by Valerie Lucus-McEwen: Degrees, certificates and relevant research for Emergency Managers
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Recovery is something an emergency managers knows a lot about. It's one of the four phases of emergency management and, these days, recovery planning includes continuity planning - maintaining the viability of the institution itself, i.e.: keeping the government governing, the business open for business, and the campus delivering academics and conducting research.
This kind of continuity planning hasn't always been thought of as part of an emergency manager's job - but neither has creating a good town-gown relationship.
In an economic crisis like this one, the symbiotic relationship in a town-gown relationship is crystal clear: The campus and the community depend on each other for their economic viability.
For example, UC Davis (my campus) is the largest employer in the Sacramento region (following the state government), generates 34,000 jobs in the Sacramento region alone, and contributes at least $1.6 billion to the Sacramento economy annually. These are 2001-02 numbers (the latest one available) but you get the idea. Higher education campuses are vital to a community's economic health.
In fact, if you take a look at the most recent Moodys Economic.com report and its 'Recovery Status Map' that tracks the recovery status of communities around the U.S., you'll see that "small cities, which have a disporportionate share of factories, hospitals and universities, are more likely than large ones to be in a growth mode."
Communities like:
- Grand Forks, where North Dakota University "provides a stabale source of employment."
- State College, where "Penn State is an anchor employee, adding long-term stability to the local economy."
- Auburn, where Alabama State has a "stable presence and higher than average educational attainment."
- Lexington, where Kentucky State provides the "stable presence of a large university."
- Eugene, where the "Univeisty of Oregon provides steady consumer demand and supplies skilled workers to local businesses."
I'd argue that understanding the value and necessity of business/academic/operational continuiity is quickly becoming the most important part of an emergency manager's job.
AND that the emergency manager who thinks their job stops with preparedness and/or response are becoming as obselete as trickle-down economics.
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FREE: FEMA Tabletop ExercisesFace it. Emergency Management is changing.
Academia is changing what emergency management looks like, and the expanding needs of emergency management is changing what academia needs to offer.
That's what this blog is going to be about.
The photo at the left should look familiar. I've been writing the Campus Emergency Management blog during the past year. I'm still a full-time emergency management practitioner and have been for 20 years. I'm not an academic. I have an abiding interest in this topic because I want to make sure that when I retire, my replacement knows as much about how to do my job as I do.
Emergency managers -- the job that started out as a Civil Defense warden in the 40's -- is becoming less response and more management. When the EOC is activated, we are more likely to be the EOC Manager than the Ops Chief. We attend countless and ongoing meetings with administrators. We write plans for pandemics, power failures and continuity of operations as well as plans for earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. We can speak 'crisis communication' and GIS and sociology and sustainability.
Academia has responded by offering hundreds of programs for degrees or certificates in emergency management or homeland security or business continuity. There is compelling and exciting research being conducted in disaster resiliency and public perception. Students are responding in droves, driving the need for more diverse delivery methods, i.e.: distance learning.
Meanwhile, the gap between emergency management practitioners and emergency management academians still exists. Practitioners are adamant about the value of experience over education. Academians are exasperated that education is not valued more highly.
The next generation emergency manager will have degrees and certificates. I want to discuss what curriculums should teach so new graduates have a good working knowledge of this field. I want to highlight research that will profoundly impact our jobs.
I'd like to play some part in bridging the gap between the practitioner and academic sides of emergency management. I'd like your help to do that.
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