The early days

In the early 1960s, after years of lobbying by Jamaican geography teachers and educators, town planners and other professionals in the public sector, the University of the West Indies took the necessary steps which led to the foundation of a geography department at Mona campus. The UWI invited a distinguished British geographer, Professor Tom Elkins (University of Sussex), to advise on a curriculum, a viable complement of lecturers and support staff, and basic infrastructure and teaching resources. The first cohort of geography undergraduates entered the university in October 1965.

The new students were taught by two newly appointed lecturers, L. Alan Eyre and Ann Norton. Alan Eyre left for the USA the following year to pursue a PhD. However, 1966 was an important date in the history of the department as it heralded the arrival Dr Barry Floyd as Head of the Geography (see Floyd this issue). Over the next six years under his enterprising leadership, geography matured as a teaching and research discipline at Mona. Initially, geography was a sub-department of geology under the headship of Edward (Ted) Robinson. But by the time Floyd departed UWI in 1972, he left behind a fully-fledged university geography department (from 1971) with an establishment of six lecturers, and a good balance between human and physical geography. The department had around hundred students registered in geography courses, a vibrant postgraduate group and two technical support staff; a cartographer and a map curator.

Prior to his arrival in Jamaica, Floyd was Head of the Geography Department at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He left after the outbreak of the Civil War in Biafra. Floyd’s tenure as Head of Geography at Mona was notable not only for laying solid foundations for teaching and research but he encouraged several far-sighted activities, notably, in-house geographical publications, international conferences and a vibrant outreach programme associated with the work of the Jamaican Geographical Society. All these activities were taken forward by the department after he left, and collectively represent a significant and distinctive contribution that geography has made to the University of the West Indies and to the local and regional community.

Academic Staff

Let us first look at the lecturers who founded the geography department. Ann Norton was an urban geographer while Alan Eyre had many teaching strings to his bow. Alan went to the USA after lecturing at Mona for a year, to complete a PhD. Barry Floyd himself was an agricultural geographer and one of his most famous papers was on the Yallahs Valley Land Authority (Floyd, 1970). After leaving UWI in 1972, he spent a number of years at the University of Durham, and then went to work in West Africa again, at the University of Calabar. He published a geography text book on Jamaica (Floyd, 1979) which he dedicated to “…the pioneering geography students at the University of the West Indies, in memory of Mona days and Yallahs nights”.

Vernon Mulchansingh was appointed to the department in 1967. He was an economic geographer with strong interests in petroleum and energy and Von Thünen location analysis (Mulchansingh, 1982). John Fermor was the department’s first physical geographer who also arrived in 1967 and stayed until 1971. He was a specialist in hydrology and water balance studies. Ruben (Bud) Frank, another physical geographer with interests in karst geomorphology and caves, arrived in 1970. In 1971 there were two new appointments; Alan Eyre rejoined UWI after his sojourn in the USA and Wilma Bailey moved across from social sciences. Brian Hudson, an urban planner, was added to the department in 1972 and Eleanor Jones was appointed as a replacement for Bud Frank in 1973. Following the departure of Ann Norton in 1975, Anne Lyew-Ayee was recruited as the new urban geographer. The establishment of six lecturers was a good balance between human and physical geography.

Between the mid-1970s and the end of the 1980s, there were fewer arrivals and departures compared to the early years. However, the two lecturers who arrived in the first half of the 1980s both continued the tradition of long-service to UWI. My appointment in 1980 increased the number of lecturers in the department to seven for the first time. In 1985, David Miller arrived during a tropical storm as a replacement for Eleanor Jones. Jeremy Collymore was appointed in 1989 to the physical planning post vacated a few years earlier by Brian Hudson. He spent a year in the department before being asked to head the new regional disaster agency, Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA – now CDEMA) in his native Barbados. Balfour Spence’s joined the staff at the beginning of the 1990s. Both he and Jeremy were former undergraduates and postgraduates in the department.

Undergraduates

There were thirteen students in the first graduating class in 1968 and sixteen in the graduating class the following year. From these modest beginnings, the number of students in geography increased steadily. In 1970-71 the enrolment was: 48 students in first year geography; around 33 in second year; and 16 in final year. By 1984-85, numbers had risen to 65, 34 and 20 respectively, and by the start of the new millennium, first year intake was over 90, while second year course registrations ranged between 40 and 45, and final year registrations ranged between 30 and 35.

The new geography degree immediately attracted students from across the Caribbean, notably from Trinidad and Barbados. During the 1970s, students from the smaller Eastern Caribbean islands also came to study at Mona. Indeed, Mona geography alumni are to be found throughout the region; Antigua, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, even one or two students from Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, the Bahamas, Belize and Guyana. One of the enduring and endearing features of Mona geography is that it is synonymous with the regional spirit and ethos of the multi-campus University of the West Indies. The same tradition is true of our sister discipline geology. A regional intake allowed students to interact with their counterparts from other Caribbean territories on an intellectual and social plane, while shared campus experiences have resulted (not surprisingly) in a number of inter-regional relationships sealed by marital vows.

The Mona geography degree has proved to be a career springboard for graduates moving into careers in planning-related fields, often via more specialized higher degree training. Such fields include urban planning, development planning, environment management, disaster management, agriculture and rural planning, tourism and housing, regional investment banking, and GIS-related jobs, among others. The career market for Mona geography graduates extends beyond Jamaica, to Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and all the OECS countries. Thus, when physical planning departments were radically reorganized in the OECS countries in the 1980s, and when disaster management agencies began recruiting in the 1990s, Mona geography graduates were able to take advantage of these new career opportunities.

Concluding comments

Geography was founded at Mona campus in 1965 and became an autonomous department in the Faculty of Natural Sciences in 1971. For more than 25 years, geography operated as a separate department, sharing its physical living space with geology. Staff and students of the two disciplines generally enjoyed excellent professional and social relations. In 1996, the combined Department of Geography and Geology was created as part of the administrative reforms conducted under the regime of Vice Chancellor Alastair McIntyre, an arrangement which has continued to the present.

Under Floyd’s leadership, the foundations for teaching and research were established and important initiatives, like departmental publications, international conferences and public outreach in collaboration with the JGS were introduced. The geography lecturers and students who have followed in the footsteps of the department’s founders built on these foundations and moved forward in productive directions in teaching and curriculum development, in staff and postgraduate research, and in conference activities and publications. All of these activities have contributed to a recognisable presence in the international geographical landscape for Mona geography.