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Renaming and Rebranding within U.S. and Canadian Geography
Departments, 1990–2014
Amy E. Frazier and Thomas A. Wikle
Oklahoma State University
Between 2000 and 2014, more than thirty geography departments adopted revised or new names, with some entirely dropping
geography. Although renaming and rebranding efforts are not new to higher education, the rapid pace at which geography
department names have changed raises questions about the discipline’s identity and health. We examine the renaming trend
within geography programs together with intended and unexpected factors as perceived by faculty. Specifically, we look at the
renaming and rebranding trend within the context of four pillars offered by Pattison (1964) to define geography’s principal
academic domains—earth-science, man–land, area/regional studies, and spatial traditions. Key Words: academic unit,
administration, AAG, program, survey.
2000 年至2014 年间,三十所以上的地理系採用了修正或崭新的系名,有些甚至完全去除地理一词。儘管再命名或品牌
重塑的尝试,对高等教育而言并不陌生,但地理系名称的快速变迁,引发了有关该领域的认同与健康状态的疑问。我们检视
地理学程的再命名潮流,以及教职员所认为的预期或非预期因素。我们特别检视派特森(Pattison 1964) 所提出的四大支柱
脉络中的再命名与品牌重塑潮流,以定义地理学的首要学术领域——地球科学,人类—土地,地区/区域研究,以及空间传统。
关键词:学术单位,行政,北美地理学家学会,学程,调研。
Entre 2000 y 2014, m
as de treinta departamentos de geografía adoptaron nombres revisados o nuevos, en tanto que
algunos abandonaron enteramente la geografía. Aunque los esfuerzos por renombrar y cambiar de denominaci
on no son
nuevos en la educaci
on superior, el r
apido paso con el que los nombres de los departamentos de geografía se cambian
promueve interrogantes acerca de la identidad y la salud de la disciplina. En el artículo se examina la tendencia hacia el
cambio de nombres dentro de los programas de geografía, junto con los factores previstos e inesperados, segun se
perciben como explicaci
on por los profesores. Específicamente, observamos la tendencia de renombrar y cambiar
denominaciones dentro del contexto de los cuatro pilares ofrecidos por Pattison (1964) para definir los principales
dominios de la geografía—geociencia, hombre–tierra, estudios de
area/regionales, y tradiciones espaciales. Palabras clave:
unidad acad
emica, administraci
on, AAG, programa, sondeo.
I’m not my name. My name is something I wear,
like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.
—Jerry Spinelli (2004, 62)
Despite funding cuts and calls for greater account-
ability, the internal structure of higher education
has witnessed few substantive changes over the last
fifty years. Within a majority of colleges and universi-
ties, the department has retained its preeminent status
as the focus of academic life and the basic administra-
tive unit for hiring and evaluating faculty, teaching
courses, and overseeing curricula. Departments are a
home for academic life, offering physical space for
instruction, student advising, research, and other
activities. Along with their role in budgeting and per-
sonnel matters, departments serve as units for internal
and external comparisons of scholarship, extramural
funding, student retention, graduation rates, and other
measures of productivity. Perhaps most important,
departments serve as socially constructed places for
creative interaction and exploration among like-
minded students and faculty. As a symbol of its func-
tion and mission, a department’s name represents its
subject-area focus within an institution, to a wider
community of scholars, and to the public at large.
What’s in a Name?
In an April 2014 AAG Newsletter column, American
Association of Geographers (AAG) President Judith
Winkler noted a recent trend whereby many academic
geography departments had taken steps to change
their names, a phenomenon she called “rebranding”
(Winkler 2014). Along with speculating on factors
underlying the trend, Winkler observed an increase in
the rate at which rebranding was taking place. Indeed,
since 2000 more than thirty U.S. and Canadian
departments of geography have changed their name,
sometimes through mergers involving other academic
units. In other cases, geography departments have bro-
ken away from larger conglomerate units or adopted
names allied with an emerging research specialization
or teaching emphasis.
Changes within higher education are often driven
by budget challenges or pressure to implement effi-
ciencies. Although administrative factors explain some
The Professional Geographer, 69(1) 2017, pages 12–21 © 2017 by American Association of Geographers.
Initial submission, September 2015; revised submission, November 2015; final acceptance, November 2015.
