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- 2023 Archives
- Scientists dig deep and find a way to accurately predict snowmelt after droughts
- Cracking the Case of Missing Snowmelt After Drought
- 2023 Esri Canada GIS Scholarship for SFU
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Daniel Murphy
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Kyle Kusack
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Matthew Taylor
- Anke Baker Wins Staff Achievement Award
- Spring 2023 Virtual Geospeaker Event with Ginger Gosnell-Myers
- CAG Paper Presentation Award - Congratulations to Alysha van Duynhoven!
- Informing & Engaging Urban Youth on Public Hearings: GEOG 363 Final Showcase
- Research Talk: Modeling Urban Wetland Complexities
- Highlight Paper: Quantifying land carbon cycle feedbacks under negative CO2 emissions
- Bright Addae winner of the 2023 SFU ECCE GIS Scholarship Award
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Jonny Cripps
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Diandra Oliver
- 2023 Geospeaker Presentation with Dr. Pauline McGuirk
- Congratulations to Our Graduates - October 2023
- Evaluating the impact of educational goals at SFU
- The Belongings of Precariously Housed People - A Report
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Takuma Mihara
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Adrienne Arbor
- Thesis Defence - Congratulations to Claire Shapton
- 2023 Distinguished Speaker Presentation with Dr. Deb Cowen
- Cheers to Paul Degrace and his well-earned retirement!
- 2024 Archives
- Professor Nicholas Blomley Honored with the Community-Engaged Research Achievement Award
- Graduate Students Claire Shapton and Marina Chavez Honored with the Community-Engaged Graduate Scholar Award
- Applications now open: 2024 ESRI Canada GIS Scholarship for SFU
- Associate Professor Rosemary Collard achieves 13th place on SFU Altmetric List
- The PEAK feature: GSU hosts inaugural RANGE conference
- Gabrielle Wong wins First Prize in 2023 Student Learning Commons Writing Contest
- Gabrielle Wong receives Warren Gill Memorial Award
- Professor Nick Blomley receives Warren Gill Memorial Award for Community Impact
- Geography Student Union recipient of the FENV 2024 Changemaker Awards
- Senior Lecturer Tara Holland reveals the secret sauce of great teaching
- Hallway Screens Slides
- 2023 Archives
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Undergraduate Studies Update
Our undergraduate programs include over 450 majors and 45 minors (8th of 41 Canadian Universities in terms of number of majors). Undergraduate student enrollments are one of the largest in Canada with total enrollments of 3870 and 69 courses offered.
To enhance student experience and learning outcomes, we have pursued significant program evaluations and revisions recently. Highlights of recent and planned changes include the redesign of the BSc in Physical Geography program to reflect industry demands in coursework and to more adequately reflect three streamlined pathways towards recognized accreditation and certification. The Biogeophysical Science and Geoscience streams have been modified such that they target the academic requirements needed to apply for registration as a Professional Agrologist in BC or a Professional Geoscientist in Canada, respectively. These are skills-based professional accreditations required in the environmental and natural resource sectors. The physical geography and spatial information science stream has been renamed the Geosystems and GIScience stream and was modified to better target the requirements necessary to apply the theory and techniques of GIScience in the environmental and natural resources sectors.
The BA program has been redeveloped to clearly focus on Human Geography and thus the program name has been changed from Geography to Human Geography. The relatively new hybrid science/social science BEnv degree has continued to have steadily increasing interest with 123 students currently in the program. Global environmental systems (GES) majors develop expertise in social and biophysical systems at the global scale. With increased interest in the GES major, the BA Geography – Environmental Specialty program will be terminated once all students have completed their degrees.
A new Geographic Information Science minor has been developed and will commence in Spring 2021. The Geographic Information Science Certificate was renamed (from Spatial Information Science Certificate) and modified to make it more accessible to students. The Urban Studies Certificate is being redesigned to reduce the number of courses to a more reasonable number.
To address departmental priorities around career development and reconciliation, we have added a course called Geography in Practice and a course with Indigenous focus to all programs.
SFU Geography continues to assess all programs and courses to make changes needed to enhance our students’ experience and learning outcomes.
Margaret Schmidt, Acting Undergraduate Program Chair