In 2024, AAG recognized the Department of Geography and Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire (UWEC) with the AAG Award for Bachelor Program Excellence. We asked Ryan Weichelt, a UWEC alumnus and current department chair, what makes the program stand out. He shares three key reasons how the department continues to evolve and meet the needs of the students, workforce, and discipline: promotion of geography and collegiality across campus, pursuit of scholarship, and excellence in instruction.

Cross-Campus Collaboration

In 2014, the Department of Geography and Anthropology developed the Geospatial Analysis and Technology major to integrate geospatial technologies across disciplines in direct cooperation with public and private stakeholders, highlighted in a publication by Esri Press “Extending Into STEM: The Geospatial Education Initiative.” The major quickly gained momentum.

During this period, the department began to partner closely with the university to become a hub for geospatial technology and expand its reach into various programs on campus, including biology, computer science, and data science. Geospatial technology has distinguished the department on campus ever since, and facilitates significant research opportunities. For instance, faculty and students have collaborated with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to leverage geospatial technologies in understanding and improving healthcare across the country. The interdisciplinary nature of these technologies “has shown how geography can play a role in understanding healthcare and making [it] available for more people,” says Dr. Weichelt.

While the department’s largest major is environmental studies, the geospatial program has driven numerous cross-campus collaborations. Biology and geology students frequently enroll in numerous certificate programs, leading to new majors and fostering a collaborative academic environment. The geospatial technology program has opened doors for interdisciplinary research and attracted new students who wish to work in archaeology, climate science, resource planning, or conservation.

Pursuit of Scholarship: “Geography is Everything”

The department offers a diverse range of classes and Liberal Education (LE) core components, akin to General Education in other institutions. Dr. Weichelt expresses the department’s pride in the breadth of curriculum, encompassing physical geography, technology, and cultural studies. The versatility of courses enables staff and students to provide extensive service to the university, supporting its growth and attracting prospective majors.

This commitment to geography as an all-encompassing discipline underscores the departmental belief that “geography is everything.”

Cross-campus collaboration also attracts new students, supporting other department efforts, such as incorporating GIS into non-geospatial classes, and renaming introductory classes to clarify that they belong to a series: “Planet Earth, Human Geography,” “Planet Earth, Physical Geography,” “Planet Earth, Cultural Geography,” and so on. Equipped with three state-of-the-art computer labs, the department can offer students a state-of-the-art computing experience, with support from alumni grants and donations and the university, which provides geospatial lab modernization funds every two years. Students across the university can access these dedicated spaces to get direct experience with remote sensing, GIS, and other geospatial tools.

Fieldwork is also a critical component of UWEC’s curriculum.  “Many of our classes require field components, not just the physical geography classes, [but also] those like tourism geographies, urban geographies, and Indigenous geographies courses,” says Dr. Weichelt.

Students have field work opportunities with their professors in the United States, internationally, or remotely. Dr. Harry Jol, for example, conducts ground-penetrating radar (GPR) research globally and recently took students to Lithuania to study Holocaust sites. Dr. Douglas Faulkner, a fluvial geomorphologist and recipient of the 2019 Gilbert Grosvenor Award, brings students to local rivers like the Chippewa, Eau Claire, and Red Cedar Rivers. Dr. Papia Rozario collaborates with colleagues across the U.S. on remote sensing and AI research, analyzing precision agriculture data obtained with drones.

A standout course, Geography 368, mandates 7 to 12-day field expeditions for all students. Even during the COVID-19 campus closures, students in the course adapted by researching sustainable city exploration via bicycles. Students also must complete 30 hours of community service before graduation. The geography club’s “Missing Maps” program allows students to apply their geospatial skills while fulfilling this requirement, making meaningful contributions to communities across the globe.

Excellence in Instruction: Strengthening Department Culture

Dr. Weichelt praises the numerous younger faculty members the department has hired in recent years. They help to foster a more cohesive and collaborative environment, enhancing the program’s longstanding tradition and continuously updating curriculum to address Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) issues, particularly how geographers and geography can contribute to solving these critical questions. This is upheld by an Anti-Racist Statement wrote and approved in 2020, in addition to the University’s EDI Goals.

