2008 Triennial

The Society gathered in Chicago May 24 through May 27 to renew acquaintances, make new friends, recharge our batteries, and celebrate extraordinary accomplishments of our members. In this beautiful city of firsts, largests, highests, and greatests, 89 members— one traveling from as far away as New Zealand—were greeted by the Chicago Group in the historic Medina Athletic Club, which now houses the posh InterContinental Hotel. Built in Art Deco style and located in the middle of the Magnificent Mile, the hotel provided us with generous meeting and dining space.

SWG Presidents hosted a welcoming reception Saturday evening and the air was alive with hellos and laughter. President Kim Crews and Chicago Group Co-Chairs Ellen Steinberg and Lucia Mouat warmly greeted us. Kim recognized Terry Glenn and Jackie Ronne for fifty years of membership, and introduced new members who have joined since 2005. After dinner Jodi Mills-Cerny presented an “Overview of Chicago” and the evening concluded with Evelyne Pickett’s “Musical Images Along the Oregon Trail,” slides and music depicting westward population migration in the United States.

In keeping with the theme of this Triennial, Global Change, Sunday morning’s first session was titled “Global Environmental Change and Policy.” Program Chair Sara McLafferty introduced presenter Alice LeBlanc, Director of American International Group’s Office of Environment and Climate Change. She described recent dramatic increases in greenhouse gases. After gradual increases over the last 650,000 years, she said, the global average annual temperature in the last century has increased 1 per cent and is predicted to rise by 7 1/2 degrees by the end of this century, which would cause an estimated 14-foot rise in sea level. Mechtild (Maggie) Rössler from Paris, where she works for UNESCO, described how climate change will damage or destroy many of the 851 UNESCO World Cultural Inheritance sites in 185 countries. Joan Koven discussed “The Slippery Slope to Slime,” how rising sea levels and temperatures are now endangering coral reefs worldwide.

Session II focused on “Global Population Change.” Megan Dixon, one of our Evelyn L. Pruitt Research Grant recipients now working on a second PhD, gave us an excerpt from her dissertation on Chinese Immigrants in Russia, showing how landscape transformation affected a Chinese building project in St. Petersburg. Naomi Bishop then presented, “Pastoralists in Queens, NY: A Himalayan Journey,” for which, over the course of some 35 years, she followed villagers from Nepal to the United States in order to study their enduring traditions and their failure to assimilate into other societies. We broke for lunch, then walked to the Chicago River to board “Chicago’s First Lady” for a wonderful 90-minute cruise led by a Chicago Architecture Foundation docent, who told us the stories of the magnificent skyscrapers as we passed by. We re-convened at 4:15 to hear Outstanding Achievement Awardee Janice Monk’s presentation, “Practically All the Geographers Were Women,” about men receiving the most recognition in exploration and geography in the twentieth century, even though there were more women geographers.

Kim Crews then encouraged everyone to meet for Table Topics, to discuss membership, at-large involvement, adopting a statement on global warming, support for Tibet, and several other subjects. It was hard to break away to join the group with which you chose earlier to “Dine Around Town,” but we did! Chicago has been a melting pot since its founding in 1837, so we could choose from a wide variety of ethnic restaurants, led by a member of the ever helpful Chicago Group. It was great fun!

Monday, Memorial Day, began with Sara McLafferty’s introduction of the day’s topic, “Then and Now.” Dorothy Drummond spoke about the traditional Seven Wonders of the World and the new ones, which have been chosen by “popular vote” on the internet: Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, the Coliseum in Rome, The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu in Peru, Petra in Jordan, the Taj Mahal in India, and an eighth, Egypt’s Pyramids. Evelyne Pickett then told the story of James Edward Church Jr.’s invention of a device to predict water quantity from snow measurement. Lydia Pulsipher continued the “then and now” theme, showing slides of Montserrat’s decline in population from 11,000 to 4,000 due to a volcanic eruption in 1997. Outstanding Achievement Awardee Elizabeth Putnam told the story of “Our Land, Our Youth, Our Future” about beginning the Student Conservation Association in 1955, placing student and adult volunteers “young at whatever age,” in conservation projects in national parks and our other public lands.