Published by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
efforts to rename, much of the impetus for renaming
and rebranding in recent years appears to be coming
from within geography departments, raising other
questions. For example, has the renaming and
rebranding trend in geography affected mostly large
public universities, or has it also been felt across small
institutions? What forms of renaming and rebranding
have been implemented, and what motivations under-
lie renaming and rebranding efforts? Do name
changes reflect an expanded mission (i.e., “geography”
becoming “geography and sustainability”) or other
goals such as addressing low enrollment, shifting stu-
dent interests, or the desire to project a fresh identity
or realign with a new academic emphasis? Along with
other more general questions, renaming and rebrand-
ing raises important issues for geography and geogra-
phers. For example, is change driven by a perception
that geography is an “old-fashioned”name amidst
increasing student interest in programs emphasizing
the environment, sustainability, or other emerging
areas? Does the trend toward realignment reflect
increasing faculty research or teaching specialization?
Are some name changes acts of desperation by depart-
ments hoping to survive in the face of declining stu-
dent enrollment or budget challenges? Winkler’s
remarks raise important questions about the rationale
underlying renaming and rebranding and what, if any-
thing, can be done to strengthen geography’s identity.
In this article, we explore rebranding in U.S. and
Canadian geography departments with a focus on
both the types of departments that have rebranded
and how senior faculty perceive the benefits and con-
sequences associated with their department’s name
change. To provide context for our analysis and dis-
cussion, we begin by looking at the origins of academic
departments and provide an overview of geography’s
emergence within higher education and subsequent
struggles on college and university campuses. We then
consider renaming and rebranding within academic
departments through a review of the extant literature
examining efforts to rename and rebrand, with consid-
eration of the broader implications of rebranding on
geography’s identity and survival. Within this context,
we explore rebranding through a survey administered
to department chairs and heads and senior faculty in
departments identified as having undergone renaming
and rebranding in the past twenty-five years. The
results are presented and discussed within the context
of Pattison’s (1964) core knowledge areas of
geography.
The Origin of the Academic Department
Emerging on college and university campuses in the
United States and Canada in the later part of the nine-
teenth century, the academic department is a relatively
recent organizational construct (Edwards 1999). Early
departments in North American colleges and universi-
ties can be traced to the German model of formal
graduate departments with distinct disciplinary
boundaries that became popular in Europe during the
1800s (Dressel and Reichard 1970). During this same
period, many U.S. colleges and universities began
replacing their singular, common curriculum with
greater breadth in course offerings. Along with serving
the demand for more course work and new degrees,
departments organized along disciplinary lines offered
an administrative home for newly hired faculty while
helping them improve their national and international
visibility and identity (Gottlieb 1961; Winteler 1981;
Clark 1987; Becher 1989; Mills et al. 2005). As col-
leges and universities became more research oriented,
the department structure became useful for enhancing
faculty prestige as productivity and accomplishments
were evaluated. Increasingly, faculty sought to be affil-
iated with departments that were rising in their
national reputation as a result of success with publica-
tions, extramural funding, and the placement of gradu-
ates (Fogarty and Saftner 1993; Keith 1999; Liu and
Zhan 2012; Coomes et al. 2013). As departments grew
in size, faculty gained autonomy, the ability to lobby
for resources, and, often, the capability to influence
decision making at higher levels.
A distinction should be made between scholarly dis-
ciplines and academic departments. Whereas disci-
plines are generally defined as distinct fields of study
associated with academic majors and degrees, aca-
demic departments are functional constructs that often
administer numerous programs (e.g., majors, minors,
certificates, etc.; Dickeson 1999). Departments could
be associated with a single discipline and degree pro-
gram or could serve as a home for two or more disci-
plines and all associated programs (i.e., a department
of geography and geology that grants degrees in geog-
raphy, earth science, and sustainability). Although a
department might be interdisciplinary (e.g., history
and geography), disciplines are rarely split across
departments.
Within disciplines, specialization can lead to alle-
giance with a subdiscipline or a strong affinity with
colleagues working in a related discipline. For exam-
ple, geographers trained in geomorphology often
maintain closer ties to scholars working in geology
programs than to geography colleagues. Over time,
the general trend across many campuses has been to
add programs to attract students, nurture faculty spe-
cialties, and build prestige. Adding programs, how-
ever, often results in the diminution of resources
because programs are rarely deleted (Dickeson 1999).
In an effort to be efficient, departmental reorganiza-
tions (e.g., mergers) are sometimes implemented with
resources reallocated to make more efficient use of
staff, less office space, and so on.
