South Dakota State University has added a new geography minor to the curriculum in an effort to entice students to find careers in national security, emergency management and public safety.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is an organization within the Department of Defense focused on providing information about the terrain and activities within the Earth for the sake of national security.
Ed Hogan, the first head of the geography department, had a brother who worked in national security and needed cartographers. This cooperation started a long tradition of SDSU students working at the NGA, then called the Defense Mapping Agency.
Recently, there have been fewer students applying for a job at the NGA, according to Bob Watrel, the current head of the geography department.
“We wanted to get more people down there. I don’t think we have had a hire in 10 years,” Watrel said.
The current goal is to send graduates to the NGA based in St. Louis or Washington D.C.
The geospatial intelligence minor is an 18-credit program that teaches students to recognize and interpret geospatial information, which is data related to specific geographical locations. Students learn to use geography system and drone system tools effectively, use collected information to make informed decisions and manage geospatial data, according to the minor’s page on the SDSU website.
While the minor is tailored for the NGA, students can go to similar agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement or the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The new minor was approved for the SDSU curriculum in fall 2023 but was not accredited by the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation until April 2024, according to an email from Watrel. The department wanted to wait until the minor was accredited before they would advertise it.
But, according to Kimberly Maier, an assistant professor in geography and geospatial sciences, over 15 students applied for the minor before the department started advertising. Maier thinks students picked the minor as a way for them to make an impact on the world.
“Like the work you’re doing has a global impact, a national impact,” Maier said.
This belief is shared by one of the students who picked the minor.
Natalie Toben is a senior majoring in geography and geographical information science. She discovered the geospatial minor through her GIS major and decided it was interesting and worth pursuing.
“I thought that it would really help me make kind of a bigger impact using GIS,” Toben said.
Each class helped her learn how to perform real-world analysis on data from government databases such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Census. She learned how to understand and interpret that data.
Many of the classes in the minor overlap and build upon each other. The minor itself is easily applied to any other major, such as political science, history or data science, Watrel said.
“This minor is open to any major and fits into the curriculum needed especially for arts and humanities and social sciences,” Maier said.
The geography department is now working on accrediting a graduate certificate for geospatial intelligence since there is only an accredited certificate for undergraduates.

Jobs in geospatial intelligence

·  Law enforcement

·  Urban planning

·  Emergency planning

·  Federal government

·  Military

·  Private industry

·  Government contractors related to geospatial intelligence

Source: Bob Watrel, SDSU geography department