The idea of establishing a joint Ph.D. program in Geography between UCSB and SDSU evolved from preliminary negotiations between Dr. Dave McArthur (SDSU) and Dr. Reginald Golledge (Chair of UCSB Geography at that time). McArthur had been a graduate student in Geography at the University of Canterbury (NZ) when Golledge taught there in the early 1960s, so the negotiations took on a personal note from the start. But progress was slow. There were only five other joint programs at SDSU at that time, and this suggestion was at first negatively viewed by UC officials.

The mid 1980s saw a number of meetings regarding the program, both at UCSB and at SDSU. The Chair at SDSU, Ernest Griffin, pursued the idea very vigorously on his campus. At UCSB, David Simonett had become Graduate Dean, and, together with a series of Chairs (Reg Golledge, Rick Church, Ray Smith, and Jack Estes), shouldered the burden of convincing UCSB and UC systemwide administrators that the idea was feasible and could benefit both institutions. The idea was strengthened by the appointment of several of UCSB’s best Ph.D. graduates to SDSU, including Douglas Stow, Janet Franklin, and Serge Rey.

The joint Ph.D. Program officially began in 1991, but its formal origins go back to 1988 when both institutions “agreed to agree” to explore the idea. The formal proposal was drawn up in December of 1988, the final details were hammered out in 1989, the University of California’s Office of the President granted final approval of the proposal in October of 1990, and the joint Ph.D. program officially began in 1991. Stuart Phinn received the first Ph.D. as a result of the Joint Program in 1997 with a dissertation titled “Remote Sensing and Spatial Analytic Techniques for Monitoring Landscape Structure in Disturbed and Restored Coastal Environments.”

The program has been very successful for more than two decades, and continues to evolve as new faculty members have been hired in both departments, reflecting the changes, dynamism and cross-disciplinary thinking that characterize contemporary geography.

Note: Some of the contents of this historical narrative and timeline have been adapted from a description available at the UCSB Geography website.

The program is designed around a set of systematic geographic specialties and methodological techniques.

1. Human Geography: Urban, Social, Cultural and Political Geography
   
   
2. Environmental Geography: Society and Environment, Watershed/Ecosystems Analysis
   
   
3. Physical Geography: Biogeography, Climatology, Hydrology, Landscape Ecology
   
   
4. Methodological Techniques: Spatial Quantitative and Qualitative Methods, Cartography and Internet Mapping, Geocomputation and Spatial Modeling, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing and Image Processing, Visualization and Visual Data Mining, Spatial Decision Support Systems and Participatory GIS

Each student’s program is designed around at least one of the four specialty areas and normally at least one of the methodological technique emphases. The main regional foci are California, Latin America, Mexico-U.S. borderlands, Africa, and Asia. To better understand the department’s research, review the Faculty Specializations and Research sections of our website. 

All of our graduates to date have attained employment in professional positions that utilize the knowledge and skills developed in the Joint Doctoral program. Most have secured the types of positions that they have sought. These range from research- and teaching-oriented university professorships, to corporate and government research positions.