UW-Eau Claire Geography
Minnesota Field Seminar

Overview of UW-Eau Claire

 

The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, an institution of approximately 11,500 students and 1,200 faculty and staff, is consistently recognized as a top comprehensive university in the Midwest and is widely known as a leader in faculty-undergraduate research and study abroad. We acknowledge that our campus occupies the sacred and ancestral lands of Indigenous Peoples, and we honor the land of the Ojibwe and Dakota Nations. We strive for excellence in liberal education and select graduate and professional programs through commitment to teaching and learning and dedication to our core values of diversity, sustainability, leadership, and innovation.

 

Overview of the Department of Geography and Anthropology

 

The Department of Geography and Anthropology is home to nine permanent faculty, two permanent staff, and three visiting faculty. The Geography program is one of the largest in the Midwest, with more than 150 majors working towards degrees in liberal arts, environmental, geospatial, and transnational majors. The mission of the department and its programming is to equip undergraduate students with a comprehensive geographical foundation and to prepare students with the knowledge, understanding, perspectives, motivation, skills, and tools to be competent participants in addressing contemporary societal and environmental challenges and engage in local to global community issues. This is done this by offering a balanced, complementary, and progressive range of human, physical, human-environment, regional, and geospatial courses, as well as high impact opportunities (research, fieldwork, internships, immersions, and applied experiences). The department is committed to providing a program of high quality and relevant content, accessible and welcoming to all students, with attention to groups historically underrepresented in geography.

 

Overview of Geography 368: Geography Field Seminar

 

The Geography Field Seminar is a required course for Geography majors at UW-Eau Claire. Although the area of interest varies by semester, each course includes in-class lessons, readings, and exercises that provide students with an understanding of various physical and human geographies of the area of interest. In addition, an emphasis on research methods and techniques is included provide students with a field-based learning experience that will deepen their appreciation and knowledge of the destination. As a result, students develop abilities to observe, analyze, and think geographically about the area of interest. The course requires students to synthesize knowledge from a wide range of subdisciplines in Geography as well as related disciplines. At the end of the course, students publish a website that includes a daily overview of activities conducted during the field excursion and complete individual or group research projects. The course receives substantial funding from the UW-Eau Claire through the Blugold Commitment. These funds are vitally important, as they make the course and its field excursion component more affordable for students.

 

Overview of the Minnesota Field Seminar

 

The Minnesota Field Seminar, instructed by Dr. Ezra Zeitler with the assistance of Dr. Garry Running, emphasizes aspects of physical, environmental, and human geography in Minnesota. Specific topics vary by course offering but typically include the following: the Le Sueur River (physical geography and agriculture; co-led by UW-Eau Claire Geography Alums Kira Kuehl and Luke Burds), the Bois Forte Cultural Center (tribal sovereignty and management of natural and cultural resources), the Minnesota State University-Moorhead Regional Science Center (spatial archaeology in the Red River Valley), tourism in Lanesboro and its environs (including a meeting with the Lanesboro Chamber of Commerce), state parks along the Lake Superior coast (physical geography and management), economic geographies of the Mesabi Range, Boundary Waters, and Duluth (with visits to the Minnesota Heritage Center, Save the Boundary Waters, and the Twin Ports of Duluth-Superior), transit-oriented development in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area, and redevelopment and gentrification in the neighborhood surrounding St. Paul’s Allianz Field, and combating systemic inequities and racism in the Twin Cities (highlighted by a visit with the amazing staff at the Project for Pride in Living).