As the state grapples with challenges to campus justice and equity initiatives, the department is using scholarships to help bridge gaps for diverse students, while adhering to new state regulations. For example, six first-year students interested in majoring in geography are eligible to apply for the George Simpson Incoming Student Scholarship, ranging from $1,000 up to $1,500.

Faculty are active in campus organizations and programs that advocate for diversity and inclusion such as the Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Program and American Indian Studies. This commitment to inclusivity and support is mirrored in the department’s vibrant student life. From a strong geography club, welcome parties and celebrations, mentorship opportunities, and speaker series presentations, connecting with students “always been a tradition here.” The level of attention to maintaining and strengthening the department culture in turn strengthens the discipline and future geographers.

UW Eau Claire’s Department of Geography and Anthropology exemplifies excellence not only through its award-winning programs but also through its dedication to student success and inclusivity. By fostering a supportive and dynamic environment, the department ensures that its graduates are well-prepared to tackle the challenges of the modern world, making significant contributions to the field of geography and beyond.

During the 2024 Annual Meeting, AAG staff sat down for an interview with Reece Jones, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environment in University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Social Sciences. The Department of Geography and Environment (GEO) is a vibrant academic community that focuses on global change and its local impacts on humans and the environment. Faculty and students pursue work that is inherently interdisciplinary, making various connections through other departments and units on campus. Many of GEO’s student and faculty research centers around Asia and the Pacific.

From political geographers to GIS specialists and environmental scientists, the breadth of faculty and course work offers undergraduates the chance to gain a holistic understanding of the discipline and do the necessary fieldwork or research to pursue career opportunities. GEO also offers world-class coursework and applied geographic research under two advanced degrees, a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Philosophy. Students of all levels engage in research on topics ranging from agriculture and food, climate change, and environmental conservation to geopolitics, geospatial sciences and data analytics, and tourism.  The department also offers a popular new certificate in GIS for undergraduate students in any program.

GEO partners with departments across the university to offer an accelerated, interdisciplinary online degree in Social Sciences of Oceans, with applications for resource management, city planning, community organizing, environmental consulting, and policy analysis. Similarly, a flexible Graduate Ocean Policy Certificate is available for students or working professionals through the department to broaden their understanding of the legal, political, economic, and social forces that affect ocean development activities.

Collaboration and Community

UH-Mānoa strives to create a community-minded environment: “We try to do our best to have kind of a collaborative relationship between graduate students and faculty so that they feel like they’re colleagues in a way [and] part of this kind of endeavor to do their research and carry out their projects.”

Jones offers the example of GEO professor Camilo Mora, whose graduate seminar is far from a typical semester seminar experience. Students collaboratively brainstorm a major question they want to answer at the beginning of the semester, then do the research and analysis together that results in a joint publication with Dr. Mora. “Major publications have come out of that class,” Jones states. “Camilo has done a really good job of bringing students into this research project and work together with them to produce very significant articles.”

Program faculty incorporate professional development skills directly into coursework. Incoming graduate students participate in a mentoring program to prepare for developing and maintaining crucial professional development skills in hopes of answering questions such as “How do you go to a conference? How do you present a paper at a conference? How do you publish a journal article? How does the academic job market work? How do you get a non-academic job?”

Care for the Land

The University of Hawai‘i has a focus on being a Native Hawaiian (Kānaka Maoli) place of learning, “bringing in Native Hawaiian thought, indigenous thought and experiences into the way that we do things,” says Jones. GEO faculty work to integrate Native Hawaiian thought and knowledge into teaching, even if that’s not central to their research focus.

In Hawai‘i, Native Hawaiian concepts are important to the way that people see the world. One often integrated into education programs is “Mālama ʻĀina,” or to care for and honor the land. “For Native Hawaiians, the land is an ancestor. That way of seeing the world is to recognize the relationship between people and the environment, and not to think of them as separate, but rather as integrated and dependent upon each other,” Jones states. “And geography as a discipline, that’s exactly what it aspires to do.”

Taken together, the educational experiences made possible by GEO at UH-Mānoa have prepared graduates for careers in academia, government service, NGOs, and the private sector in Hawaiʻi and worldwide. GEO has provided alumni with the skills to shape new (and traditional) ways of caring for the earth and human societies. For example, several graduates are now faculty in the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, the only college of Indigenous knowledge in a Research I institution in the United States.