Introduces students to the historical, social, psychological, and economic implications of disasters, crises, and the field of emergency management. Develops students' writing effectiveness, critical thinking skills, and historical and social awareness as they travel through the disasters of past and present, explore emerging trends, and discuss the future of the emergency management field.
Provides students with an understanding of disaster response and recovery operations in the public safety environment. Examines the nature of emergencies and disasters, including how to identify the human response in the disaster process, assess current procedures for response operations, and review recovery policies, programs, and methods to promote recovery and community resilience.
Orients students to the fundamentals of sound report writing in a variety of public safety contexts. Provides practice balancing competing necessary factors (e.g., conciseness; thoroughness; accuracy; outside influences; legal or forensic requirements) with proper basic descriptive writing technique in the composition of effective reports utilized across the public safety industry. The course will cover the essential elements of various report styles and provide a review of emerging technologies being utilized by public safety agencies to streamline and coordinate the reporting process.
Provides the student with a thorough understanding of mitigation for disaster management, and the application of hazard management. The student will investigate various methods of risk management, risk reduction, risk avoidance, risk acceptance, and risk transfer to address both structural and non-structural mitigation. The concept of sustainability and its role in local land-use planning is examined.
Provides the student with an understanding of the role of the U.S. federal government in emergency management on the national level. Examines the influence of the federal government on local, state, and regional emergency management. Explores how past disasters and their outcomes have shaped the field and policies of emergency management, as well as informed the evolving role of the federal government. Analyzes the historical development of federal efforts and policies that have significantly influenced the field itself, policy development, and level of government involvement in operations. Discusses future trends in the relationship between emergency management, politics, and government.
Provides students with a thorough understanding of the strategic, political, legal, and organizational challenges associated with the protection of the U.S. homeland. Examines the range of potential threats to the U.S. homeland, including the historical foundation of terrorism. Introduces the role of emergency management in the response to the growing threat of domestic and international terrorism. Focuses on the implications of homeland security challenges and policies for constitutional rights, legal protections, and civil liberties.
Introduces the position and responsibilities of an emergency manager, the history of the emergency management field, and key operational tools including the National Incident Management System (NIMS), the Incident Command System (ICS), and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). Surveys emergency management as an integrated system that networks resources and capabilities together to adaptably address all hazards for the whole community.
Provides an overview of intelligence as practiced in national security, law enforcement, and the business sector. Introduces students to the profession of intelligence, seminal events and key figures in its development, analytic methodologies, and geopolitical context. Examines a range of topics including the intelligence cycle, intelligence collection disciplines, the physics of intelligence, the modern history of intelligence, the intelligence community and other consumers and producers of intelligence, and future trends in intelligence. Encourages students to develop an analytic mindset and to become proficient at the presentation of simulated intelligence products.
Introduces the fundamentals of comprehensive emergency management coordination efforts. Surveys means of networking resources and capabilities from multiple levels and types of organizations to support effective all-hazard response. Explores national response coordination and organization systems, the role of public information within them, and the impact of evolving technologies on all stages of the process.
Provides students with an understanding of the concept of Integrated Emergency Response to disasters and other critical incidents. Students examine the role of Integrated Emergency Preparedness in the government environment, and expand the understanding to public-private cooperation in emergency management. Note: While not an official prerequisite, students are encouraged to take EMGT 106 prior to (or during the same semester as) they intend to enroll for this course.
Introduces the concepts of leadership and influence in emergency management contexts. Describes the attributes of effective decision making and basic quality assurance processes. Identifies and develops essential communication skills needed to convey emergency precautions and decisions to diverse workforce and community audiences, with special regard for ensuring equitable understanding among all disaster victims and community members. Explores the history of volunteer organizations' role in emergency response, and how effective communication strategies may be leveraged to develop and manage an emergency volunteer program.
Addresses impacts of animal care on mass casualty planning and operations from the perspectives of a variety of planning, response, and recovery roles ranging from first response, to animal control, to pet owner emergency preparedness. Explores animal cruelty laws and their intersection with both disaster response best practice and the principles of civil rights and due process. Students will utilize case studies to adapt industry-standard animal care crisis planning tools to be suitable for use in their own communities.
Explores the conceptual and practical challenges of developing a coordinated emergency management operation in which animals, livestock, agricultural assets, and their owners are affected. Introduces students to various specialized resources unique to animal-inclusive emergency planning and disaster response, with special focus on issues necessary for consideration in the creation of public guidance and animal care annexes to operational, mitigation, and recovery plans.
Explores core concepts and resources for disaster planning specifically focused on primary, secondary, or post-secondary educational institutions. Develops skills necessary for creating, implementing, and maintaining school Emergency Operations (EOPs) and preparedness activities. Investigates theoretical connections between the preparation, response, and recovery cycle for schools, and for mass casualty incidents, and practically transferable strategies for when mass casualty events occur in school environments.
Orients students to several common varieties and sizes of natural and human-caused disaster, and their potential effects on families, communities, and business facilities and operations. Explores planning, preparedness, risk mitigation, and training activities and systems at the individual, organizational, and community levels. Investigates tools, skills, and organizations that will prepare students to become more involved as preparedness advocates and community responders.
