Geography in Higher Education

Abstract

IN RECENT years numerous events have indicated the fallacy of attempting to provide a general education without some geographic training. Each day new places in the world are suddenly brought into focus through the media of newspapers, magazines, and newscastsIran, India, Tibet, and parts of the Middle East-all significantly involved with our foreign policy and some aspects of our everyday life. Yet the ignorance of our population in things geographic is well known. Surveys conducted by the New York Times, as well as other interested agencies, have revealed that large numbers of persons in various walks of life and in various stages of schooling have little conception of the salient characteristics of their own environment, let alone one that is distant. Many teachers, particularly those in the social sciences, complete their pre-professional requirements without even learning the concepts of geography that help connect and make meaningful the other social sciences and natural sciences. Yet these persons are expected to teach in elementary and secondary schools the principal highlights of world understanding, conservation of resources, understanding of China, Japan, India, the British Commonwealth, and other major political divisions of the world. The assumption that geographic knowledge has been sufficiently mastered in elementary and secondary school is not warranted. Few students entering college have displayed evidence of such background. Now, more than ever, it is apparent that geography is a necessary part of the college curriculum. Without the experiences furnished by this vital subject, intelligent participation and comprehension of past and contemporary affairs of global scope are greatly diminished. In spite of the woefully subordinate r6le assigned to geography in our educational system as a whole, the expansion of geographic training in universities and colleges in recent years appears hopeful. Many colleges have recognized the possibilities that geography courses may offer their students through the explanations of human relationships to their environment, conservation problems, the occurrence and nature of principal economic resources, and geographical backgrounds of history. After the Second World War many new geography departments were started at various institutions, among them Ut-ah, Montana State, Oregon State, and the University of Nevada. In some cases, departments which were already organized expanded their offerings to include specialized or additional regional courses; for example,

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