Doug Oetter

It’s not hard to guess what Dr. Doug Oetter teaches or how he likes to spend his free time. His office contains an eclectic mix of books and equipment, each piece giving insight into his personality.

There’s a world map on the wall behind his desk, followed by one of the United States. Subsequent maps follow in a sequence, each one narrowing in scope so that the last one depicts Milledgeville. There’s a pile of land surveying equipment behind the door and a box of Frisbees, each bearing the GC&SU Bobcat Frisbee Club logo, spilling onto the floor.

There are books, shelves and shelves of them, mostly about geography, the environment or some related field. A band called the Apple Seed Cast plays in the background. Further review of Oetter’s playlist reveals selections by Bob Marley, Parliament Funkadelic and the Allman Brothers.

“(My office is) general chaos, but it has some structure,” Oetter said.

If not for a change of heart that occurred in 1982, his office clutter would likely be of the engineering variety. While working on a degree in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, Oetter was becoming disillusioned with the engineering gig, and he needed another class. He opted for a class about the geography of China because he thought it looked interesting. It wasn’t that great of a class, Oetter said, but he was hooked.

“I fell in love with geography at that point. It’s all about travel, maps, places and people,” Oetter said. “In engineering you’re solving specific problems that have specific solutions. I was looking for something more challenging than that. In social sciences, there are no easy solutions.”

Soon Oetter found himself transferring to the University of Washington to complete a bachelor’s degree in geography. He’d go on to get a master’s degree from the University of Georgia and his doctorate from Oregon State University, both in geography.

Oetter came to GC&SU in 2002. He has a hard time identifying his favorite part of his job.

“You get to teach so many different things, especially in a smaller college like this. I get to offer a lot of classes in fields that I’ve always wanted to know more about. I get to continue to explore,” Oetter said.

Oetter’s enthusiasm for his field has not gone unnoticed by his students. Senior outdoor education major Sarah Rumble is currently taking a weather and climate class with Oetter.

“One thing that I’ve noticed is that he doesn’t want you to just read back definitions,” Rumble said. “He wants you to process the information.”

Rumble also said that Oetter has an interactive teaching style.

“When (Hurricane Katrina) was going on, we’d walk in and he’d have CNN videos going. He does a really good job of relating textbook ideas to the real world,” Rumble said.

Other students said that they benefit from Oetter’s insatiable quest for knowledge and his desire to pass it on to them.

“He’s definitely passionate about what he studies,” senior Bennett Williams said. “He’s continually teaching.”

Williams, an outdoor education major, is a student of Oetter’s in the classroom and a teammate on the athletic field. Williams is a member of the Bobcat Frisbee Club, for which Oetter is the faculty advisor. He said that the only thing rivaling Oetter’s passion for geography is his passion for Ultimate Frisbee.

“If it wasn’t for him, there would be no Ultimate at this university. He pretty much brought it,” Williams said.

Williams also applauded Oetter’s ability as an Ultimate player.

“He’s always going to be open, and he’s always going to get you the disc,” Williams said. “He’s awesome, man.”

Oetter said that recent victories are evidence that the BFC is improving.

“We’re playing a lot of Ultimate, which is a fascinating sport. We beat Georgia Southern and the UGA B-squad,” Oetter said.

Oetter is also the advisor for the Environmental Science Club.

“With the Environmental Science Club, we work to educate people about the environment and to protect the environment, but mainly to learn more about it,” Oetter said.

When he’s not teaching geography, playing Ultimate or working on projects with the Environmental Science Club, Oetter likes to travel. Traveling, he said, comes full circle back to geography.

“Anytime I travel, I get a chance to explore,” Oetter said. ” The really cool thing about being a geographer is that you get to look at places with a brand new eye. You get to see it from the perspective of being a geographer, which means that there’s an endless array of questions that you want to ask about how this place got to be the way it is. I love geography.”

Oetter said he also likes to play music. He plays bass and guitar, but mostly bass.

He’s hesitant to define his style to a particular genre.

“I’ve had a variety of influences,” Oetter said. “I like to jam.”

Oetter had a band in Athens when he was going to graduate school there.

” I think it would qualify as a pop band,” he said, with a laugh. “It was the ’80s.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 21 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry