Building and Maintaining your Emergency

Management ProgramAssociate’s Degree,

DiplomaAnd Certificates

Steve Ebsen: Division Chair Public ServicesWestern Iowa Tech Community College

Sioux City, Iowa

Demographics of the college

Established 1966 as a vocational school

Current enrollments 6700 credit and over 50,000 non credit

(7) AS degrees (3) ASCO degrees (46) AAS degrees (38) diplomas (66) certificates

More data Serving 6 county area Campuses located in 5 municipalities Service area population approx. 175,000 Site of “United Flight 232” crash- 1989

with 111 fatalities.

Competition: (at time of program creation)

None in South Dakota, Nebraska or Iowa at 2 yr level

Funding the start up Title III grant to the college to start

three new programs. Provided for full time

instructor/curriculum person, secretary and supplies.

DACUM (develop a curriculum) conducted with industry professionals. Task analysis and then courses developed

Challenges Grant did not allow for marketing Education of public/ college

personnel as to what emergency management was

Traditional students did not want to become managers. Prefer to be first responders.

Marketing attempted to working adults. Many of those had schedule conflicts with college calendars

Challenges cont. Lack of internship availability Hybrids don’t accommodate online

students Formal education not required for

many positions Professional Development Series is

often the only requirement

Program Accreditation March 2008 the EDM program earnedAccreditation by the Foundation of Higher Education Accreditation (FoHE) based on meeting 23 standards of excellence.

Full time instructor left to pursue higher educational levels. College replaced with adjunct instructors. Course work then moved to an online format.

Current Status Enrollments now consist mostly of

working adults seeking: career advancement or a change of employment.

Much interest in converting work experience to credit. (military, law enforcement, fire, ems)

Training is often close, but does not line up course by course – so “Technical EDM” developed.

Technical EDM Can bring in 27 credits of related

training Select 24 credits of EDM courses Select 15 credits of general eds. Serves well for our area, when the

EM’s serve multiple roles and need experience in lots of fields.

Enrollments Older Working adults Part time Many have Bachelors degree already Often from distant areas, including

over seas Maintaining numbers, but limited

change

Placement County Emergency Managers Business Continuity type positions

private industry Managers of businesses – sometimes

not related Public Health Hospitals Security Transfer to 4 year programs with 2+2

agreements

Non-Credit Status US Dept. of Labor grant (Homeland

Security) To increase numbers of credit

students and provide training for area responders in the HS fields.

3 year grant – ending Dec. 2011 Currently at 1300 Participants Over 13,000 trained (capacity

building) Over 80,000 hours of training

provided

Non-Credit Status Credit enrollments have increased Graduates have increased All training is transcripted and

available to convert to credit to apply toward a degree/diploma

Grant has benefited area responders, of which the majority are volunteers

Many applying their training toward the EDM program

http://the-security-institute.org/

Challenges Marketing/Recruiting Education of what EM is and job

duties Employment – (won’t happen to

me!!) Most EM’s in Iowa are half time Graduates who won’t leave the area

for employment

Contact Steve Ebsen

712-274-8733 ext. 1232 Steve.Ebsen@witcc.edu

http://www.the-security-institute.org/ www.witcc.edu/programs