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Departmental Beginnings
1870s-1890s
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Department of Geology, Mining and Metallurgy
offered courses in Physical Geography |
1907
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Department of Economics & Sociology offered courses in
Commercial Geography |
February 8th, 1922
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The Ohio State University Board of Trustees approved the
division of the then Department of Economics and Sociology
into five separate departments one of which was the Department
of Economic and Social Geography, with Chair: Charles
Clifford Huntington |
1922
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1st M.A. granted to Forrest I. Blanchard |
November 8th, 1924
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Department of Economics and Social Geography changed to Department
of Geography |
1934
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1st Ph.D. granted to N.C. Burhans |
October 1st, 1934
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Guy-Harold Smith Named Chair of Department |
Department Chairs
Charles Clifford Huntington (1922-1934)
Geography classes had been taught at OSU before 1922, but
it was during Huntington’s
period as chair that the department was just becoming established as a separate
entity. The first AAG meeting to take place on campus was held in 1928, a very
prestigious honor for a young department. It was also during this time that the
department was challenged by the depression. The university exerted pressure
on the department to stretch its resources. Professors’ salaries were slashed
and fewer professors were expected to cover more classes. Little space was left
for independent supported research. The department resisted a suggestion to join
the College of Arts and Sciences throughout the 1930s. |
Guy-Harold Smith (1934-1963)
Having
survived the shocks of the depression in its early inception,
the department became fairly conservative during Smith’s
chairship. It was described as hierarchical, with rigid,
if unspoken, divisions between students and teachers. The
focus
continued to be on teaching and research/professional development
was less supported. The department’s stature continued
to rise during this period as Smith was appointed AAG vice
president and, subsequently, Treasurer. The main challenges
to the department were the personal demands of World War
Two, firstly as many geography professors found themselves
devoting time to the war effort, and secondly, after the
war, with the large influx of students into the university
placing a strenuous demand on its teachers. |
Edward J. Taaffe (1963-1975)
Taaffe became Chair as a result of the influential publications and workshops
he had held in his years at Northwestern. This signaled a shift in the department
to a more research-oriented group, as former professors left and a large
number of new faculty were hired. The “quantitative revolution” was
taking place and OSU was one of the centers of thought in this revolution.
The national academic regard for the department was raised considerably as
a result. Although faculty were expected to make scholarly contributions
to research, Taaffe also emphasized the importance of both graduate and undergraduate
education. All faculty were expected to teach introductory undergraduate
courses, no matter what their research status. |
John N. Rayner (1975-1995)
Another shift developed in the department during Rayner’s term, as the
twin dominance of spatial organization and geography as a science gave way to
a plurality of approaches to geography. This plurality included the dominant
practices of the previous decade, but also socially relevant geography, political
economy approaches, ecological approaches, and physical geography focused on
the atmospheric sciences. This period also saw the growth of Geographic Information
Systems at OSU, and its incorporation into the curriculum. |
Lawrence A. Brown (1995-2003)
Brown opened and integrated the department even further. He concentrated particularly
on creating an atmosphere of enthusiasm, excitement, and engagement by promoting
increased interaction between faculty members and the hiring of a number of
new faculty. Hard work was put into increasing undergraduate enrollment, which
resulted in the creation of an undergraduate advisor position to manage the
200 students who flocked to the discipline. This lead to more on-campus recognition
as more faculty were rewarded for both their teaching and research efforts.
It was during this period that the NRC ranked the OSU Geography Department
as one of the top five in the country. |
Morton O’Kelly (2003- )
O’Kelly continues to expand the department.
There remains an emphases on core specialization in the department, as indicated
with the hiring of three new faculty, including the department’s first
biogeographer--coinciding well with the recent construction of the People, Society,
and Environment track, which was originally set up for undergraduates during
the Brown years, and has now been developed into a graduate program as well. |
Influential OSU Geographers
| Dr. Cleef established a climatological program
at Ohio State in 1921, and remained a faculty member until
1973. His emphasis
on research and teaching continues to be a critical component
of our climatology curriculum today. |
| In 1987 Dr. Marble joined the faculty of the Department of
Geography at The Ohio State University to augment their existing
programs in GIS. Since he joined the OSU faculty, the GIS specialization
has produced six Ph.D. and 25 M.A. graduates. The instructional
GIS program, OSU MAP-for-the-PC, that was created by Dr. Marble
and his associates (Dr. Jay Sandhu and Ms. Sherry Amundson)
was given a Best Software award by the Microcomputer Specialty
Group of the Association of American Geographers in 1990. This
teaching software in now in use by over three hundred universities;
one-third of them outside of North America. |
| The Robinson projection was developed by Professor Robinson
in 1963. It was the first major map projection to be commissioned
by a large private corporation; Rand McNally hired Robinson
to develop the projection because they were not satisfied with
the ability of existing projections to create intuitively appealing
depictions of the entire world. Rand McNally still makes extensive
use of the Robinson projection, and the National Geographic
Society uses it as well |
Notable Degree Recepients
1960 |
Harold Rose
(Department of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). |
1947 |
Arthur Robinson (Department
of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) |
1975 |
Ed Malecki (OSU Faculty) |
1976 |
John A. Agnew (UCLA Department
of Geography) |
1979 |
Ellen Mosley–Thompson
(OSU Faculty) |
1984 |
Jay S. Hobgood (OSU Faculty) |
1991 |
Harvey J. Miller (Department
Chair, University of Utah) |
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