SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
MEMORANDUM
SENATE
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From
SENATE COMMITTEE ON UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES
Sublect..
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Changes .
9 ( graph.
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Date .........
June 16,1982
.
Action undertaken by the Senate Committee on Undergraduate
Studies at its meeting on June 1, 1982 gives rise to the following
motion:-
MOTION:
"That Senate approve and recommend approval to the
Board of Governors, as set forth in S.82-70
the proposed changes in Geography, including
1) Addition of new course GEOG 301-3 -
Geographic Ideas and Methodology
ii)
Deletion of GEOG 201-3 - Development
of Geographical Ideas; and GEOG 406-2 -
Geographical Methodology
iii)
Change in major requirements, add
GEOG 301-3 - Geographic Ideas and
Methodology to the required courses
for major students.
iv)
Change in the course requirements,
deleting GEOG 406-2 - Geographical
Methodology, and adding GEOG 301-3 -
Geographic Ideas and Methodology to
the required courses for honours
students."
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SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
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C.
2fi
MEMORANDUM
•To ............................
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?P"
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Chairman, Curriculum Committee
Faculty of Arts
Subjec?.
in
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iat•• Program.
Geography
G. A. Rheurner
From ......
Department of Geography
Date.
....FebruaY l, 198.
At its meeting on February 4, 1982 the Department of Geography approved
the following changes in its undergraduate program:
1.
A new course, Geography 301-3, Geographic Ideas and Methodology.
Rationale and outline attached.
2.
The new course above will be required of all candidates for B.A.
degrees in the department.
(excluding minors)
Kindly place the above changes on the agenda for consideration at the next
meeting of the Curriculum Committee.
Assuming that the above proposals of the department are accepted the
following changes in the department's calendar entry will be necessary:
(reference to 1981-82 calendar)
page 117 ?
OFFICE
LA
Under Upper Division Course Requirements:
I98
add Geography 301-3 required of all cnadidates for the B.A.-degree.
Division A to remain as is.
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dILDULTY OF AP
page 118 (In Majors box)
Item c delete one course from Division C
5 semester hours
add Geography 301-3
3 semester hours
item "c" now becomes item "a", "a" becomes "b" and "b" becomes "C".
Item d change 5 semester hours of credit in any other Geography course
number'd 300 and above to 7 sem. hrs. of credit in any other Geography
courses numbered 300 and above.
7 semester hours.
page 118 (In Honours Box)
Item c as above item c.
Item c now becumes item "a", "a" becomes "b", "b" becomes "c".
Item edelete Geog. 406-2 and change sub-total to 5 semester hours.
Item 3 change to 22 semester hours in any other courses numbered 300 and
above, but not more than one regional course.
22 semester hours.
Professor Charles Hamilton
Chairman, Curriculum Committee
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-2- February 18, 1982
The requirements will appear as follows in the calendar:
Majors:
(a)
Geography 301-3
(3 sem.
hrs.)
(b)
Five courses from Division A including at least one course
from each of Sections I, II and III
(15 sem.
hrs.)
(c)
One course from Division B
(5 sem.
hrs.)
(d)
7 semester hours of credit in any other Geography
courses numbered 300 and above
(7 sem. hrs.)
Total hours required:
(30 sem.
hrs.)
Honors:
(a)
Geography 301-3
(3 sem. hrs.)
(b)
Five courses from Division A including at least one
(15 sem.
hrs.)
course from each of Sections I, II and III
( 5
?
hrs.)
(c)
One course from Division B
sem.
( ?
5 sem. hrs.)
(d)
Geography 491-5
(e)
•
22 semester hours in any other courses numbered 300
(22 sem.
hrs.)
and above, but not more than one course from Division C
Total hours required:
(50 sem. hrs.)
• ?
The
course description for Geog. 301-3 would appear after the Title "Upper
Division
Courses" (and before "Division A") as it appears on page 121
of the
1981-82
Calendar.
9
SiMON FRASER UNIVERSITY
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MEMORANDUM
A. MacPherson
From
....................................................................................................
Geography
Date. ?
March 23, 1982.
A need has been recognised for a course on geographic ideas and methodology
that would provide students majoring, and taking honours, in Geography
with a clear idea of the nature of the discipline as a whole, its history
and concepts, and, especially, of the different and sometimes conflicting
types of approach to its subject matter.
Such courses are required by Departments of Geography at many other
universities in Canada, notably at the University of British Columbia,
and these courses have been recognised as an important part of the
academic training of prospective geographers and also as necessary in
order to avoid the consequences of too narrow specialisation in some
sub-disciplinary area.
By dropping the requirement of a fourth-year regional geography
course of five units and substituting a second-year course that carries
only three, we are able to avoid a substantial increase in the number
of required semester hours. The present proposal involves an increas of
only one semester hour, and so it does not significantly reduce the
students' freedom of choice or make more difficult the ability to specialise
if this is the students' desire.
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NKW COURSE.
I'kON)U4 FORM
1 .
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IIj!Ji)P ?
Depart.I?at:
Geography
•t.hrsvI,st ion Code:
GEOG
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(.nur.4c' Niier
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-
301
Credit
Uour:_ 3
_
Vector:
220
Title
uf
courNe:
Geographic
Ides'and Methodology
:,ihiidjs Ik.crLption of Courui:
A study of contemporary geographical concepts in
historical perspective, the course will examine the traditional approaches to the
subject matter of geography, giving particular att:ention to present-day methodological
debate and foci of interest.
Nit,c
of Course
2
hours lecture; 2 hour seminar.
'rerequisitss
(or special. instruction.): ?
30oredit hours completed.
What cours (course.), if any, is being dropped from
the calendar if this course
i s
approved:
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Geog. 201-3, Geography
406_2
2. S ddu1
m l ? -
ltt,w
fr&!quently will
the course us offered? ?
