Faculty and students from Earth and Environmental Studies will be joined this weekend by geographers from across the state, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York when Montclair State hosts the Middle States Association of American Geographers annual meeting in the Student Center.

More than 120 people are expected to attend the two-day meeting, Oct. 11-12, which will include presentations, poster sessions, roundtables and a keynote speech from the executive director of the Association of American Geographers (AAG).

"This is exciting for us," said Gregory Pope, president of the AAG's Middle States Division, who is organizing the event. "We will have about 58 presentations spread over 15 sessions. This is a 65-percent increase over last year's conference at C.W. Post College."

Among the presenters are 13 Montclair State faculty, undergraduate student Vera Lazar, graduate students Maria Clark and Jennifer Raynard, and alumnae Miyuki Kawada of the Passaic County Department of Health and Roberta McIntyre, who works for an environmental consulting company.

Topics range from "Evidence of Urban Source Metal Contamination in New Jersey/New York Harbor" and "Energy and the Environment" to "Remote Sensing at a Middle Kingdom Burial Site, Dashur, Egypt" and "GIS as a Business: Origins, Size and Growth." Presentations also will be made be made by officials from NASA and the United Nations.

Ronald Abler, retiring executive director of the AAG after 13 years, will be the keynoter at the Oct. 12 luncheon. Abler, who also serves as secretary general and treasurer of the International Geographical Union, was instrumental in leading the recent revival of geography education in K-12 and college, helping to raise geographic awareness among American students and the public. "He's played a key role in shaping how our discipline takes part in research and education regarding environmental change, impacts of globalization on political, economic and cultural systems, and the use of new satellite, mapping and computer resources as research and teaching tools," Pope said. "We are fortunate to have him speak."

Students' geographic knowledge will be tested the first day of the meeting in the Geography Bowl Tournament. A team from Montclair State will go against those from West Chester (Pa.) University, Rutgers University, Vassar College, Temple University and Hunter College. "From this tournament we pick the top six players to represent the region at the World Geography Bowl to be held in New Orleans in March," Pope explained.

For more information about the conference, call Pope at 7385.

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