Mission Statement

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.

Program Description

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 34 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 2019, 68% of courses offered in Geography are being taught by associate faculty.

Student Learning/Administrative Unit Outcomes

Randy Cousineau Discipline area: Geography, Spring 2020
Who was present for this discussion: Rebecca Schimdt, Belinda Stevens, Bob Pierce, Randy Cousineau
Which Outcomes were discussed? Your discussion doesn't need to discuss all the outcome levels below, but should include at least a few. Courses & SLOs Assessed (find your SLOs)

GEOG 2: D - Demonstrate an understanding of basic concepts of physical geography in the analysis of real-world variations in environmental patterns.
GEOG 3: D - Applications and activities related to basic concepts of physical geography in the analysis of real-world variations in environmental patterns.
GEOG 4: B - Demonstrate an understanding of the origins, diversity, and distribution of basic cultural patterns, with particular attention given to: language, religion, urbanization, political and economic patterns, and human-environment interactions.
GEOG 8: B - Explain origins, spread, and development of major nations and regions using major geographic concepts.
GEOG 10: A - Examine the physical processes which shape the natural environments of California.

Programs & PLOs Assessed

Identify fundamental concepts specific to physical and cultural Geography.

GELOs Assessed

Utilize critical thinking skills to analyze, evaluate, and make decisions concerning complex contemporary issues and the interactions among individuals and across societies; ILOs Assessed (more on ILOs).

Effectively Looking Back Please begin with a look back at summaries submitted in the prior two semesters, and provide here a brief follow-up on any actions taken, resources requested, resources received, etc. The department continues to work on simplifying the SLO testing procedure by developing short answer questions that may be shared with all instructors teaching those specific courses. The department also continues to discuss the adoption of OER material, where possible, including the use of OER textbooks. To date one-third of the sections utilize OER textbooks, including two sections of GEOG 2 – Physical Geography, two sections of GEOG 8 – World Region Geography, and one section of GEOG 20 – Introduction to GIS. The access to OER resources used for instructional purposes have improved greatly over the years, but access to time, particularly for associate faculty, is still a stumbling block, especially for things like moving to OER materials. Associate faculty do not get paid for work outside of teaching so there is little incentive to made major changes to their curriculum. Part 1 – Findings Discuss the findings and/or observations. Please include: • How the Learning Outcome was assessed. Examples: using brief reflections from individual instructors, using a common assessment, etc. • The results of the assessment. • Collective dialog that occurred in the department (who was involved) GEOG 02 – SLO D: Demonstrate an understanding of basic concepts of physical geography in the analysis of real-world variations in environmental patterns. For three sections of GEOG 2, the instructor reported that discussions environmental patterns covered atmosphere layers allowed us to see the importance and changes in atmospheric gases, examined global wind circulation, which showed how the normal patterns are being subject to change with global warming, and finally global ocean circulation ties together the previous two. The quantitative results were 50 percent received an 80 percent or higher, forty percent received 60 – 79 percent; ten percent received less than 60 percent. GEOG 03 – SLO D: Applications and activities related to basic concepts of physical geography in the analysis of real-world variations in environmental patterns. Weekly lab exercise and quizzes are designed to measure each of the required student learning outcomes. The labs are designed to help reinforce information learned in the lecture component of the course. In addition, the regular lab quizzes are intended to test students on the skills acquired from the lab exercises. A comprehensive final exam is given to test the students on all the learning objectives prescribed in this course. Since both quizzes and lab exercises are to be completed during the class period, attendance isa critical component in achieving student success. All those students that attended the class and completed the assignments passed the lab section with a C or better. Quantitative results were reported by the instructor as follows: 65 percent received a passing score for the questions associated with this SLO. GEOG 04 – SLO B: Demonstrate an understanding of the origins, diversity, and distribution of basic cultural patterns, with particular attention given to: language, religion, urbanization, political and economic patterns, and human-environment interactions. The quantitative results were: seventy percent received an 80 percent or greater, twenty percent received between 60 – 79 percent, and ten percent received a score of less than 60 percent.. GEOG 08 – SLO B - Explain origins, spread, and development of major nations and regions using major geographic concepts. For GEOG 08, a short answer question was used to determine the student’s understanding of the relationship to relative locations, natural environments, people, resources, economies, and contemporary problems: Described what sparked the Arab Spring, how did the rest of the Arab world react, and what are/were the ramifications for Europe. No quantitative results were reported. The only instructor of the two sections of GEOG 8 has retired and was not available for input. GEOG 10 – SLO A: Examine the physical processes which shape the natural environments of California. For two sections of GEOG 10, their map assignment had them exploring the San Andreas Fault, earthquakes and other external and internal processes through videos with questions to answer. The discussion part discussed the 1994 Northridge earthquake and what drives an earthquake. The question asked them if they’ve ever experienced an earthquake, where they were and how it affected the landscape (if they hadn’t, then to find an earthquake not already discussed in the lecture and tell the class about it). Every student answered this question in depth. They seemed to enjoy it. Quantitative results: Nearly one hundred percent of students received an 80 percent or greater. Part 2 – Strategies Discuss how the findings above will be used to inform practice. For example: planned improvements in individual courses; department-wide trainings; altering the assessment; or moving the focus to a different learning outcome. GEOG 02 – SLO D: Discussion concerning the SLO how technology could help students understand the real-world variation in environmental patterns, including the use of Google Earth and UCAR Center for Science Education – The Very Simple Climate Model. GEOG 03 – SLO D: This lab which is usually taught face-2-face has exercises that are hands-on, with use of mathematics. Going online with this course is not a good combination for student success. There are no plans to take this course online once the pandemic is over. GEOG 04 – SLO B: Most students understand the basic concept of distance decay and friction of distance, but fewer understand the relationship between the ways those concepts change over time and how they affect the development of infrastructure, therefore an assignment that would require students to illustrate those relationships would help them better understand how development of transportation has related to the progress or contraction of the patterns of cities on the landscape, and the connections between the development of nations and geographic regions. GEOG 08 – SLO B: Qualitative reflection and next step: Those students who did understand were spot on their analysis. This topic generally takes more lecture time to go over, but due to extenuating circumstances, not as much time was spent. Need to spend more time on this topic. GEOG 10 – SLO A: Quantitative results and next step: Nearly one hundred percent of students received an 80 percent or greater. Qualitative reflection and next step: Since students tend to do well with material they can do outside of class, use of more of this type of coursework may improve SLO attainment. Part 3 – Resource Needs What resources (if any) are needed to make the changes outlined above? What resources (if any) does the department need to help students meet course and/or program outcomes. As was stated previously, providing compensation for associate faculty to assist them in new course development, not just for OER adoption, but also for overall improvement of their courses would be beneficial. Since most of the courses are taught by associate faculty anything that would improve their course development outside of the classroom would likely be beneficial to the success rates of the student. With all courses having gone to online environment, it will be interesting to see how SLO competency of the students have been affected. This switch has caused all faculty, associate or full-time to revamp their courses and find new methods and materials to teach in a very different environment.