We boarded buses for a tightly scheduled field trip to tour The Oriental Institute on the University of Chicago’s campus, which was opened specially for SWG on this holiday Monday, and to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House, an outstanding example of his prairie inspired architectural design, just a short block away. The Institute houses one of the world’s finest collections of Orientalia and archaeologist Carol Meyer, a Research Associate there, was one of our docents guiding our visit to these incomparable treasures.

Returning to the hotel, we convened for Outstanding Achievement Award recipient—and new SWG President—Martha H. Talbot’s address “Field Science – Then and Now.” Marty reminded us of all the changes large and small, from typewriters, carbon paper and onion skin to laptop computers, from film to digital cameras, from advancements in mountaineering to underwater habitat exploration. But, she noted, the unchanging requirements for advancing science are strong will, stamina and perseverance. She finished by singing with fellow recipient Liz Putnam “This Land is Your Land” and “Don’t Fence Me In,” enthusiastically joined, of course, by all the SWGers in the room.

In the Business Meeting that followed, Karen Ronne Tupek read the Minutes of the 2005 Triennial, which were approved. Barbara Euser read a prayer written by Grace Hayes as a memorial for members deceased since the last Triennial, followed by a moment of silence. Kim Crews led applause for the tremendous efforts of the whole Chicago Group and announced the new officers and council members. She also recognized many members who rendered outstanding service to SWG during her three years as president and who were instrumental in putting on this Triennial. The SWG Vice Presidents together gave Kim a special gift.

The Honors Banquet on Monday evening was gala with many members in finery from around the world and featured the presentation of SWG’s Top Awards. Three members received Outstanding Achievement Awards. Janice Monk was honored for her research on gender and ethnicity in geography and for her work promoting geographic education, including the presidency of the Association of American Geographers. Elizabeth Putman was honored for her 50 years of outstanding work with the Student Conservation Association that she conceived during her college years. SCA sent 57 students out in 1957 and today places more than 3,000 volunteers each year in all 50 states and has 50,000 alumni around the world. Martha Talbot was honored as an internationally distinguished ecologist who has a 50-year record of field research, exploration and conservation in over 50 countries. She also co-founded SCA with Liz Putnam and has continued supporting it through the years. The Society’s highest honor, the Gold Medal, was awarded to Laurie Marker, SWG member since 1990, for her work as a conservation biologist and for founding the non-profit Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otaiwarongo, Namibia, where she now lives. The talk and slide presentation by Dr. Marker were truly beautiful and inspiring. Prompted by a childhood love for goats in Michigan and California, she worked at a wildlife sanctuary in Oregon and hand-raised a cheetah, which she taught to hunt. She moved to Namibia in 1990 and put to work the research on cheetahs she had done at Smithsonian’s National Zoo, a comprehensive study of cheetahs outside protected land. Her work covered ecological, economic, and social aspects, including manufacturing “bush block” brickettes of extruded woody weeds to make the plains safer for cheetahs.

Tuesday morning saw us gathering for a farewell brunch in King Arthur’s Court restaurant. Outgoing President Kim Crews thanked many members for the fine Triennial and for her three years as president, and then turned over the presidency to Martha Talbot. Marty thanked Kim for her outstanding service and asked SWG for continued help and for suggestions to make the organization stronger. Work will begin immediately on planning the next Triennial, and on continuing oral history recordings and videos, improving the library, increasing membership, and recording Triennial presentations and memorable group meetings. Chicago Triennial Committee headed by Ellen Steinberg and Lucia Mouat, supported by Carol Meyer and Cathy Novotny-Brehm, and Administrator Janet McGinn were also given well-deserved thanks for helping to organize the meeting. — Emily Rushin