AAG Hardwick Award Honors Alderman’s Mentorship

January 10, 2024

Professor Derek Alderman’s scholarship in geography lives in tandem with a keen awareness of the way involved mentorship impacts education and professional development. His approach has now earned him the 2024 Susan Hardwick Excellence in Mentoring Award from the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

The Hardwick award recognizes AAG members who demonstrate extraordinary leadership, build supportive academic and professional environments in their institutions, and guide the academic and or professional growth of their students and junior colleagues.

“Derek’s mentoring of talented new geographers is at the heart of his work as an educator and researcher,” said Gary Langham, executive director of the AAG. “He has enriched his students’ lives and fundamentally shaped geography in the 21st century. It gives us great pleasure to present him with this award.”

The award will be formally bestowed at the annual AAG meeting April 16-20, 2024, in Honolulu, Hawaii. It is a deeply meaningful acknowledgement for Alderman, both professionally and personally.

“Within our discipline of geography, and within the AAG, it’s a major recognition,” said Alderman. “So, it’s obviously very humbling and flattering that my discipline is recognizing the work I’ve been doing.”

Alderman is a former president of the AAG, previously served as head of the Department of Geography and Sustainability, and is president-elect of the UT Faculty Senate. He sees the award as a mark of his successful contribution within an ongoing legacy of mentorship.

“On a more personal level, it means a great deal because, over the years, I’ve had tremendous mentors,” he said. “There’s no way I would have been able to get into my field and feel like I’ve succeeded without having that mentorship that they’ve given me. So as much as this recognizes my mentorship of other people, it is in many ways a recognition of the role that mentorship plays in my field.”

One former student is now a UT faculty member thanks to Alderman’s mentorship. He served as thesis chair for Stefanie Benjamin while on the faculty of East Carolina University. She now is an associate professor in the Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management within the College of Education, Health, and Human Services.

“I can honestly share that he is the reason I continued on my academic path,” said Benjamin. “Derek has such an incredible heart and love for his students, and it is evident with everything he embodies—a mentor who truly centers empathy, patience, and joy.”

Alderman’s mentoring of early-career colleagues also contributed to this recognition. Solange Muñoz, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in geography and sustainability, has appreciated Alderman’s collaboration since joining the department.

“Derek takes his role as mentor extremely seriously,” said Muñoz. “He isn’t simply available when you need him, but rather behind the scenes he is actively making sure that his mentees are being considered for awards, recognition, or some kind of professional development.”

Alderman keeps in touch with former graduate students like Jordan Brasher, who now works with ESRI, a leading developer for geographic information system (GIS) software. 

“His mentorship reaches beyond merely giving academic advice,” said Brasher. “It is also about building confidence and resilience in students so that we can thrive no matter where life takes us upon the completion of our studies. He regularly asks how my family is doing, how I’m healing or growing after a challenging life event, or what he can do to support my next endeavor.”

Katrina Stack, a current geography PhD candidate and research fellow, is one of the latest students supported by Alderman’s mentorship.

“A doctoral program is not an easy endeavor to navigate, but having Professor Alderman as my advisor has made this time truly enjoyable and beyond rewarding,” said Stack. “I know that if I need help or input—whether it be on a paper I am writing, a conference session, grant application, or just an idea I need to talk through—he is quick to take a call or make time for a meeting. He also challenges me, encouraging me to stretch my thinking and ideas in new ways. Professor Alderman inspires me to push myself in the work I do and become a positive force in the communities I am a part of, just like he is.”

As these connections show Alderman’s personal legacy of mentorship, he also appreciates sharing it with the geography and sustainability department as a whole.

“That collaborative relationship that develops between mentors and those who are being mentored is not just happening here with me, it is happening all across the hallways,” said Alderman. “One of the other reasons I’m very proud about getting this award is that it sheds important light on the really fantastic things that we do in this department.”

Katrina Stack Published in ‘The Conversation’

December 8, 2023

Gettysburg tells the story of more than a battle − the military park shows what national ‘reconciliation’ looked like for decades after the Civil War

Katrina Stack, University of Tennessee and Rebecca Sheehan, Oklahoma State University

On Nov. 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to dedicate a cemetery at the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Four months before, about 50,000 soldiers had been killed, wounded or captured at the Battle of Gettysburg, later seen as a turning point in the war.

In his now-famous address, Lincoln described the site as “a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that (their) nation might live,” and called on “us the living” to finish their work. In the 160 years since, 1,328 monuments and memorials have been erected at Gettysburg National Military Park – including one for each of the 11 Confederate states.

Confederate memorials in the American South have attracted scrutiny for years. In October 2023, a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee was melted down in Charlottesville, Virginia, six years after plans to remove it spurred the violent “Unite the Right” rally.

Gettysburg has received relatively little attention, yet it occupies a unique space in these debates. The battlefield is one of the most hallowed historic sites in the country, and, unlike other areas with memorials to Confederate soldiers, is located in the North. The military park’s history offers a window into the United States’ attitude toward postwar reconciliation – one often willing to overlook racial equality in the name of national and political unity.

The ‘Mecca of Reconciliation’

Today, Gettysburg draws nearly a million visitors each year. In addition to visiting the museum, visitors can drive or walk among the monuments and plaques that cover the landscape, dedicated to both Union and Confederate troops. There are markers that explain the events of the battle, as well as monuments dedicated to individual people, military units and states.

