Meeting Locations of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers, 1947-2000

HONORS REPORT121 MERLE C. PRUNTY SCHOLARSHIP AWARD Tamara Johnson University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The Merle C. Prunty Scholarship is awarded to an outstanding undergraduate student from our region with the objective of encouraging talented undergraduate students to pursue professional careers in geography. This year's recipient is Tamara Johnson, a Senior at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Tamara has pursued an environmental concentration in her Geography and International Studies double major. A Dean's List student in each of her semesters at North Carolina, Tamara's undergraduate career is one of distinction and recognized academic achievement. She carries a 3.86 overall GPA and 3.95 in Geography. She is a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society and National Society of Collegiate Scholars. Tamara's research in Kenya reflects her extraordinary commitment to international research and to the incorporation of her geographic skills and perspectives in such work. The geography faculty members at UNC praised her as an outstanding , brilliant, talented, focused, and hard-working student who is immersing herself in many aspects of geography, from the geographic information sciences to the social-cultural international realms. We are proud to award this year's Merle Prunty Scholarship to one the most impressive young geographer scholars in the region. Southeastern Geographer Vol. XXXX, No. I.May 2000, pp. 121-123 MEETING LOCATIONS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN DIVISION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS, 1947-2000 James O. Wheeler Ten locations, all metropolitan areas, have accounted for slightly more than 64% of all meetings of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers (SEDAAG) from the first meeting in Birmingham in 1947 through 2000 (Fig. I).1 Two of these locations, Athens and Knoxville (six meetings each), have constituted almost 22% of all the meeting places. When the four meetings each in Chapel Hill, Columbia, and Lexington are added, these five sites account for 43% Dr. Wheeler is the Merle Prunty, Jr., Professor Emeritus ofGeography at the University ofGeorgia, Athens, GA 30602-2502. Internet: jowheel@uga.edu. 122 WHEELER • Single-meeting sites ? Two-meeting sites¦ Three-meeting sites a Four-meeting sites * Six-meeting sites + Nassau - Freeport, 1972 400km 400 miles Fig. 1 . Meeting sites of the Southeastern Division of the Association of American Geographers, 1947-2000. of all SEDAAG meetings. The other 20 (nearly 36%) SEDAAG meetings have been held at single-site locations, 15 of which were in metropolitan areas, leaving only five nonmetropolitan meeting sites among the 56 total meetings. Overall, SEDAAG meetings have been heavily concentrated in a few places and located almost entirely in what in 1990 were classified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as metropolitan areas (91% of all meetings).2 The first 14 meetings (1947-1958—two meetings occurred in 1947 and in 1948) were all held at sites which were to have multiple meetings, except for Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where the meeting was hosted in 1953 by Middle Tennessee State College. Of the first 27 meetings (1947-1971), all except four were located at multiple-meeting sites. The initial concentrations of SEDAAG meetings reflects the limited number of major geography departments in the South in the early years of the Division that were able and willing to act as host institutions (Prunty, 1979). SEDAAG MEETINGS123 The spread and growth of geography in the South is no doubt reflected in the fact that 8 of the last 14 SEDAAG meetings (1987-2000) have been held at single-site locations, and 14 of the past 28 meetings (1973-2000) have been hosted at singlemeeting sites. The 1972 Nassau-Freeport cruise ship meeting was a unique "singlesite " meeting, with Miami as the point of departure and return. Overall, the first 28 SEDAAG meetings favored multiple-meeting locations (23 of 28, or 82%), while 14 ofthe last 28 meetings (50%) have been at single-meeting locations. Some effort has been expended over the years, usually by the Division chair or president,3 to select SEDAAG meeting locations following a core-periphery selection process, in which a core or central location within the Division one year would be followed by a peripheral site the following year. This pattern has been only...