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Students and colleagues remember Peter Gould as one of Penn State's most challenging and inspiring teachers. He was an innovator who required students to use the university's mainframe for statistical analyses long before computing became commonplace in higher education. In his teaching, he made connections among theories, techniques, and real world problems. Above all, he challenged to students to learn to do things for themselves and demanded that they think about what they were doing.
By the middle 1990s, as Dr. Gould concluded his career, the Department of Geography's Deasy GeoGraphics Laboratory emerged as an innovative center of excellence in geographic applications of computer-assisted learning. To honor the memory of Dr. Gould's commitment to excellence and innovation in geography education, the Department wishes to reconstitute and rename the Deasy Lab as the Peter R. Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach (the Gould Center).
The Gould Center will honor Peter Gould's lifelong commitment to educational excellence. He brought rigor, innovation, and commitment to instruction at all levels, undergraduate through to graduate. In the same way that Peter Gould fostered a generation of students who were fortunate to experience his teaching face-to-face in Penn State geography classes, the Gould Center will bring those same educational standards to (1) a wider audience, (2) through more courses, (3) in the context of a life-long process.
Therefore, the new Gould Center will be guided by three key goals:
The Gould Center will host the Department of Geography's World Campus Certificate Program in Geographic Information Systems (WC-GIS). One of the first of its kind in the world, the Program provides rigorous, instructor-led education via the World Wide Web to adult professionals throughout North America. The Program is, in a sense, a novel applied research project concerned with demonstrating how Dr. Gould's educational principles and high instructional standards can be maintained while meeting the needs of lifelong learners who are unable to participate in traditional classes on campus. In addition to expanding the WC-GIS Program, the Gould Center will develop and deliver new geography education courses and training programs for students on campus and off.
In 1997, Penn State's Faculty Senate adopted a set of recommendations for improving the University's General Education curriculum. The recommendations highlight the importance of active learning, and propose that all general education courses should provide opportunities for students to develop skills in self-expression, quantitative analysis, information literacy, and collaborative interaction. These skills were at the heart of Peter Gould's approach to education. The Gould Center will seek support for a full-time Instructional Design Specialist who will collaborate with Department of Geography faculty members in developing and implementing strategies for teaching and learning that fulfill the Faculty Senate's goals. In addition, the Gould Center will work closely with the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences' e-Education Institute to promote the use of Web-based portfolios by all Geography students as a more authentic means of evaluating student learning.
Staying in touch with our constituents is more important than ever. To maximize its impact in the discipline, the Department of Geography must consolidate and professionalize its outreach activities. To this end, the Gould Center will seek support to hire a full-time Outreach Coordinator. The Coordinator's primary responsibility will be to maintain the Department's rapidly expanding Web presence, because prospective students, visitors, alumni, and potential employers rely increasingly on the World Wide Web to learn about the Department. The Coordinator will also manage the Department's Internship program, taking a leading role in attracting and promoting internship opportunities for Geography students. Other responsibilities will include editing, designing, and producing other official Department publications, including a newsletter.
In all meeting all three of these goals, the Gould Center will make extensive use of student interns. Peter Gould established a tradition of collaborative learning in his work with students and the Center will maintain this tradition by offering students the opportunity to learn and practice skills. We will establish a series of funded internships for undergraduate and graduate students.
We believe that the Gould Center will be a center for innovation, for excellence, and for opportunity. We welcome your support in our efforts to honor Peter Gould's commitment to educational excellence. Contributions may be sent to:
The Peter R. Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach
Department of Geography
302 Walker Building
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park PA 16802-5011