People. Place. Planet.

Reimagine Your World within the Department of Geography

(Convocation June 2010)

Welcome to Geography at Trent - celebrating more than 40 years of excellence in teaching and scholarship that matters to people, places and environments worldwide.

Founded in 1968, with two faculty members (Chair, Peter Adams and Fred Helleiner), the Department of Geography offers comprehensive BA and BSc degree programs attractive to single and joint geography majors. Featuring compulsory methods courses, local and international fieldwork experiences, and community-based education opportunities across a range of sub-disciplinary specializations, the programs provide foundational training and critical perspectives in human and physical geography.

Fundamental to the Department's curriculum is the ongoing commitment to fieldwork as essential to what makes geography and geographers unique. As part of field-based and community-based research courses, for instance, geography students and faculty have worked in a variety of urban, rural and remote environments across Ontario, North America and internationally, with a longstanding emphasis on the Canadian North.

Geography faculty and students are also actively involved in Trent's inter-disciplinary programs, including the innovative joint GIS program with Fleming College at the undergraduate level as well as the graduate programs in Applications of Modelling, Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies, Environmental and Life Sciences, and Sustainability Studies.

Over the years, faculty research interests have emerged in several fields of study including within human geography - cultural and historical, political, recreation and tourism, social and health, and urban and economic, and within physical geography - climatology, geomatics and remote sensing, geomorphology, hydrology, and pedology. The research-intensive nature of the Geography Department provides many value-added opportunities for undergraduate students to get involved while offering outstanding training for graduate students.

A popular publication that reflects the range of interests and sub-disciplines in Geography at Trent is the Peterborough and the Kawarthas book series (3rd edition 2009), which provides a multi-faceted perspective on the human and physical geography of local area.

Along with academics, student activity in the Department has been focused around the Trent University Geographical Society (TUGS) - the longest running student society in the whole university! With an annual program of activities, from introductory local field excursions to the much-anticipated Reach for the Peak tournament in the spring, TUGS is a vibrant part of Geography at Trent.