Course Offerings
Over
16 months, our graduate students explore the complex world of emergency
and disaster management issues and learn the critical-thinking
and decision-making skills necessary to support and supervise comprehensive,
integrated and effective management in the event of natural, system-wide, or
human-induced crisis.
Through assessment of a broad range of modern disasters and complex emergency
situations, the program provides students with a working knowledge of needs,
preparedness, service delivery systems, impact on communities, decision-making
and ethics.
The MPA in Emergency and Disaster Management Course Offerings
Semester 1
Impact of Disaster on Cultures and Communities (MPA 511 SEL) (2 credits)
This course is designed to equip the student with an overview
introduction to emergency management, focusing on the effects
of disasters on different populations, and the current disaster
response measures in place. The class is structured on the
lifecycle of emergency management: mitigation, preparedness,
response and recovery. Each student is expected to develop
a basic understanding of these concepts and the current issues
in emergency management, as well as gain insight into the
public and private sector methods of managing crisis.
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Evaluating Service Delivery Systems (MPA 512 SYS) (2 credits)
The role and function of the emergency manager and the nature
of the decision-making process are inevitably tied to organizational
structure and philosophy. If emergency manager expect to
assess, shape, design, and direct programs effectively,
it is essential that they become knowledgeable about the
nature of organizations and how organizations behave when
influenced by internal and external forces. The class will
focus on the study of models of management, including scientific
management, public administration, and human relations.
Students will examine the various models of management,
carry out a comparative analysis of these needs, and use
them as a way of understanding the philosophical, organizational,
and managerial principles that guide them.
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Research and Analysis Methods in Disaster Management (MPA 511 SKI) (2 credits)
The course will give students the tools to research emergency and disaster
management problems as diverse as the social aspects of hurricane evacuation,
behavior change in employee emergency preparedness programs, and applying a
cost dimension
to traditional risk assessment. Students will also learn to apply quantitative
and qualitative research methods from a range of disciplines, such as sociology,
psychology, political science, public administration, and criminal justice
to contemporary and traditional emergency management problems.
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Values and Ethics for Administrative Decision Making (MPA 511 VAL) (2 credits)
The aim of the class for the Values and Ethics Dimension is
to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the
major traditions of ethical reflection and the implications
for the emergency manager. As administrators and professionals,
students must, as a practical matter, make assumptions about
what ethical standards should govern the management of staff,
relationships in the organization as a whole, and work with
citizens in crisis. In the Values and Ethics Dimension class,
students will be challenged to clarify and reflect critically
on their values and ethical standards.
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Economics of Hazards and Disasters (MPA 511 SYS) (2 credits)
This course provides a comprehensive overview of the economic
aspects of hazards and disasters through a review of the
concepts, analytical tools and policies that exist to aid
emergency managers before, during and after emergencies.
The course commences with an overview of present-day emergency
management, and proceeds to the concepts of business continuity,
vulnerability analysis, risk management and the development
of a Business Area Impact Analysis (BAIA). From there, students
will review the economic costs of terrorism, and the underlying
perceptions associated with the notion of risk and learn
ways to communicate risks effectively with stakeholders and
the public. The first half of the course concludes with an
examination of business contingency planning, its vices and
virtues.
Building on that foundation, the second half of the semester
begins with an introduction to the increasingly important
role of public-private relationships in emergency management
and moves to the heavily debated topic of price controls
during emergency and disaster events. Students will then
review the rights of property owners from the perspective
of those either indirectly or directly affected, examine
the roles of employees, employers and the government and
conclude with am investigation into the impacts of natural
disasters.
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Semester 2
Identification of Organizational Disaster
Needs / Field Experience (MPA 522 PCA/ MPA 522 FLD) (3 credits, 2 credits for field)
This Constructive Action course is designed to provide students with an overview
of business continuity/emergency operations planning for public, non-profit,
and private organizations. Students will apply the Disaster Recovery Institute’s
first 5 Professional Practices of Business Continuity to create a Business Continuity
Plan for a local business. Students will also complete the FEMA Emergency Management
Professional Development Series. The process is designed to be collaborative,
to encourage teamwork, and to give students a real-world experience in developing
a plan. In later semesters, students will implement and assess the plan.
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Systematic Approaches to Management (MPA 522 SYS) (2
credits)
The Systems Dimension class has been designed to introduce participants to the
dynamics of management practice and to provide them with a wide variety of management
techniques available to them as emergency management professionals. Surveying
state-of-the-art management practices, this course will help participants gain
an integrated picture of the management process as well as the skills required
for effecting organizational change, increasing managerial and service efficiency,
implementing program improvements and establishing systems for program evaluation.
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Organizational and Municipal Continuity
Planning (MPA 521 SKI) (2
credits)
This course examines the history of both disaster preparedness research and planning,
and culminates with a review of contemporary disaster planning processes and
how they can be applied to real-world experiences via the examination of meaningful
and purposeful case studies. We begin with a review of the literature that comprises
the foundations of disaster preparedness research, and progress through the topics
of organizational and governmental considerations in planning and on to a discussion
of future trends in these fields.
From there, students will examine the planning process that
includes hazard analysis procedures (including vulnerability & risk
assessments), emergency operations plan (EOP) development,
and plan testing and maintenance. We will then delve into
the often-overlooked links between planning initiatives and
incident command, namely, the National Incident Management
System (NIMS), and its command / management and multiagency
coordination approaches. At that point we will explore the
interface between field operations, the Emergency Operations
Center (EOC) and disaster plans, with the course concluding
as students craft and present a case study that examines
a disaster planning topic of their choice.
