**Feb 2-6, 04 FEMA EM Hi Education Project Activity Report**

**(1) Community College of Denver:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Learned today that two programs that we knew were
being investigated at the Community College of Denver had been approved
and put into operation last Fall (August 2003) at the Community College
of Denver: (1) A Public Safety Management Associate in Applied Science
Degree, and (2) A Public Safety Management Certificate Program. Both
programs contain emergency management and homeland security relevant
courses. Dr. Vincent Wincelowicz, the Chair of the Public Security
Management Department within the Center for Business and Technology at
the Community College of Denver, notes that the program currently has 70
students enrolled with an additional 45 high school students also
involved. Ten of sixty people recently trained in CERT (Community
Emergency Response Training) that Dr. Wincelowicz was involved in, were
CC Denver students. For additional information consult the CCD program
descriptions on The College List, or email Dr. Winecelowicz at:
Vincent.wincelowicz@ccd.edu

**(2) Disaster Response Operations and Management \-- Upper Division
Course Development Project:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Received for review from course developer, Dr.
David McEntire, University of North Texas, Session 18, \"Donations
Management.\"

February 5, 2004 \-- Reviewed the 4th draft of Session 16, \"Mass
Fatality Management,\" and provided review comments to Dr. McEntire.

**(3) Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, EMI, Emmitsburg,
MD, June 8-10, 2004:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Received note from Carol Cwiak, graduate student at
North Dakota State University, noting that she can attend the conference
and report on her (and fellow graduate students) survey of emergency
management practitioner demographics and attitudes \-- probably a
plenary session presentation. Carol reports that \"the amount of
information we are collecting is phenomenal.\" For additional
information, Carol can be reached at: madamgovnr@msn.com

February 2, 2004 \-- Talked with Chuck Barham, North Carolina Community
College System, who is agreeable to attending the conference and
discussing his initiative to promote emergency management and homeland
security courses and programs within the 58 community college system in
North Carolina.

February 4, 2004 \-- Talked with Dr. Brenda Phillips, Jacksonville State
University (AL) about the design of an International Disaster Management
break-out session and possibly a track.

February 5, 2004 \-- Talked with Sally Ziolkowski, Mitigation Division
Chief, FEMA Region IX (Oakland, CA), concerning her willingness to
participate on the Model Emergency Manager Panel and to facilitate one
of the Core Emergency Management Competencies and Core Curriculum
Breakout Session groups \-- she is willing to serve in both functions.

February 5, 2004 \-- Talked with Dr. David McEntire, Director of the
Emergency Administration and Planning Program at the University of North
Texas, about his willingness to facilitate a breakout session on
\"Emergency Management Theory\" \-- Does it exist? If so what is it? Is
there a need for a Theory of Emergency Management Course? What should be
in such a course? Dr. McEntire agreed to facilitate this session and to
draft an abstract for posting on the website. If readers have thoughts
on the subject of emergency management theory, please fill free to share
them with me and with Dr. McEntire, who can be reached at:
mcentire@unt.edu.

**(4) Epistemological Problems in Emergency Management: Theoretical
Dilemmas and Implications:**

February 4, 2004 \-- Received permission from Dr. David McEntire,
Director of the Emergency Administration and Planning Program at the
University of North Texas, to upload the article he co-wrote with
Melissa Marshall, titled above, for the 2003 edition of the *Journal of
the American Society of Professional Emergency Planners*, to the
\"Student Reader\" being put together to support the working draft
course \"Hazards, Disasters and U.S. Emergency Management - an
Introduction.\" Dr. McEntire was kind enough to provide an electronic
copy of this article, which was forwarded to the EMI Webmaster for
upload to the EM HiEd Project website \-- Free College Courses section
\-- Courses Under Development subsection. Click on \"Working draft,\"
under the title of the course to access the Reader. This material should
be accessible within a few days.

**(5) Holistic Disaster Recovery: Creating A More Sustainable Future \--
Upper Division Course Development Project:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Received for review from course developer, Dr.
Gavin Smith:

> Session 4, Roles in Recovery (3 hours)
>
> Session 5, Formal and Informal Roles in Recovery (3 hours)
>
> Session 6, Role Analysis (3 hours)
>
> Session 7, Horizontal and Vertical Integration (3 hours)
>
> Session 8, Decision-Making in Sustainable Disaster Recovery (Part I)
> (3 hours)
>
> Session 9, Decision-Making in Sustainable Disaster Recovery: Class
> Exercise and Case Study Dialogue (3 hours)

**(6) International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Received the November, 2003 IJMEAD (Vol. 21, No. 3)
produced by the Research Committee on Disasters, International
Sociological Association. Will note just a couple excerpts \-- the first
is by the Guest Editor, John Handmer (Australia), who begins his \"Guest
Editor\'s Introduction\" by stating:

> \"September 11 is whatever we want to make of it: from \'changing the
> world forever\' to improving the detail of emergency management in
> major events. It has certainly resulted in, or been used to legitimize
> and explain, significant societal change including expansion of the
> command and control approach to emergencies and challenges to some
> notions of contemporary democracy\....
>
> \...on this occasion governments have abandoned their usual approach
> to terrorism. The traditional approach has been to carry on
> regardless, denying the terrorists any sense of victory through their
> ability to deflect society from its normal activities. Instead, we
> have been deflected and there is a move towards using
> counter-terrorism as an organizing principle of government.\" (pp. 5 &
> 6)

