Geography Plays Musical Chairs

The UCSB Department of Geography keeps playing musical chairs in terms of its physical geography. First it was housed in a WWII bungalow which it shared with an anatomy lab. Then it moved to Ellison Hall which it shared with the Departments of History, Sociology, Film and Media Studies, Communication, and Law and Society. Now it hopes to move to Phelps Hall, once the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education moves out of Phelps and into new premises. “While the Department started small and was known for its camaraderie, it has become one of the larger Geography departments in the United States. Approximately 200 undergraduates and 100 graduate students are enrolled. Considering its present size, Theresa Everett, who worked in the Department for 25 years, quipped: ‘We’ve been a victim of our own success. We’ve gotten so big, we don’t have the small-town feel anymore’” [1].

In 1963, “The Geography Program” was housed in “Building 406” – a “temporary” two-story, wood frame bungalow left over from the WWII Marine Base that had become the present UCSB campus in 1954. “The offices, diagonally across the walkway from the Geology Building, were somewhat campy. Walls were thin, colors dingy, electrical outlets minimal, and furnishings well used. The ground floor was occupied by Geography; upstairs was an anatomy lab. If you knew the right person, you could get a tour of the cadaver du jour. Luckily, the smell of formaldehyde didn’t waft downstairs” [2].

The Department of Geography moved into Ellison Hall in 1969, and it has been fighting for more space ever since. In 1998, the External Review Committee for the Program Review Panel concluded that the shortage and fragmentation of physical space was so extreme that it demanded immediate attention. While the university administration agreed to give the resolution of Geography’s space problems a high priority, it wasn’t until 2003 that some of the space issues began to be addressed, mainly because The Department of History moved out of Ellison Hall into a newly constructed humanities building and Geography was given what is now its Conference Room. However, the department remains physically fragmented, with faculty, students, and staff housed in seven buildings scattered across the campus (Marine Science, Bren Hall, Trailer 942, Phelps Hall, Ellison Hall, Chemistry, and the Cloud Lab), as well as rented facilities off-campus for the Ocean Physics Laboratory.

Ellison Hall is named after William Henry Ellison, Professor of History, Emeritus, and Doctor of Laws, 1878-1965. Dr. Ellison pioneered history instruction at Santa Barbara State College in 1924 and advocated the transfer of the institution from a state college to a University of California campus. That transfer occurred in 1944 when The Santa Barbara College of the University of California was established; at that time, Ellison was named chairman of the Department of Social Sciences, a position which he held until 1946. He became Professor Emeritus in 1948 [3].

The long range solution to the Department’s space problem revolves around moving most of the Department to Phelps Hall, where it can be under one roof – a move projected in 2007 to take about 3 years. To this end, our administrative offices moved to the first floor (southeast wing) of Ellison Hall in 2007 as a preliminary step to moving to Phelps Hall once it is renovated. But, as the 2007 External Review Committee for the Program Review Panel pointed out, “In view of the long history of geography’s space problem and the many proposed solutions over the years, many geography faculty are justifiably skeptical that the Phelps solution will materialize within the next three years. Significant delay would be highly detrimental to the continued health of the department.” By 2008, it was guesstimated that the move to Phelps would take at least another 5 years – and the 2008 California budget crisis makes even that prediction seem optimistic.

Phelps Hall, by the way, is named after Clarence L. Phelps (1881-1964), one of the first “chancellors” of what was to become UCSB. “In 1918, he became president of Santa Barbara State Normal School of Manual Arts and Home Economics and in 1944 was appointed the first provost when the campus (then known as Santa Barbara State College) became a part of the University system, retiring from that position 1946. He died in Santa Barbara on May 7 1964, at the age of 83” [4].