MPA 6630G - Disaster and Emergency Management

Credits: 4

This course introduces students to the field of emergency and disaster management. It is intended to provide students with an answer to the question: how should governments and organizations plan for and respond to natural disasters and emergencies? In addition, we will ask: what could governments and organizations do to better prepare for emergencies? When have effective response plans been implemented? And when and why have response plans failed? We will approach these questions by learning about the fundamental concepts in the growing field of disaster and emergency management followed by an analysis of specific cases including Hurricane Katrina, pandemic flu, 9-11, and mass shootings. We will analyze these situations to determine how the government and private organizations coordinated the response, gauge the effectiveness of these responses, and learn how government and private organization can better prepare for disasters and emergencies in the future.