I wrote a blog a few days ago about whether there really was a difference between Emergency Management and Homeland Security - at least in academia. - to which my colleague Eric Holdeman agreed this whole debate was getting a little old.
I couldn't agree more. However, my experience this past week at FEMA's 13th Annual Higher Ed Conference and the IAEM-USA 2010 Mid-Year Meeting kind of suggests that isn't happening quickly enough for either of us.
Eric is also right in identifying federal grant money as the major culprit. Wait! Now that I think about it - isn't money the root of all evil? I'm sure I read that somewhere.
At any rate, I did some research about how the differences between the two have been expressed in the academic literature and found two really interesting papers. One was published by GovTech (June 2008) by Bob Jaffin (now an Assistant Professor at the American Public University). Let me summarize:
While Emergency Management is still a young field and Homeland Security is a post-911 phenomena and both can be professional degrees, the fields (specialities) that comprise the programs are different (i.e.: public policy vs. military science). Because most schools can't support ONE degree in this field, much less TWO, and federal funding currently favors programs with the phrase "homeland security" in the title, a program called "emergency management" often gets transformed. Many institutions created new programs that are somewhat of a hybrid of the two, many others just reconfigured their existing programs so they would quality for DHS money.
If a student were looking for an appropriate academic program, Jaffin wryly advised:
In fact, in the other interesting paper in the National Academies Press (2005), I found out there are precedents for the creation of academic programs in response to a national security issue: international studies after World War II and enhanced science/technology during the Cold War (remember Sputnik?).
Having Homeland Security academic programs doesn't mean Emergency Management academic programs should go away. They really can complement each other.
Even so, like Eric, I also wish this whole debate would go away. It would make what we do a whole lot easier.
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I couldn't agree more. However, my experience this past week at FEMA's 13th Annual Higher Ed Conference and the IAEM-USA 2010 Mid-Year Meeting kind of suggests that isn't happening quickly enough for either of us.
Eric is also right in identifying federal grant money as the major culprit. Wait! Now that I think about it - isn't money the root of all evil? I'm sure I read that somewhere.
At any rate, I did some research about how the differences between the two have been expressed in the academic literature and found two really interesting papers. One was published by GovTech (June 2008) by Bob Jaffin (now an Assistant Professor at the American Public University). Let me summarize:
While Emergency Management is still a young field and Homeland Security is a post-911 phenomena and both can be professional degrees, the fields (specialities) that comprise the programs are different (i.e.: public policy vs. military science). Because most schools can't support ONE degree in this field, much less TWO, and federal funding currently favors programs with the phrase "homeland security" in the title, a program called "emergency management" often gets transformed. Many institutions created new programs that are somewhat of a hybrid of the two, many others just reconfigured their existing programs so they would quality for DHS money.
If a student were looking for an appropriate academic program, Jaffin wryly advised:
- "If you want to help build strong and resilient communities and contribute directly to the community's well-being on a daily basis - whether that community is local, regional or state - then emergency management is the track to pursue."
- "If you want to protect the public from bad people, then homeland security is the track to pursue."
In fact, in the other interesting paper in the National Academies Press (2005), I found out there are precedents for the creation of academic programs in response to a national security issue: international studies after World War II and enhanced science/technology during the Cold War (remember Sputnik?).
Having Homeland Security academic programs doesn't mean Emergency Management academic programs should go away. They really can complement each other.
Even so, like Eric, I also wish this whole debate would go away. It would make what we do a whole lot easier.