Introduces related issues and considerations for post-disaster construction projects, including the National Incident Management System (NIMS), Incident Command System (ICS), Executive Order 12699, National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and their associated policies and regulations. Explores the needs of Environmental & Historic Preservation initiatives, and their interactions with the process of building for recovery or mitigation. Examines construction's effects on environment, population, historical/cultural sites pre- and post-disaster, analyzing the difference between practical necessity and compliance requirements.
The culminating experience of the Emergency Management Tactical Scholars Program. Summarizes the doctrine and policy required by study of specialized topics within the emergency management discipline. Provides opportunities to apply disciplinary principles to real-life emergency scenarios through case studies, exercises, and other problem solving practice. Explores the factors, impacts, and ramifications of the emergency management policy development and implementation process.
Introduces students to the technologies, applications, and tools relevant to the current emergency management professional environment. Explores the impact of a rapidly improving technological environment on all phases of the emergency management process and discusses potential means of leveraging technology to improve known deficiencies. Focuses intensively on the applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology with a view to preparing students for its necessary use in emergency management careers. Offers experience in working with, creating, and interpreting GIS maps and other visual products. Discusses the future changes and challenges facing the emergency management discipline as a result of continued technological growth.
Explores the structures and operations of the national security enterprise in U.S government.. Introduces core security level lenses and international relations paradigms and develops students' ability to apply them to the analysis of past, current, and future national security issues. Discusses power, interests, and perceptions as the building blocks of actions by states, non-state actors, and individuals; and investigates how those actions are affected by the changing political, social, economic, and personal environments of those choosing to take them. Provides opportunities for students to practice following, researching, analyzing, and developing policy recommendations for the changing security concerns of the moment.
Provides students with an enhanced awareness of the response planning and response challenges of diverse individuals, groups, and communities to disaster. Students will discover how disasters influence structures, interactions, and subjective perceptions among community members. Examines how social inequality, including race, ethnicity, class, and gender, result in enhanced vulnerabilities in disasters. Students will analyze the diverse cultural rules and biases of response organizations and communities that converge during disasters.
Introduces the concepts and core components of the emergency planning process, including the rationale behind planning as an emergency management process. Introduces participants to the key concepts and principles of the National Response Framework. Describes key Mission Assignment (MA) concepts and provides knowledge needed to carry out MA processing responsibilities.
Provides a thorough understanding of risk management, operational planning, and strategic planning as applied in current emergency management policy. Teaches evaluation and use of current policy tools to determine risk vulnerabilities and capabilities, critically evaluate an emergency operations plan, identify the components of an emergency operations plan, and assess the purpose of strategic planning.
Provides the student with understanding of leadership theories, skills, and techniques for application in public safety. Introduces the concept of effective leadership in public safety by identifying leadership models utilized in management throughout the lifecycle of incidents, and evaluating current public safety leaders.
Explores the reasons and need for planning for a sustainable, disaster-resistant community. Introduces participants to mitigation basics for both natural and human-driven disasters. Describes the Continuity Management Program, Process and Cycle, the fundamentals of Risk Management, and the importance of Devolution Planning.
Provides a detailed examination of the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) Career and Technology Education (CTE) Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (HSEP) curriculum pathways. Allows participants to explore their own HSEP pathways, or those of interest, and investigate program partnerships in their community. Provides HSEP educators the opportunity to discuss why and how to better know their students' cultural, academic, and social backgrounds and experiences; and explore their students' soft skills and post-curricular needs as future citizens and workforce members. Participants will apply new knowledge and skills related to assessments, lesson design, and teaching methods through the design of practical lessons and unit plans they can use in their current teaching assignment. This course aligns with National Board Standards for CTE teachers.
Exposes students to the fundamental concepts and frameworks of a post-emergency recovery effort, and methods for enhancing and refining such efforts. Explores the types of exercises, the exercise cycle, and their role during and in preparation for real response and recovery events. Discusses optimization of resource availability and distribution in recovery, including methods of incorporating partner entities in the private and nonprofit sectors.
Equips students with information literacy skills necessary for evaluating, sharing, and basing decisions on the vast array of sources available in the digital age, with a specific focus on sorting reliable information from misinformation in crisis situations. Explores the signs and effects of “spin” or framing on public information campaigns’ effectiveness and trust in government and/or media institutions. Reviews a variety of intentional and unintentional biases, influences, and logical fallacies, and discusses methods by which public information messaging can combat them to convey essential information to an audience. This course primarily supports the Public Safety Capstone sequence, but is designed to be open and accessible to all disciplines.
Surveys a variety of essential components of effective research design, development, and writing, including literature reviews, source evaluation and citation in the context of a policy recommendation paper or report, and common styles of reporting and publication students may encounter in their careers or future studies. Reviews what makes sources trustworthy, and explores how to define a problem and formulate a research question. This course primarily supports the Public Safety Capstone sequence, but is designed to be open and accessible to all disciplines.
Enables students to exercise critical thinking and evaluation skills while applying comprehension of the public safety discipline. Students will research a current public safety issue, under the supervision of a faculty mentor, including its scope, stakeholders, and relevant evidence; then prepare media briefings, summaries, and policy recommendations that demonstrate the ability to analyze and synthesize theory and practice into industry-relevant communication products.