CONFERENCE WRAP-UP

Dennis S. Mileti

12th Annual All HazardsHigher Education Conference

DHS/FEMA/EMIEmmitsgurg, MD

June 4, 2009

MY PURPOSE

• Listen to your:– Ideas, presentations & conversations

• Distinguish:– Major themes that bind most of what I heard

together

• Propose:– Directions for our work this coming year

WHAT I DID

• Examined the agenda

• Read our briefing book

• Attended almost every session:– But not for very long– To capture one or two ideas– Not a representative sample

• Induced themes that:– Linked your diverse ideas & conversations

GENERAL OBSERVATION

• To everyone who ever envisioned a field of emergency management

• We “have” the enterprise:– Link between theory & practice is blurred– Academics are teaching emergency

management courses & departments exist – And students are getting degrees in the field

BUT MOST HERE SPOKE ABOUT WHAT REMAINS TO

BE DONE

EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS IS

• From the “student’s” point of view– I’m about to present your themes but I’ll do it as

if they came from the students

• Not from the viewpoints of:– A federal department or agency– Faculty (teachers & researchers)– Working consultants – Or even from the current generation

• Here are the themes I heard…..

“A BAKER’S DOZEN”

1. TEACH US BUT MAKE US EMPLOYABLE

• We want programs that give us:– Knowledge (for public & private sectors)– The skills we need

• Writer, manager & more

– Passion: “put fires in our bellies”– Experience – The personality traits you think we need:

• Able to deal with ambiguity, decision making, results producer, collaborator & integrator

(CONTINUED)

• And if personality is key to a job, help us work on ours:– Require that we read about it– Help us get ready for job interviews– Send us to disasters to “put the fire in”– Find ways to put fires in our teacher’s bellies too

so can see who we want to be when we interact with them

– Give us a course on the “being” part of human being to transform us into who we need to be

2. TEACH US ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGIES WE’LL

NEED IN PRACTICE

• We want to know about & be fluent in using:– GIS– HAZUS– Web EOC– Social media– & much more

3. SUPPLEMENT WHAT WE LEARN WITH EXPERIENCE

• Field work: courses that require field work with “hands-on learning” at disaster sites (do any of you remember classes with field labs?)

• Internships: degree programs that require pre-degree internships

• Residencies: post-degree but pre-career apprenticeships

4. QUIBBLE AMONG YOURSELVES, WE NEED TO

KNOW BOTH

• When we get jobs, we need to know about:– Emergency management AND homeland

security

• So teach us everything we’ll need to know:– Either incorporate both into coursework or

require courses in other programs or both

5. TELL US HOW TO NETWORK WITH PARTNERS

• It’s not just about DHS & FEMA -- so tell us how to work with:– The FBI, EPA, Army Corps, NOAA, USDA,

USGS, Forest Service, CDC, & more– And how to work with state and local

agencies, private partners & NOGs

• And how to negotiate doing emergency management inside of local politics

6. BUT THERE’S EVEN MORE WE WANT TO KNOW

• Tell us about our forefathers & give us a sense of our history

• Summarize the “historical wisdom” of the masters: – Academics like: Henry Quarantelli, Gilbert

White, Russell Dynes & more– Practitioners like: Frank Thomas, Roy Popkin,

Ugo Morelli, Bill Anderson, Bill Hooke, Dick Krimm & more

7. AND TELL US ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE

• You know that emergency management is more than managing emergencies, so tell us about all of it

• We want to know about:– Land use practices , terrorists, societal

resiliency, cultural heritage, recovery, reconstruction & more

• Teach it to us

8. DON’T WE NEED TO KNOW HOW THEY DO IT IN

OTHER COUNTRIES?

• Emergency management goes on in other places:– Tell us about it so we can compare what we

do to them

• Can you help us meet them to compare notes & learn from each other?

9. WHAT ABOUT THE CUTTING EDGES

• In reference to:– Knowledge AND practice– In each of the key topic areas

• Can the “best” researcher & the “best” practitioner in each area work in pairs and write it down for us?

• Can you give us what they all write to read & can you update it when needed?

10. CATASTROPHE EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

• Hasn’t emergency management already thought about responding to big ones?

• Aren’t catastrophes when we’re needed most?

• We thought the field learned that locals & victims are the first responders in the 1960s & that decentralized approaches work best (Quarantelli)

11. EVIDENCE-BASED EMERGENCY MANAGMENT

• Teach us emergency management that will work knowing that all bases for knowledge aren’t equal:– Intuition (someone’s idea)– Revelation (someone says so)– Experience (lessons learned)– Science ( “A” causes “B”)

(CONTINUED)

• Does someone need to invent “the ethics of emergency management”– How do we tell important people (especially our

bosses) when they’re doing it wrong?– How do we teach & brief our bosses so they’re

not miss-informed?– Do we have an obligation to brief new political

appointees about what they need to know when they come into office?

– And more

12. THE CONTEXT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT • Does “one size fit all”?

• How do we do emergency management in different contexts, e.g.,– Small towns & villages– For the very poor & socially isolated– In places where the mayor won’t do much

because voters don’t think anything will ever really happen

– And more

13. WE’RE NOT ALL THE SAME

• Some of us:– Want to be professors & researchers– Others are career first responders (some take our

courses on-line from the fire station)– Many of us just want a job (public & private) doing

emergency management– Some of us are part-timers with other prime job

responsibilities in our local towns

• How can courses adapt to our needs vs. the other way around?

SUMMARY OF THE SUMMARY

• “We’ve built a new field, it’s off and running in many different directions, it includes professionals from diverse backgrounds, but it--like any young enterprise--remains to be fine-tuned, polished & steered in wise directions”

THANK YOU FOR YOUR

-Attendance

-Enthusiasm

-Ideas &

-Commitment

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