As with any war memorial, particularly for a civil war, Gettysburg commemorates an event whose survivors held dramatically different views of its meaning. In his book “Race and Reunion,” historian David Blight identifies three main narratives of the Civil War. One emphasizes the “nobility of the Confederate soldier” and cause, while another focuses on the emancipation of slaves. The third is the “reconciliationist” view, with the notion that “all in the war were brave and true,” regardless of which side they fought for.

We are cultural geographers who study commemorative landscapes, with a focus on issues of race and memory. In our view, Gettysburg is a prime example of that reconciliation narrative: a site that aims to reconcile the North and the South more than it addresses the racial motivations of the conflict. The park’s own administrative history refers to Gettysburg as an “American Mecca of Reconciliation.”

No praise, no blame

From 1864 until 1895, the battlefield was under the administration of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, which placed markers along military units’ battle lines.

Starting in 1890, the U.S. War Department began actively preserving Civil War battlefields. Congress approved the creation of a commission of Union and Confederate veterans to mark the armies’ positions at Gettysburg with tablets that each bore “a brief historical legend, compiled without praise and without censure.” These policies were also included in the Regulations for the National Military Parks, published in 1915.

This guiding idea – “without praise and without censure” – was also evident at ceremonies for the battle’s 50th anniversary in 1913. Reconciliation was central in speeches and formal photographs, many featuring elderly veterans from both sides shaking hands.

At the time, there were no monuments to Confederate states; most markers, both for Union and Confederate troops, were for individual battle units.

State memorials

In 1912, the Virginia Gettysburg Commission had submitted plans for an equestrian statue of General Lee and other figures, with an inscription saying the state’s sons “fought for the faith of their fathers.” The chairman of the Gettysburg National Park Commission, however, had warned that such a statue would likely not be approved by the War Department because “inscriptions should be without ‘censure, praise or blame.‘” The chairman said that while “they fought for the faith of their fathers” might be true for Virginians, “it certainly opens the inscription to not a little adverse criticism.”

Eventually, the state commission agreed to inscribe simply, “Virginia to her sons at Gettysburg” – creating the first Confederate state monument.

But enforcement of the no praise, no blame policy was uneven.

Efforts to erect a monument for Mississippi, for example, began in the early 1960s. The state commission’s intended inscription read:

On this ground our brave sires fought for their righteous cause
Here, in glory, sleep those who gave to it their lives
To valor they gave new dimensions of courage
To duty, its noblest fulfillment
To posterity, the sacred heritage of honor.

The park superintendent pointed to two objections, however: first to the use of “righteous” and second to “here,” since Southern soldiers’ bodies were mostly relocated after the battle.

Mississippi Supreme Court Judge Thomas Brady, who collaborated on the inscription, wrote to the monument commission expressing his frustration over the objection to the “righteous cause” language. Even the “South’s most bitter critics … never questioned that the South felt that its cause was righteous,” he noted.

“The South has had the most to forgive in this matter and the South has forgiven,” Brady wrote. “Let us hope that the North has done likewise.”

In late 1970, a new superintendent was put in place at Gettysburg. Mississippi’s commission asked him to revisit the “righteous cause” wording – and expressed “genuine pleasure” that the new superintendent was a fellow Mississippian.

The monument was dedicated in 1973, with the “righteous cause” language included in its inscription.

‘Unfinished work’

From the start, the policies for monuments at Gettysburg called for a commemorative landscape that would recall the actions of those who fought and died on the battlefield. In reality, several monuments scattered over the landscape perpetuate the Lost Cause myth, which argues that the Confederate states’ chief goal was simply to protect the sanctity of state rights – whitewashing the atrocities of slavery and romanticizing the antebellum South.

In recent decades, however, the park has begun to do more to emphasize slavery in its historical exhibits and descriptions.

National Park management policy treats commemorative works as historic features reflecting “the knowledge, attitudes, and tastes of the persons who designed and placed them.” As a result, the monuments cannot be “altered, relocated, obscured, or removed, even when they are deemed inaccurate or incompatible with prevailing present-day values.”

The Gettysburg website notes that legislation and compliance with federal laws would be required to move many monuments.

When Lincoln traveled to Gettysburg, he called for Americans to dedicate themselves “to the unfinished work” of the Union dead, and to dedicate a portion of the battlefield to their memory. A century and a half later, however, the site also illustrates a messy postwar debate: the U.S.’s struggle to reconcile sharply opposed understandings of the Civil War.

This article has been updated to correct information about casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Katrina Stack, PhD Student, University of Tennessee and Rebecca Sheehan, Professor of Geography, Oklahoma State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Dr. Derek Alderman interviewed by Detroit’s NPR Station

July 31, 2023

Our esteemed colleague, Dr. Derek Alderman, was recently interviewed by Detroit’s NPR Station to discuss the proposal to rename Hart Plaza in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Detroit City Councilmember Mary Waters has put forth the proposal to rename the iconic plaza, and Dr. Alderman was invited to join Ms. Waters and other guests on the Detroit Today show to discuss the topic. In case you missed it, you can listen to Dr. Alderman’s insightful contribution to the conversation here (his interview begins at 43:43).