AAG Open Forum

Apologies for cross-postings, Please contact Jason Greenberg for more details on the session

Title: I'm a SAGE, Now what?

 Session organizer: Jason B. Greenberg, Sullivan University (jgreenberg@sullivan.edu)

 Session Description:

 The number of colleges and universities that provide geography coursework through adjuncts or one to two geography-degree holding professors embedded in another discipline has increased through time, thereby increasing the number of geographers who label themselves as Stand-Alone Geographers, or SAGEs.  There is no right way to be a SAGE, but there are a lot of ways toward a pathway to success if you are a SAGE.  This lightning paper session will provide ideas from SAGEs at all career stages for how to survive, thrive, and conquer being a SAGE.  How do we not only expand the community of geography as SAGEs but do so without jeopardizing our mental health? 

 Call for Proposals:

 The Stand-Alone Geography Affinity Group is looking for people to participate in a lightning paper session, offering advice on how to navigate being a newly minted and hired SAGE to a wise and 'sage' SAGE.  This can be anything from best practices and creative ideas for forming partnerships, maintaining an active research agenda, ways to grow offerings or programs, success stories in providing students a set of diverse voices in geography when there is only one faculty member, or even coping mechanisms for self-care as a SAGE.  Lightning papers are generally 5 minutes each with 10-14 papers in the session, allowing for more discussion and brainstorming between panel and audience than often happens in other formats.  We want the papers in this session to serve an entry point into a meaningful discussion of how SAGEs maneuver not only the daily minutia of the academic school year but also have managed to create worthwhile careers that have a positive impact on their students, university, and the discipline of geography. Fitting not only with AAG's  'Expanding the Community of Geography' theme for Denver, the session also seeks to serve the AAG's increased focus on mental health issues.