Photo by Antoni Shkraba: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-a-person-holding-a-tablet-computer-showing-the-world-map-5306430/

Recognizing that young Americans have a gap in their understanding of geography and their roles as global citizens, National Geographic helped create Geography Awareness Week, raising awareness to this gap in American education. Also, the hope is to excite people about geography as both a discipline and as a part of everyday life.

To celebrate Geography Awareness Week, Falvey Library and the Department of Geography and the Environment (GEV) invite you to attend this week’s geography-focused events, to check out our list of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) projects below, and to follow along with Falvey’s blogs sharing projects and discussions from GEV’s students and alumni.

Geography students, don’t be afraid to give a job in the public sector a try, especially if you’re itching for a job that will make a difference for both you and your community.

When you hear the word sustainability, it probably brings to mind a lot of different subjects. You can associate it with the environment, corporations, food, culture, the economy, transportation, etc. When you hear GIS or Geographic Information Systems, do you associate it in the same way as you might with sustainability? If you don’t, it’s time to start.

While you may be used to seeing and using it for your environmental science analyses, you can also see it being used every day for things like public health dashboards, crime, gerrymandering, political, and immigration maps, for navigation and national security. There are so many sectors that use GIS in their day-to-day work that it has become impossible not to see its impacts in your everyday life.

When I graduated from the GEV master’s program back in 2022, I was pretty nervous to enter into a career in the public sector. I was doubtful that there would be opportunities to use my ESRI or remote sensing skills, and I really didn’t want all of my excitement and passion for GIS to fade away in a position that wasn’t titled “GIS Analyst” or “Environmental Scientist”. But pretty soon after stepping into my new role of Environmental Planner with the City of Portsmouth, I had already compiled a massive list of projects that I could do using GIS, both term and long-term.

What a lot of people don’t tell you about jobs in municipal government is that they are full of opportunity. Not just for individual growth or promotions, but being a part of local government gives you a chance for engagement on all levels. As a local environmental planner, I apply for federal grants, work with state officials on environmental issues or funding for projects, and go out into the community and work alongside residents, local businesses and universities to better my community.

Although my specialty is GIS and environmental science, I also have the opportunity to learn and work with other city departments on a regular basis doing engineering, stormwater, building inspections, health, zoning enforcement, assessing, and policing. While these departments don’t even begin to cover all of the professionals I work with every day, they have a lot in common: they show how extremely useful GIS is to their growth and success.

As someone with that background and that knowledge of GIS, I have the privilege of being able to teach those skills to the people in my community who need it the most. In turn, I’m able to gain lifelong skills and training on a variety of useful topics that will help me to grow and advance in my career.

What more could you ask for?

Follow the blog and social for more Geography Awareness Week posts and events!

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/map-atlas-south-america-52502/

Recognizing that young Americans have a gap in their understanding of geography and their roles as global citizens, National Geographic helped create Geography Awareness Week, raising awareness to this gap in American education. Also, the hope is to excite people about geography as both a discipline and as a part of everyday life.

To celebrate Geography Awareness Week, Falvey Library and the Department of Geography and the Environment (GEV) invite you to attend this week’s geography-focused events, to check out our list of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) projects below, and to follow along with Falvey’s blogs sharing projects and discussions from GEV’s students and alumni.

Meghan Conway ’20 CLAS, Environmental, Social, and Governance Research Analyst, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe

GIS is not only useful for scientists, but is also incredibly useful for business professionals, especially in the banking, insurance, and investment worlds.

I work in the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) space, identifying areas for corporates to enhance their ESG-related public disclosure, internal processes, and build enterprise value. And, for me and for others in my industry, GIS can be a quick risk-screening tool, without getting too much into the weeds.

Small and large companies alike may want to consider regional risks around social concerns, such as child labor and forced labor, and environmental risks, such as water quality and air pollution, both in their supply chain and closer to home. Incidents related to these topics (i.e., worker strikes, human rights violations, lack of usable water, or health problems in local communities) are not only important for the company to consider in terms of the social right to operate, but these events could materially affect business continuity and the larger supply chain.

Climate risk is seen as one of the most important considerations for a lot of corporates, especially with new regulatory obligations that require the disclosure of climate risks and opportunities (i.e., California Climate Rule, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed Climate Disclosure Rule, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive in the European Union). For this reason, many companies have started to enhance their internal governance mechanisms with respect to climate, with many of them referencing online GIS platforms to understand and sufficiently manage their risk.

In addition to this, climate justice is also seen as an important consideration for a lot of governments; with its explicit tie to the local geography, environmental justice tools have popped up at the regulatory-level and the state-level.

Below is a list of some of my favorite GIS tools to reference to quickly gauge a company’s risk in these areas; the data used for these tools is often public and downloading/piloting this data is a great way to delve a little deeper. Please note that the results given by these tools are not concrete and can only point us in the right direction; these issues are highly complex and interrelate with a variety of disciplines.

1. Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool by the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
2. EJScreen Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
3. CalEnviroScreen 4.0 by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (COEHHA)
4. Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas by the World Resources Institute (WRI)
5. Biodiversity Risk Filter by the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF)

Follow the blog and social for more Geography Awareness Week posts and events!

By Linda Hauck

It’s career fair season, and Villanova’s Career Services is hosting its Spring Career Fair, Feb. 4 and 5. Remember to use Falvey’s resources to get yourself prepared for an interview with a potential employer and learn about career options!

If you’re interviewing for a functional job in an industry that you don’t know much about, it is always a good idea to get started by reading an industry report. Think of them like CliffsNotes guides to how businesses operate—except there is no shame in using them, because they are a staple for well-informed professionals. They describe the scope of the business and list suppliers, customers, competitive challenges, prospects, key competitors, the regulatory and technological environment, and trends.

In short, everything a curious prospective employee ought to know!

The industry reports offered by First Research even include a section called Executive Conversation Starters and Conversation Prep questions to spark dialog or, better yet, suggest topics to explore through news and social media before meeting. Similarly, IBISWorld iExpert Summaries list questions related to specific roles as well as internal/external impact. 

Of course, you will want to dig deeper and find out about the specific organization with which you’re interviewing. Company profiles that describe the scope of the business, provide some historical background, and list competitors and financial performance are a good place to start. MarketLine and D&B Hoovers cover medium to large organizations globally. Guidestar will do the same if you’re interviewing with a nonprofit.

Learn about more recent organizational developments by searching the news. Proquest Central provides good national coverage, whereas Philadelphia Business Journal (from American City Business Journals) offers more local news. Don’t forget use your New York Times and Wall Street Journal online subscriptions offered by the Library.

All of these databases can be found on the Falvey Career Information page, but don’t forget to explore the many online resources offered by the Career Center.

Linda Hauck, MLS, MBA, is the Business Librarian at Falvey Memorial Library.