Department of Geography
Mount Allison University
144 Main Street
Sackville, New Brunswick
CANADA E4L 1A7

www.mta.ca/faculty/socsci/geograph/geograph.htm

A HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY
AT MT. ALLISON UNIVERSITY

PETER ENNALS and ROBERT SUMMERBY-MURRAY
June 2000

Introduction

The Department of Geography at Mount Allison University has a current full-time faculty complement of five, supplemented by the equivalent of one further position through part-time teaching. The Department is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mount Allison and benefits from immediate scholarly connections with its fellow departments of Sociology/Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, and Commerce. The Department graduates between 15 and 20 majors annually and offers the minor in Geography to an even broader constituency. The Department also contributes to inter-disciplinary programmes in Environmental Studies, Environmental Science, Canadian Studies, Women’s Studies, Japanese, and International Relations.

Geography and the liberal arts: the founding of the department in the 1970s

In 1970 not one of the ten English-speaking Maritime universities offered courses in the academic discipline of Geography, despite the discipline being well represented in almost every institution of higher education across the remainder of the country, including Newfoundland. In addressing this deficiency, Mount Allison University began to consider the creation of a Geography Department. The champion for Geography at Mount Allison University was Laurie Cragg, then the University’s President. Cragg was a distinguished chemist who had earlier taught at McMaster University where he be-friended Wreford Watson, the founder of the Geography programme at McMaster. It was during Cragg’s tenure that Mount Allison University initiated a deliberate course of development that sought to keep the university small and primarily undergraduate in nature with an emphasis on the liberal arts and sciences. Geography was seen to fit this academic model especially since it complemented the University’s pioneering efforts to create a Centre for Canadian Studies and because it added weight to what was at the time a very limited Social Science component of the curriculum.

The Department of Geography was created in 1972 with the appointment of Eric Ross as Head. At the time of his appointment, Ross was Head of the Geography Department at Bishop’s University and the parallels between the two universities were undoubtedly important in the selection of Ross as the person to set up the Department. The other factors favouring Ross were that he was a native of Moncton and was one of the few Maritimers (perhaps the first) to earn a doctorate in Geography. His doctoral studies were completed with Wreford Watson at Edinburgh and it is possible that the latter recommended Eric Ross to President Cragg. One of Ross’ first actions was to appoint John Wolforth to a position which was jointly in Geography and Education. The first group of courses were delivered in the Fall of 1972. The intention was that the new department would occupy an entire floor of the Avard-Dixon Building with specialist classrooms and labs suited to Geography’s needs. However, before this could be done, a neighbouring building housing the Commerce Department burned to the ground and the university had little option but to require that the two departments share the space in Avard-Dixon. The other occupants of the building were soon to include History, Spanish, and the other original occupant, Geology, which commanded about half the building. Thus it was that Geography came to share space with History and Geology, the two disciplines with whom it might be expected to have close affinities.

The early 1970s were times of expansion and fluidity in Canadian universities, including those in the Maritimes. Many of the recent Ph.D. graduates entering the academic profession saw small universities like Mount Allison as ideal places from which to launch their careers before moving on to larger research institutions. In 1974 Wolforth resigned to take a position in the Faculty of Education at McGill. Ross then recruited Peter Ennals, who was at the time a sabbatical replacement at Queen’s while finishing a dissertation at Toronto, and Larry McCann, a recent Ph.D. who was lecturing at the University of Alberta. With their arrival in September 1974 the Department consisted of what was to become a permanent complement of three full-time members. Over the next several years Geography established itself as a small but highly successful programme. Student interest was strong, a response that was gratifying given the weakness of Geography in the region’s schools.

Recognizing that the Department would remain small for some time, Eric Ross deliberately conceived of a programme that stressed human geography at the expense of physical geography. It was also expected that the Department would provide a strong service function in support of the liberal arts ethos of the university. Indeed Ross saw one of the missions of the programme as being to teach a generation of teachers to fill the evident gap in the regional school system. Wolforth’s presence was clearly a step in that direction as were the efforts to place members of the department on provincial curriculum committees and to offer summer courses aimed at teachers. In pursuit of the latter goal, Wreford Watson (Edinburgh), Louis deVorsey (Georgia), Rex Walford (Cambridge), and Robin Davidson-Arnott (Guelph) were brought in to teach in the summers of 1973, 1974, and 1975. It became clear however that teacher response was insufficient to sustain these efforts thereafter, owing in part to the elimination of the financial incentive system for teachers to take summer retraining.

