Mar 28, 2024  
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

Geography and Environmental Planning, B.A.


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Geographers and environmental professionals solve complex social and environmental problems. They use critical thinking, analytical tools and advanced technologies to understand human-environmental interactions, place and culture, and spatial relationships. The ability to think creatively and critically positions our graduates for fast-growing careers in conservation and natural resources, environmental justice and advocacy, environmental health, environmental regulation and enforcement, recreation, community planning, international development, mapping and geospatial technologies, and many other fields.

Students pursue personal and professional interests by following paths in geography or environmental policy and planning. In each path, there are opportunities to develop expertise in one of several possible thematic concentrations. Students engage in hands-on research projects and work side by side with faculty in the field and GIS lab on real world issues and solutions-both local and global. Students also join a larger professional community by presenting their research at campus-wide events and regional and national conferences.

Major Requirements


Choose Geography or Environmental Policy and Planning Path:

Geography


Concepts, Methods, Professional Development (4 Credits)


Geospatial Technology/Mapping (4 credits)


Capstone (4 Credits)


Geography Concentration:


Students work with advisors to choose 12 credits from options below or to design their own concentration. Note that some courses have prerequisites.

Environmental Policy and Planning


Environmental Policy and Planning Foundations (12 Credits)


Geospatial Technology/Mapping (8 Credits)


Environmental Policy and Planning Concentration:


Students work with advisor to choose 12 credits from options below or to design their own concentration. Note that some courses have prerequisites.

Total Credits for the Major: 56

Total Credits for the Major: 56

World Language Requirement


For specific information about world language requirements and expectations, see the General Education Requirements  in the Academic Programs section of this catalog.

General Education Requirements


For specific information about general education requirements and expectations, see the General Education Requirements  in the Academic Programs section of this catalog.

Minimum Total Credits for The Degree: 128


Learning Goals and Assessment


Learning Goals:

  • Students will demonstrate integrative understanding of social, cultural and human-environmental systems that combine insights from the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.
  • Students will become critical thinkers, handle complexity, and appreciate difference (e.g., spatial, cultural, class, gender, sexual, ethnic, and racial).
  • Students will demonstrate readiness for post graduate careers and education.

Assessment Criteria:

  • Students will demonstrate the ability to think and read critically and analytically.
  • Students will show proficiency in effective writing to support and critique multiple viewpoints.
  • Students will exhibit competence in the interpretation of visual texts, media, quantitative data, maps, and landscapes.
  • Students will show capacity for conceptualizing social and environmental processes going on at various scales, seeing themselves in relation to and acting on local-to-global dynamics.
  • Students will demonstrate the ability to connect theoretical frameworks to real world, hands-on problems.
  • Students will present their work effectively to various audiences in written, oral and graphical modes.

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