CAROL L. CWIAK, J.D.

**Faculty/Internship Coordinator**

**Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Emergency Management**

**North Dakota State University**

**Fargo, North Dakota**

**carol.cwiak@ndsu.edu**

Carol L. Cwiak has been teaching courses in the Emergency Management
Program at North Dakota State University (NDSU) since 2003 and has been
a full-time faculty member since 2006. In addition to her teaching
responsibilities, she is also the Emergency Management Program
Internship Coordinator, Project Coordinator for the Disaster Resistant
University Project, and Advisor for NDSU's International Emergency
Management Student Association chapter.

Ms. Cwiak is a part of a dynamic team at NDSU that believes that the
best educational model for emergency management is a three-pronged
approach that includes academic coursework, functional application, and
internships out in the field. NDSU offers a minor, major, master's, and
Ph.D. in Emergency Management and is committed to promoting excellence
in emergency management higher education and facilitating the
professionalization of the field.

At this year's conference, Ms. Cwiak will speak about projects she has
been doing for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Emergency
Management Higher Education Project that focus on the state of current
emergency management higher education programs and the academic
assessment of "must reads" in emergency management. Additionally, Ms.
Cwiak will co-present with Stacy Willett from the University of Akron on
internal and external validity issues in emergency management higher
education.

Ms. Cwiak is a FEMA/Department of Homeland Security-certified trainer
for Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT), Disaster Resistant Jobs,
and Multi-Hazard Emergency Planning for Schools. She has been a member
of the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services Boy's State
Exercise Facilitation Team for 5 years and was a key member of NDSU's
Boy's State Exercise Development Team. She has served on the North
Dakota Department of Emergency Services Advisory Committee in her
capacity as the president of North Dakota InfraGard (an FBI-sponsored
organization that seeks to protect critical infrastructure and enhance
homeland security efforts via private sector partnering). Ms. Cwiak has
worked on a number of mitigation grants and preparedness projects, and
is a member of the NDEMA, EMPOWER, International Association of
Emergency Managers, and other academic and emergency management-focused
groups.

Ms. Cwiak continues her work as a member of the Emergency Management
Roundtable and welcomes the opportunity to discuss issues related to
emergency management identity and professionalization. In addition to
the above, she is also interested in discussing the following topics
with attendees at this year's Conference: enhanced partnering across
emergency management higher education programs; promoting preparedness
and mitigation via education; business continuity and its role in
emergency management programs; public/private sector partnerships; legal
issues in emergency management; practitioner/‌academic relations; the
nexus between training and education; seamless integration between
education and experience; chaos theory's import in sustainability; and
the sustainability paradigm.

Ms. Cwiak holds a law degree and is in the final stages of completing
her dissertation in Emergency Management.