Formal geography departments were established on
U.S. college and university campuses toward the end
of the 1800s. Although experiencing a period of sus-
tained growth after 1900, many geography programs
suffered a setback when U.S. colleges and universities
began separating physical and social sciences course
Renaming and Rebranding within Geography Departments 13
work and degree programs (Koelsch 2001). Other
challenges began after World War II, when geography
programs were eliminated at leading U.S. institutions
such as Harvard (1948), Stanford (1964), and Yale
(1967). As Smith (1987) noted, efforts to shut down
Harvard’s geography department followed a decision
to split geology and geography into separate
departments.
Geography’s troubles continued during the 1970s
with financial issues cited in the closure of thirty
additional programs (Fink 1979; Dorschner and
Marten 1990). Among victims were smaller depart-
ments located at large public institutions such as
the University of Michigan. Despite having a
strong national ranking, Michigan’sprogramexpe-
rienced declining enrollment and its small faculty
struggled to gain support for preventing its closure
in 1981 (Haigh and Freeman 1982). Geography
suffered additional losses throughout the 1980s,
including departments at the University of Pitts-
burgh (1983), University of Chicago (1986), and
Northwestern University (1987). Although less reg-
ular, closures continue today, most recently with
the elimination of the geography department at the
University of New Orleans (2015). Campus officials
sometimes characterize department closures as
“vertical cuts”because impacts are concentrated
within a single program in lieu of being absorbed
across multiple units (Wilson 2009), and from a
program prioritization standpoint, it might make
economic sense to prioritize programs and redis-
tribute resources from the weakest to the stronger
programs (Dickeson 1999).
Today, larger universities often have sufficient
resources for stand-alone geography departments, but
smaller colleges might offer a geography program
within an academic unit that contains other disciplines
such as history, economics, or political science. Such
composite departments might contribute to disagree-
ments where allegiance along disciplinary lines leads
to conflict over resources, hiring, tenure and promo-
tion, or curriculum decisions (see Smith 1987). In
some ways, the interdisciplinary nature of geography
contributes to confusion by affecting how geographers
perceive themselves and who they interact with most.
North American departments of geography are pres-
ently found in the largest numbers among public com-
prehensive universities offering master’s and doctoral
degree programs (AAG 2014). In comparison, geogra-
phy departments are not well represented at many pri-
vate institutions. As noted by Bjelland (2004), they are
missing at more than 90 percent of U.S. liberal arts
colleges and universities. Among the eight Ivy League
schools, geography is currently found only at Dart-
mouth College (Wright and Koch 2009).
Despite their importance in providing structure for
a college or university’s academic mission, the organi-
zation and function of academic departments has not
been without criticism. Departments have been char-
acterized as “organized anarchies”(Cohen and March
1974) or described as autocracies, oligarchies, and
bureaucracies (Smart and Elton 1975). According to
Hutchins (1967), an academic department exists, “like
every other subhuman organism, for the survival,
reproduction, and expansion of itself”(16). Edwards
(1999) noted that the departmental system has
remained mostly unaffected by reforms that have
sought to change public research universities. Some
have suggested alternatives to departments such as
interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches to
teaching and research (Capaldi 2009) or have recom-
mended restructuring in ways that foster more intra-
departmental interaction (Wergin 1994), but these
types of organizational structures are rare on college
campuses.
Rebranding in Academe
Decisions to rename programs in higher education are
shaped by a diverse range of factors, often including
input from stakeholder groups such as students, fac-
ulty, legislators, alumni, and donors. At higher levels
within an institution, the decision to rename and
rebrand might be tied to a mission change. For exam-
ple, when the Territorial Normal School at Tempe
became Arizona State University in 1958, the institu-
tion’s focus on teacher preparation was replaced by a
comprehensive state-wide mission. College and
department rebranding can also be driven by changing
goals or pursuits. For example, a realignment of teach-
ing or research priorities might be tied to new or
changing student interest or emerging research areas.
In other cases, administrative objectives or changes in
institutional support can lead to restructuring (Crouse,
Colgate, and Gaudet 2007). Along with reflecting dis-
ciplinary changes, a name change might be perceived
as offering benefits such as increased enrollment,
expanded institutional support, or improved success in
attracting high-caliber faculty (Mallon, Biebuyck, and
Jones 2003; Bunton 2006).