The second is by Russell Dynes, Disaster Research Center, University of
Delaware, who states in his article \"Finding Order in Disorder:
Continuities in the 9-11 Response,\" that:

> \"\...post 9/11 discussions have often been dominated by the recycling
> of disaster myths, especially the belief in widespread panic, the
> necessity of command and control and the assumption that \'people\'
> are the primary problem. Many of those ideas have since become
> embedded in the implementation of \'homeland security\'.\" (p. 9)
>
> Current discussion about \'homeland security\' seems to be predicated
> on the weakness of individuals and social structure and that
> extraordinary efforts will be needed to maintain social control. The
> direction seems to be more towards governmental paternalism rather
> than toward community self-sufficiency.\" (p. 19)

**(7) Introduction to Emergency Management Textbook:**

February 5, 2004 \-- Received for review from lead textbook developer,
Dr. Michael Lindell, Texas A&M University, Chapter 2, \"Emergency
Management Stakeholders\" (26 pages).

**(8) New Directions in Hazards Mitigation\--Breaking the Disaster Cycle
\-- Graduate-Level Course Development Project:**

February 2-6, 2004 \-- Continued to receive review comments on this new
Emergency Management Higher Education Project course, and forwarded them
on to the lead course developer, Dr. David Godschalk, Department of
Regional and Urban Planning, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. The review comments time-frame ended on Friday, February 6th. Next
step is for Dr. Godschalk and I to get together to go over all review
comments and come to consensus decisions regarding what to do in
response to each.

**(9) North Dakota State University:**

February 4, 2004 \-- Heard from both Dr. Jennifer Wilson, faculty at
NDSU, and Carol Cwiak, graduate student at NDSU, that the school is
forming an undergraduate International Emergency Management Student
Association chapter and will be applying to the International
Association of Emergency Managers to have their chapter recognized in
IAEM Region XII (for IEMSA Chapters). NDSU will be, I believe, the 5th
school to organize an IEMSA chapter.

Dr. Wilson notes that NDSU has received a grant from the North Dakota
League of Cities and Association of Counties to fund the development of
a Collegiate CERT Program (Community Emergency Response Training). NDSU
plans to recruit a graduate student from their Emergency Management
Masters Program (or a newly recruited student) to serve as the NDSU
College CERT Coordinator. TCERT courses would be offered to an audience
of NDSU faculty, administrators, staff, students, and citizens from
surrounding communities. Related to the above, Dr. Wilson tells me that
the North Dakota Division of Emergency Management has agreed to work
with the North Dakota League of Cities and Association of Counties to
fund CERT-related internships for NDSU students (hopefully in time for
this summer). We discussed a possible presentation on this subject at
the June 8-10 EM HiEd Conference.

**(10) Social Dimensions of Disaster, 2nd Edition \-- Upper Division
Course Revision Project:**

February 2, 2004 \-- Reviewed Session 42, \"Future Trends in Emergency
Management,\" and provided review comments to the course developer, Dr.
Thomas Drabek, Denver, CO. From the session Scope statement:

> \"This is the first of three integrative course summary sessions.
> Specific content will vary with professor discretion and field trip
> experiences. Topics to be integrated include, emerging practice
> issues, research needs, implementation barriers, and emergency
> management values.\"

February 4, 2004 \-- Received for review 2nd draft of Session 41, \"What
Works in Risk Communication.\" Reviewed Session 43, \"Multidisciplinary
Perspectives in Emergency Management,\" and provided review comments to
Dr. Drabek. From the Session Scope statement:

> \"This is the second of three integrative sessions which focuses on
> the inherent multidisciplinary nature of the practice of emergency
> management. Illustrative scholars and research questions from numerous
> academic disciplines are contrasted as are the impacts of
> internationalism.\"

February 5, 2004 \-- Reviewed 3rd draft of Session 40, \"Field Trip:
Federal Emergency Management Agency,\" 1st draft of Session 44,
\"Bridging the Gap Between Researchers and Users,\" 1st draft of Session
45, \"Final Examination,\" the Preface, Table of Contents and Title Page
and provided review comments to Dr. Drabek. From the Session 44 Scope
section:

> \"This is the third of three integrative course summary
> sessions\....Issues within the profession, i.e., nature and type of
> educational requirements for emergency managers, and the research
> community, i.e., utilization strategies, are highlighted.\"

Received and reviewed the second draft of Session 1, \"Course
Orientation.\"

The draft sessions were forwarded to the EMI Webmaster for upload to the
EM HiEd Project web-page \-- Free College Courses section \-- Courses
Under Development subsection, where they should be accessible within a
few days.

All of the draft material for this course revision project have now been
reviewed in-house. A course review announcement was thus drafted and
submitted to the staff of the Natural Hazards Center, University of
Colorado at Boulder, for inclusion in the next available edition of
*Disaster Research.* If any of the readers of this activity report would
like to participate in the review of this course, please email me at the
email address below.