College Degree in Emergency Management
Check out this story from AP (via Firehouse.com). It details the growth of college degree programs in emergency management.
The Higher Education Project sought to change that by persuading colleges to offer degree and certificate programs in emergency management, aimed at producing a new breed of professionals who could assume posts often held by ill-equipped appointees.Students scattered across the country go through research-based courses in subjects like quarantine and epidemiology; disaster-specific instruction for floods and earthquakes; lectures on politics, planning and leadership; and onsite experience in everything from community emergencies to the Asian tsunami.
"What, ultimately, all of us hoped was that by making this a degree program, we would start churning out and educating emergency managers who had a broader perspective," said George Haddow, a deputy chief of staff for FEMA during the Clinton administration who is now a private emergency management consultant. "Just, generally, professionalize the discipline."
Blanchard says there were four college programs in emergency management in 1994, but today there are 121 and 110 more are under consideration. They're becoming so popular there is a shortage of qualified professors.
I didn't realize there were so many of these programs out there already. I think this is a good thing. However, I think the emergency managers will need field experience in addition to a college degree to be effective.