Name changes can also be driven by trends
within academic disciplines. For example, within
U.S. colleges and universities, academic units
emphasizing evolutionary ecology and microbiology
have evolved alongside, or replaced, biology depart-
ments with names such as “biology and evolution-
ary ecology”or “integrative biology.”As noted by
Gumport and Snydman (2002), rather than remove
portions of department names, which might signal
the delegitimation of knowledge, many departments
have lengthened names to address larger changes
within a discipline. In lieu of appearing and disap-
pearing, departments evolve by changing names,
merging, or splitting (Gumport 1993), and modifi-
cation to department names is an example of how
departments adapt within the bureaucratic structure
of universities (Edwards 1999). Along with internal
forces, renaming and rebranding might be driven
by external factors such as evolving workforce
14 Volume 69, Number 1, February 2017
needs. For example, many academic journalism pro-
grams have implemented significant changes as
most Americans now receive news through digital
rather than print sources. Journalism programs
have responded by realigning curricula to empha-
size mass media and strategic communication with
long-standing department names such as “journal-
ism”increasingly being replaced by newer labels
such as “media and strategic communications.”
Departmental name changes might also be driven
by economic factors. Recessions and economic cri-
ses result in fewer resources available to administer
programs, often leading to programmatic review
(Griffith 1993) and prioritization (Dickeson 1999)
to make budget cuts. Geography departments
might be particularly vulnerable to economic
downturns as a result of a few factors. First, geog-
raphy departments in the United States and Canada
are often small (ten to twenty faculty) and often
administer numerous programs (e.g., several under-
graduate majors, minors, geographic information
system [GIS] certificates, graduate degrees, etc.).
Because these programs are often perceived as
requiring substantial resources, administrators
sometimes turn to mergers as a cost-saving solution
during recessions. Second, geography’sinterdisci-
plinary nature means that departments contain
diverse faculty. If several faculty from a similar sub-
discipline (e.g., cultural geography) retire from a
small department and lines are not replaced due to
an economic situation (e.g., hiring freeze), the
tenor of the department might shift, prompting a
name change or rebranding effort.
Geography’s Identity and Survival
Although enjoying a long history on college and uni-
versity campuses, geography’s health and survival have
been a frequent topic of concern. Several factors have
been suggested for explaining the discipline’s strug-
gles, including an identity crisis attributed to periodic
shifts in emphasis (Haigh and Freeman 1982). In the
early 1960s, Pattison (1964) attempted to solidify
geography’s mission by defining its four principal tra-
ditions: earth-science, man–land, area/regional stud-
ies, and spatial traditions. These focus areas have
endured across decades and continue to form the basis
from which progressions in geographic knowledge
and education are often measured (e.g., Robinson
1976; Goodchild and Janelle 1988; Bednarz 2000;
Bennetts 2005). Although useful for external represen-
tations, Pattison’s pillars might be less helpful for cap-
turing geography’s breadth. In addition, geography’s
diverse subfields are constantly dilating to encompass
peripheral subject areas such as sustainability, resil-
ience, and planning, to name a few. As noted by Clif-
ford (2002), the increasing breadth and diversity of
geographic subject matter paints a bleak future for
geography and its quest for identity. In addition, the
academic distance among the discipline’s core tradi-
tions has been at the root of factionalism among fac-
ulty members and harmful to efforts aimed at
cementing a positive external image of the discipline
(Koelsch 2001).
Dawson and Hebden (1984) made the prophetic
observation that “the public face of geography is of
concern for its long-term survival”(254), noting also
that geography’s image “is not strong”in the eyes of
either the general public or policymakers. These state-
ments were echoed by de Blij (2005), who noted that
outside the discipline there remains an ignorance
about what geography is and what geographers do.
The implication is that student recruitment, extramu-
ral funding, and, ultimately, internal support are tied
to geography’s public image.
Recognizing the discipline’s vulnerability, promi-
nent geographers have suggested that the discipline’s
identity and survival depend, in part, on its inter-disci-
plinary links (Wilbanks and Libbee 1979), visibility
relative to other campus programs (Koelsch 2001),
and flexibility (Erickson 2012). By aligning itself with
emerging bodies of knowledge, geography can poten-
tially use its flexibility and interdisciplinary connec-
tions to expand its prominence and improve its public
image. For instance, geography has successfully part-
nered with geology programs, creating larger units
that might be perceived as less susceptible to budget
cuts. In looking at such administrative changes, Bierly
and Gatrell (2004) found that between 1991 and 2001,
geography frequently merged with geology and earth
science, environmental sciences, geosciences, and
planning programs. Similarly, Battles and Welford
(2000) looked at combined geography and geology
departments, noting benefits such as resource sharing
and cooperation involving curriculum.
