Department of Geography and Planning

The Department of Geography and Planning is an integrated department that studies the earth's places, societies, environments and landscapes. The Department is unique in bridging the social sciences and humanities (human geography and urban planning) with earth system science (physical geography and environmental planning) and offers BA, BSc, MA, MSc, MPL and PhD degree programs as well as a Certificate in Geographic Information Science and a Certificate in Urban Planning Studies.

The Department of Geography and Planning aspires to promote a diverse, safe and inclusive environment for all students, staff and faculty through its teaching, research and actions. We stand in solidarity with the movements protesting police violence, anti-Black, and anti-Indigenous racism and are committed to being more actively anti-racist in all aspects of departmental life. We recognize that this requires a long and ongoing process of learning and necessitates actions that go beyond one statement on our website.
 
We invite all members of the Department to reflect on how they can centre racial justice and the struggle against all systems of oppression in their work. To our BIPOC communities: we see you and we stand with you, but we know this is not enough, we know, actions speak louder than words. Our first actions as a Department are to form a departmental Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee with a mandate to make recommendations on needed policy changes, consult with BIPOC students, staff and faculty on what issues they identify within our Department and work collaboratively to find solutions, and commit to using the departmental Speaker Series to educate ourselves on issues around anti-Black racism, abolition, and decolonial possibilities.