Review of the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting Birmingham, Alabama

Southeastern Geographer Vol. 25, No. 1, May 1985, pp. 74-75 REVIEW OF THE THIRTY-NINTH ANNUAL MEETING BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA Charles S. Aiken The Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Division, Association of American Geographers was held in Birmingham, Alabama , November 18-20, 1984, at the Holiday Inn Downtown-Medical Center. Hosts for the meeting were the University of Alabama, Auburn University, Jacksonville State University, the University of Alabama in Birmingham, the University of North Alabama, and the University of South Alabama. Jeffrey P Richetto, the University of Alabama, chaired the Local Arrangements Committee. The official registration count was 275. The program for the meeting contained five field trips, two panel discussions, seven scheduled meetings, and sixty papers that were presented in fourteen sessions. One of the sessions consisted of five papers submitted for the student honors competition, and another was a special session on race and housing in Birmingham that was organized by Bobby M. Wilson, the University of Alabama in Birmingham. At the Sunday evening opening session, members of the Division were welcomed to Alabama by Richard Peck, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Alabama. The keynote address, "The Southeast in International Affairs," was delivered by Thomas A. Bartlett, Chancellor of the University System of Alabama. James S. Fisher, President of the Southeastern Division, presided at the Annual Business Meeting on Tuesday morning. President Fisher announced that Stephen S. Birdsall had been elected the new Councillor , Thomas L. Bell the new Vice President, and Wayne L. Hoffman the new Secretary. New State Representatives were Vernon Meentemeyer , Georgia; Ronald J. Swager, Mississippi; D. Gordon Bennett, North Carolina; Leonard W. Brinkman, Tennessee; and Steven K. Pontius , Virginia. At the Business Meeting Patricia Gilmartin, Eugene Wilson, and Morton Winsberg were elected to the Honors Committee Dr. Aiken is Professor ofGeography at the University ofTennessee in Knoxville, TN 37996. He served as Vice President and Program Chairman of the Division during 1984. Vol. XXV, No. 1 75 and William Imperatore, Jeffrey P. Richetto, and Charles T. Traylor to the Nominating Committee. The Thirty-Ninth Annual meeting concluded on Tuesday afternoon with the annual Honors Luncheon. Richard Pillsbury, who chaired the Honors Committee, announced that William F. Walsh, an M.A. student at the University of Georgia, had won the award for best paper in the Student Honors Competition. He also announced that the first Merle C. Prunty Scholarship was awarded to Jeanne M. Murday, a student at the University of South Carolina. Risa I. Palm, President of the Association of American Geographers, delivered the luncheon address "Geography and Consumer Protection: The Response of the Housing Market to Hazards Disclosure." The concerns among geographers in the mid-1980s over the teaching of the discipline were reflected in the program for the Thirty-Ninth Meeting. "Geography's Place in Southern Education," a panel discussion on Monday afternoon sponsored by the Society of Alabama Geographers and Educators, was well attended and drew an audience composed not only of division members but also of local political and education leaders. The Committee on Geography in Education sponsored the panel discussion "Strengthening Geography Programs through Curricular Innovation" on Monday evening. The session was a continuation of a discussion of geography programs in the Southeast that was begun at the 1983 meeting in Orlando, Florida. ...