Objective and Methods
Given the recent flurry of name changes within geog-
raphy departments, we explore the renaming and
rebranding phenomenon. We seek to identify the
types of departments that have rebranded, the ratio-
nale behind name changes, and the perceived benefits
and unintended consequences associated with
rebranding. More specifically, our inquiry looks at the
following questions: (1) Are rebranding efforts tied to
geography’s core areas as identified by Pattison (1964)
as earth-science, man-land, area/regional studies, and
spatial traditions, or are they reflective of an effort to
maintain or broaden geography’s place within a body
of knowledge? (2) What is the principal force driving
efforts to implement name changes? Are most changes
implemented to attract additional majors, graduate
students, or faculty or for altogether different reasons?
Along with the importance tied to a department’s
name, Gumport and Snydman (2002) argued that aca-
demic boundaries are also established through pro-
grammatic offerings, such as degrees conferred.
Renaming and Rebranding within Geography Departments 15
Therefore, we also examine the creation of new degree
programs that accompanied name changes.
Using the Guide to Geography Programs in the
Americas: 2014–2015 (AAG 2014), we created a data-
base of all current geography programs offering bacca-
laureate or higher degrees at institutions in the United
States and Canada. We then cross-checked
departmental names against the Guide to Programs dat-
ing back to 1990 to identify units that had experienced
a name change over that time period. All types of
name changes were evaluated, including those result-
ing from unit mergers, splits, subject additions, and
subject deletions. Subsequently, we used Web sites
and other published information to identify depart-
ment chairs and heads, and contacted each with a brief
explanation of our project along with a survey Web
link containing both general questions about the
department’s name change and more detailed queries
regarding the rationale and consequences of the
change (Table 1). If a chair or head was not aware of
events surrounding the name change, we suggested
the survey be forwarded to a senior faculty member
more familiar with those events. Survey responses
were compiled in a database and basic statistical analy-
ses were carried out on the data.
Results
According to the Guide to Geography Programs in the
Americas: 2014–2015 (AAG 2014), there are 428 geog-
raphy programs at four-year colleges across the
United States and Canada. From this master list, we
successfully identified and contacted eighty-nine
departments or programs (about 21 percent) that had
undergone a name change between 1990 and 2014.
We received forty-seven responses, yielding a
response rate of 53 percent. Respondents represent a
range of institution types with seven (15 percent)
from departments granting bachelor’s degrees only,
twenty-three (49 percent) from master’s-granting
departments, and seventeen (36 percent) from doc-
toral departments. For the purpose of comparison,
these rates can be compared to Carnegie classifications
for 580 geography departments and programs in the
United States and Canada (AAG 2014) with fifty-eight
(9.0 percent) programs or departments offering the
baccalaureate only, 174 (48.0 percent) programs or
departments offering the master’s degree, and 150
programs or departments (41.9 percent) offering doc-
toral degrees. We use supplemental information col-
lected about all eighty-nine departments as well as the
specific responses from the forty-seven participants
within different portions of the analysis (Table 2).
Information gathered on all eighty-nine depart-
ments enabled us to plot common trajectories for
name changes (Figure 1). The most frequent change
for departments originally called geography or some
other name (e.g., history and geography) involved the
addition of environment or similar derivatives. Twenty
departments changed their name from “geography”to
“geography and environmental studies,”“geography
and environmental science,”or a related name.
Although Canadian institutions make up only a small
proportion of the eighty-nine programs (seven; <8
percent), they overwhelmingly fall into this category.
Five Canadian departments became “geography and
environmental studies”(or similar), and two became
“geography and earth sciences.”A second common
change included mergers among geography and geol-
ogy programs (nD10), with names most often chang-
ing from “geography”to either to “geography and
geology”or “geosciences.”New names emphasizing a
realignment with science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) were also popular (nD10)
as exemplified through a shift from “geography”
to science-focused names such as “geographical
sciences.”
Table 1 Example survey questions sent to department
chairs and heads of geography departments identified as
having undergone a name change between 1990 and
2014
Q1. What is the current name of your department?
Q2. What was the previous name of your department?
Q3. What year did your department name take effect?
Q4. What degree levels does your department offer?
Q5. Please indicate the reason(s) why your department
changed its name (several options provided
including option to write in responses).
Q6/7. Were any new undergraduate or graduate degree programs
created just prior to or following the department’s name
change? If so, what were the level(s) and name(s)
of these degrees?
