Report on the Fifty-Eighth Annual Meeting

REPORT ON THE FIFTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING Sonoma, California June 14-17, 1995 Unable to persuade a more polarly located department to host the 1995 meetings, APCG awarded the Geography Departm ent at Sonoma State University (SSU) the honor. (In the general APCG scheme of things, this year’s meeting was to be hosted by a “north­ ern” institution.) Assisted by the university’s Center for Pan-Pacific Exchange and a generous grant from the Dean of the School of So­ cial Sciences, the on-campus event welcomed 172 participants, 148 of them paid (77 full registrants, 55 students, and 16 spouses). Members presented 62 papers on a wide range of subjects. The meetings opened on Wednesday evening with a powerful presenta­ tion on California’s Central Valley by noted author and Sonoma State English professor Gerry Haslam. The highlight of Friday’s full day of paper sessions was an interdisciplinary plenary round table on “Navigating Between Disciplines in the Pacific World/Rim,” orga­ nized by Tim Bell and SSU Anthropologist M argie Purser. On Saturday morning, President Betsy Bums put together a stimulating plenary session on “Innovations in Applied Urban Geography.” Betsy also presented her presidential address, “Life in the Fast Lane: Travel, Gender, and Community in Metropolitan Phoenix,” at the Friday Banquet. Two Wednesday afternoon workshops on GPS and ArcView, led by Sam Shaw and Bryan Baker, respectively, sold out. Field trips included Sharon Johnson’s foray into the Coast Range in Mendocino County, Mike Hearty’s look at Historical Landscapes in Sonoma County, a visit to Mare Island Naval Shipyard hosted by the local museum staff, Teresa Bulman’s and Debbie Elliott-Fisk’s Women and Wine in Sonoma County, and Doug Powell’sjaunt to Point Reyes. Our special field feature, the flying tours of the North Bay, led by 198 Annual Meeting Report 199 Art Hayssen of Santa Rosa Junior College, were reduced in number because of uncooperative weather (see Bar-B-Q below). No meeting in Sonoma County would be complete without a wine reception, which got things going on Wednesday evening. Thursday’s Bar-B-Q became an indoor event when unseasonal and unusual thun­ derstorms rolled through the area, dousing any outdoor prospects. Over 80 persons attended the banquet, and other events included the W omen’s Network breakfast and a department chairs’ lunch. Attendance at the meetings continued to produce some interest­ ing patterns. To no one’s surprise, Californians dominated— 111 of them. Arizona provided 24 representatives; Oregon 13; and Nevada 9. Somewhat more wondrous is the fact that as many folks came from Ohio as came from Washington! The distance records were set by Simon Zhao from Hong Kong Baptist University (who came to the meetings direct from Hong Kong) and Tatyana Sapozhnikov of the Russian Academy of Sciences (who was visiting at UC-Davis). Continuing a trend in recent years, several major research uni­ versities were notable by their absences. The U niversity of Washington maintained its perfect record of recent years with a goose egg all around (but if none of them could make it to Bellingham, it is not too surprising that they could not venture as far as Sonoma State). UCLA was represented only by an emeritus professor; UC-Berkeley only by one undergraduate, two grad students, and one emeritus pro­ fessor; UCSB by one faculty member. Summer meetings may be difficult for these colleagues. Let’s hope we see more of them when we return to fall meetings in 1997. Financially, the conference went very well and fattened APCG coffers by $4,051 (preliminary figure), which I suspect is a record profit for APCG meetings. We at Sonoma were happy to have all our APCG fellow mem­ bers here this year. Thanks to all of you who attended. Bill Crowley Sonoma State University ...