Missing Major: The Limited Presence of Geography in New England Higher Education

Abstract

The article explains the limited presence of geography in New England higher education as a result of the structure of the region’s higher education system. Blending the geography and history of education literatures, it identifies type of control (public vs. private), institution type, urban location, multi-campus university systems, and the weak position of geography in secondary schools and community colleges as key influences upon the existence of an undergraduate major in geography. The article also considers windows of opportunity when geography departments were commonly established and provides selected examples of institutions that closed geography departments.

Keywords:

• History of geography
• higher education
• New England
• geography departments
• geography education

Acknowledgements

I thank William A. Koelsch and Geoffrey J. Martin for suggesting sources, Michael D. Sublett for assistance obtaining sources and reviewing the manuscript, Marcos Luna for making the maps, and the peer reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Notes

1 In 1979 (volume 30) the title was changed to Schwendeman’s Directory of College Geography of the United States.

2 In 2016 the Association of American Geographers renamed itself the American Association of Geographers. This article uses the abbreviation AAG for both names. In the references section, articles from the AAG’s Annals use the organization name in effect at time of publication.

3 For departmental histories throughout the U.S. and Canada, see the AAG archives held at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. American Geographical Society Library, MSS 25, Departmental Histories Collection, 1973-2007. Malcolm Comeaux and Jan Monk assembled 75 departmental histories, many of which were published as articles. The Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers volumes 52-54 (1990-92) includes eleven departmental histories from Oregon, Washington, Montana, and British Columbia. http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-agsl-agslmss0025.

4 Boston University (BU) does not offer degrees in geography after the administration combined the departments of Geography and Earth Science in 2012. However, there are numerous geographers in the Department of Earth and Environment and so this study considers BU to offer the equivalent of a major in geography.