The academic discipline of geography, faced with increasing competition from cognate fields and declining undergraduate enrollments, continues to suffer an identity crisis. In recent decades, many geography programs have instituted department or degree name changes, or otherwise rebranded, without any evidence guiding these decisions. This study begins to build an evidence base for these decisions by presenting results from a survey of 4,388 undergraduates across four U.S. universities to understand how students rate key words that commonly appear in geography course descriptions and titles and phrases that comprise degree and department names. Undergraduates overwhelmingly and consistently preferred simple, thematic types of terms to those that sounded more technical or science oriented. Forms of the word geography were rated significantly lower than words or phrases containing environment and sustainability. Forms of geography that included the word science were rated particularly low. Student ratings varied by class standing, major, gender, high school location (United States vs. outside of the United States), whether the student had previously enrolled in a geography course, and self-perceived numeracy. Multivariable analysis revealed potential opportunities for targeted undergraduate recruiting and curricular development. This study is an important step toward reconciling contemporary student perceptions of geography and related fields with departmental identities and the disciplinary jargon often used in program and course descriptions. We offer a toolkit for implementing similar research at other institutions and ultimately helping geography programs recruit and retain the next generation of geographers.

地理学学科面临来自同类领域的日益激烈的竞争，而本科生的入学人数不断下降，这继续遭受着身份危机。在最近的几十年中，许多地理计划都对部门或学位名称进行了更改，或者以其他方式更名，而没有任何证据指导这些决定。这项研究通过提出一项对美国四所大学的4,388名本科生的调查结果，以了解这些学生如何评价地理课程说明中常见的关键词以及由学位和部门名称组成的标题和短语，从而开始为这些决定建立证据基础。与听起来更注重技术或科学的学生相比，本科生始终以压倒性的优势选择简单，主题化的术语。地理一词的形式被评为远远低于包含环境和可持续性的单词或短语。包含“科学”一词的地理形式被评为特别低。学生等级随班级，专业，性别，高中位置（美国与美国以外），学生是否曾经参加过地理课程以及自我认知能力而异。多变量分析显示了针对性的本科招生和课程开发的潜在机会。这项研究是调和当代学生对地理和相关领域的理解与部门身份和课程和课程描述中经常使用的学科术语的重要一步。我们提供了一个工具包，用于在其他机构进行类似的研究，并最终帮助地理计划招募和留住下一代地理学家。