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (Instruction Departments)

As the implementation of the AAT program and the corresponding development of Guided Pathway, GEOG is a discipline that has lost a number of sections because the courses did not end up within a particular AAT program and students are being directed as to what to take for specific coursework. GEOG will need to develop ways to increase student enrollment that have some choice as to their general education requirements. Various methods of marketing will be attempted, such as presentations at the Academic Showcase.

Success and retention rates were beginning to improve starting in 2015. Both success and retention began to falter in 2018, likely because of events occurring outside of the classroom. The Camp Fire and subsequent power outages created a situation where maintaining continuity where major challenges.  

 GEOG will increase marketing of the program with the assistance of Chico State Geography and Planning Advisory Board, which CSU Chico is the main recipient of this program.

Standards/Goals for Student Achievement (All Other Departments)

Strategic Direction

The Geography Department supports the college in meeting its Strategic Direction and Priority Themes by:

Enhancing a Culture of Completion and Goal Achievement - Faculty is working to provide as many courses as possible with free, open-source textbooks, thereby reducing costs for students.
Supporting Student, Faculty, and Staff Success - Enhance SLO Participation: provide stipends for associate faculty to perform 'deep dive.' 
Meeting Enrollment Targets - Provide various marketing methods to increase enrollment of ANTH courses, such as creating short videos of the discipline Anthropology that would be presented to high school counselors in the college service area.
Meeting student achievement goals – Student success continues to be a problem. More information is needed on the root causes of Anthropology's low success rate, meaningful before any attempts can be made to improve those rates.

Program Review

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. 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.

Department Goals

Improve awards of degrees through the promotion of the GEOG program
Provide for successful students within program
Improve awards of certificates in GIS program
Provide GIS curriculum

Future Development Strategies

Requested Non-Financial Resources

Current Financial Resources