Housed in the Sociocultural Studies Department, Geography promotes student success, completion and transfer. 该计划旨在培养终身学习者，他们理解并欣赏文化和人类与自然环境互动的重要性，这是他们生活和地球健康的主要因素.
地理转学位副学士(AA-T地理学)为计划在加州州立大学完成四年制学位的学生提供了一个转学位的途径. 完成地理专业的AA-T学位课程后，学生将具备必要的基础知识以及随后完成学士学位所需的实践技能. 副学士转学学位(AA-T或as - t)要求完成加州州立大学通识教育(CSU GE)或跨部门通识教育转学课程(IGETC)以及特定的AA-T或as - t专业学位要求并获得认证. 获得AA-T或AS-T成绩的学生不需要满足比特学院的额外毕业要求(包括体育和多元文化能力)。. 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. 被指定为AA或as的转学专业是为了在特定的科罗拉多州立大学转学到相应的专业而设计的，并且基于衔接. 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 33 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 2018, 69% of courses offered in Geography are being taught by associate faculty.
GIS Software
A request for a GIS software license was included in Geography's 2017-2018 Unit Plan. Although the funds were not channeled through the Geography budget, the College did purchase the license. The department is uncertain about the source/budget code used to buy the GIS license -- it is our understanding that other campus units (Facilities Planning and Management; Natural Resources) also included GIS in their unit plan. Regardless, Geography relies on GIS software in the LRC 121 and CHC 238 computer labs, where we schedule our GIS courses.
In the last year, 学生学习成果评估活动已通过2017年春季SLO简要反思的回顾/总结进行记录.
评估活动揭示了学生出勤率和学生对作业/成绩的跟踪，这些方面的改进可能会增加学生的学习和成功.
A recommendation for action is department meetings, with compensation for associate faculty, that would focus on becoming more proficient using the Canvas LMS. 更熟练使用Canvas的教师报告说，学生的出勤率更高，提交的作业也更一致. For example, faculty that used the Canvas Grade book found that from the beginning of class students are more attentive to their grades, and therefore, their assignments. 使用当前版本的Canvas Grade的唯一缺点是，如果教师不给作业打分，它不会降低学生当前的分数. Whereas, if a grade of zero is entered for a missed assignment the student immediately understands the consequences. 以Canvas为重点的部门会议将允许有更多经验的教师指导想要改进Canvas工具使用的教师.
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5 Year Results Success Rates (2012 compared to 2016)
Success Rate by Ethnicity 2016
* Small number of individuals in pool.
Success Rate Male/Female 2016
Success Rate for Various Groups 2016
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Current efforts in the Geography program are classroom centered. Faculty are committed to excellence in the teaching of rich and rigorous course content. Surprisingly, there does not seem to be anything in the Strategic Direction that directly speaks to this, our core mission. This comes closest:
Creating a culture of meaningful interactions with students (2.a.1)
To support these classroom efforts, in conjunction with ANTH, POS, and HIST faculty, instructors in Geography participate in annual Sociocultural Studies Department Forums. The first forum was held in Spring 2015, and included presentations on Reading Strategies, Helping International Students Succeed, and Tried-and-Test Teaching Ideas. Held in Fall 2015, the second forum included presentations on Helping Student Athletes Succeed, No/Low Cost Textbooks, and Tried-and-Tested Teaching Ideas. Forum topics are "just-in-time" and meant to help instructors with recent and/or ongoing teaching challenges. The October 2016 forum included presentations on "Facilitating Difficult Conversations in the Classroom," "Library Resources," and "GIS Applications in SCS Classrooms." In our October 2017 event, we had two presentations focused on using Canvas as well as a Fair Classrooms presentation. The SCS Department Forum supports the college mission to meet this Strategic Direction:
Employee Development (2.b.1-4)
Finally, 地理学院的地理信息系统(GIS)新证书课程与学院战略方向的这一部分保持一致:
Developing additional opportunities in response to community needs such as short-term certificates (1.i.4)
Geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering. The GIS certificate program prepares students to take the ArcGIS Desktop Associate certification exam.
1. The team encourages the Geography department to continue discussion and planning to reinstate the GIS program and courses. This program has broad applicability to a variety of CTE majors such as Fire Technology, Drafting, Administration of Justice, Agriculture, and is a support for majors at the CSU such as Engineering, Construction Management, Agriculture and Environmental Studies.
By Spring 2016, four GIS courses and a certificate program were developed and approved. In addition, another course closely aligned with the approved GIS courses is in development, bringing a total of five GIS related courses back to the college. The two sections of GEOG 20 had relatively low numbers, below 50 percent of section pedcap.
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, and one of them is currently on medical leave. 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. 地理学最新的项目审查建议增加一个全职教师职位，以使该部门专注于地理信息系统.
3. 研究小组建议系里考虑将地理3(自然地理实验室)的教学与地理2(自然地理)的教学紧密结合起来，这样课程就能互补，同时选修这两门课程的学生就能获得一致的学习体验.
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.
Geography has identified the following goals for the 2018-2019 academic year -
- 提高学生的课程成绩和课堂上的整体成功，重点是提高按时完成作业和减少缺勤.
- Identify opportunities to improve students success rates so that they align or exceed the college’s rate and 5-year goal.
