James Baginski, PhD

• Economic geography
• Urban social issues
• Human-environment interaction in the American West
• Geography education

• Environmental Systems: Climate and Vegetation (GES 1000)
• World Regional Geography (GES 1980)
• Introduction to Human Geography (GES 1990)
• Recreation, Tourism, and Environment (GES 4750)
• Geography Summit (GES 4900)

• Ph.D., Geography, Ohio State University (2014)
• M.S., Geography, University of Tennessee (2008)
• B.A., Geography, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2005)

James Baginski CV

What do you value and care about outside of your professional duties?

Family; raising my children to be caring, curious, and well-rounded humans; the amazing trails on the UCCS campus; fly fishing; trail running; and the band Phish.

What encouraged you to go into (and stay in) higher education?

I’d say it was somewhat of a roundabout journey (as most adventures into academia tend to be) but also a logical progression. As an undergraduate student, I initially wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. When I took my first Geography course at an institution quite similar to UCCS, the discipline (and geographic inquiry, more generally) immediately sucked me in. Fast forward an MS at the University of Tennessee, Ph.D. at Ohio State, an administrative position at the University of Washington, a year as a stay-at-home parent (the most difficult job one can ever hold!), I somehow found my way back into the classroom here at UCCS and here I am!

What are your own professional goals and aspirations?

My main goal is to just continue to teach, connect with students, and do everything I can to have students see the value of a geographic perspective and how it connects to their own lives. Doing so means innovating, adapting, and trying new things while always emphasizing connections between the classroom and life outside of it. For instance, I recently got to thinking about my Recreation, Tourism, and Environment course and how great it would be to offer it as a field course, so that’s what I’m going to do next semester. Another goal is to sustain and further build upon relationships I have with my amazing colleagues—UCCS is incredibly fortunate to have such an amazing GES faculty and I feel that I still have so much to learn from the breadth and diversity of the other awesome members of this department.

What is your favorite place?  

I cannot come up with a single answer. There’s a three-way tie:
1) UCCS trails. I run on them almost every day, and I find myself often almost feeling guilty because I am so lucky to be out there running in what almost feels like a dream world. I have run on so many amazing trails on several continents, but the ones in our campus backyard are my favorites.
2) Yellowstone National Park, and specifically the Firehole River. I’ve spent several years in and around the Park, and to say that it’s a magical place seems like an understatement. For over 30 years I have been a very serious fly fisher, and the Firehole River, one of the world’s greatest trout streams, is just an incredible, almost otherworldly landscape with geothermal features everywhere and amazing fish and aquatic insect life. Each year, I make a trip here with some of my GES colleagues.
3) Glover’s Atoll off the coast of southern Belize. Tropical saltwater fly fishing is my favorite thing to do, though it often requires guides, boats, etc. I particularly love this atoll because I can do everything on my own on foot. Things are a lot more challenging this way, but I like the opportunity to succeed or fail on my own terms. Plus, the scenery is pretty amazing!