Housed in the Sociocultural Studies Department, Geography promotes student success, completion and transfer. The program seeks to create lifelong learners who understand and appreciate the significance of culture and human interaction with the physical environment as a major factor in their lives and the health of the planet.
The Associate in Arts in Geography for Transfer degree (AA-T Geography) creates a transfer pathway for students who plan to complete a four-year degree at a California State University. Upon completion of the AA-T degree in Geography students will possess the requisite foundational knowledge as well as the practical skills necessary for subsequent completion of the baccalaureate degree. The associate transfer degrees (AA-T or AS-T) require completion and certification of the California State University General Education (CSU GE) or the Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) as well as the specific AA-T or AS-T major degree requirements. Students earning either an AA-T or an AS-T will not be held to additional Butte College graduation requirements (including Physical Education and the multicultural competency). Students should work with a counselor to identify major coursework that can be used to fulfill CSU GE or IGETC categories. To obtain an Associate's degree, students must complete both the major requirements and the graduation requirements listed in this catalog. Note that some courses have a prerequisite (P), corequisite (C), or both (P/C). Prerequisites and corequisites are listed within each course description in that catalog. Transfer majors designated as AA-T or AS-T are designed for transfer to a similar major at an unspecified CSU. Transfer majors designated as AA or AS are designed for transfer to the corresponding major at a specific CSU and are based on articulation. See a counselor for more information. Read about the difference between these types of degrees at the beginning of the Transfer section of this catalog. Upon successful completion of the Geography program, the student will be able to: 1. Identify fundamental concepts specific to physical and cultural Geography. 2. Identify conceptual and theoretical models pertaining to world, regional, and local Geography. 3. Apply applications associated with various thematic maps as well as use of geographical computer modeling. The courses that comprise the AA-T degree are also for Butte and transfer General Education. With 33 sections offered each school year, Geography serves a significant number of students and meets an array of important General Education and transfer requirements. Most Geography courses are dedicated to understanding culture process as they relate to the interaction with the physical environment. One course, GEOG 2 Physical Geography, focuses on physical/natural phenomena. Currently, there is one full-time faculty in the discipline and 4 associate faculty. In Spring 2018, 69% of courses offered in Geography are being taught by associate faculty.
GIS Software
A request for a GIS software license was included in Geography's 2017-2018 Unit Plan. Although the funds were not channeled through the Geography budget, the College did purchase the license. The department is uncertain about the source/budget code used to buy the GIS license -- it is our understanding that other campus units (Facilities Planning and Management; Natural Resources) also included GIS in their unit plan. Regardless, Geography relies on GIS software in the LRC 121 and CHC 238 computer labs, where we schedule our GIS courses.
In the last year, student learning outcomes assessment activities have been documented through a review/summary of SLO Brief Reflections from Spring 2017.
The assessment activities revealed student attendance and student tracking of assignments/grades as areas where improvement might lead to increased student learning and success.
A recommendation for action is department meetings, with compensation for associate faculty, that would focus on becoming more proficient using the Canvas LMS. Faculty members who are more adept in the use of Canvas reported stronger attendance and more consistent assignment submission by students. For example, faculty that used the Canvas Grade book found that from the beginning of class students are more attentive to their grades, and therefore, their assignments. The only drawback to using the current version of Canvas Grade is that if the instructor does not give a grade for an assignment it will not reduce the current grade for the student. Whereas, if a grade of zero is entered for a missed assignment the student immediately understands the consequences. Department meetings focused on Canvas would allow instructors with more experience to tutor instructors who want to improve their use of Canvas tools.
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5 Year Results Success Rates (2012 compared to 2016)
Success Rate by Ethnicity 2016
* Small number of individuals in pool.
Success Rate Male/Female 2016
Success Rate for Various Groups 2016
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Current efforts in the Geography program are classroom centered. Faculty are committed to excellence in the teaching of rich and rigorous course content. Surprisingly, there does not seem to be anything in the Strategic Direction that directly speaks to this, our core mission. This comes closest:
Creating a culture of meaningful interactions with students (2.a.1)
To support these classroom efforts, in conjunction with ANTH, POS, and HIST faculty, instructors in Geography participate in annual Sociocultural Studies Department Forums. The first forum was held in Spring 2015, and included presentations on Reading Strategies, Helping International Students Succeed, and Tried-and-Test Teaching Ideas. Held in Fall 2015, the second forum included presentations on Helping Student Athletes Succeed, No/Low Cost Textbooks, and Tried-and-Tested Teaching Ideas. Forum topics are "just-in-time" and meant to help instructors with recent and/or ongoing teaching challenges. The October 2016 forum included presentations on "Facilitating Difficult Conversations in the Classroom," "Library Resources," and "GIS Applications in SCS Classrooms." In our October 2017 event, we had two presentations focused on using Canvas as well as a Fair Classrooms presentation. The SCS Department Forum supports the college mission to meet this Strategic Direction:
Employee Development (2.b.1-4)
Finally, Geography's new certificate program in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) aligns with this part of the College's Strategic Direction:
Developing additional opportunities in response to community needs such as short-term certificates (1.i.4)
Geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering. The GIS certificate program prepares students to take the ArcGIS Desktop Associate certification exam.
