Growing up on a farm in rural Minnesota is arguably one of the best recipes to foster an affinity for the great outdoors. For Sam Jones, class of 2011 and now assistant professor of geography at Bemidji State University, it helped inspire her career path.
After graduating from high school, Jones worked in construction and banking until she realized something was missing in her life.
“I spent a lot of time in a career path that I thought was going to work out, but eventually realized that I wanted something more aligned with my interests,” she said.
She enrolled at Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and earned a professional certificate in geographic information systems. GIS is a software system used to create, manage and store geographic data for analysis and visualization.
“Growing up hunting, fishing, building forts and raising animals, it occurred me that physical geography was my world. It was what I was already immersed in.”
In 2008, Jones transferred to Bemidji State, following the encouragement of Tim Fox, her ICC geography instructor. She graduated in 2011 with a degree in geography and an emphasis in GIS.
“At Bemidji State I had a good cohort of students and great professors,” she said. “I enjoyed the program because it was small enough that you were not just a number lost in the shuffle.”
The summer after graduating, Jones travelled with Bemidji State’s Dr. Mark Lawrence, professor of geography, to Kibwezi, Kenya, where she cataloged plant resources for six weeks to determine how the community was maintaining Indigenous plant life.
“The project was to look at forest conservation practices for the purpose of gaining better botanical knowledge of how local plant resources like trees, shrubs, herbs and vines were being promoted and maintained in this particular village,” she said.
But this was not the last time Jones would study geography in the plains and mountains of Africa. While attending graduate school at Ohio University in Athens, Jones conducted forest conservation research in Mangio, Tanzania, in the North Pare Mountains. She earned her Master of Science in geography in 2013.
In 2014, Dr. Jeff Ueland, professor of geography and Jones’ former academic adviser, recruited her to join Bemidji State’s geography faculty. She was working at the Beltrami County Natural Resources Management office at the time.
“It was really interesting to come back to Bemidji State as a professor,” she said. “Being on the other side of the desk – in the office that used to be my adviser’s – was surreal. I am so glad that I took that leap! Teaching is the most rewarding profession I’ve known.”
Since first walking Bemidji State’s halls as a transfer student in 2008, Jones has been building her career one credential at a time. She earned her Doctorate of Education from Minnesota’s Winona State University in Spring 2021. She is now training tomorrow’s geographers at BSU.
Links
2022-B-069