Department facilities
Located in the historic Mackay Science building, on the main quad, the Department of Geography houses the office of the Βι¶ΉΣ³» State Climatologist (MS 226), the Geospatial Lab (MS 327), the Βι¶ΉΣ³» Paleoenvironmental Analysis Laboratory (NevPAL; MS 109, 314), The Laboratory for Conservation Biogeography (LCB; MS 209), the Geospatial Ecology Lab (MS116), and the Βι¶ΉΣ³» Transportation Geography Laboratory (NTGL; MS 220). The Department has state-of-the-art facilities for computer mapping, cartography, UAS data collection and processing, and geographic information systems (GIS). The Department also maintains a weather station, a map collection, and a laboratory for undergraduate sections of physical and human geography (MS 208).
Each faculty member and graduate student has a mailbox in the department office, MS 201. Mailboxes should be checked regularly for correspondence. Outgoing campus mail can be placed in the basket located in the department office. Graduate teaching and research assistants should have a desk in the space allocated to their faculty sponsor or by the department.
The Geography Computing Facility is housed in Mackay Science 221 and 222. Use of this facility and its computers is contingent upon meeting a number of conditions, and not engaging in behavior that could prove unpleasant or distracting to other students or affect the smooth running of the facility. Keep in mind that some students will be using the lab regularly (daily) and others will be casual users, which means that they will have one- or two-week projects (for certain classes) or will need to use the computers occasionally for checking electronic mail, downloading files on the Net or doing research on the internet.
As a graduate student in the Department of Geography you can sign up as a formal “user.” You will then be issued a folder on the Department server, where disk space should be used judiciously. Back up your files; although every effort will be made to maintain and backup the server, problems may happen.
Facility regular hours (both rooms) are 8 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. The Facility may also be opened for some additional evening hours. No eating, drinking or smoking in the computer room. Clean up after working on computers or tables. Consideration of fellow students is not only polite, it is required.
Remove personal files when finished with each session. Do not store personal documents on the hard disks or leave the icon of a diskette on the computer’s virtual desktop. If work is copied onto the hard disk for use during a computing session, remove it when done. Do not under any circumstances install desk accessories, fonts, programs or utilities on the hard disks. Please do not rearrange the desktop and folders on the hard disk.
No copying of facility software or use of pirated software is tolerated. Do not run multiple copies on the printers (i.e., do not use printers as a photocopying machine). Facility resources (computers, printers, software and supplies) are reserved for projects related to the academic programs of the Department of Geography.
Graduate students requiring after-hours to the building or other special access to specific rooms (e.g. workspace, lab, computer lab) may check out necessary keys from facilities. Please see your advisor and/or administrative professionals for assistance and approvals.