Geography

From the Greek word meaning “earth writing,” geography is the study of place and space. Geographers ask where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another, and how people interact with the environment. With roots in the ancient world, geography is an integrative discipline that straddles the science-social science-humanities divide and is centrally concerned with the nature and significance of the places, patterns, and landscapes that make up the earth’s surface.

Meghan McCollum
Long before I knew my own strengths, my professors took a vested interest in my passions and challenged me to go beyond the textbook. They taught me that being a geographer was more than being a walking atlas, but being able to recognize the complexities of the world around us, and to always be curious. Meghan McCollum, 2013 U.S. Rotary Global Scholar

Most people who are ultimately attracted to the discipline of geography are motivated by much larger aspirations than good salaries. The opportunity to make a difference in the world, in whatever expression that takes, is one of the most frequently cited reasons why current geography students, researchers, and practitioners explain their career choice.

At least three recent global trends can be identified as contributing to a renaissance of geography and its potential for making a difference in society and the world:

  • Globalization at an increasing pace and scale, phenomena that compel greater understanding of the world, places, people, and natural systems that affect us as a planet and as global citizens.
  • Expansion of geographic technologies, once fairly obscure and now pervasive in our daily lives, such as GPS in cell phones and cars, online mapping at your fingertips, cable news reports using spatial visualizations, and many more applications in modern business and government services.
  • An academic trend toward greater interdisciplinarity, especially a renewed focus on big questions that matter but that require a breadth of knowledge and multiple fields to tackle. Geography’s long-standing intellectual traditions in crossing those usual disciplinary boundaries are now better understood, increasingly seen as relevant and more widely respected in scholarly circles.

News

Photo Map of Georgian London

Samford Selects London Core Texts Students

Since 2014, the London Core Texts program has given outstanding freshmen the opportunity to further their intellectual narrative begun in their two-semester Cultural Perspectives classes. 
Photo A Samford geography student works in the Saba coral nursery

Samford Geography Aids Caribbean Coral Nursery Project

Award-winning geography professor Jennifer Rahn takes Samford students to Saba to give them hands-on experience and help them learn how to conserve the island’s ecosystem. 
Photo 17th Century Map of London

Faculty Explore ‘City as Text’ at National Seminars

The Samford team of Geography professor Jennifer Speights-Binet and English professor Keya Kraft took part in the Association for Core Texts and Courses’ Summer Seminar Project at the University of Chicago and Columbia University June 12–25.