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Welcome to the
Department’s website, and thank you
for your interest in geography and
regional planning at Indiana
University of Pennsylvania. Our
programs train undergraduates and
graduate students in the disciplines
of geography and planning.
Geography
focuses on
the investigation of the
distribution of natural and
human-created phenomena over the
earth’s surface. Geographers are
interested in documenting where
things are, and in trying to explain
and analyze geographic
distributions.
Planning involves
working to further the welfare of
people and the communities that they
live in by creating sustainable,
equitable, efficient, and
aesthetically-pleasing living
environments in the present and
future. Planners work in various
settings and at many different
scales – from rural areas to very
large cities, as well as suburbs and
resort areas. In a nutshell,
planning involves integrating the
desires of a community’s citizens
with professional methods of
analyzing population trends,
economic patterns and infrastructure
availability to develop a
sustainable plan for future
development.
The
career prospects
in the fields of geography and
planning are presently very good. In
geography, there is a high demand in
the public and private sectors for
graduates who have the skills to
work with
geospatial technology and
geographic databases. There are also
many opportunities for students who
would like work in environmental
science/management or are interested
in building sustainable local and
regional economies. Planners are
needed at all levels of government –
local, county, regional, state, and
federal – and are crucial players in
decision-making processes.
Planning
jobs are available anywhere in the
country, from Indiana, PA to San
Diego, CA.
Our geography
undergraduate program includes a
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree and a
minor where students receive
instruction in aspects of the
discipline. The B.A. program is
organized into tracks, or areas of
emphasis, that students can pursue.
These are
Geographic Information
Systems/Cartography,
Environmental
Geography,
Economic Geography, and a
General Geography track where
students can choose any combination
of electives. The Regional Planning
undergraduate program offers
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degrees
in the following tracks:
Economic
Developer,
Environmental Planner,
GIS/Cartography, and
Town Manager.
The
Department’s
masters program includes both Masters of
Science (M.S.) and Master of Arts
(M.A.) options, as well as thesis
and non-thesis options. The M.S.
degree program is
organized into tracks similar to the
undergraduate program. These are:
GIS/Cartography, Environmental
Planning, and Regional Planning. The
M.A. program has the same core
courses as the M.S., but it provides
the student with the opportunity to
choose from elective courses.
Financial aid opportunities in the
form of assistantships and
fellowships are available every
academic year, and must be applied
for by March 1st of the
academic year of your planned
enrollment.
Currently, there are
approximately 100 undergraduates and
20-25 masters students in the
Department. Our majors are assigned
advisors whom they meet with every
semester and know personally, and
the small class sizes in our program
create a productive learning
environment. All of the faculty in
our department have earned
doctorates, and are experts in their
various fields. Departmental
facilities include two computing
laboratories – the
James A. Payne
GIS/Cartography Laboratory, and the
Spatial Environmental Analysis
Laboratory (SEAL) – which contain
state-of-the-art GIS, remote
sensing, and Computer Aided Drafting
(CAD) capabilities as well as global
positioning systems (GPS) and
environmental monitoring equipment.
Please contact any of
our
faculty or staff with any
further questions that you may have
regarding our program. We have
designed the department’s homepage
and associated websites to provide
as much information as possible, but
we would welcome additional
inquiries via e-mail, phone, or
personal visit (please contact
Missy
Bair, the departmental secretary
to set up a visit). We look forward to
seeing you on the ground floor of
Leonard Hall on the IUP campus soon.
Regards,
John Benhart, Jr.
Department Chair
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Message from the Chair,