Co-Director of Environmental Studies and Associate Professor of Geography

Dr Morse is a social geographer who researches the production of place and everyday experience in rural contexts. She has conducted research in the following areas: working landscapes, rural migration and immobility, place and identity, Vermont’s social geography, and nature-culture theory.  She teaches Place, Landscape and Environment in Vermont, Global Environments and Cultures, Rural Geography, Vermont Field Studies, Rural Nature, and a graduate level Foods Systems theory course. Several of her courses include service learning. She serves on the following boards: American Association of Geographers’ Rural Geography Specialty Group, the Vermont Land Trust, and the Community-University Partnerships-Service Learning.

 

Spring 2020 Syllabi:

Associations and Affiliations

Dr Morse is a member of the Environmental Program Faculty, the Food Systems Graduate Program faculty, and the Center for Research on Vermont. Dr Morse is a Sustainability Fellow and a Service Learning Fellow. She directs the Earth and Environment Scholars Program (part of the Liberal Arts Scholars Program) for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Social geography, rural studies, place and identity, working landscapes, nature-culture theory, Vermont

Education

  • Ph.D., University of British Columbia (2006)

CV

PDF icon Cheryl_Morse_CV_PDF.pdf

Contact

Email:

cemorse@uvm.edu

Phone:
  • 802-656-2106
Office Location:

Old Mill Rm 203

Office Hours:

Spring 2022: Mondays 10:35-12:00 in person and Tuesdays 8:30-9:30am on Teams, by appt

Website(s):
  1. Cheryl Morse
  2. Vermont Roots Migration

Courses Taught

GEOG 061 – ISEE:SL: Geography of Vermont

This course both introduces students to the study of place, landscape and environment in Vermont, and offers students an opportunity to "learn by doing." The class covers the physical and social geographies of Vermont in order to better understand environmental and place-based issues. We will undertake a service learning project with the Planning Commission of Greensboro, Vermont to help them develop their next town plan which seeks to balance affordability, environmental stewardship, and rural development goals.

GEOG 174 – Rural Geography

This course is an introduction to the field of Rural Geography. We will focus on the geographies of rural communities at three scales: the global, regional within the United States, and the state of Vermont. The class will consider some of the most pressing and enduring concerns in rural communities including: demographic change and migration, the effects of economic restructuring, commodification of the countryside, shifts in agricultural practices and economies, poverty, health, landscape change, resource-based economies, tourism, spatial relations, and social service depletion. All the while we will ask how such phenomena impact the lives of the people who live in rural places. Students will gain an awareness of the ways in which narratives about the rural are circulated in film, literature, commentary, and music, and how these narratives either reflect or distort the rural experience. In the final portion of the term we will examine how factors such as class, gender, race, sexual orientation, and age influence personal experiences of particular rural places, sensitive to the fact that there are many ‘rurals’ across the globe, the United States, and within Vermont communities.

GEOG 245 – People&Nature in Rural Places

This course considers how rural landscapes are produced, perceived, and lived in by different groups of people around the world. We will read theoretical and empirical works from geographical, sociological and anthropological perspectives, and review popular or everyday narratives about rurality and nature. Our goals are to better understand how people understand and live in ‘rural nature’ today and to imagine changes that could lead to healthy and sustainable futures for both humans and non-humans.