With the arrival of Ennals and McCann, the programme was fleshed out to consist of ten full year courses, just sufficient to meet the requirements for the "Honours" programme offered by Mount Allison. Ennals taught the introductory course, methods including cartography, and a seminar on settlement; McCann taught economic geography, Canadian regionalism and urban geography; Ross taught world regional geography, historical geography and political geography. A thesis course rounded out the programme in the initial years. The first Honours graduate was John Trites in 1975 and thereafter a handful of Honours students appeared, though the numbers were smaller than was the pattern in other Mount Allison departments of the time. Most early graduates found that Honours was not crucial to going on to professional and graduate schools. Though the numbers of students following these paths after graduation were limited, there was a steady flow and from an early date it was clear that most succeeded in their post-graduate experiences.

Linking teaching and research in the 1970s and ‘80s

Mount Allison’s decision to remain small and primarily undergraduate in nature implicitly specified that the faculty’s first duty was to teaching, but research was encouraged. One of the early accomplishments of the Department was the establishment of a comparatively strong research profile. Within a year of his arrival, McCann, who had been recruited to be the specialist in contemporary urban-economic issues, shocked his colleagues by turning to historical studies, even to the point of ‘retooling’ by means of a summer of study at the University of Leicester with Professor James Dyos. Thereafter McCann launched a series of studies of the 19^th century Maritime urban system and its economic patterns. Ennals, who was trained as an historical geographer completed his dissertation in 1977 and shortly afterward began publishing on cultural landscapes with Deryck Holdsworth. Ross, also a historical geographer who had established his name with the publishing of Beyond the River and the Bay (University of Toronto Press, 1970), continued research on a second book exploring the Canadas in the 1840's. This book would later emerge in 1990 as Full of Hope and Promise. Further, among the research-related accomplishments of the Mount Allison Geography faculty in the 1980s were appointments to the editorial boards of the Historical Atlas of Canada project, first for Ennals (Volume II) and later for McCann (Volume III). Similarly, McCann became active as a member of the Urban History group which published the Urban History Review, while Ennals took on a number of contracts to write entries for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Ross received an appointment as Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies in Tokyo in 1977-8 and later a similar appointment in Australia. In the mid 1980s Ennals served as Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan. McCann held a fellowship at Harvard University during a sabbatical leave. These and other appointments to the Council of the Canadian Association of Geographers by all three members of the department, and to the executives of other research working groups and associations in Canada and the United States all indicated a degree of departmental involvement in international and national scholarly activities that was not generally common in other small Mount Allison departments. This gave the department a profile not only on the Mount Allison campus but also on the national scene in a way that surpassed the scale and nature of the department and University.

New curriculum, new opportunities: the 1980s

By 1983 the members of the department felt the time had come for revisions to the curriculum. Semestered courses were introduced as a means of expanding course offerings and providing greater flexibility for students and the teaching component. The more diverse programme that resulted saw the department offering courses in physical, cultural, and social geography, and a broader range of more focused regional courses. With greater flexibility to respond to sabbatical absences and to take on new opportunities as they arose, this decision also drew additional students, many of whom were challenged to work at a higher level than before. As a consequence, the department experienced a burst of new energy following this change.

Part of this energy flowed from a fortuitous event that came from outside the university. In 1985 the Department became host to a new externally-funded research institute, the Rural and Small Towns Research and Studies Programme. Supported by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation with a $1 million grant over five years, RSTP was conceived to be a ‘national centre of excellence’ with the mandate to develop research on the housing needs of rural and small town settings in Canada. With the appointment of Floyd Dykeman as Director, the unit grew steadily over the first five year period and in addition to conducting an active programme of research and outreach, the staff offered four semester courses in the Geography programme and provided scholarships and summer employment opportunities for some of our better students. The strong ‘planning’ orientation of RSTP led a number of students to do post-graduate work in planning. Subsequently RSTP received a second five-year term for its core funding from CMHC and began progressively to expand its activities into a variety of community economic development areas. This was accomplished through further grants from foundations and through contract research with a number of governments and other partners. A strong publishing programme was initiated and a number of regional, national and international conferences were sponsored. Much of this activity was conducted at arm’s length from the Geography Department though the relationship between RSTP and Geography has remained vital and important. In 1996 RSTP reassessed its modus operandi in the face of the end of its CMHC core funding and turned to contract work. While this altered the connection to the Department, under the directorship of David Bruce, RSTP has continued to offer the services of its staff to Departmental courses on a stipendiary basis.

