University and Community Service
The Department fosters a sense of community and shared interests among faculty, staff and students. It
encourages student-faculty and faculty-faculty geographic activities beyond the classroom in field trips,
faculty-student research and Geography Club activities. It fosters students’ becoming familiar with the
profession of geography by facilitating their participation in regional meetings, such as those of the
Association of Pacific Coast Geographers and the California Geographical Society. The faculty and staff
are dedicated to maintaining an atmosphere of mutual respect, cooperation and helpfulness in relation to
one another, the students and other members of the University. They do so by means of open and
consultative decision making, mindfulness of respective workloads, availability for advising and other
assistance to students and mutual support in times of special need. The Department continues to function
as a committee of the whole in important administrative matters, such as hiring, budget and curriculum. It
endeavors to make new faculty welcome and to provide needed training (for example, the recent advising
workshop), assistance in preparing for evaluation and social gatherings such as picnics.
The members of the Department also provide professional support to the campus and the larger
community in several ways. These have included preparation of maps for publication by colleagues in
other departments and numerous instances of guest lectures. Additional examples of contributions of
professional expertise include geographic information systems projects, urban surveys, regional analysis
and interdisciplinary research. Wide and varied activity on committees at the college and university
levels are expressions of the faculty’s commitment to participation in governance on the campus.
