The Department of Geography in the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Kentucky offers undergraduate degrees and graduate degrees and courses in physical and human geography. The department has an international reputation for the study of social theory and critical geography, including political ecology. Located in Lexington, Kentucky, the department is consistently ranked among leading geography graduate programs in the United States.A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States (2011) (29 April 2011) (accessed 30 June 2015) The graduate students have organized the annual international conference, Dimensions of Political Ecology or DOPE, since 2010.Dimensions of Political Ecology, Anthropologies Project, by Brian Grabbatin and Patrick Bigger (1 September 2012) (accessed 30 June 2015) In the summer of 2012, the department and faculty offices moved to the eighth floor of Patterson Office Tower.
Since 1973, the department has named a scholar the Bluegrass Day Speaker (formerly named for Ellen Churchill Semple). This internationally renowned individual delivers an afternoon address and evening remarks at an awards ceremony. Past Bluegrass Day Speakers have included David Harvey, Anne Buttimer, Peirce F. Lewis, Harm de Blij, Eric Sheppard, Jamie Peck, Lynn Staeheli, Trevor J. Barnes, Sarah Whatmore and Katherine McKittrick. (accessed 5 March 2020)
History In the 1920s and 1930s, few universities in the American South employed geographers. While there was evidence of interest in geography both in and outside the University of Kentucky, educators deplored the meager offerings and the ineffective teaching of geography in the state's secondary schools. Indeed, there were preparatory courses in geography in the course catalog of the University of Kentucky at the founding of the institution; the earliest course on record being Ancient and Modern Geography in 1865.University of Kentucky Course Catalogues, 1865 (accessed 5 August 2015) Educators were pleading for more effective geographic instruction and the business world was demanding a content of more practical value. Among the prominent American geographers, Ellen Churchill Semple, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, informally encouraged Frank L. McVey, President of the University of Kentucky, to establish a geography program, when in 1920 she donated to the university the Cullum Geographical Medal (awarded to her in 1914 by the American Geographical Society). The need for a separate geography program was clearly demonstrated during the next two decades, but it was the decision of the recently appointed president, Herman Lee Donovan, to recommend the establishment of a Geography Department within the College of Arts and Sciences early in the summer of 1944.
UK Geography would begin active work at the opening of the fall semester in September 1944.The Louisville Courier-Journal (July 22, 1944) Since 1923, well before the establishment of the department, courses titled Physiography, Elements of Geography, Economic Geography, Conservation of Natural Resources, Land Problems, Geography of North America, and Geographic Basis of American History had been offered in departments of Geology, Economics, History, and Agriculture. These geography courses were transferred to the new department and additional course offerings in geography were approved for undergraduate and master's degree programs. Joseph R. Schwendeman, who earned a PhD from Clark University in 1941, was appointed head of the new department.University of Kentucky Archives, King Library-North, The Lexington Leader (September 24, 1944)
With J. R. Schwendeman as head, and three assistant professors, Harry K. Hutter and Guy N. Parmenter (also from Clark) and Thomas P. Field (from UNC-Chapel Hill) and an associate professor, Richard L. Tuthill (Columbia University), the new department had five full-time faculty and an enrollment of 354 students from 1944 to 1945. In 1952, James Shear (Clark) and Daniel Jacobson (LSU) joined the department to teach climatology and cultural geography. The department, along with anthropology and sociology, established an interdisciplinary general education course for first year students attending the university after World War II entitled Societies Around the World. This two-semester program was taught by members of the three departments for most of the next two decades. Three societies were studied each semester. The first course examined the Eskimo, the Navajo, and Buganda in East Africa; the second analyzed three other areas: China, the Cotton South (in the U.S.), and the British Midlands. Thousands of students were enrolled in these courses to satisfy lower level requirements. It was a bold academic enterprise in multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary studies led by the geography department. With the support of the Sears Roebuck Foundation, the department also maintained a summer field studies program at this time in Monterrey, Mexico.
In the mid-1960s the department added new faculty to replace those who accepted positions elsewhere. William Withington (Northwestern University) joined to teach economic geography and North America; P. P. Karan (Indiana University) to teach Asia and physical geography; and Forrest McElhoe (Ohio State University) to teach regional and human geography. Faculty members were also involved in various international activities. James Shear spent 1957 to 1959 in Antarctica as part of the International Geophysical Year program; P.P. Karan spent 1957 to 1958 in Nepal as an assistant on the United Nations team that developed the first Five Year Plan for the country, and in 1964 to 1966 as leader of the Geographical Expedition to Bhutan Himalaya project supported by the National Geographic Society.
