UG Course Descriptions

This course is designated as an elective for the Undergraduate Honors Program and may be offered as an Honors-only courses or as an Honors course that is open to majors and minors in emergency management. These special topic courses have limited enrollment, and the content reflects Honors Program course outcomes around rigorous critical engagement, interdisciplinarity, effective communication, and meaningful collaboration.

This introductory course provides the scope, objectives, and principles of emergency management; preparedness, including prevention, protection, mitigation, response, and recovery strategies as well as roles of federal, state and local emergency management agencies, and private agencies. Learners will also be able to explain how various emergency management services work together in a system of resources and capabilities.

Examination of the emergency management practices used during an emergency situation by responders, particularly the structure and responsibilities of the Incident Command System (ICS), the management of facilities and resource identification. National Incident Management System (NIMS) principles are also discussed and applied.

This course prepares emergency response managers to conduct a comprehensive, capabilities-based threat and risk assessment for terrorism/all-hazards incidents under the National Response Framework (NRF) and National Preparedness Guidelines. Learners will identify shortfalls, perform gap analysis and develop a needs assessment to fill shortfalls/gaps identified within the preparedness cycle.

Introduction to the general principles of accounting and budgets specific to emergency management, including an overview of fiscal issues related primarily to the public sector in emergency services, specifically public funding sources, spending, budgeting/allocations, risk management, and grant writing. The fundamentals of financial planning, cost concepts, capital budgeting and management analysis are applied in the public and private sectors. Issues surrounding the development and management of budgets are also examined.

An overview of the major legal and liability issues in emergency management. The focus is on the legal environment within which emergency managers operate, including their roles in rule-making, policy administration, contract law and their potential personal legal liability for discretionary actions.

Hazard mitigation reduces loss of life and property by minimizing the impact of disasters and helps break the cycle of disaster damage and reconstruction. Mitigation efforts can contribute to a community’s preparedness, which is a state of readiness to respond to disasters or other emergency situations. This course will introduce the major principles involved with emergency preparedness, including mitigating the impact of hazards in the context of emergency / disaster management.

This course provides a basic overview of disaster response and recovery, focusing on methods to manage and minimize the consequences of disasters (natural, man-made, and technical). The components of response and recovery are reviewed in the context of strategies that organizations, particularly governmental bodies, and communities can utilize to respond to and recover emergency situations.

This course prepares emergency managers to consider the human dimensions of disaster, and to operate effectively with the public and media concerning a variety of threats to community wellbeing. Students will understand and learn to develop strategies for community-based planning,communicating and negotiating with the public, and managing conflict.

The course examines the fundamentals of the emergency operations planning process, including the art and science of planning. The focus is on developing effective all-hazard emergency operations plans that save lives and protect property threatened by disaster. The course considers the spectrum of emergency planning and explores processes used to develop strategic plans. Upon completion of the course, students will have a broad knowledge of many aspects of emergency operations planning.