Interim Department Chair: Dr. Teresa Raczek
Welcome to the Department of Geography and Anthropology. Our Department offers a diverse range of programs including Anthropology, Geography, Geographic Information Science, Environmental Studies, and Native American Studies. Our faculty conduct research on space and culture in our community and around the globe. They are passionate about sharing their research with undergraduates and invite students to join their projects as junior researchers. Through independent studies, internships, community-projects, study abroad, and student-led clubs, undergraduates in our programs acquire relevant skills and graduate to jobs that they love. They also gain an understanding of the complexity of our physical and cultural worlds today.
The Department of Geography and Anthropology is a student-centered department committed to fulfilling the mission of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, which is to prepare students with a liberal arts education that empowers them to understand the human condition, to meet the challenges of the 21st century, and to become contributing citizens in a global society. Geography seeks to study and understand the distribution and dynamics of human and natural features and the interrelationships between humans and their physical environment. Geographical Information Science applies geospatial technologies to analyze the spatial processes produced and/or modified by human-environment interactions. Anthropology examines prehistoric, historic, and contemporary peoples with such topics as human evolution, subsistence and settlement patterns, family, urbanization, development, transnationalism, globalization, social conflict, gender, symbolic systems, and human ecology through its archaeological, socio-cultural and biological sub-disciplines. Thus, the Department seeks to provide and enrich students with a curriculum that addresses these components regarding the world's human, cultural and physical systems. The Department is committed to conducting high quality research that reflects faculty expertise and interests; collaborative research with students is promoted. The Department strives to address the advisory and informational needs of the students, the University and the community at large. Through teaching, scholarship and service, the Department is committed to providing students with the knowledge, creativity and skills necessary to become productive global citizens of the world.