Between 1950 and 1960 the department averaged about 70 majors each year. There were 21 master's degrees awarded and 2,841 students were enrolled in geography courses from 1966 to 1967. Three of these earned a PhD in geography: Paul Cooper at University of Georgia; Sanford Bederman at University of Minnesota, and Richard Silvernail at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The first MA was granted in 1948 to Wilton Tucker, who taught at a college in Lake Worth, FL. The department's influence was strongest on education throughout Kentucky and in neighboring states. Kentucky MA degree students were employed at Eastern Kentucky University, East Tennessee State University, Marshall University, Morehead State University, Appalachian State University, Minnesota, Southeastern Louisiana, Austin Peay, Western Carolina University, and as high school teachers, climatologists, and city planners in various places throughout the South. In 1967, Schwendeman received the Meritorious Achievement award from the American Association of Geographers, the AAG's highest honor. That summer, he retired after serving as head of department for 23 years.
There have been ten chairs of the department since Schwendeman's term as Head (a designation no longer used at the university), Joseph R. Schwendeman, 1944–1967 (Head) P.P. Karan 1967–1975 Karl Raitz, 1975–1980, 1991 (interim), 1996–2008 Stan Brunn, 1980–1988 Richard Ulack, 1988–1996 Susan Roberts 2008–2012 Anna Secor, 2012–2013 (interim) Richard Schein, 2013–2017 Patricia Ehrkamp, 2017–2022 Matthew Zook, 2019–2020 (interim) Matthew Wilson, 2022–2023 (interim), 2023–2026 Tony Stallins, 2026-present
The first doctorates were awarded in 1972 to Thomas P. Grimes and Robert Daniel Joseph. The first PhDs awarded to women were Janice Averitt (1975), Helen Parson (1976), who taught at Wilfrid Laurier University, Macel Marteva Wheeler (1977), who taught at Northern Kentucky University, and Wilma Walker (1977) who taught at Eastern Kentucky University.
Graduate program
Following a national search, Karan was named as chair in 1967. On August 12, 1967, the old Social Sciences Building which housed the department (on the site of the present Fine Arts Library) was gutted by fire, damaging or destroying most of the department's cartographic and meteorological equipment, wall maps, and other teaching aids. The department moved to temporary quarters in Breckinridge Hall for two years (1967 to 1969). In the fall of 1969, the department moved to the fourteenth floor of Patterson Office Tower. A doctoral program was established in 1968 and the faculty size increased from four (Field, Karan, Withington, and McElhoe), to twelve by the mid-1970s: Dietrich Zimmer (Heidelberg), Donald Blome (Iowa), Paul Cooper (Georgia), Melvin Albaum (Ohio State), Gary Fowler (Syracuse), Roger McCoy (Kansas), Philip Phillips (Minnesota), Geoffrey Wall (Hull), Karl Raitz (Minnesota), Richard Jones (Ohio State), Ronald Garst (Michigan State), Richard Ulack (Penn State). Wilford Bladen (Kentucky) joined the department in 1973 to strengthen the program on Kentucky geography. In subsequent years, some of the departing faculty were replaced by new appointments, including Richard Towber (Washington) and Allan Fitzsimmons (UCLA).
In 1975 Karl Raitz was named chair. Student enrollment in the program approached 2500 students each semester in the 1970s. Between 1967 and 1980, the department awarded 53 MA and 23 PhD degrees. Graduates of the department were employed at universities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Ohio, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Canada in addition to colleges and universities in Kentucky. Others held positions in state and city planning boards, in the U.S. government, and in civil service programs. Departmental interest in overseas areas grew rapidly during this period. The faculty conducted research in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sumatra, Western Australia, and the Himalaya and Japan with support from various funding agencies. This period also marked increased interest in the department's immediate surroundings with the publication of the first comprehensive Atlas of Kentucky (1976), an effort that involved the entire faculty.
To improve its standing on campus and in the state, the department received permission to hire two mid-level faculty members with established research records. In 1977 the department hired Tom Leinbach (Penn State) and Gary Shannon (Michigan) who moved to Lexington, from the University of Vermont and the University of Florida respectively. At the same time, several recent PhDs were added to the program; they included Robert Cromley (Ohio State), Justin Friberg (Syracuse), Hank Bullamore (Iowa), and Jim Hufferd (Minnesota). The department was authorized to conduct a national search for a new chair, and Stan Brunn (Ohio State) was appointed chair, moving from Michigan State University in 1980.
During the next several years, the department experienced growth in a number of areas, including bringing in new faculty members. Some came on tenure lines, others as temporary, especially during tight budget times, and still others replacing those who moved elsewhere. The temporary faculty played important roles in the department's instruction, research and service missions. They included Percy Dougherty (Boston), George Hepner (Arizona State), Susan Macey (Illinois), Susan Trussler-Black (Penn State), and Jacqueline Pryce-Harvey (Tennessee). Lizbeth Pyle (Minnesota) was the first woman employed on a tenure stream line; she joined the department in 1983. Carl Amrhein (SUNY Buffalo) was in the department for two years in the mid-1980s. John Paul Jones III (Ohio State), Graham Rowles (Clark), and John Watkins (Colorado) also came in the mid-1980s to bolster the department's strengths in human geography.