The department today can best be described as a community committed to interdisciplinary scholarship, to high-quality teaching, to world-class mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students, and to mutual success and collaboration. Our faculty are active researchers and committed and talented educators. We are also known on campus for excellence in mentoring and advising students, for engaging both undergraduate and graduate students in research (including authorship on refereed journal papers), and for preparing students for success in graduate school and professional careers. Five of our current and recent graduates (two graduate students and three undergraduate students) have received Fulbright fellowships for study abroad in the last few years.
A hallmark of the Department of Geography & Environmental Systems is its broadly integrative nature, drawing on the expertise of faculty with diverse backgrounds but with a common mission.
Research interests among current regular departmental faculty span a broad range of topics in earth systems science, ecosystem science, human geography and urban geography, and human dimensions of global change, with the application of geospatial technology to research questions across all areas of interest. Despite the diversity of research and teaching interests, there is a common focus on the importance of coupled natural and human systems and on landscape patterns in relation to human activities and their environmental consequences, and we see this as a broad programmatic thrust for our graduate degree offerings. Research-based in the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems involves interdisciplinary collaborative work of local, regional and international scope.
The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Geography & Environmental Systems; an accelerated B.S./M.S. program; an undergraduate Certificate in GIScience; a graduate Certificate in GIScience; and a Professional Masters program in GIScience. All Ph.D. students are guaranteed four years of funding and most are supported throughout their graduate careers on some combination of externally funded research grants, teaching assistantships, fellowship awards, or agency employment. We do not guarantee support for M.S. students but many of our Master’s students are able to find support from faculty research grants, public agencies, teaching assistantships, and other on-campus opportunities including the Shriver Center Peaceworkers program for returning Peace Corps volunteers.
We currently serve an undergraduate student population of approximately 280 majors in two degree programs (B.S. Environmental Science and Geography and B.A. in Geography and Environmental Studies) as well as about 1600-1800 students per year in our GES 100-level courses and another 600 in an interdisciplinary 100-level lab science course focusing on water that is taught by one of our faculty. These courses meet university distribution requirements in natural science, laboratory science, social science, and culture.