The Department of Geography and the Environment acts to link the social sciences and the natural and physical sciences, both within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and across the Colleges of the University.

Department Objectives

The overall objectives of the Department are to:

• Integrate the disciplines of geography and environmental science in seeking to understand the spatial patterns of people and the natural environment, the physical and social processes that produce those patterns, and their interaction in specific places and around the world.
   
• Provide an interdisciplinary curriculum studying the interactions between humans and the environment.
   
• Offer practical degree programs in emerging and growing fields, potentially attracting students with diverse, but overlapping, interests to interact in mutually beneficial ways.
   
• Foster interdisciplinary and cross-college cooperation in environmental education and research.
   
• Support the University’s multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary concentrations and interest groups, by administering the Environmental Studies Concentration, and by interacting with the existing area concentrations (Africana Studies, Arab and Islamic Studies, East Asia Studies, Latin American Studies Russian Studies), with the Center for Peace and Justice Education, and with the Women’s Studies Program, and by interacting with key areas in the College of Engineering and the Villanova School of Business.
   
• Support the core mission of the University by educating Villanova students in the geographic and environmental perspectives and introducing appropriate technical skills.