The Middle East and North Africa Specialty Group of the AAG (MENASG) welcomes invitations to sponsor sessions at the 2007 AAG Annual Meeting on any topic related to the geographic study of this region.

The Specialty Group will sponsor sessions even if only one paper on the session is related to the Middle East and North Africa. Please send requests for panel sponsorship to either Diana Davis, University of Texas at Austin, geovet@mail.utexas.edu or Amy Mills, University of South Carolina, amills@sc.edu .

The Middle East and North Africa Specialty Group of the AAG invites submissions for its first annual Student Paper Competition. These competitions are open to anyone who presents a paper about the physical or human geography of the Middle East or North Africa at a professional meeting between April 12, 2006 and April 22, 2007.

Awards in the amount of $200 will be presented for the winning paper in each of the three categories: Ph.D., Master’s, and Undergraduate. The prize will be split in the case of a join-authored paper. The committee reserves the right to not award a prize if a paper of excellent, prize-winning quality was not submitted. The winners will be announced at the San Francisco meeting of the Association of American Geographers.

Papers submitted to the competition must be developed from original research. Ph.D. students who present a paper based on their M.A. or M.S. work are eligible for the Master’s competition. Papers entered in other specialty group competitions are welcome to participate in the MENASG competition as well.

Entries will undergo a blind review by a committee composed of faculty and students from the Middle East and North Africa Specialty Group. Four copies of the paper must be received by the awards committee chair no later than February 15, 2007. The text of the paper is limited to twelve double-spaced, typed pages. Do not use a font size smaller than 12 point and there should be no margin less than one inch on the page. Include a cover letter with the author’s name, competition level (undergraduate, master’s, or doctoral), academic institution, department or program, current address, phone number, e-mail, and the name and date of the professional meeting where the paper was, or will be, delivered. The author’s name must not be on the document itself, or the entry will be disqualified.

Forward the complete package to the committee chair, Dr. Amy Mills, by email amills@sc.edu. The winners of the competition will be contacted prior to the San Francisco meeting and invited to attend the awards luncheon with the MENASG co-presidents as well as the MENASG meeting. Please address questions to committee chair via email.