Building and Maintaining Emergency Management Programs

1. Building and Maintaining Emergency Management Programs Daniel J. Klenow, Ph.D. North Dakota State University Minard Hall, North Dakota State University

2. Graduate ProgramDevelopment and Fine Tuning • Getting the right people: The admissions process is critical • Developing the right curriculum: Program structure is important, you can’t be everything to everyone • Maximizing campus connections to other departments and colleges

3. Program Growth Has PutA Strain on Facilities • In late December the north wall of Minard Hall collapsed due to an “excavation error”

4. Admissions: Getting the Right People • Grad student demand is strong even though we are an on campus program as opposed to an online program. • Traditional admissions criteria (GPA, letters of reference, statement of purpose) are not sufficient to effectively identify the top admissions candidates. • Students must now provide GRE scores, two writing samples, and participate in a conference call interview. • The writing sample has been especially helpful as it has identified weaknesses in writing and analytical abilities as well as plagiarism from an applicant holding a master’s degree. • The admissions process must be able to identify students who have the ability and interest to be successful in completing doctoral level research.

5. Students accepted into the master’s and doctoral programs have a variety of discipline backgrounds. Their methodological backgrounds are also varied. Doctoral students take qualitative and quantitative methods, statistics, a writing course, and an emergency management methodology course. Our experience has shown that doctoral level research in EM often requires a mixed methods approach. Examples include studies of EMAC, Red River Flooding, etc. Typically, master’s level research involves one method. Examples include a study of weather spotters, flood buyouts, etc. Developing Research Skills

6. A new research internship/practicum “solution” fits students with significant work experience by avoiding “redundancy” and increasing research ability. In summary, Emergency Management doctoral level research presents special methodological and ethical demands on students. Developing Research Skills (continued)

7. Curricular Issues • Crafting course clusters in methodology and theory are critical program components. • Theory can, and should be integrated into various courses across the curriculum. It is customary, however, for most disciplines to have a free-standing theory course. • There are many models as to how a theory course can be taught. For example, taking theories from other fields that relate to emergency management, explicating the theoretical modeling implicit in emergency management policies, programs, directives, etc (NIMS, ICS, EMAC, and so forth). • Developing a range of topical courses to give depth and breadth to your master’s and doctoral programs.

8. Curricular Issues (continued) • Program development involves creating individual topical courses (e.g. International Disasters, Disaster Analysis, Voluntary Agency Disaster Services). • Linking clusters of courses into meaningful concentrations • Cluster examples include: Business, Logistics and Security Management; Communication; Community Development and Change; Environmental; Geology; International; Social and Cultural; Organizations; Public Health

9. Working With Higher Administration • Programs need internal support and understanding up the administrative chain