Department of Geography Policy on Prerequisites

For courses in the Department of Geography (code GEOG), the required grade in a prerequisite course is C or higher. The Department of Geography will adhere to this standard as a general rule. Students who achieved a grade of C- or D in a course must re-take the course, and achieve a C or higher, for it to be a valid prerequisite.

The Banner system will prevent registration in a course for which a student does not have the prerequisite course with a grade of C or higher. If the pre-requisite for a second-term course is offered in the first term, a student will be able to register in the second-term course in the summer as long as he/she is also registered in the prerequisite course. Failure to achieve a C or higher in the prerequisite course would mean automatic deregistration from the second-term course after the first-term grades are submitted.

Exceptions will be made in the following situations:

1. At the discretion of the instructor, a prerequisite override may be approved in some circumstances; the reasons for all overrides will be documented by the instructor and submitted to the Chair.
2. For the three courses that have both GEOG 1100.1(.2) and GEOG 1200.1(.2) as prerequisites, a student with C- (but no lower) in one of these courses will be permitted to take GEOG 2316.1(.2) and GEOG 2336.1(.2) as long as a grade of C+ or higher was achieved in the other course.

A manual prerequisite override must be provided by the course instructor before the student can register in the course.

This second exception has been put in place to allow students to take required courses for a Geography major rather than get behind by a year.

A combination of C- and C in GEOG 1100.1(.2) and GEOG 1200.1(.2) is not sufficient for this exception to be applied: a C- must be matched by C+ or higher.

The C- provision for GEOG 1100.1(.2) or GEOG 1200.1(.2) applies only to the specific courses mentioned here (GEOG 2316.1(.2) and GEOG 2336.1(.2)). A grade of C- in GEOG 1100.1(.2) or GEOG 1200.1(.2) is not sufficient as a prerequisite for other courses, and the relevant course would have to be re-taken to achieve a higher grade.

Department of Geography Policy on Communication in Courses

The Department of Geography recognizes the importance of developing students’ communication skills in preparation for participating in the work force and/or continuing their education at an advanced level. Therefore, in addition to addressing geographical content, the department is committed to improving the written and oral communication skills of students in Geography courses by including evaluation of these communication skills in course work. For written communications, students are referred to Northey and Knight’s book entitled Making Sense in Geography and Environmental Studies: a student’s guide to research, writing, and style.

Marking Descriptors and Grid

The Department of Geography has adopted a standardized set of marking guidelines for all courses. This documentcontains the full marking descriptors and a marking grid.