CAS CONNECT 2018

She also oversees the hiring, promotion and retention of faculty. Attracting and recruiting students is one of her main goals as department head. She calls geography an “unsung hero in terms of major options.” “One of the challenges is people don’t really knowwhat geography is, but when they find out, they get very excited about it,” she said. “It has a legacy of being poorly taught in our school systems from elementary to high school, and arguably it is more important today than at any time in our history because of globalization. We need to knowwhere these changes are coming from and how they’re affecting different places. … Geographic knowledge is very useful in managing resources and planning cities.” She added, “We want people to have an informed map of the world in their head, but we do a lot more than just countries and capitals. Geography is about processes and interactions, how people relate to and interact with their environment, and howwe change the earth.” FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT GEOGRAPHY.OKSTATE.EDU . “I really keep inmind that the students are the reason we are here.” — ALYSON GREINER OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SC I ENCES 13