Program and Business Meeting – 2023 Annual Meeting

The annual meeting began at 9:00 am with an introduction statement from Joyce Clapp and Jesse M. Lane. Oral presentations followed regarding various topics important to North Carolina and the global community. At around 11:30 am, lunch was served and Jeff Essic gave an inciteful keynote speech about the changing landscape of spatial data over the past 2 decades and his experience in the field of geography. After lunch, we continued the conference with poster presentations from faculty and students from around the state. During our business meeting we discussed this past year and the future of the NCGS.

We greatly appreciate all those who participated and attended the conference this year. This was one of the most successful conferences in recent years and we look forward to more like it in the future. For more information about the individual presentations and the business meeting, see the brief conference summary, full conference program, and business meeting summary included below.

Brief Conference Summary

  • 9:00 am – Welcome Address: Joyce Clapp and Jesse M. Lane
  • Paper Session | 9:05-11:30 am
    • “COVID and the ballot box: Spatial and aspatial associations between by-mail voting rates and COVID-19 rates in the 2020 North Carolina general election,” Timothy Mulrooney and Christopher McGinn
    • “Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy: Residential Receptivity to Solar Panels in Saudi Arabia,” Sami Alwulayi
    • “Utilizing Field Apps and Geospatial Statistics to Assess and Evaluate the Quality of Commercially Available Data Representing the Food Environment,” Isabel Gutierrez
    • “Utilizing Spatial Analysis Techniques to Encapsulate the Effects of Sea-Level Rise in Carteret County, North Carolina,” Sarah J. Radel
    • “COVID-19 Rates and Proximity to Meat and Poultry Processing Plants in North Carolina,” Mike Wallace
    • “Measuring Low-Income and Minority Communities’ Access to Grocery Stores and Convenience Stores in Durham County,” Quinton Butler
    • “Utilizing MISLE (Marine Information of Safety and Law Enforcement) data to construct a spatial database of maritime incidents,” Lauren Johnson
    • “Illegal timber tracking: Using BioScience, Citizen Science and Geospatial Science,” Jerry Griffith, Lindsay Wancour, and Michelle Toshack
  • Lunch and Keynote Address | 11:30 am – 12:20 pm
    • Jeff Essic, GIS and Data Librarian, NC State University
  • Poster Session | 12:30-1:30 pm
    • “Meteorology and Myth Part IV: The Elusive and Ephemeral Sprites,” Dennis J. Edgell
    • “Mapping the Effects of Covid-19 Virus on Cattle by County in North Carolina,” Michael Berryann
    • “A Study of Food Distribution Service Range by Block Group in Durham County,” Benjamin Williams
    • “Utilizing the term ‘Dashboard’ and viewing its many applications to analyze and display real-time data,” Mackenzie Mackey
    • “Mapping the increase of egg prices,” Getanew Lemons
    • “Sub-surface lithological control of arsenic pollution in groundwater along a 10 km NE-SW traverse in Haringhata block, Nadia district, West Bengal,” Ayush Chaudhuri
    • “Viticulture Problems and Prospects in a Changing Climate,” Ellissa DeFeyter
  • Business Meeting | 1:30 pm

Full Conference Program

NCGS-Annual-Meeting-Program-2023-1-1Download

Business Meeting Summary

  • Introduction
    • Jesse Lane introduced the meeting by thanking everyone for their work in making this year’s meeting a success and briefly summarizing the past two years.
  • Officer Reports
    • Secretary – Philip Beach will be working on conference reports for 2022 and 2023 for the upcoming North Carolina Geographer publication.
    • Treasurer – Jesse Rouse provided financial information to Jesse Lane prior to the meeting. Our finances are in the black (+/- $2,627) and we received approximately $700 from this year’s conference.
    • Vice-President – No report
    • President – No report
  • Old Business
    • Journal Report – currently no submissions but some interest from NCCU students; changes were made across the board to the website 
    • Newsletter Report – No newsletter was distributed last year but will resume this fall.  
    • Plans for this past year – 50% success rate 
  • New Business
    • Plans for next year: publish new journal issue, promote giant map, increase outreach, increase membership to include private industry and secondary/primary educators
      • Discussion ensued regarding the potential for a table at the 2024 SE Division of the American Association for Geographers Conference (SEDAAG) and the NC GIS Conference tentatively scheduled for 2025 with location (TBD)  
      • NCGS previously staffed a booth at the 2019 NC GIS Conference with limited success  
      • SEDAAG contacts are Bill Graves (UNC-Charlotte) and Lynn Resler (Virginia Tech University) 
      • Private industry outreach will be performed by Philip Beach 
    • Revamp the NC GeoBowl next year; Tim Mulrooney provided a verbal tentative ‘ok’ for this 
    • A member proposed the idea of bringing back the Geography Bee or GeoBowl 
    • Another member proposed the idea of creating a NCGS YouTube Channel with featured content including a livestream of the next NCGS Conference 
    • Annual Meeting 2024: NCCU will host sometime in mid-March 
    • Elections:
      • President – Joyce Clapp 
      • Vice-President – Shane Canup 
      • Treasurer – Jesse Rouse 
      • Steering Committee member – Tim Mulrooney 
    • Term ending next year:
      • Secretary – Phil Beach 
      • Steering Committee member – Darrell Kicker 
      • Steering Committee member – Yongjun Lei
    • Unelected Members
      • Journal Editorial Team – Jesse Lane, Joyce Clapp, Rajesh Sigdel 
      • Media Team – Rajesh Sigdel, Jesse Lane
  • Closing
    • Jesse Lane – Thank you for a wonderful year and I look forward to our further growth and success in the future.