Geographer Jerome Dobson on "Restoring Geography"

“Restoring Geography in America” will be the topic of a presentation by Jerome Dobson, President of the American Geographical Society, on Friday, Nov. 9, at 4 p.m. in Illinois State University’s Bowling and Billiards Center.  Dobson’s presentation is part of the Douglas Clay Ridgley Lecture Series and Illinois State’s 150th Celebration.

Dobson will also present “The American Geographical Society: Renewing Timeless Missions” at a Geography-Geology Department colloquium at 10 a.m. that morning in Felmley Hall Annex Room 327.  Both events are free and open to the public.

Dobson’s “Restoring Geography” presentation will examine how the discipline of geography has been diminished in American higher education and government policymaking.  Dobson argues that the price of geographic ignorance is measured in conflict.  His presentation will outline ways of restoring the discipline of geography to a place of academic prominence.

Dobson is a professor of geography at the University of Kansas and the President of the American Geographical Society, America’s oldest geographical association.  His current research includes designing and promulgating a new world standard for cartographic representation of landmines, minefields, and mine actions and testing a new system for mapping minefields at a safe distance. 

The annual Douglas Clay Ridgley Lecture Series was established by George and Martha Means as part of the Ridgley Visiting Professorship of Geography, to honor Ridgley, a former faculty member at Illinois State Normal University and an early leader in the development of geography in the United States.