Recollections and Reflections

Editor's Abstract

The following ‘Recollections and Reflections’ have been invited from four long-standing members of the academic Geography community at the University of Glasgow, their brief being to combine personal recollections with reflections on wider changes (in the discipline, department, university and beyond) that they have witnessed over the years. Ian Thompson reviews key developments in the Glasgow Department during and following his tenure as Head of Department (1976–1985 and 1988–1991), as well as reflecting upon the international dimensions of departmental (and wider university) activity. Gordon Dickinson narrows the optic to the late-1960s and early-1970s, concentrating more explicitly upon the grounded experiences of research, teaching and securing Geography as a respected university discipline. Stella Lowder opens another window on the period from the mid-1970s to the present, offering important critical remarks about, and assessing transformations within, matters of gender, seniority/hierarchy, workload and broader ‘cultures’ integral to departmental/university life. Ronan Paddison, addressing much the same period, circles back from the international scale tackled by Thompson to the immediate context of Glasgow, the city, within which, and to an extent against which, his research in and teaching of urban geography have been deliberately and constructively situated.

Key Words:

• History of geography
• recollections
• reflections
• University of Glasgow
• universities

Notes

¹Then the International Training Centre for Aerial Survey, as it was still titled when some Topographic Scientist staff members trained there; subsequently, it was rebranded as the International Institute for Geoinformation and Earth Observation.