Every semester
rrnestc in which
the
course
will first be offered? 831
Which of your present faculty would
be
available to make the proposed offering
possible?
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Courses to be replaced have already been
taught
by:
(201) E.M. Gibson, A. MacPherson
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3. UbJictives of ths Course
(06)
M.L. Barker, R.C. Brown, F.F. Cunningham, N.E. Eliiot
Toprovide all B.A. honors and majors in Geography
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E. Gibson, R.B. Horsfall,
with a knclede of the discipline as a whole,
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M. Roberts.
its cieve]opnnt, traditions and areas of interest,
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All other faculty would be
and the different approaches to its subject matter
?
involved from time to tiir'.
including, rrethodol ogi cal debates.
6. 1I10t.ry and Space Requirement.
(for
information only)
What additional
resources will be required in the following areas:
Faculty ?
None
Staff ?
None
Library
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Additional copies of sore basic texts.
,tudin
visual
None
Space
None
Iquipsant ?
None
5. Approvalj
Date: ?
1L 4 ,-,
L ?
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p.rtnáiij
ha
1mm
This course is well within the department's present
capabilities and resources of people and equipment.
Dean ?
ChaiEian,
scs
SCUS /3-34b:- (When completing this
torn,
for instructions see
Memorandum SCUS 71-34...
At'.t.h
course outline).
Oct.'/l
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Sin Fraser University
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Geography 301-3
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Department of Geography
Course Outline
Geographic Ideas and Methodolo
gy
"The methodology of a field is not a grab bag of special techniques.
In geography such techniques as map making, "methods" of teaching, or
historical accounts of the development of the field are still often
mistaken for methodology ....Methodology proper deals with the position
and scope of the field within the total system of the sciences and with
the character and nature of its concepts." (Fred K. Schaefer, Annals,
Association of American Geographers, 1953, p.226).
"ThOW. In the narrowest sense, the study or description of the
rrethods and procedures used in some activity. The word is normally used
in a wider sense to include a general investigation of the aims, concepts
and principles of reasoning of some discipline, and the relationships
between its sub-disciplines. Thus the methodology of science includes
attempts to analyse and criticize its aims, its main concepts (e.g.
explanation, causality, experiment, probable), the methods used to
achieve these aims, the subdivision of science into various branches,
the relations between these branches... and so on. Some scientists. use
the word merely as a more impressive-sounding synonym for method."
(Aaron Sloman, The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought - also available
as the Harper Dictionary of Modem Thought.)
This course, required of all majors and prospective honour students in
Geography, will examine traditions, approaches and issues in contemporary
geography. Particular attention will be paid to present-day controver-
sies and critiques.
There is no single prescribed text. Members of the class will be expected
to make themselves familiar with the general nature of geographic ideas
and with the materials that geographers study. Students are urged at
their earliest opportunity to read Preston E.
Janes,
All Possible Worlds:
a Histor y
of Geographic Ideas, a literate, if limited, outline of the
development of the discipline.
The following titles will be referred to frequently during the seminars:
Richard Hartshorne, The Nature of Geography.
This is a lengthy discussion, dating from 1939 and later revised, added
to and sujrurarized, based on the methodological writings of some leading
geographers, principally German and American. It examines the method-
ological status of geography before 190 and purports to be a statement
of wha-t geography wa; seen to be, rather than an argument as to what it
rniit or should be. It was severely criticized by F.K. Schaefer in 1953,
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and the resulting controversy was a prelude to what, for a while cane to
be krlcMn as the "new geography" of the 1960s.
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--
Richard Hartshorne, Perspectives on the Nature of Geography,
1959.
A
(1PVeloprTflt,
updating and, to
3OTTI
extent a c1ari ric-it ion of
:
th('
Nature of Geo
graphy.
The main points are. r'.c1i1y avai table Irom chapter
nurmiaries, and nthen3 of
the cla,9n, should
irvike t:heniseive; familiar with
the nature of the discussion. Much has happened in geography in the
past twenty years that was not anticipated in this book; but Perspective
is a clear statement of geographical orthodoxy in the mid fifties,
even if it says little about the kinds of problem being discussed today.
Preston E. James, All Possible Worlds.
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1973.
A history of 'geographic ideas, rather than a geographical methodology.
Well-written and, with some serious and curious exceptions; complete so
far as the work of individual key
figures is
concerned, the book's
gravest shortcoming is the virtual absence of intellectual context. It
has been suggested that the impression is given that geography was
incestuously conceived in a vacuum, but that is an unjustified over-
statement. The author is out of sympathy with the "new
geography"
and
with the attempts of some workers to make geography rior'e socially
relevant; there is no discussion of what at this institution is thought
of as cultural geography, and contemporary philosophical alternatives
are ignored. Pay particular attention to the sections from Humboldt and
Ritter on.
A full and detailed list
of
readings for seminar discussion and background
will
Additional
be provided
References
at the beginning of term.
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Of inestimable value for purposes
of
communication are:
Bullock and Stallybress, The Fontana Dictionary of 'bdern Thought
(also known as Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought).
Raymond Williams, Key Words. Fontana paperback.
These will be used again and again in all sorts of courses and contexts,
and are well worth owning.
Or
an±zatibn
Two hour's lecture and one two-hour seminar, each week. Seminars will
discuss assigned topics and members of the class will be expected to have
completed certain prescribed readings and to give oral presentations from
time to
tine.
Seminars will consider certain key. ideas in method and
methodology, and also examine selected substantive writings for their
guiding concepts, methods and methodological status.
Grading
Grades will be based on a term paper and a final take-home examination.
No grade will be assigned for seminars as such, but regular and satis-
factory participation in these shall be prerequisite to a satisfactory
grade in the course.
