The standard M. A. Program consists of 30 hours of approved graduate credit. The Graduate School requires that at least half of the 30 hours be at the 600 level or above.

The M.A. Program requires exposure to the breadth of geography as studied by faculty in the department.  Such exposure must include work in the area of environment-society as well as in human and physical geography, cartography and relevant methods.  Minimum exposure would be equivalent to basic survey courses in those subjects at Syracuse.  A student who does not have this exposure upon entering the program can obtain it by attending or auditing relevant undergraduate and graduate courses, or through directed readings.

M. A. Requirements
Several requirements apply to the standard 30-hour M. A. program:

GEO 602 (Research Design in Geography) is required unless equivalency can be demonstrated.

At least two seminars from different geography faculty must be taken. The student's advisor will determine how this requirement is met.

M. A. students may not register for more than 48 credits.

Students may meet the requirements of the M.A. Program by satisfactorily completing one of the following options:

1. Master’s Thesis (including a final oral examination/thesis defense)
2. Two Master’s Papers (including a final oral examination/thesis defense)
3. Written Comprehensive Examination (including a final oral examination/written examination defense)

Students decide among the options prior to the start of her/his third regular semester in the M.A. program.  

Admission Requirements
The deadline for applicants not applying for Syracuse University Fellowships is February 1st. However, all applicants are encouraged to contact the department to obtain an information packet during the early Fall and send application materials (including GRE and TOEFL scores whenever possible) by mid-December of the year prior to entry. The deadline for students who wish to apply for a University Fellowship is January 9th, though early applications are recommended.

Minimum levels normally acceptable for the undergraduate grade point average are about 3.0 (on a 4.0 basis) and for the GRE examinations a combined level of 1650 or above on the three tests.

Samples of written work may be submitted on a voluntary basis (these cannot be returned) to help the department evaluate applications on an individual basis.

For students whose primary language is not English, a minimum TOEFL score of 550 is required.

All applicants (except international students) must submit transcripts, three letters of recommendation, and GRE scores on the Verbal, Quantitative, and Analytic Tests. The earliest taking of GRE and submissions are strongly recommended.

The department does not subscribe to specific numerical criteria for the evaluations of applications; but rather examines the entire range of students' academic qualifications.

Financial Aid
Graduate Assistantships; University, McNair, and Watson Fellowships; the DellPlain Assistantship in Latin American Geography; and various awards are available on a competitive basis.  Applications should be completed by early January and early November for Fall and Spring admissions respectively.  Stipends for 8.5 months vary from about $12,000 to $15,000.  Tuition scholarships for 24 hours of credit are awarded annually with Assistantship appointments.  Graduate Scholarships that pay tuition for 9 to 12 credit hours per semester are also awarded.  Summer awards for enrolled students ranging between $700 and $3,000 are available as well. 

For Catalog and further information write to:
Chair of Admissions Committee. Department of Geography, 144 Eggers Hall, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244-1090.

Telephone (315) 443-2605. Fax (315) 443-4227.

Teaching Assistants
The department seeks to prepare graduate students to be skilled teachers and researchers.  For many graduate students, much of this preparation occurs while serving as a graduate assistant—either as a Teaching Assistant (TA) or a Research Assistant (RA).  TAs serve a primary function of providing support for faculty undergraduate teaching while RAs serve a primary function of supporting faculty research.  In both cases, the role of the TA/RA is to alleviate some of the workload of their faculty supervisor.  It should be recognized, however, that this is also a professional and academic learning experience for TAs /RAs to develop skills of their own.  

University regulations require that students holding assistantships work an average of 20 hours per week during the period of their appointment. (The 20-hour average pertains to the payroll schedule.  The exact dates that the pay period begins and ends each academic year will be indicated in each TA/ RA contract letter.)  For the Department of Geography, workloads should not exceed 20 hours a week on average over the course of the semester work period, although the exact number of hours worked will vary from week to week. 

A departmental orientation for new TAs is held near the end of the of the University TA Orientation Program, during the week prior to the start of each Fall semester. The purpose of this orientation is to introduce new TAs to departmental audio/visual and duplication equipment, other teaching aids such as the map collection, as well as specific departmental teaching procedures. This orientation is organized by the Graduate Director and faculty.

