Biographical Sketch

Douglas A. Hurt (BSEd, magna cum laude, Missouri, 1994; M.A. (Geography), Missouri, 1995; Ph.D. (Geography), Oklahoma, 2000) is a geographer pursing interests in historical geography, cultural geography, and geography education. In 2003, he won the National Council for Geographic Education’s Distinguished Teaching Achievement Award for “outstanding contributions to geographic education.” He served as the co-founder and contributing editor of The North American Geographer from 1998 until 2006. In addition to developing curriculum materials for K-16 geography, he has published more than a dozen articles in journals including Journal of Cultural Geography, Journal of Geography, Southwestern Geographer, Southeastern Geographer, and Chronicles of Oklahoma. His current research interests involve aspects of human attachment to place and regional identity.

Born in St. Louis County, Missouri, he had a suburban childhood. Annual summer trips across the United States fed his curiosity about different places. Portions of each summer were spent on the maternal family farm in East Tennessee and increased his appreciation for intimate, local geographies and rural, agricultural landscapes.

He attended the University of Missouri-Columbia, receiving a degree and teaching certification in secondary social studies education in 1994. Two undergraduate geography classes reinforced academically latent interests in regions, places, and landscapes. A Master’s in geography, with a thesis on geography education, ensued in 1995 at the University of Missouri. Gail Ludwig (chair), Kit Salter, and Linda Bennett (education-curriculum and instruction) provided committee guidance, although Walter Schroeder and Robert Kaiser were influential faculty as well. During this time, he became interested in the geography alliance program and provided support to the Missouri Geographic Alliance in its curriculum development and teacher training efforts.

An interest in historical geography and the homeland concept led to work at the University of Oklahoma. Dick Nostrand (chair), Bret Wallach, Bruce Hoagland, Morris Foster (anthropology), and Bob Rundstrom steered his dissertation work—a historical geography of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation—that was completed in 2000. In addition to research on historical and cultural topics, he developed and participated in programs for the Oklahoma Alliance for Geographic Education, again focusing efforts in teacher training and writing curriculum materials. In 1998, he co-founded The North American Geographer, a journal devoted to the cultural, historical, and regional study of North America. The hope was to provide a publishing outlet for emerging scholars and graduate students authoring original research about the human geography of North America.

After graduation, he accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of Political Science and Geography at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. While at SFA, he led recruitment and retention efforts that tripled the number of geography majors and minors in three years. In part, this achievement was accomplished by emphasizing field work in his courses, including a yearly class that traveled to El Cerrito, New Mexico to participate in la limpia, the annual cleaning of the village irrigation ditch. In 2003 his cultural geography graduate seminar class published their edited papers as The Nacogdoches Project: Geographic Interpretations of an East Texas Downtown. That same year he left the Piney Woods and migrated westward to the Central Valley of California in search of a heightened sense of place.

While teaching in the Department of Geography at California State University, Fresno ( Fresno State) from 2003 until 2005 he returned the Geography Club from extinction until it was an active organization engaged in service projects and field trips throughout California. Although he enjoyed the close proximity to the Sierra Nevada and nearby Pacific beaches (but not smog, Tule fog, nor Mediterranean climate summers), his time in Fresno was brief thanks to valuable lessons learned about state budget crises and administrators hostile to geography. When the opportunity to return to Oklahoma arose, he was thrilled to return to the open spaces of the Great Plains.

Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Department of History and Geography at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma. He teaches lower- and upper-division courses in human geography and promotes regular field experiences to New Mexico and throughout Oklahoma. He sponsors the Geography Student Organization and is part of a team that has quadrupled the number of geography majors since 2005. His research interests continue to revolve around the themes of sense of place, landscape, popular culture, and teacher training. Regionally, he remains focused on North America with growing curiosity about Latin America. Active research focuses on the historical landscapes of the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site, community and sense of place in East Tennessee, and sport and regional identity. At the heart of his teaching and research is a fascination and curiosity about contemporary and historic places and landscapes and their meanings and implications to people in present and past times.