PROGRAMS AND RESEARCH FACILITIES: The program builds from a strong base in three traditional areas of geographic scholarship: human, cultural and regional geography; earth system geography; and geographic information sciences. Examples of collaboration involve nature-society interactions, population and health, and land change analysis. Rural landscapes and sustainability remains the thematic core
for the program, consistent with the land grant mission of KSU. Within each area students may pursue research more specific to their individual interests. Within the areas of human, cultural and regional geography, faculty specialties include landscape symbolism, ethnic landscapes, place identity, and religious landscapes. Faculty have regional expertise in North America, China, South Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Great Plains, American West, and in mountainous regions throughout the world. Earth systems geography includes geomorphology, soils, hydrology, biogeography, landscape ecology, paleoecology, climate variability and change, and environmental modeling. Nature-society interactions include studies of human dimensions of environmental change, natural hazards, rural land use and rural change, environmental modeling, water resources, and environmental perception. Population and health geographies include population migration and distribution, spatial patterns of diseases and health outcomes, rural settlement, and sustainable rural communities. Geographic information science includes GIScience, remote sensing and spatial modeling. Multidisciplinary graduate and undergraduate certificates in GIScience, administered by the department, are also available. The department has a strong research and teaching reputation and ranks highly among the social sciences at KSU. These strengths have translated into several large grants that support collaborative research between students and faculty. Benefits of the geography graduate program include a balanced curriculum, a broad-based approach to research/scholarship, and a commitment to fieldwork as a component of geographic inquiry. The moderate size of the department fosters an informal, friendly atmosphere with ample opportunity to develop close rapport with faculty members and with visiting research scholars. Department resources include the Geographic Information Systems and Spatial Analysis Laboratory (GISSAL), a remote sensing research lab, a GIS/remote sensing teaching lab, and an environmental geography teaching lab. The rolling and tree-shaded university campus is located in Manhattan, pop. 45,000. Manhattan is situated eight miles north of I-70 in an attractive area of the Flint Hills, adjacent to Tuttle Creek Reservoir and Konza Prairie Biological Station, and one hour north of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.
