A new proposal from UW administration would “reorganize, consolidate, and reduce” programs in the Department of Geography, eliminating undergraduate and graduate degrees. Its release on Nov. 1 kicked off a maximum 120-day period for comment from the UW community.
The proposal, released just prior to this week’s Geography Awareness Week, recommends suspending enrollment in degree programs, while still offering a minor in geography, and reorganizing faculty and undergraduate learning into other programs.
“The proposal recommends rehoming all faculty members in the department to other academic units. No staff members are affected,” states the proposal, available in full on UW Academic Affairs’ webpage.
Jeff Hamerlinck, interim head of the Geography Department following his predecessor’s recent retirement, said faculty are disappointed by the proposal but are hopeful that they can have a say in the decision after convening in a department meeting on Friday.
“We’re actively exploring ways that we might propose some changes to the proposal—the goal is protecting the intellectual integrity of the discipline,” Hamerlinck said. “The provost has informed us that the discipline in geography is an important deal to the university, so we look forward to working with the administration to consider how these recommendations might be implemented in the most favorable way or even possibly modified to better benefit our students.”
Hamerlinck said what constitutes “low enrollment” in departments as a basis for eliminating programs can be relative. He acknowledged the Department of Geography’s Master of Planning degree in particular is in need of an enrollment boost but still provides important value for the university and the state.
“While enrollment may be down for the Master of Planning degree, it is one of those degrees we feel is of local and regional importance, with a large majority of the city and county planners in Wyoming having gone through that program over the years,” Hamerlinck said.
Lindy Westenhoff, a graduate of UW’s master’s degree program and now a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s geography department, said geography is a unique, diverse and vital discipline that is often not fully understood by college administrators across the US.
“It’s not just countries and capitals on a map, geography is about understanding how people and the Earth work together, in a lot of different ways,” Westenhoff said. “Geography is a discipline that brings all those pieces together … I really think they’re losing a resource that’s pretty crucial to understanding how the world works, because no other discipline links the Earth and humans so well.”
While current undergraduate students will be able to finish their degrees, the plans of students who had been set on entering the program or continuing on as a graduate are now in flux. Some feel that their voices have been neglected, and that the proposal itself was made without enough input from students themselves.
“I was planning to get my master’s here but now I can’t — so this upsets me even more,” senior geography major Aubrey Prescott said. “I had already started planning with my professors what my grad program would look like here. The lack of communication has been really frustrating. Just last week I was informed by an email while in a geography class, we all kind of got the email at the same time.”
Jibran Ludwig, currently an international studies major, is pursuing an exception to continue his planned switch into the geography degree program, after being advised to postpone his major change until after a planned study-abroad term in Jordan. Ludwig also expressed skepticism that the budget-solution basis for the proposal would be effective.
“No one is losing their jobs, and research money is going to be moved with the professors,” Ludwig said. “It’s really pointless as a budgetary method, at least as far as I understand the proposal.”
Josh Heyer, another UW Geography alum pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Utah, expressed mixed feelings about the proposed changes.
“If it does end I take some comfort that the program will continue in the Haub school,” Heyer said. “My main concern with ending Geography is that the variety of classes offered in the geography department, specifically climate and biogeography-focused courses offered, would no longer be offered in the same capacities.”
The proposal states that the recommendation will be presented by the UW President to the UW Board of Trustees by March 1, 2019 — no later than 120 days following its initial release. Before then, for an unspecified period of time, Academic Affairs will review submitted comments and suggestions from all interested parties.
This year’s Geography Awareness Week, occurring now through Friday, includes events such as tonight’s water science panel at 6 p.m. in Classroom Building 214, at which soup will be served; a geography trivia bowl at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Union Gardens , featuring free pizza; and the Water in the West Film Festival from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday in the Berry Center Auditorium. A full list of events can be found on the UW News page.
