GROSSMAN RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED
RESEARCH & PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES AWARD
BLACKSBURG,
April 13, 2004 -- Lawrence Grossman
of Blacksburg, Va., head of
the Department of Geography
in Virginia Tech’s College of
Natural Resources, received
the 2004 Robert McC. Netting
Award from the Cultural and
Political Ecology Specialty
Group of the Association of
American Geographers in recognition
of distinguished research and
professional activities that
bridge geography and anthropology.
The
Netting Award is designed to
recognize scholars who have
distinguished themselves through
involvement with interdisciplinary
geographical and anthropological
projects, who have published
extensively in both anthropological
and geographical journals, whose
work is read and appreciated
by practitioners in both fields,
or whose service to both disciplines
is meritorious.
Previous
award winners were from leading
doctoral programs in geography
and anthropology in the United
States and Australia. Grossman
was the first person to win
the award from a master’s program.
The
Virginia Tech geography department
soon will be participating in
an interdisciplinary doctoral
program being developed within
the College of Natural Resources.
A
member of the Virginia Tech
faculty since 1979, Grossman
teaches courses focusing on
introductory geography, global
environmental problems, world
hunger, and economic development.
His research explores a variety
of topics related to economic
development in developing countries:
the impacts of cash cropping
on the environment, economic
differentiation, and food production;
the relation between household
income and dietary quality;
peasant agriculture and contract
farming; problems of pesticide
use at the village level; gender
and agriculture; and environmental
history.
Grossman
has published numerous journal
articles and two books: Peasants,
Subsistence Ecology, and Development
in the Highlands of Papua New
Guinea (Princeton University
Press, 1984) and The Political
Ecology of Bananas: Contract
Farming, Peasants, and Agrarian
Change in the Eastern Caribbean,
for which he received a “CHOICE
Award for Outstanding Academic
Book” (University of North Carolina
Press, 1998).
He
received an M.A in anthropology
from the University of Minnesota
and a Ph.D. in geography from
the Australian National University.
The College of Natural Resources
at Virginia Tech consistently
ranks among the top five programs
of its kind in the nation. Faculty
members stress both the technical
and human elements of natural
resources and instill in students
a sense of stewardship and land-use
ethics. Areas of studies include
environmental resource management,
fisheries and wildlife sciences,
forestry, geospatial and environmental
analysis, natural resource recreation,
urban forestry, wood science
and forest products, geography,
and international development.
Founded
in 1872 as a land-grant college,
Virginia Tech has grown to become
the largest university in the
Commonwealth of Virginia. Today,
Virginia Tech’s eight colleges
are dedicated to putting knowledge
to work through teaching, research,
and outreach activities and
to fulfilling its vision to
be among the top 30 research
universities in the nation.
At its 2,600-acre main campus
located in Blacksburg and other
campus centers in Northern Virginia,
Southwest Virginia, Hampton
Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke,
Virginia Tech enrolls more than
28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate
and graduate students from all
50 states and more than 100
countries in 180 academic degree
programs.
