A (Not Really) New Graduate Program

After many decades, the Wool Gee Pig (Waterloo-Laurier Graduate Program in Geography, W-LGPIG) is dead.

In 2005, this was “now probably offer the largest graduate geography program in North America” (Martin 2005, All Possible Worlds, A History of Geographical Ideas). Both universities will revert to having their own stand-alone graduate programs (Laurier’s starting in 1962 and Waterloo’s staring in 1965), as before, and this means there is/was an opportunity to re-imagine what a good graduate program looks like.

The soon-to-be former requirements for a thesis-based masters (Master of Arts (MA), Master of Environmental Studies (MES), Master of Science (MSc)) were:

• Professional Skills Development for Masters Students course (GG700)
• 1 of 4 Foundation courses (Foundations in Spatial Data Handling (GG600), Foundations in Human Geography (GG620), Foundations in Environmental Science (GG640), Foundations in Resource and Environmental Management (GG660))
• 2 elective courses

Laurier’s soon-to-be new requirements for a thesis-based masters (MA, MES, MSc) are:

• Professional Skills Development for Masters Students course (GG700)
• Research Design (GG690)
• 1 elective course

The soon-to-be former requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) were:

• Professional Skills Development for Doctoral Students course (GG800)
• 1 of 4 Foundation courses (Foundations in Spatial Data Handling (GG600), Foundations in Human Geography (GG620), Foundations in Environmental Science (GG640), Foundations in Resource and Environmental Management (GG660))
• comprehensive examination

Laurier’s new requirements for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) are:

• Professional Skills Development for Doctoral Students course (GG800)
• comprehensive examination

The existing project-based masters (infrequently done) and course-based masters (as the Environmental Data Analytics field) remain essentially unchanged.

This means we are reducing the number of required courses for both masters and doctoral students by 1.

While the Ontario Visiting Graduate Student (OVGS) system is available for grad students to take courses at other universities, the end of the W-LGPIG means that there is no automatic ability to take courses at the other university. This has already been evident when students attempted to take courses in other departments at the other university and are turned down because the course is full or deemed full.

We will offer fewer graduate courses in part because of the reduced need for them and in part because if the course enrolment in graduate courses is too low then the courses are no longer going to be offered.

Graduate students can always take courses in other graduate programs at their own university but this will take a cultural shift in these other departments. For example, for a Laurier geography graduate student to take a graduate course in another department at Laurier, the student must complete a ‘Graduate Program Change Request’ even though the student is not changing their graduate program. Other departments will also need to get used to the idea that their graduate courses may have, and in some cases probably should have, students from other departments.

To return to three questions from 2021, when the W-LGPIG was starting to unravel:

• Why do we make graduate students, particularly thesis-based masters students, take courses?
• Why do we make them take so many (or so few) courses?
• So what is the purpose of all of these graduate courses?

We have, indirectly, answered some of these questions.

Cohort-building in a professional development course is worthwhile and we should use the programs and workshops already available on campus.

We are not going to be allowed to offer graduate courses with small enrolments anymore. So, we need to either increase and maintain graduate student enrolment or accept we will simply offer fewer graduate courses than in the past.

We are going to encourage research, writing, and proposal development skills in graduate courses.

This means moving away from the idea that graduate students will take several graduate courses in order to increase the breadth and depth of their knowledge in the discipline, nominally geography, writ large. These types of courses often, but not always, did not directly relate to a student’s thesis research.

It also means that masters and doctoral student can, in theory, complete a graduate degree without taking any traditional geography (as in, the content is traditionally viewed as part of geography) courses. For example, a student with a degree in sociology, political science, or international development can do a geography graduate degree and not take a course focused on geography. Similarly, a student with a degree in biology, biochemistry, or geoscience can do a geography graduate degree and not take a course focused on geography.

On a related note, we have deleted 40 graduate courses from the calendar because they had built up over the decades. That still leaves 32 courses in the calendar not including place holder courses.