Graduate Education in Emergency Management

1. Graduate Education in Emergency Management William L. Waugh, Jr. Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Georgia State University

2. The Range of Possibilities • Graduate certificates • Graduate concentrations in degree programs, e.g., MPA and MPP and PhD programs – the Georgia State University and University of Nevada at Las Vegas experiences • Masters degree programs in EM – the University of Nevada at Las Vegas experience • Doctoral degree programs in EM

3. Educational Missions • Professional Certification – Graduate Certificates – pitching to the CEM exam – wrap around programs (linking certificates to graduate degree programs) • Professional Education – MPA and MPP programs – three or four course specializations • Doctoral Education – research versus application - doctors of practice in a research environment

4. EM Graduate Curricula Mapping • EM KSAs – from undergraduate to graduate knowledge, skills, and abilities • Traditional versus professional programs – the theory versus practice debate • Pre-service versus midcareer professional programs - where to begin, balancing emergency management and management or technical education • Practitioner versus academic educational programs – theory versus practice issues in research programs

5. Finding a balance that works • Finding a mission that works – negotiating institutional and market pressures • Truth in advertising – matching values, missions, and student goals • Quality control – getting from war stories to generalizable content • Support for professional education – counseling, placement, internships, etc.

6. Building EM Literacy • Understanding the context of emergency management – the legal, political, social, and cultural contexts – with a touch of ethics, diversity, and technology • Determining the knowledge goals – what do they need to know about emergency management practice • Introducing emergency response – from firefighting to shelter management • Introducing Homeland Security – organizational and political linkages, values and missions, etc. • Introducing management issues in emergency management – from management skills to survivor skills in public, private, and nonprofit organizations – budgets, human resources, financial management, etc.

7. The necessity of mission-driven programs Institutional constraints, economic realities, professional pressures, and faculty resource limitations