FEMA’s Higher Education ProgramActivity Report

National Emergency Training Center, Emmitsburg, MD

3 May 2013

College and University News

CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION (CTE) TEACHER – EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

The Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management (UASEM) seeks a teacher for our emergency management coursework. In the school's first year, when there is only a ninth grade, this will be a survey course, both exciting and informative, in the principles and history of emergency management, but it will grow to include more technical classes in upper grades dealing with emergency planning, preparation and mitigation, response and recovery, and emergency communications systems and technology.

According to Department of Education regulations, while most extracurricular programs (including field trips, job shadowing, internships, career days, and discussion panels) can be co-created and implemented by volunteers with "day jobs" in emergency management, our school's course work must be taught by an industry professional who elects to become a full-time teacher, work for the DOE with a provisional teaching license, and eventually earn complete teaching credentials. In other words UASEM's emergency management instructor is ideally a "career changer" who has worked for at least two years, but preferably more, in the industry and loves emergency management but feels passionately about refocusing his/her work on teaching adolescents what they must know to be ready for college-level study and careers in emergency management.

The right candidate understands that this may entail a pay cut depending on what he/she currently earns but that it fundamentally offers the means to take his/her career in a new and desired direction. The right candidate is knowledgeable about all facets of emergency management but also possesses deep interest in, and natural talent for, imparting that knowledge to others, which in a school context will include formal lesson and unit planning, assessment of student learning, and interdisciplinary planning with other teachers.

The right candidate will not be easy to find, but educating the next generation of emergency managers, starting in high school, depends on our ability to locate this exceptional individual. Please refer any candidates you know .

CSU Council for Emergency Management and Homeland Security (CEMHS)

Happy FridayColleagues,

Hope that your academic year is coming along smoothly! In the May 2013 progress report-- there areseveral specific areas of CEMHS activity to update you on.

First, in terms of Emergency Management (EM) and Homeland Security (HS) Education and Model Curriculum-- we are working to complete the California Emergency Management and Homeland Security Education and Training Strategic Initiative final report(with the assistance of our State Homeland Security Grant Funding). There are two significant contributions here: the design ofa "vertical track" of linked EM-HS education programs at all levels of the education cycle, and the development of EM-HSModel Undergraduate (Associate-Bachelors)Curriculum. Deep appreciation to the California Emergency Management Agency for the funding and the California State University Chancellor's Office in administering the grant.
We will bereviewing the Strategic Initiative, section by section, atour CEMHS"FineTuning Meeting" in Fresno on May 29-30.The current agenda may be found on our blog at:

Important Meeting Elementsinclude:

K-12 Emergency Management/Homeland Security Education (including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Career Technical Education (CTE), Academic Skills and the California Common Core, and Campus Preparedness/Safety/Resiliency curriculum and programs).

We are very excited about the "Train the Teacher/Administrator Programs" and will be having a teleconference soon to discuss the results of ourCampus Preparedness and School Safety Capability Gap Analysis. That document will be made available to our Workgroup shortly and the topic of discussionat our first teleconference.We will be partnering with the National Education Security Initiative and other major partners here, including the holding of focus groups across the state on campus preparedness and school safety to draft and review the relevant curriculum.

Associates Programs (including the 12 unit lower division EM-HS model transfer curriculum).

Undergraduate Model Curriculum Programs (including templates and blueprints for an EM track, a HS track, and an integrated EM-HS track.) Also, we arediscussingCybersecurity curriculum and program development (including cyber-forensics and cyber-resiliency) inMayas well. We are also going toschedule an in-person cyber advisory group meetingin June.

And, all the rest of the linkages and coordinationtowards a comprehensive "vertical track" of EM and HS programs from middle school through advanced degrees here in California.

Finally, for all those interested on: a). Serving on the Strategic Initiative Final Review Team b). Attending the CEMHS Fine Tuning Meeting c). Joining the Campus Preparedness and School Safety Workgroup, or d). Joining the Cyber-security/forensics/resiliency Workgroup-- please drop me a line! For those who I have already heard from (but may not have yet heard back from me) can you please send me a remindere-mail so I can send you the relevant information (meeting agenda, logistical info, capability gap analysis, etc.)

We have several hundred participants in CEMHSinitiatives and projects as we complete these action items of important national significance and so there is a major amount of coordination going on.It is important to maximize the input and feedback form all the key partners and major stakeholders here.After all, if it was easy to design/develop/implement alltheseEM-HS academicprograms, model curriculum, and linkagesacross all levels of education, it would have already been completed and made generally available for the greater public good.This is what we are trying to accomplish by the end of this summer. Who is ready to help us with this final push?

Best Regards, Keith

Keith Clement, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Criminology
Chair, University Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
Graduate Coordinator,(CAS) Homeland Security Program
California State University, Fresno
Coordinator, Department Internships
Planning Director, CSU Council for Emergency
Management and Homeland Security (CEMHS)


University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha, Christchurch, New Zealand

UC CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquake Archive team is interested in collaborating with seismic researchers to record social and human data following major disasters for the purposes of commemoration and recovery. As well as which is the front window to our federation of collections, we also have a very large high-spec repository curated here at the University of Canterbury for major archives and to promote disaster-focused research. The Quakestudies archive is a resource we’ve spent considerable time and effort developing and we’d be pleased to tell you more about are (see As you’ll see it is developed on principles of free and open access worldwide—perhaps your earthquake researchers will find things of value in there as the archive continues to grow.
I’d like to introduce my team to you: Dr James Smithies project managed UC CEISMIC and is now the Associate Director; Dr Chris Thomson is project office manager responsible for day-to-day operations; and Paul Doughty is development manager (working to ensure we keep collecting). We believe that our model for swiftly archiving and curating digital artefacts before, during and after a major disaster is one that could be rolled out very quickly for communities suffering in similar ways to our own city. We’d be pleased to share with you what we have learned as one of our primary aims in setting up CEISMIC was to assist communities in similar situations.

