Dr. Sarah Battersby received her PhD in Geography at UCSB in Spring 2006 (“Distortion of Area in the Global-Scale Cognitive Map: A Geographic Perspective”) and landed a teaching position at USC—the one on the East Coast. Moving from the land of the Gauchos to the land of the Game Cocks involved some culture shock for Sarah, as her letter below reveals:
Last summer I made the trek from Santa Barbara to Columbia, SC and officially started my professional academic career as an Assistant Professor in the Geography Department at the University of South Carolina. I teach the introductory and advanced cartography classes in the department. The students are great, the classes are fun (at least I think they are), and I’m accepting that I am neither Sarah nor Dr. Battersby; my new name is apparently “ma’am.”
Fortunately, the UCSB withdrawals weren’t too bad this year since Mike Goodchild visited the department to give this year’s Julian V. Minghi Lecture, and a good number of the faculty members seem to be on committees with Keith Clarke. It’s safe to say that I’m receiving my share of updates from Santa Barbara.
Outside of the academic life, one of the high points of South Carolina is the great barbecue. It turns out that South Carolina has a unique place in the barbecue world; it is apparently the only state in the nation that has four (yes, four!) barbecue saucing traditions. At barbecue restaurants and competitions around the state, it’s common to find one or more of the following options: tomato-based, light tomato-based, vinegar and pepper, and mustard-based sauces. Around Columbia we see quite a bit of the mustard-based sauce. I’m starting to warm up to the mustard-based sauces, though I still prefer the tomato-based sauces. This past October I organized a group to go to the South Carolina Q Cup – one of the big barbecue competitions sponsored by the South Carolina Barbecue Association.
Besides a day of gorging myself on excellent barbecue, I discovered my new dream car. I think that I may just trade in my Honda for a car like the one pictured…it might just help me blend in to South Carolina more.
