Georgeta Connor

Dr. Georgeta Connor, a native Romanian, joined Georgia Gwinnett College in 2012. She specializes in economic/political geography and geography of Europe – European Union. Before joining the GGC faculty, Connor taught Geography at Gainesville State College, the University of Georgia and “Gr. C. Moisil” High School, Onesti, Bacau County in Romania. Connor brings to the classroom a teaching philosophy focused on active learning and critical thinking.

Connor’s research will add to the strength of the School of Liberal Arts by focusing attention on the challenges being faced by Central and Eastern European nations as they are accepted into the European Union. Most specifically, her interest is concentrated on the economic and political geography of Europe, with emphasis on the EU’s eastern enlargement and the consequences thereof for both the EU and for the former communist countries (especially Romania).

Her doctoral dissertation, “The Rural Dimension of Romania’s Integration into the European Union: The Impact of the EU Enlargement on Romanian Agriculture and Rural Areas," focuses on the consequences of adjusting Romanian agriculture to common agricultural policy requirements and of seeking to harmonize traditional and modern agriculture within the country so as to preserve its rural traditions and agricultural biodiversity. Through her research she has primarily explored how Romanians have begun to transform the Romanian rural landscape from that which existed during half a century of communist central planning.

Although focused on the Romanian case, the fact that expansion of the EU eastwards is likely to continue means that the research promises to generate crucial knowledge concerning the potentials and pitfalls of further EU enlargement into regions experiencing dramatic economic and political transformation.

• Doctorate – geography – University of Georgia
• Master's – social science education – University of Georgia
• Bachelor's – geography – University of Bucharest, Romania
• Other – certificate in interdisciplinary qualitative studies – University of Georgia

• Economic and political geography
• Europe – European Union
• Rural studies
• Geography education
• Qualitative research

• American Council of Learned Societies – Southeast European Study: Travel Grant
• East European Studies – Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Research Grant
• Association of American Geographers, George and Viola Hoffman Award
• Association of American Geographers: Russian, Central Eurasian, and East European – Specialty Group Award
• University of Georgia, Graduate School Dean’s Award – Social Science