1. The team encourages the Geography department to continue discussion and planning to reinstate the GIS program and courses. This program has broad applicability to a variety of CTE majors such as Fire Technology, Drafting, Administration of Justice, Agriculture, and is a support for majors at the CSU such as Engineering, Construction Management, Agriculture and Environmental Studies.
By Spring 2016, four GIS courses and a certificate program were developed and approved. In addition, another course closely aligned with the approved GIS courses is in development, bringing a total of five GIS related courses back to the college. The two sections of GEOG 20 had relatively low numbers, below 50 percent of section pedcap.
2. We recommend that serious consideration be given to hiring an additional full-time geographer, bringing the number of full-time faculty up to two. By historic standards, this would still be below the three full-time geographers teaching at Butte 15 years ago. A second full-time faculty is also necessary to implement our recommendation that the GIS program be restored. It is the committee’s considered judgment that a vibrant, up-to-date GIS program, providing professional courses for other CTE degrees and a standalone certificate of completion, cannot be developed, maintained, and taught without significant full-time involvement and oversight from a professional geographer.
Geography is still in need of another full-time position and it is not only related to the GIS program as outlined above, but also to Recommendation #3. Most of the associate faculty teaching geography are retired individuals who may or may not continue teaching for long, and one of them is currently on medical leave. Also, the associate faculty hiring pool was frequently filled by CSU Chico master’s program graduates; however, the CSU Chico Geography Department no longer maintains a master’s program. The Butte College hiring pool for geography is virtually nonexistent at this time. Qualified individuals have been siphoned off by CSU Chico, and others are not enticed to relocate to the area for only a part time teaching position. Finally, the expansion of Geography into GIS courses will place further strain on the single full-time faculty member. Geography's latest program review recommended that an additional full-time faculty position be funded to allow the department to focus on GIS.
3. The team recommends that the department consider closely aligning instruction in Geography 3 (Physical Geography Lab) with instruction in Geography 2 (Physical Geography) so that the courses are complementary and that students who take the courses concurrently have a consistent learning experience.
The department would like to better align Geography 2 and Geography 3, as it would be most beneficial to the student, and it would also better align Butte College with Chico State and other CSUs in the system. However, this would require another full-time position. A dedicated space because the current room is not set up for labs would also be a benefit.
Geography has identified the following goals for the 2018-2019 academic year -
- Increase student achievement of the course SLOs and overall success in the classroom by focusing on improving on-time assignment completion and reduce absenteeism.
- Identify opportunities to improve students success rates so that they align or exceed the college’s rate and 5-year goal.
- Develop and sustain a well-defined program to guide and support students who have declared or who are considering a major in Geography. These efforts will be informed by regular tracking of students who have completed the Geography program and by eliciting help from the Chico State Geography and Planning Advisory Board.
- Provide for GIS curriculum by funding campus-wide GIS software, to be used by multiple disciplines and departments at Butte College, and a full-time instructor for the GIS program.
Strategy 1 - Provide GIS Curriculum
Geography will be incorporating four Geographic Information System (GIS) courses, including a certificate program, effective Spring 2017 and requiring the ongoing use of a GIS software program.
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a type of computer program that collects, stores, manages, analyzes, and displays locational data, typically accompanied by associated databases full of facts and figures. Such geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering, and GIS is critical to this rapidly expanding field. The California Community College Foundation currently offers an annual license agreement for ESRI ArcGIS 10.3 software at an annual cost of $2000. Payment of the license fee provides unlimited seats on campus, virtual campus tutorials through ESRI (which are utilized by our proposed GIS courses), a one-year academic license of the software for each student enrolled in GIS classes (a $1,500 value in itself), and one instructor pass to the ESRI Users Conference (a $1,200 value) that is held annually and attracts 15,000 GIS users from around the world. The license agreement would also benefit Natural Resources where a GIS related course is now offered one semester per year requiring an annual maintenance fee of $500 for 32 seats.