Masters Thesis
The Master's thesis is written on a topic approved by and under the supervision of the student's advisory committee. The standard thesis carries six credit hours and it is expected that it will be completed and defended no later than the end of the second year in residence. A thesis should be limited enough in its scope and length so that it can be completed within a two-year M.A. program.

A thesis may range in type from one which presents a critical review of the literature of a subfield, to others which carry out field or laboratory research. A thesis may make an original contribution to knowledge. However, originality, while never discouraged, is not the main ingredient. Rather the assessment of the M.A. thesis is typically based upon:

• the adequacy of the definition of the research problem
• the design of the research strategy
• the skills demonstrated in collection, analysis and interpretation of data
• and finally the argument, logic and elegance expressed in the written word and graphical illustration.

Masters Papers
Two Master's papers may be submitted as a a second option to meet the M.A. degree requirements. These carry no credit hours and are not subject to Graduate School regulations. Master's papers may be submitted and approved at any stage of a student's M.A. program.

Students considering this option should understand the following:

• A Master's paper should be viewed as a manuscript in the style and form of a journal article. Normally it should be derived from previous work in a course or seminar and should not exceed 25 manuscript pages in length. It is expected that a Master's paper will be of higher quality than the usual seminar paper or term report as a result of consultation and refinement.
   

  • the currency of understanding of the supporting literature
     

• Each of the two Master's papers must be completed under the primary supervision of different geography faculty. Normally one paper will be under the primary supervision of the student's advisor.

Each Master's paper must be approved by two members of the Geography faculty.

Masters By Examination
A third option for the M.A. degree is the completion of course credit hours followed by a written examination. It takes the following form:

• The student must meet M. A. degree requirements as established by the Department and the Graduate School. These requirements includes a minimum of 30 hours of approved graduate credits in courses and seminars in accord with departmental program requirements and Graduate School regulations.
   
• The student's advisory committee is responsible for setting the written examination which will focus on general, topical and regional fields which the student has selected.

This is a closed-book examination to be written during an eight hour period.

Oral Examination
With respect to all three of the options available to M. A. students, the final step in the M.A. program is an oral examination given after all coursework, the thesis, the Master's papers or written examination have all been completed. The oral exam will usually focus on the thesis or subjects of the Master's papers, or the written examination questions. The oral exam normally lasts two hours.

The examining committee consists of the Advisor and two other faculty members. A fourth faculty member serves as chair of the examination and reports the results to the Graduate School.

Future Professoriate Project (FPP)
The Future Professoriate Project (FPP) is a university-wide program vested in Syracuse University's Graduate School, in which the Geography Department plays a particularly active role.  Briefly, the project prepares graduate students for their teaching responsibilities as future members of the professoriate via two initiatives.  The first is the Teaching Associateship, whereby departmental teaching assistants receive guidance from a faculty mentor of their choice.  The second is the Certificate in University Teaching, awarded to those teaching associates who, under the guidance of their mentor, engage in an independent teaching experience and document their teaching credentials through the preparation of a substantial teaching portfolio.

During the academic year Geography’s teaching associates get together and choose topics for discussion meetings, usually two per semester.  Recent discussions have addressed the balancing of academic and familial life (and its intersection with gender), the nuts and bolts of publishing as a grad student, how to do job interviews, and the pros and cons of interdisciplinary work.  Faculty are invited to make contributions to these meetings.

We also do site visits to three neighboring ‘sister institutions’ -- Colgate University, SUNY Cortland, and SUNY Geneseo -- in order to get a firsthand sense of what it's like to be in an undergraduate teaching institution.  In turn, each fall we host our “Geofest” for senior undergrads from those three institutions, whereby we (grads and faculty) give them a sense of what geography grad school and geography research are like.

Each academic year there are about 10 to 15 teaching associates, which makes us one of the larger and livelier FPP groups on campus.  Each teaching associate receives a stipend as part of their membership each semester.

Further details on the FPP may be found at http://gradschpdprograms.syr.edu/programs/fpp.php. 

In the Department of Geography it is Dr. John Western who is the ongoing “Primary Faculty Liaison.”  This title implies that the organization of FPP departmental-level activities is viewed as something of a partnership between the grads (whose “FPP Leader” for 2006-2007 will be Glenn Gentry) and those faculty who choose to participate.