Q8. How has the name change positively or negatively
impacted your DEPARTMENT in the following
areas (choices provided for 15 areas)?
Q9. How has the name change positively or negatively
impacted GEOGRAPHY in the following areas
(choices provided for same 15 areas as above)?
Q10. How many permanent, full-time
faculty in your department earned
their highest degree in geography?
Table 2 Data sets used in the analysis and correspond-
ing result tables and figures
Data set Method Results
89 departments
identified as
undergoing
name change
between 1990
and 2014
Cross-comparison
of AAG Guide to
Programs and
supplemental
Internet
research
Figures 1, 2
Survey responses
from 47
participants
Survey containing
10 questions
related to
department
renaming and
rebranding
Tables 1, 3
Figures2,3,4,5
Note: AAG DAmerican Association of Geographers.
16 Volume 69, Number 1, February 2017
Most troubling was the large number of depart-
ments dropping the word geography entirely. This
group included departments that adopted new names
such as “earth and environment”and departments
where geography was originally part of a multisubject
name that consolidated to a shorter name (e.g., “his-
tory, geography, and political science”becoming
“social studies”). Interestingly, despite the increasing
popularity of degree programs focused on geospatial
sciences, geomatics, and geoanalytics, few departments
(nD6) implemented changes to include “geographic
information systems”or “GIS”in their name. Three
departments adopted “geospatial”in their new name,
but it is not obvious whether this new term is a
STEM-related change or a variant of GIS. Although
we chose the former because the term is usually paired
with the word science, further discussion on this topic
across the discipline might be warranted. On a positive
note, five departments dropped additional subjects
from their name to become just “geography.”
In addition to tracing name change trajectories, we
were interested in determining when changes were
implemented. Forty-two survey respondents reported
the year their name change took place, with a large
proportion (48 percent) of those changes occurring
since 2010 (Figure 2). As the median year for changes,
interestingly 2008 falls at the midpoint of the Great
Recession, which lasted from December 2007 to June
2009. Because mergers are one potential outcome of
budget cuts, we analyzed the fifteen departments
where a name change resulted from a merger (Ques-
tion 5) and found that nine of those changes (60 per-
cent) occurred since 2008. This might suggest a link
between the Great Recession and renaming via merg-
ers. In some cases, changes were explained by write-in
comments noting the implementation of a merger as
being “a dean’s decision”or “due to budget cuts.”
Interestingly, the number of name changes reported
between 2010 and 2014 is equivalent to the previous
two decades combined. Because many departments
did not respond to the survey, it is possible this num-
ber is even higher.
Our second research question was aimed at uncov-
ering motivations and rationale behind renaming and
rebranding. We asked respondents to check all appli-
cable answers from a list containing possible reasons
(Figure 3). The most common responses were to
enhance on-campus standing (43 percent), attract
more undergraduate majors (38 percent), merge with
another department or program (30 percent), and
address changing faculty interests (23 percent). Inter-
estingly, more than half the respondents selected
“other”either in addition to selecting provided
responses or as their only response to the question.
Respondents were given the opportunity to write in a
response if no item on the list captured the underlying
motivation or reason behind the name change. A
selection of responses has been compiled in Table 3,
with many responses suggesting that the decision to
rename was tied to changes within geography itself or
to trends in majors or courses being offered within the
department.
Along with uncovering the underlying rationale, we
sought to learn about other initiatives taking place
Figure 2 Number of departmental name changes per
decade. Results for 2010s are only complete through
2014.
Figure 1 Trajectory of eighty-nine departmental name
changes identified as occurring since 1990. Certain
changes fall into multiple categories (e.g., Geography !
Earth and Environment, which “dropped geography,”
“added Earth,” and “added environment”) and are
accounted for multiple times in name change categories.
STEM Dscience, technology, engineering, and mathemat-
ics; GIS Dgeographic information systems. (Color figure
available online.)
Renaming and Rebranding within Geography Departments 17
within departments that responded to our survey.
Approximately half of the respondents (49 percent)
indicated that their department’s change was accom-
panied by the addition of new degree programs
(Figure 4), with twenty-three new BA or BS degrees
added by the forty-seven surveyed departments. Nine
of those (almost 40 percent) identified an environmen-
tal focus (e.g., environmental studies, environmental
science, etc.). Fewer graduate degrees were added
compared to the undergraduate level. Although seven
new MA or MS degrees were added, along with three
new PhD programs, only one of the new graduate
degrees was environmentally focused (i.e., MS in envi-
ronmental sustainability). A notable trend is the addi-
tion of GIS-related degrees or concentrations at the
bachelor’s and master’s levels, with three departments
adding a BS in GIS and one department adding an MS
degree in GIS management. The majority of these
GIS-related degrees have been added since 2009. It
should be noted that some of the new degrees replaced
long-standing degrees in geography, with one respon-
dent providing clarification that “new”programs were
simply rearrangements of existing degrees to conform
to an environmental focus. A few respondents noted
that the addition of environmental degrees has
diverted students away from geography degrees.