Institutional instability and Geography’s survival: the early 1990s

In the spring of 1987, McCann accepted an appointment as Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Mount Allison. While technically it appeared that he was being seconded from Geography for a five year period, the university administration gave little thought as to how his absence from the Department would be filled and what the implication would be for the stability of the programme. Initially the administration, increasingly constrained by significant budgetary problems, was willing only to permit year-to-year appointments of replacements. As time progressed it became clear that McCann aspired to stay in Canadian Studies and at the very least might return to Geography at about the time Ross retired. Arguments from the Department pressing the administration to allow a more permanent appointment were unsuccessful in the face of consuming budgetary uncertainties. In the end, replacement faculty were provided with two-year term appointments at best and generally the programme experienced a measure of uncertainty which was discouraging to the faculty and to students. Student numbers remained relatively consistent, however, suggesting that Geography continued to play a role in the university’s programmes.

There were other significant problems within the University as well by 1991. A period of uncertainty about direction and overall financing culminated in a declaration of financial exigency and the university began to consider programme elimination. All faculty resignations and retirements were deemed to be closed positions and departments could not assume that there would be tenure track replacements. These difficult staffing situations were reflected in a bitter faculty strike in April 1992. With this in the background, further uncertainty appeared at the departmental level. In the spring of 1992, Larry McCann resigned from the university to take a position at the University of Victoria, thereby casting into doubt the future of his position in Geography. Further, the knowledge of Eric Ross’ imminent retirement in 1994 and doubts as to whether either position would be replaced was compounded by Ennals’ appointment as the new Dean of Social Sciences in 1992, in addition to his role as head of department. With Ennals teaching at half time, Ross on sabbatical leave, and McCann’s position vacant, the Fall of 1992 saw the Department in desperate straits. Robert Summerby-Murray, a new graduate from the University of Toronto hired as a sabbatical replacement for Ross, shouldered the bulk of the Department’s teaching while Ennals and Ross continued to apply pressure for resources to ensure the department’s survival.

Rebuilding in the mid-1990s: new directions and the repositioning of Geography in the wider curriculum

At the hour of the university’s greatest crisis, the new President appointed in 1991, Ian Newbould, chose to seek a solution to the University’s financial problems that would involve rigid fiscal discipline. This plan envisioned no faculty lay-offs but involved significant restructuring of existing programmes. One dimension of the plan was the creation in 1992 of four Faculties to replace the previous arrangement of separate Arts and Science Faculties. Geography was placed in the Faculty of Social Sciences with Ennals as Dean, along with Economics, Sociology-Anthropology, Commerce and Education – the latter two programmes offering their own degrees. As the impact of the programme of fiscal discipline took hold, administrative confidence improved and in due course Ennals succeeded in securing two tenure track positions for Geography. As well as restoring the faculty complement to three, these appointments confirmed the department’s existing strengths in historical-cultural geography and signalled new directions in environmental geography, particularly in relation to coastal research. Following Eric Ross’ retirement, Jeff Ollerhead, a recent Ph.D. in coastal geomorphology from the University of Guelph, was recruited in 1994 to fill the new environmental position. Summerby-Murray, who by 1993 had taken a two-year contract as the latest substitute for the absent McCann, had his contract converted in 1995 to the other of these tenure-track positions. In 1995 the curriculum was overhauled to reflect these changes and also to better conform to a new degree structure adopted by the University Senate. Coinciding with this period of significant administrative and academic change, was an equally dramatic physical and technological change for Geography and the Social Sciences. Over two successive summers the Avard-Dixon Building was renovated substantially, including the addition of an as yet unfinished third storey. With the departure of Geology from the building in 1994, the entire Faculty of Social Science was brought together under one roof.

