The Department of Emergency Management offers a major and minor in Emergency Management at the undergraduate level. The minor options include Comprehensive Emergency Management, Preparedness and Response, Mitigation and Recovery, and International Emergency Management. Emergency Management is a growing profession and discipline of study addressing all phases of disaster and risk management. The mission of the major is to develop graduates with extensive theoretical and applied knowledge in emergency management and disaster research. The program is based on an all hazards approach which includes natural and technological disasters as well as other human made hazards.

Numerous career opportunities are available to those graduating with an Emergency Management major. Positions are available at all levels of government including city, county, state, federal and the military. A wide variety of local, national, and international voluntary organizations routinely hire graduates educated in emergency management for humanitarian relief efforts and related activities. Finally, there is increasing need in the private, business sector for emergency management and crisis management to address business and operational continuity. There has been an upward trend in the consequences of natural and technological disasters in the last 30 years. As a result, emphasis is being placed on the vulnerability and risk reduction to natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy, tornado outbreaks in Missouri and Oklahoma, the cascading earthquake, tsunami and nuclear incident in Japan, the Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Katrina and human made incidents and disasters such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Emergency Management