Geography held its annual graduation reception for the Class of 2010 on Saturday June 12 from 11:30 – 1:00 in the Buchanan Courtyard, directly after the UCSB Commencement ceremony. About 80 Geography personnel, including friends and family of our Spring Quarter graduates, were served light refreshments. Chancellor Henry Yang made an introductory speech, and our Chair, Dar Roberts, announced the student awards. Our 35 new graduates included 3 who received a BS, 20 who received a BA, and 12 who received a BA with a GIS Emphasis; 18 of the 35 graduated with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher in upper division geography classes.
THE NICHOLAS BOURDAKIS MEMORIAL AWARD: The Bourdakis Fund was established after the tragic death of Nicholas, who died in February 2001, just after having declared Geography as his major. This award is given to a newly declared Geography major who has the highest GPA. This fund helps keep Nick’s memory alive by supporting future generations of outstanding undergraduate students in Geography at UCSB. Forrest Damon, a double major in Geography and Environmental Studies, is this year’s winner. Among his many interests and activities, Forrest held a position as an Emergency Medical Technician for the University’s paramedic ambulance division, Rescue 7, for the past two years in conjunction with the SB County Fire Department, responding to emergencies throughout campus and IV.
THE JACK AND LAURA DANGERMOND UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWSHIP: The Jack and Laura Dangermond Undergraduate award is a significant honor to the most accomplished student in geographic information science (GIS) in the department of Geography. Jack and Laura Dangermond are the co-founders and President and Executive Vice President respectively of ESRI. The Environmental Science Research Institute is a major industrial supplier of software in the field of GIS. This year’s award was split between Eric Wilder, a graduating senior, and Nick Santos, a junior transfer student.
The Geography Department has established two awards which honor students graduating with superior grade point averages. The first, OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AS A GEOGRAPHY MAJOR, is awarded to students graduating with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher. Congratulations to Chelsea Carl, Forest Carter, Benjamin Cooper, Forrest Damon, Benjamin Dreyer, Michael Hino, Brenton Kraushaar, Lindsay Malinoski, Ian Morales, Ryan O’Connor, Dustin Pappas, Casey Robbins, Nathan Rosser, Whitney Seymour, Lawrence Sim, Victor Soto, Paula Sutton, and Eric Wilder.
The high honor of DISTINCTION IN THE MAJOR is awarded to students who are graduating with a GPA of a 3.5 overall GPA with a 3.6 or higher in Geography classes and have undertaken a major independent study project and/or graduate-level studies. We have four students who earned both Outstanding Achievement and Distinction in the Major: Michael Hino, Benjamin Dreyer, Ryan O’Connor, and Eric Wilder.
One special award was given out this year – Zaher (“Zach”) Chehayeb was presented with the CHAIR’S DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD. Zach re-vitalized the UCSB Geography Club, Gamma Theta Upsilon, by coordinating fundraising efforts and special Club events. As an effective spokesperson for both the Club and the Department, Zach did a great deal to promote the discipline of Geography on campus, and his efforts certainly deserve our recognition and thanks.
THE CHAIR’S AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN GEOGRAPHY, which is awarded to a graduating senior majoring in Geography who has attained the highest overall grade point average, went to Eric Wilder. Eric also won the Distinction in the Major award, the Outstanding Achievement in Geography award, and the Dangermond Fellowship – quite a feat! Apart from his prodigious scholastic achievements, Eric also worked with Professor Keith Clarke to create cartographic maps and images for a new textbook for our Geography 12 (Maps and Spatial Reasoning) course, he wrote a 35-page independent research paper on Humboldt County’s forestlands under the mentorship of Professor Stuart Sweeney, he won an internship with UCSB Design & Construction Services as a GIS specialist, and, in his final quarter of our GIS course sequence, he designed a group project on earthquake evacuation planning with the UCSB Office of Environmental Health and Safety; it was recently announced that EH&S intends to not only implement the groups’ results into UCSB’s emergency planning system, but to use them as a foundation for many future projects as well. Hats off to Eric!
Editor’s notes: Many thanks to Richard Weinberg for photographing this event. Richard is a retired endodontist and a keen amateur photographer; his wife, Bernadette, is the Academic Personnel and Space Analyst for the Department. More of Richard’s photos of the reception can be seen on the 2010 Graduating Senior Reception pages of our Events Photos web site.
