Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Rajshahi

The Department started functioning with the name "Geography" with few students and teachers in 1955. The first batch of students in a two-year postgraduate course was admitted in 1955. Subsequently three years honours course was introduced in 1962. Since its establishment, the department has been growing almost continuously. The pace of growth has increased after the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. Currently the department has 23 teachers, of which 10 are professors. Total number of students is around 400. With several changes in academic set up and curriculum the department is now placed under the newly created Faculty of Life and Earth Science. Integrated Honours course is running since 1991-92 sessions and to meet the challenge of time four years Honours course was introduced in 1997-98 sessions. The courses for the undergraduate classes are designed to maintain a balance between the physical and the human branches of geography; the postgraduate courses, on the other hand, are designed to give the students specialized knowledge in different aspects of the subjects.
The department is well equipped in respect of technical equipments and staffs. Besides meeting the needs of the general students regarding library facilities, practical and fieldwork the department has an adequate facility for advanced research work. The department has collaborations with many universities abroad such as the University of Education, Freiburg, University of Cologne, University of Muenster, IDRISI Lab of the Clark University and University Technology Malaysia. In addition the department maintains close functional partnership with many government institutions and research centers inside the country such as SPARRSO, Bangladesh Meteorological Department, Center for Environment and GIS, Soil Reources Development Institute, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council etc.
The teachers of this department are actively engaged in research activities in different areas of the discipline including GIS and Remote Sensing. A good number of teachers have also received training in GIS and Remote Sensing from abroad. Senior teachers of the department are supervising a good number of M.Phil and Ph.D. fellows of the department and various Institutes of the University. Major research areas currently are GIS and remote sensing application, physical geography, agriculture geography, environment and disaster management, coastal eco-system, land use change, climate change etc. The department organized and organizing seminars, conferences and workshops at regular basis. The department has its own annual Journal named "The Journal of Geo-Environment", ISSN 1682-1998. Students of this department take active part in sports, athletics and other co-and extra curricular activities. All the members of the department are working hard to meet the challenge of higher education in the country in the new millennium.