Ongoing annual license fee: $2,000
Strategy 2 - New Full-Time Instructor
The Geography program currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future.
Geography currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future for many reasons. First, more than half of the associate faculty teaching geography are retired individuals who may or may not be continuing to teach. This semester alone, one of the associate faculty in this category requested fewer sections for medical reasons, and another will be taking medical leave. Second, the associate faculty hiring pool was frequently filled by CSU Chico master’s program graduates; however, the CSU Chico geography department no longer maintains a master’s program. The Butte College hiring pool for geography is virtually nonexistent at this time. Qualified individuals have been siphoned off by CSU Chico, and others are not enticed to relocate to the area for only a part time teaching position. Finally, the expansion of geography into GIS courses will place further strain on the limited faculty members in this department. The geography department’s latest program review recommended that an additional full-time faculty position be funded to allow the department to focus on GIS.
Strategy 3 - Promotion Of the Program
Host at least one event each semester meant to better connect Geography students with their Butte instructors, the Chico State program and instructors, and/or each other.
The full-time Geography instructor is a member of the Chico State Geography and Planning Advisory Board, whose main mission is to help recruit support students majoring in geography or planning. This is supported by attendance at high school career fairs, events held at the Chico State campus, and Butte College, through the appearance of Chico State instructors in Geography at classes held in the Chico Center or Main campus. This support strategy has been successful in increasing the number of majors within the Geography and Planning Department at Chico State.
Strategy 4 - Successful Students
To align with the College's current success rate and 5-year goal, improvement of student success in each section of each course is necessary. While Geography's success rate is not far behind the rates college-wide, improvement is essential.
The approach to supporting this strategy is to be inclusive of all faculty. According to the data, there are some courses that are consistently showing lower success rates. The current faculty has taught nearly every course offered, which provides an opportunity for input as to what and how of the curriculum being taught. Course outlines are currently going through review, which provides an opportunity to discuss SLOs, course content and even texts used. A timeline will be constructed to facilitate input by all faculty as the courses go through review leading to a review of the Geography program.
Additionally, the department will stage professional development sessions focused on the effective use of Canvas to support student accountability (attendance; assignment completion) in the hope of increasing course success.
Geography 3, Physical Geography Lab, is currently situated in LRC 112. This classroom is not designed for such a lab, especially without access to a sink that can handle remains of soil experiments, for example. The lab instructor currently makes arrangements each semester with the Physical Sciences or Biology faculty/staff to hold two to three of their labs in a lab setting. A more permanent arrangement would be beneficial to the students and the instructor for a proper lab setting during those times that such a facility is needed.
The Butte College General Fund is the sole source of financial support for the Geography program. The annual budget allocation is $1617.00.
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | GEOG, SCS, Monlux | Equipment | $0.00 | $2,000.00 | ||
| GIS Software License | Geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering, and GIS is critical to this rapidly expanding field. The California Community College Foundation currently offers an annual license agreement for ESRI ArcGIS 10.3 software that provides unlimited seats on campus, virtual campus tutorials through ESRI (which are utilized by our proposed GIS courses), a one-year academic license of the software for each student enrolled in GIS classes (a $1,500 value in itself), and one instructor pass to the ESRI Users Conference (a $1,200 value) that is held annually and attracts 15,000 GIS users from around the world. The license agreement would also benefit Natural Resources where a GIS related course is now offered one semester per year requiring an annual maintenance fee of $500 for 32 seats. Facilities and anyone else wishing to use ArcGIS would also benefit from access to this campus-wide licensing agreement. |
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| 2 | GEOG, SCS, Monlux | Personnel | $0.00 | $109,877.00 | ||
| Full-time Faculty Hire | Geography currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future for many reasons. First, more than half of the associate faculty teaching geography are retired individuals who may or may not be continuing to teach. This semester alone, one of the associate faculty in this category requested fewer sections for medical reasons, and another will be taking medical leave. Second, the associate faculty hiring pool was frequently filled by CSU Chico master’s program graduates; however, the CSU Chico geography department no longer maintains a master’s program. The Butte College hiring pool for geography is virtually nonexistent at this time. Qualified individuals have been siphoned off by CSU Chico, and others are not enticed to relocate to the area for only a part time teaching position. Finally, the expansion of geography into GIS courses will place further strain on the limited faculty members in this department. The geography department’s latest program review recommended that an additional full-time faculty position be funded to allow the department to focus on GIS. |
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