I’ve just heard that the BA/BSc Geography programme is to close at the University of Exeter’s Centre for Geography and Environmental Science (CGES) in Cornwall. This programme was made up of excellent modules with original and content, taught brilliantly—often with real innovation—by extremely committed staff, whose research was also excellent. The students loved this programme too. 

How do I know this? Because I have been the external examiner for that programme since 2024, and it’s my job to tell the university how well it is taught. Every year my report emphasised the great job they were doing integrating human and physical geography topics and methods, particularly where climate change was concerned, and how well the programme reflected its unique Cornish location. 

Less than two weeks after the end of this year’s exam board, academics at CGES were told they were at risk of redundancy, and that 7 (of 20 staff) would be made redundant. These would be the geographers who contribute the largest part of the BA/BSc. When I wrote to the University urging them to rethink this move I was told that “there are no proposals to close any academic departments or disciplines, and that all three of our academic faculties will retain their full subject provision.“ Take it from me, the person you hired to check you’re offering a good geography degree, without this programme you cannot claim to be providing geography at this campus. 

Here’s a screenshot of their ‘offer’ this year. Great programmes, don’t get me wrong, and I hope they recruit – but does this look anything like ‘geography’ to you? The subject that spans the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and more?

Source: https://dees.exeter.ac.uk/study/ accessed 13th August 2026

I am furious at the way CGES staff have been treated, and at reports that current Geography students might have to take their remaining years of study at the campus in Exeter, nearly 100 miles away. And what timing – scrapping a Geography programme during the fifth heatwave of 2026!

I am well aware that History is in the same position at Cornwall, and that History and other humanities subjects are under threat on the Exeter campus. I know that friends in Geography departments elsewhere face the threat of redundancy this summer, & that friends in History at Hertfordshire have already lost their jobs. I’m angry about all of this unnecessary sabotage.

But this is the programme I know best, professionally, and so I feel better placed to say something about this one. And it is clear managers have lied to their employees – me included – as we suspected all along.