The School of Urban & Regional Planning (SURP) in the Queen’s Department of Geography and Planning emphasizes excellence in teaching, with high faculty-student engagement and courses that capitalize on the considerable planning experience of our energetic faculty. This is a professional education program that also has a significant research component. It is officially recognized by the Canadian Institute of Planners as a key stage toward earning the Registered Professional Planners designation.

Sociologists investigate how societies work. We critically examine the social world at every level, from personal relationships to the functioning of institutions and nations, right up to global interconnections. Our department is particularly well known for its strengths in criminology and the law; media, information, and surveillance; power, inequalities, and social justice.

Politics is about power – who has it and how it is exercised by nation-states, individuals, groups, classes, or political parties, and how different interests are reconciled in and between communities. Political Studies is also concerned with the institutions created to govern communities, as well as with political practices such as voting habits or protests, and how rules, behaviours, and cultures are created in societies. Since power in society is often dependent upon material resources, political scientists also study the distribution of wealth, both within and between nations.

Among academic disciplines, Geography is unique in combining the social sciences and humanities with the physical sciences. In physical geography, or earth system science, we study natural processes, their interactions, as well as natural and human-generated environmental issues, such as climate change. Explore critical questions about our environment and our society as you develop research skills. Study with award-winning faculty in an interdisciplinary department that combines fundamental analysis and research with practical, applied approaches to planning and implementation.

What determines the prices of goods and services? How do individuals decide how much to spend and save? How can government policies help reduce environmental pollution? These are questions we all face every day. Economics is our attempt to analyze and understand them. Often seen as being all about money, at its more basic level, economics is concerned with the material well-being of human societies. Economics at Queen’s is widely recognized as one of the leading Economics departments in Canada. The programs are challenging, rigorous, and of small to medium size.

Grappling with life’s big topics, Philosophy provides students with critical thinking skills that enable you to uncover hidden assumptions, identify core premises, and evaluate arguments. The Department of Philosophy at Queen’s University has faculty working in a wide variety of fields, including political philosophy, ethics, bioethics, feminism, contemporary metaphysics and epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, continental philosophy and the history of philosophy.

There are three aspects to Linguistics: language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguistics is a scientific study of a language that explores the structure of language and how it is acquired. Linguistics students explore how a language is structured, how it is used in the production and comprehension of messages, and how language changes over time. You will try to answer questions relating to the nature of language, such as what do all languages have in common, or how do children learn a language?

What determines the prices of goods and services? How do individuals decide how much to spend and save? How can government policies help reduce environmental pollution? These are questions we all face every day. Economics is our attempt to analyze and understand them. Often seen as being all about money, at its more basic level economics is concerned with the material well-being of human societies.

The Advanced Leadership for Social Impact Fellowship prepares experienced leaders with the skills, knowledge, and networks needed to meaningfully tackle the root causes and drivers of social issues or problems. By focusing on developing leaders with the skills and perspectives to tackle complex issues, Queen’s University can help solve the world’s most significant and urgent challenges.