Our final set of questions examined respondents’
perceptions about positive impacts and negative conse-
quences associated with their name change. Responses
were overwhelmingly positive with respect to the
impacts of name changes on their department and,
more broadly, on the discipline of geography
(Figure 5). The most favorable impacts were perceived
to be associated with undergraduate recruiting, on-
and off-campus prestige, course enrollment, and new
faculty recruiting. Perceived positive impacts were not
as strong when respondents were asked about the
impact of the name change on geography as a
Table 3 Selected write-in responses to survey question
5 (Table 1) regarding the reason for the name change
Category Selected “other” write-in responses
Budgetary “Cost-saving to combine
departments”
Administrative “Dean’s decision”
“At the request of administration in
order to secure more faculty lines”
“Significant reorganization of college
structure”
Changing field “To align with naming practices of
other departments in our
discipline”
“To address changes in the field”
Changing department “In recognition of a new academic
major” (several similar responses)
“To clarify we administer an
environmental studies program”
(several similar responses)
“To reflect the range of degree
programs we offer” (several similar
responses)
“Indicating we are a STEM
department”
“More accurately reflect program
goals”
“To create a tighter bond between
Geography and Geology” (several
similar responses)
Merger encouraged “to ensure vitality
of [another department]”
To “fit better within the school”
“To acknowledge we have both
human and physical scientists”
Note: STEM Dscience, technology, engineering, and
mathematics.
Figure 4 New degree programs that accompanied
department name changes. (Color figure available online.)
Figure 3 Reasons for department name change as indicated by respondents (n D47) and the percentage of respondents
indicating each change.
18 Volume 69, Number 1, February 2017
discipline. No negative consequences were identified
for student employment, research or teaching assis-
tantships, or competiveness for extramural funding.
Nearly 14 percent of respondents reported that their
name change negatively impacted recruiting under-
graduate students into geography, however.
Because mergers might suggest a different motiva-
tion behind rebranding (e.g., administrative mandate
instead of department initiative), we examined
responses from the fifteen departments where a name
change was due to merger. Although we found no
major differences between the merged and nonmerged
departments in terms of perceptions about changes,
negative impacts were mentioned for alumni relations,
department prestige, and faculty retention more often
among the merged departments. In contrast, non-
merged departments noted topics such as budget, new
faculty positions, and space more often as negative
impacts tied to changes. It should be noted that several
respondents indicated that the change was too recent
to observe impacts, suggesting the need for follow-up
studies.
Discussion and Conclusions
Efforts to rename or rebrand long-standing geography
departments offer important clues about the health of
geography as a discipline, and we sought to explore
the rationale behind those efforts. For example, are
renaming and rebranding efforts aimed at realigning
geography programs with emphasis areas defined by
Pattison (1964) or is the label geography inadequate for
many twenty-first-century programs seeking to
become broader, more focused, or more closely affili-
ated with new or emerging academic fields? For our
first line of inquiry, we found that name changes have
indeed been implemented to broaden “turf,”or the
intellectual body of knowledge consistent with one or
more of Pattison’s geography traditions. This is evi-
denced by the large number of departments that added
subjects to an existing department name. Frequent
additions were “environment,”“global studies,”
“GIS,”or “earth science.”These subjects align with
Pattison’s (1964) man–land, area/regional, spatial tra-
ditions, and earth-science, respectively. In addition, an
emphasis on the environment in revised names and
new degree programs suggests a desire to affiliate
geography with global issues that have received recent
attention such as climate change and sustainability. In
fact, two departments and two new degree programs
added the word sustainability. For some, the inclusion
of sustainability might be viewed as a natural extension
of geography’s man–land or human–environment
emphases. Departments adopting a new environmen-
tal focus are typically located at colleges and universi-
ties without an explicit department emphasizing the
environment (see Table 3).