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Public Health Systems Preparedness (MPA 521 SYS) (2 credits)
This course deals with important health and management issues involved in crises
and emergencies presented for the non-medical disaster manager. The wide range
of medical and health issues inherent to crises and emergencies are described.
The course covers topics such as differentiation between natural and man-mediated
outbreaks in the community (SARS, influenza, smallpox, E. coli H-157, etc.);
Methods for integrating medical, public health and psychological processes
into disaster management; Review of health systems implications of nuclear,
biological, and chemical disasters. This course is designed to meet the need
for a recognized curriculum in the Public Health aspects of disaster care and
organized emergency medical services systems.
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Semester 3
Initiating and Managing a Disaster Recovery Plan
/ Field Experience (MPA 532 PCA/ MPA 532 FLD) (3
credits, 2 credits for field)
In the third semester of the Constructive Action, students
are expected to implement the disaster plan they developed
in the second semester. Students will be involved in all phases
of plan implementation at the customer’s site; designing
an implementation, education, and revision program; developing
an ongoing assessment instrument; Creation of a P-D-C-A feedback
loop to measure effectiveness of education and real organizational
change. Students will be involved with direct customer consulting,
education, assessment, and program re-evaluation.
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Individual and Collective Responses to Disaster (MPA 532 SEL) (2
credits)
This course will review the impact of various types of disasters on individuals,
groups and communities, as well as the various strategies that have been developed
to immediately respond to acute stress reactions. The course will review the
theory of how disasters affect populations. Students will be able to distinguish
between myth about disaster response and how people actually behave. Students
will gain an expanded awareness of cultural values and the diversity reflected
in American society and elsewhere.
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Economic and Social Trends and the Organization
of Services (MPA 532 SYS) (2 credits)
A topics course organized about the various work settings for emergency management
with a focus on how they are similar to the traditional model and how they differ.
Includes presentation from federal, local, private sector and not-for-profit
perspectives. This course offers a broad perspective on the various facets of
emergency management, the value systems in different work environments, and how
emergency managers get resources when competing against other demands. The class
examines the major emergency management settings, including government, transit
systems, healthcare, financial markets, environmental agencies, public utilities,
banking, military, and education.
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Private Sector Emergency Management (MPA 532 VAL) (2 credits)
Private sector industry provides well over 90% of critical human and infrastructure
support, so proper emergency planning for these organizations is crucial to
ensuring the health and safety of the public. This class will focus on the
needs of private sector industry, their paradigms, and their shortcomings.
There will be a significant focus on best practices case studies and how the
private sector is leading the public sector in creating a prepared community.
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Information Technology in Disaster Planning (MPA 533 VAL) (2 credits)
This Course reviews explores Information Technology (IT) from three major perspectives:
What constitutes IT in Western Society, the integration of IT in the practice
and methodology of Disaster Planning, and finally, how IT can be employed to
prevent, delay, respond, mitigate, and recover from disasters.
IT in Western Society covers a broad range of technology
from large scale mainframe computing environments, integrated
networks, and the Internet, to local-area-networks, personal
computing, personal digital assistants, and intelligent devices
(such as GPS/Ultra-Wide Band RF Transceivers). This section
will also describe best practices in regard to IT security,
back-up and recovery and full Disaster Planning for the IT
assets.
Contemporary Disaster Planning incorporates a wide range
of issues, and collects huge amount of data. IT systems support
the practice and methodology of Disaster Planning in the collection
of data, its assessment in terms of pertinence and use, threat
probability and preparedness prioritization.
The employment and deployment of IT for Disaster prevention,
response and recovery is explored to include communications,
assessment, and consequence management.
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Semester 4
Long Range Planning for Disaster Management / Field Experience (MPA 541 PCA/ MPA 541 FLD) (3
credits, 2 credits for field work)
Having experienced the development,
implementation, and assessment of the organization’s
disaster plan, students will chose to analyze one aspect of
the previous semesters' process to complete the P-D-C-A model
and revise and improve the disaster plan development model.
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Terrorism and Disaster Management (MPA 541 SEL) (2 credits)
Students in this course will define terrorism and examine
why politically motivated acts of violence occur; Review
terrorist groups, tactics and the effects of terrorism (including
weapons of mass effect); Review policies and activities aimed
at mitigating, preparing for, and responding more effectively
to terrorist acts. There will be a focus on the social, psychological
and political aspects terrorism and disaster management,
with the goal of fostering development of critical thinking
and planning skills as they relate to the management of terrorist
events.
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The Federal Government and Disaster Planning/Response (MPA 541 SKI) (2
credits)
This course is designed to provide students with an overview
of the Federal government’s role in emergency management
and related regulation and processes. With a specific focus
on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, students will
get an overview of FEMA and its programs, including disaster
assistance, the national flood insurance programs, and chemical
and radiological preparedness. There will also be a strong
focus on the nuts-and-bolts of federally-declared disasters
and the funding process for state, local, and citizen reimbursement.
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Topics in Emergency Management (MPA 541 SYS) (2
credits)
A topics course organized about the various work settings
for emergency management with a focus on how they are similar
to the traditional model and how they differ. Includes presentation
from federal, local, private sector and not-for-profit perspectives.
This course offers a broad perspective on the various facets
of emergency management, the value systems in different work
environments, and how emergency managers get resources when
competing against other demands. The class examines the major
emergency management settings, including government, transit
systems, healthcare, financial markets, environmental agencies,
public utilities, banking, military, and education.
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