Who Are We? Redefining the Academic Community

This presidential address focuses on how community intertwines with geography. On one hand, geography is the discipline that studies the community as it exists in place. Geography itself is a community-an intellectual, social, and cultural community-that must be supported and expanded. Geography's strength has been in upholding this community. Today, the discipline of geography suffers from some real challenges. The number of majors has recently declined, and more programs have closed than have opened in recent years. Improving our geographic community can be accomplished through four efforts. First, we need to improve our institutional diversity. Second, we must increase our workforce diversity. Third, we need to attend to expanding our discipline to first-generation students. Finally, we must harness the growth of Advanced Placement Human Geography to improve the status of geography in higher education. These and other efforts will go a long way in expanding the community of geography and in reinvigorating geography as a discipline.