Avoiding the Demise of Geography in the United States

Abstract

This is the second of two articles about challenges that confront geography departments in a changing academic environment. College enrollment trends and tightening budgets are placing geography programs in jeopardy because the discipline is not considered by society to be indispensable. Departmental survival in a period of retrenchment may depend upon successfully demonstrating utility and quality, identifying unfilled niches in individual institutions, developing new interdisciplinary organizational arrangements, or finding ways to strengthen geography's position in governmental definitions of useful academic training.

Generative tensions: Undergraduates' experience of Geography in US universities

“…Neoliberal restructuring of universities threatens Geography departments globally (Huntley & Rosenblum, 2021). Within the US, however, Geography's longstanding ‘image problem’ compounds contemporary pressures for elimination, fragmentation, or ‘containerization’—whereby Geography is clumped together with relatively independent sub‐units (see, e.g., Frazier & Wikle, 2017; Haigh, 1982; Huntley & Rosenblum, 2021; Wilbanks & Libbee, 1979).…”

Exploring the Judgements of Powerful Outsiders on the Discipline of Geography in Ireland.

“…Fink (1979), for example, notes the net loss of 32 Geography departments in the US between 1970and 1976(Murphy, 2007. The situation was so grave that some commentators were unsure whether the discipline would survive into the new millennium (Wilbanks and Libbee, 1979). According to Murphy (2007: 124), the loss was ongoing as 'the situation deteriorated further in the 1980s when formerly prestigious departments were closed at the University of Michigan (1982), Columbia University (1986, North-Western University (1986), and the University of Chicago (1987) '.…”

A Place for Geography in the Liberal Arts College?

“…Liberal arts colleges are customerdriven institutions. The lack of geography in most U.S. high schools means that students come to college neither knowing what geography is nor planning to major in the subject (Wilbanks and Libbee 1979). The absence of geography among many bellwether private universities may affect the perception of geography, but more important, perhaps, in this context, is the effect of the absence of geography at places like Amherst, Swarthmore, and Williams.…”