Fleming College

A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) graduate recently took top honours at a prestigious mapping competition.

Adam Thom, GIS-Cartographic Specialist alumnus (2010), won the student award – the Arthur Robinson Award for Best Printed Map – at the 2011 Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS) Map Design Competition. The award is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and Avenza-MAPublisher.

In addition to receiving an award certificate, Adam won $500, a National Geographic atlas, and a student license of MAPublisher. His map will also become part of the permanent collection of the United States Library of Congress.

“We are so proud of Adam and his achievement,” said GIS programs coordinator Lawrie Keillor-Faulkner. “It is truly wonderful to repeat the past successes of the college’s former Carthography program and the large number of student awards won at past American Congress of Surveying and Mapping conventions.”

Adam’s winning design, Population and Recreation in Eastern California, is currently on display at the Frost Campus.

The annual CaGIS Map Design Competition is open to students in Canada and the U.S. The purpose of the competition is to promote interest in map design and to recognize significant advances in cartography. The focus of the competition is design, and judging is based on creativity, text, balance, unity, clarity, use of colour, and subject matter.

Sir Sandford Fleming, the college’s namesake, was also a cartographer and surveyor. If he were alive today, his discipline would involve the areas of GIS and Geomatics, currently taught at the college.

Located in the heart of Central Ontario, Fleming College has campus locations in Peterborough, Lindsay, Cobourg and Haliburton. Named for famous Canadian inventor and engineer Sir Sandford Fleming, the college features more than 90 full-time programs in Business and Technology, Continuing Education and Skilled Trades, Environmental and Natural Resource Sciences, Visual Arts, Education, Health and Wellness, and Law, Justice and Community Services. Fleming College has 6,000 full-time and 10,000 part-time students, and more than 58,000 alumni.

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For more information:
Laura Copeland, Communications Officer, 705-749-5530 x 1370 or copeland@flemingc.on.ca