Department of Geography and Environmental Studies

Department Strategic Framework

Mission Statement

The mission of the NMSU Department of Geography is to advance sustainable solutions to contemporary problems through innovative and effective teaching, research, service, and outreach in geographic information science and technology and coupled human-environment systems.

Vision Statement

The NMSU Department of Geography will be the premier applied geography department in the U.S. Southwest as evidenced by the successful placement of our graduates in excellent jobs and graduate programs as well as our high research and funding productivity relative to geography departments at our peer institutions.

Undergraduate Program

We seek to enable undergraduate students to be responsible citizens, lifelong learners, and professional geographers with critical thinking and problem-solving skills that make them competitive in both graduate programs and the job market.

Degrees

To this end, we offer a comprehensive academic undergraduate program that leads to three potential undergraduate degrees:

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Geography, with a concentration in either Human-Environment Relationships (HER) or Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T)
Minor in Geography
Minor in Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T)

How To Contact Us:

Geography Department Head, Dr. Michaela Buenemann, can be emailed at elabuen@nmsu.edu, or reached by phone at 575-646-6493 to set up a Zoom or F2F meeting.

Graduate Programs

Our graduate program emphasizes specialized, independent, and applied scholarship built on a solid foundation of general geographic knowledge and skills.

That is, we provide students with opportunities to acquire essential geographic knowledge and skills through a variety of graduate and advanced undergraduate courses and, subsequently, support students to carry out their own research in collaboration with a faculty advisor and an advisory committee composed of other faculty members and/or professionals from the private or public sectors.

Degrees

We offer the following graduate degrees:

Explore GEOGRAPHY as a career! It is a great field with tremendous job potential.

Check out this short invitation to Geography degrees here at NMSU:

Also visit "Careers in Geography" at the American Association of Geography (AAG)

Periodically each semester, Geography graduate students present an oral defense of their work. Please join us for these exciting events!

Progress in the City of Las Cruces Infill Development Overlay Area:

A Report on the IDO's Land Use Update, Infill Parcels, and Adaptive Reuse Potential

FALL 2023 NMSU/UNM

Geography Colloquium Series:

All colloquia are free and open to the public.

The complete schedule for the Fall 2023 semester with details on a lineup of scholars drawn from a wide range of subdisciplines is under construction; we will post as soon as it is firmed up. All presentations will be held in Breland 185. We look forward to seeing you.

Up next:

We at the NMSU Geography Department are passionate about innovative, student-centered,and applied research and education for undergraduate and graduate students that inspires us all to help develop sustainable solutions for our planet.

Department of Geography Statement on Social Justice

Addressing current and potential future societal and environmental challenges requires approaches that integrate human, natural, and information sciences rather than approaches that apply each individually. Geography is about developing and using such integrative approaches to make the world a better place.