Associate Professor Paul Millar | Head of the School of Humanities|
Director, CEISMIC Canterbury Earthquakes Digital Archive Programme
University of Canterbury, Te Whare Wananga o Waitaha
Christchurch, New Zealand

Emergency Management and Homeland Security News:

Emergency Management Solutions, April 2013 – Lucien Canton, CEM

The Power of the Tweet

Professional Development – Conference Cancellation

Australian Metro PSA – Dumb Ways to Die

Life Balance – Are you afraid of change

From the Bookshelf – Against Security: How we go wrong at airports, subways and other sites of ambiguous danger – Harvey Molotch

IAEM – USA News, May 2, 2013

  • Call for nominations: IAEM-USA second vice president and treasurer
  • IAEM-USA Region 2 announces Annual Meeting
  • Medical Preparedness Allowable Use Act introduced
  • Drabek to headline plenary session on Oct. 30 and participate in book signing
  • Upcoming Prep Course and Exam offerings
  • China launches natural disaster-predicting satellite
  • UN official calls on Asia-Pacific region to reduce disaster risks
  • European Commission consults on natural and man-made disaster risk transfer
  • USARPAC emergency management newsletter reaches out to U.S. Army emergency managers in the Pacific
  • GAO releases report addressing national preparedness for medical needs of children in a CBRN event
  • Thought Leaders Forum set for May 9 to discuss U.S. infrastructure for building codes and opportunities for greater resilience
  • Officials: Death toll from Bangladesh factory collapse tops 400
  • Explosion shakes central Prague, as many as 40 injured
  • Sandy sewage spill said equal to Central Park flood
  • Flood damage assessments begin

Natural Hazards Center - DR 608—Disaster Research News You Can Us

  • Getting a Great Deal on Disaster: Bargain Retailers and the Bangladesh Building Collapse
  • Disaster News Redux: Fearing the Flu
  • New Researchers Proposals Needed for the Natural Hazards Workshop
  • Call Outs: Calls for Abstracts, Papers, Proposals, and More
  • Some New Web Resources
  • Conferences, Training, and Events
  • Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

To subscribe, visit or e-mail

Natural Hazards Observer – Volume XXXVII – Number 5 – May 2013

  • The hazards of the moral hazards or not – An invited comment by Carolyn Kousky and Leonard Shabman
  • Taking Earth to its limits
  • Drug resistant TB takes its revenge…
  • …But the malaria news is encouraging
  • Our lessons from the Kenya spring elections
  • Bracket busters: Drought tournament – An invited comment by Jeff Brislawn, Courtney Black, and Taryn Finnessy
  • Pits and Adders
  • Resources
  • Contracts and Grants
  • Conferences and Training

The 38th Annual Natural Hazards Research and Application Workshop will be held from Saturday, July 13 through Tuesday, July 16, 2013 at the Omni Interlocken Hotel in Broomfield, Colorado

Request an invitation to this important meeting by contacting Diane Smith at 303-492-6818 or email . You can register online using the link you received in that invitation email.

New York Citizen Corps - It Takes A City

Seventh Annual Disaster Volunteer Conference

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Register at

Project Responder 3 – Toward the First Responder of the Future, March 2012

Project Responder 3 has a simple goal: to identify the highest priority capabilities to

ensure that responders can effectively and safely address catastrophic incidents, now and

in the future. These priorities can help guide research and development investment by the

federal government, state, local, territorial, and tribal authorities, and the private sector.

The Homeland Security Studies and Analysis Institute (the Institute) was asked to

perform this study by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through a joint

relationship between the Science and Technology Directorate’s (S&T) Support to the

Homeland Security Enterprise and First Responders Group and the National Preparedness

Directorate (NPD) of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This study

set out to: 1) identify and prioritize current needs in the context of the evolving response

environment; 2) discuss a framework for determining lanes of responsibility between

S&T, FEMA, and state/local response agencies for capability investment; 2 and 3)

examine long-term capability needs and goals as an initial vision of a “first responder of

the future.” The InterAgency Board (IAB) provided further guidance, especially

regarding the last objective, through discussions to identify characteristics of the future

response environment and determine potential advanced capabilities needed to improve

efficiency and safety in the long-term.

Received from: Greta E. Marlatt; email: /:

New or Updated Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports:

  • Department of Homeland Security Appropriations: A Summary of Congressional Action for FY2013. R42557
  • Federal Research and Development Funding: FY2013. R42410

Congress. House. Homeland Security Committee

  • Cutting DHS Duplication and Wasteful Spending: Implementing Private Sector Best Practices and Watchdog Recommendations
  • Striking the Right Balance: Protecting Our Nation's Critical Intrastructure from Cyber Attack and Ensuring Privacy and Civil Liberties

Government Accountability Office (GAO)

  • FEMA Reservists: Training Could Benefit from Examination of Practices at Other Agencies. GAO-13-250R
  • Department of Homeland Security: Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Efficiency and Effectiveness, Achieve Cost Savings, and Improve Management Functions. GAO-13-547T [testimony]

Thank you and have an awesome weekend,

Barbara

Barbara L. Johnson

Higher Education Program Assistant

FEMA/EMI/NETC

Department of Homeland Security

16825 S. Seton Avenue, K016

Emmitsburg, MD 21727

Ph: (301) 447-1452

“FEMA’s mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.”

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