Although a majority of name changes involved
modifications such as expanded names, a few depart-
ments dropped “geography”altogether. From our
survey and supplemental information, we were able
to determine that most of these eliminations took
place as a result of departmental mergers or adminis-
trative restructuring rather than as part of a rebrand-
ing effort. Also noteworthy was that none of our
Figure 5 Impacts of name change on the department as well as the discipline of geography as indicated by the percent-
age of respondents (n D47) indicating each impact as positive or negative. Note: TA Dteaching assistant; RA Dresearch
assistant. (Color figure available online.)
Renaming and Rebranding within Geography Departments 19
respondents suggested that the decision was driven by
a perception of geography as old fashioned, outdated,
or obscure, although one respondent noted the term
land studies as being “archaic.”
Our findings reveal that efforts to rename and
rebrand have remained, for the most part, within the
loose confines of Pattison’s (1964) four traditional pil-
lars of geography, and rebranding efforts have been
aimed at showcasing the expanded boundaries of
knowledge or academic turf associated with a depart-
ment’s academic programs or research strengths.
Although there appear to be no significant departures
from Pattison’s pillars, there is evidence that develop-
ing fields of study (e.g., environment and sustainabil-
ity) are increasingly being integrated within
geography’s body of knowledge and within academic
department names. The inclusion of environmental
and sustainability degrees and programs featuring new
department names might be a nod toward what Haigh
and Freeman (1982) described as geography’s“animal-
istic instinct for survival”(187).
We also explored forces potentially driving name
changes such as a need to expand undergraduate
majors, attract graduate students, or recruit faculty
with an eye to motivations unique to geography.
Broadly speaking, we found that the most common
reasons for undertaking a name change were to
attract undergraduate majors and to enhance a
department’s prestige on campus. Interestingly, but
not surprisingly, both of these factors might be of
critical importance in competing for on-campus
funding or other resources. As previously noted, the
large number of “other”responses received in
response to our questions about motives underlying a
name change suggests that the impetus behind
rebranding might not correspond to reasons that
have driven name changes in other disciplines.
Although we structured the list of possible choices
following other studies and findings across several
academic fields (see Bare 1980; Morris 2002; Mallon,
Biebuyck, and Jones 2003; Mills et al. 2005; Crouse,
Colgate, and Gaudet 2007), our list failed to capture
many of the reasons underlying rebranding efforts in
the departments surveyed. Nearly 50 percent of
respondents provided an open-ended response to
“other”on our survey, with many providing only a
write-in response to this question. Furthermore, the
tenor of “other”responses reveals that many name
changes have been implemented in an attempt to
broaden public perception of what geography is and
what geographers do, supporting observations by
Dawson and Hebden (1984), who argued that the
public face of geography is of utmost concern to the
discipline’s long-term survival. Several respondents
indicated that a name change was implemented as
a way of recognizing the addition of a new academic
major. This suggests that departments are taking
actions to absorb new subjects perceived as
falling within their domain such as environmental
studies.
Along with benefits, there are negative aspects and
unintended consequences associated with rebranding
efforts. When asked about the impacts of name and
programmatic changes on the discipline of geography,
several respondents expressed a belief that their name
change somewhat negatively affects geography in
terms of undergraduate student recruiting. Although
we did not specifically ask respondents to elaborate on
this response, the trend toward adding environmen-
tally focused degrees, programs, and concentrations
might draw potential majors away from pursuing
geography in favor of other disciplinary options. In
many cases, the new degrees offered do not have the
word geography in their name, a clear setback for geog-
raphers and geography. Oddly, this same category
(undergraduate student recruitment) was also where
respondents perceived the most positive gains for
geography, a dichotomy suggesting that although the
addition of new subjects and degrees might draw
attention away from the discipline of geography, it
could be simultaneously drawing students into the
department, where they are likely being exposed to
what geography is and what geographers do. &
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank department heads and chairs
and senior personnel who participated in the survey
and provided valuable insights for this article. Addi-
tionally, we would like to thank the editor and two
anonymous reviewers for providing insightful com-
ments that helped improve the article.
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AMY E. FRAZIER is an Assistant Professor in the Depart-
ment of Geography at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater,
OK 74078. E-mail: amy.e.frazier@okstate.edu. Her research
interests include the use of remote sensing and landscape
ecology for natural resource management and investigations
into scale and scaling for GIScience.
THOMAS A. WIKLE is a Professor in the Department of
Geography at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK
74078. E-mail: t.wikle@okstate.edu. His recent research has
examined communication systems and broadcasting policy.
Renaming and Rebranding within Geography Departments 21
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