20, 3:40pm Hodges Library Auditorium
Hosted and sponsored by: Department of Geography, Club Geography, and Graduate Association of Research Geographers (GARG)
Featuring:
Dr. Meghan Cope, Professor of Geography & Department
Chair, University of Vermont
Areas of expertise:
Urban social geography, children's geographies, gender, race/ethnicity, North American cities, social theory, qualitative research, critical GIS
Title of Dr. Cope’s Talk:
Engaged Geographic Scholarship: Working at the Intersection of Community-Based Research, Service-Learning, and Mixed Methodologies
Abstract of talk:
The term ‘engaged scholarship’ has emerged in reference to community-university partnerships in which three components are central: the participation and benefit of the community, the rigor of the research process, and the provision
of hands-on learning opportunities for students. Drawing from her own experiences working with children and youth in Buffalo, NY and Northern Vermont, Cope demonstrates and critically discusses some of the challenges and rewards of working with communities,
teaching service-learning classes, and employing mixed methods. The hazards are many, ranging from no-show community members to service-learning flops, from researcher gaffs to data gaps, but the potential productive outcomes of occupying the spaces between
(between town and gown, between quantitative and qualitative, between PowerPoint and critical pedagogy) have outweighed the negatives for Professor Cope. This gives her hope for the future of Geography, communities, and places, as well as our capacity for
understanding them with critical research approaches.