Further changes in the Department in the late 1990s came from Ennals’ continued administrative role and from the merging of the University’s Geoscience programme with Geography. Following the end of Ennals’ tenure as Dean of Social Science, he was appointed Vice-President (Academic and Research). While able to maintain a small contribution to the Department’s courses, Ennals’ teaching was replaced largely by a series of short-term appointees. Some measure of stability was brought to this situation with the appointment of Judy Bates, a recent graduate from York University. Initially appointed as a sabbatical replacement for Summerby-Murray in 1998-99, Bates’ expertise in urban-economic geography allowed the department to reconfigure its teaching assignments to accommodate Ennals’ continued absence and move Summerby-Murray back into the cultural and historical geography that had been his graduate training. In addition, Stuart Semple, formerly of the Education programmes at Dalhousie and at Mount Allison, was appointed an adjunct professor. Semple taught the introductory human geography course and provided connections to the International Baccalaureate programme. External to the department, Geology which had joined a new department of Physics, Engineering and Geology, found itself in serious decline. Renamed Geoscience, this department had ceased to offer a viable major after the retirement of two of its long time faculty members. Increasingly, the place of Geoscience was seen to be within Geography, particularly as Geography strengthened its environmental offerings through courses in natural resource management. Further, Geography already had a geoscientist, Jeff Ollerhead, carrying out research and teaching in coastal zone processes. In 1998-99, the administration of the Geoscience minor was turned over to Geography and David Mossman, a geologist by training, was welcomed as the Department’s second geoscientist. By 2000, the Geoscience minor was being phased out, although a suite of Geoscience courses remain a vital part of the Geography programme.

A further development came in 1999 with approval for a further tenure track position, this time in environmental geography. Following a one-year contract, Bradley Walters, a recent graduate in Human Ecology at Rutgers, was appointed to this position in 2000. Walters brought with him considerable international research experience and the Department curriculum was modified to incorporate these elements of international environmental management. Further, Bates had been seconded to teach a course in Women’s Studies, decreasing her teaching in Geography but raising the profile of Geography with a diverse array of programmes on campus. Further collaborations with Biology and History, as well as with departments within the Faculty of Social Sciences, have continued this repositioning process.

The research profile of the department remains highly commendable, building on the foundations laid in the 1970s and ‘80s. All faculty maintain active research and publication programmes, with a high degree of external funding. Current research areas include cultural landscapes, marshland history and ecology, coastal zone processes and management, women in the workforce, gendered work environments, communities and housing, heritage and GIS. Departmental members continue to publish in such journals as The Canadian Geographer, Plan Canada, Canadian Housing, The Journal of Coastal Research, the Journal of Geography in Higher Education, and The Journal of Historical Geography. Further, in 1998, Ennals, in co-operation with Deryck Holdsworth at The Pennsylvania State University, published their long-awaited book on the historical geography of Canadian housing, Homeplace: the making of the Canadian dwelling over three centuries (University of Toronto Press, 1998). The department has a small geomorphology lab and a small GIS lab shared with other users in Social Science. Significant also is the commitment of the department to high quality student research. An increasing number of honours theses have been produced in the 1990s (an average of two per year) with many graduates going on to higher degrees at places such as the University of Toronto, York University, University of Waterloo, the Pennsylvania University, University of Leeds, and the London School of Economics, or on to employment in public policy development, education, international development, or the private sector.

In 2000

Geography at Mount Allison has never been stronger. The three-member department of the mid-1970s now comprises five permanent members. Student numbers have increased dramatically in the past decade (from a total of 523 semester course enrolments in 1992-93 to 1040 in 1999-2000) and the department has responded with new directions in environmental geography, social geography, and cultural-historical geography. Further, the Department has taken advantage of its location close to the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Atlantic Ocean, to strengthen its research and teaching in coastal zone processes in co-operation with other university departments and has recently moved to further develop expertise in environmental aspects of international development. Department members continue to play leadership roles within their respective research areas, the university and national and international academic and professional organisations. Nearly 30 years after the Mount Allison department’s founding, and in tandem with the efforts of our colleagues at neighbouring institutions, Geography in the Maritimes has moved well beyond the state of ‘deficiency’ that existed when Laurie Cragg raised the initial possibility of having Geography at Mount Allison University.

Chronology of Faculty teaching in the Geography Department