- Develop and sustain a well-defined program to guide and support students who have declared or who are considering a major in Geography. 这些努力将通过对完成地理课程的学生的定期跟踪以及从奇科州立地理和规划咨询委员会获得的帮助来了解.
- Provide for GIS curriculum by funding campus-wide GIS software, to be used by multiple disciplines and departments at Butte College, and a full-time instructor for the GIS program.
Strategy 1 - Provide GIS Curriculum
Geography will be incorporating four Geographic Information System (GIS) courses, including a certificate program, effective Spring 2017 and requiring the ongoing use of a GIS software program.
A Geographic Information System (GIS) is a type of computer program that collects, stores, manages, analyzes, and displays locational data, typically accompanied by associated databases full of facts and figures. Such geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering, and GIS is critical to this rapidly expanding field. The California Community College Foundation currently offers an annual license agreement for ESRI ArcGIS 10.3 software at an annual cost of $2000. Payment of the license fee provides unlimited seats on campus, virtual campus tutorials through ESRI (which are utilized by our proposed GIS courses), a one-year academic license of the software for each student enrolled in GIS classes (a $1,500 value in itself), and one instructor pass to the ESRI Users Conference (a $1,200 value) that is held annually and attracts 15,000 GIS users from around the world. 该许可协议也将使自然资源公司受益，该公司目前每年提供一个学期的地理信息系统相关课程，32个座位每年需要500美元的维护费.
Ongoing annual license fee: $2,000
Strategy 2 - New Full-Time Instructor
The Geography program currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future.
Geography currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future for many reasons. First, more than half of the associate faculty teaching geography are retired individuals who may or may not be continuing to teach. This semester alone, one of the associate faculty in this category requested fewer sections for medical reasons, and another will be taking medical leave. Second, 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 limited faculty members in this department. 地理系最近的项目审查建议增加一个全职教师职位，以使该系能够专注于地理信息系统.
Strategy 3 - Promotion Of the Program
Host at least one event each semester meant to better connect Geography students with their Butte instructors, the Chico State program and instructors, and/or each other.
The full-time Geography instructor is a member of the Chico State Geography and Planning Advisory Board, whose main mission is to help recruit support students majoring in geography or planning. This is supported by attendance at high school career fairs, events held at the Chico State campus, and Butte College, through the appearance of Chico State instructors in Geography at classes held in the Chico Center or Main campus. 这种支持策略成功地增加了奇科州立大学地理与规划系的专业数量.
Strategy 4 - Successful Students
To align with the College's current success rate and 5-year goal, improvement of student success in each section of each course is necessary. While Geography's success rate is not far behind the rates college-wide, improvement is essential.
The approach to supporting this strategy is to be inclusive of all faculty. According to the data, there are some courses that are consistently showing lower success rates. The current faculty has taught nearly every course offered, which provides an opportunity for input as to what and how of the curriculum being taught. Course outlines are currently going through review, which provides an opportunity to discuss SLOs, course content and even texts used. 一个时间表将被构建，以方便所有教师的输入，因为课程经过审查，导致对地理项目的审查.
Additionally, the department will stage professional development sessions focused on the effective use of Canvas to support student accountability (attendance; assignment completion) in the hope of increasing course success.
Geography 3, Physical Geography Lab, is currently situated in LRC 112. This classroom is not designed for such a lab, especially without access to a sink that can handle remains of soil experiments, for example. 目前，实验室讲师每学期与物理科学或生物教职员工安排在实验室环境中举行两到三个实验室. 在需要这样的设施的时候，一个更永久的安排将有利于学生和教师的适当的实验室设置.
The Butte College General Fund is the sole source of financial support for the Geography program. The annual budget allocation is $1617.00.
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | GEOG, SCS, Monlux | Equipment | $0.00 | $2,000.00 | ||
| GIS Software License | Geospatial data is critically important to a broad range of employment categories, from health care to marketing, natural resource management to urban design, and climate science to engineering, and GIS is critical to this rapidly expanding field. The California Community College Foundation currently offers an annual license agreement for ESRI ArcGIS 10.3 software that provides unlimited seats on campus, virtual campus tutorials through ESRI (which are utilized by our proposed GIS courses), a one-year academic license of the software for each student enrolled in GIS classes (a $1,500 value in itself), and one instructor pass to the ESRI Users Conference (a $1,200 value) that is held annually and attracts 15,000 GIS users from around the world. 该许可协议也将使自然资源公司受益，该公司目前每年提供一个学期的地理信息系统相关课程，32个座位每年需要500美元的维护费. Facilities and anyone else wishing to use ArcGIS would also benefit from access to this campus-wide licensing agreement. |
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| 2 | GEOG, SCS, Monlux | Personnel | $0.00 | $109,877.00 | ||
| Full-time Faculty Hire | Geography currently has one full-time instructor and is in need of a second instructor in the very near future for many reasons. First, more than half of the associate faculty teaching geography are retired individuals who may or may not be continuing to teach. This semester alone, one of the associate faculty in this category requested fewer sections for medical reasons, and another will be taking medical leave. Second, 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 limited faculty members in this department. 地理系最近的项目审查建议增加一个全职教师职位，以使该系能够专注于地理信息系统. |
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