March 21, 2007

VCU hosts Undergraduate Homeland Security Curriculum Development Conference

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By Mike Porter

James Ramsey, Ph.D., coordinator of the homeland security program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (left) and William Newman, Ph.D., undergraduate program coordinator of homeland security and emergency preparedness program at VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, served as panelists during the Undergraduate Homeland Security Curriculum Development Conference. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Office of University News Services
James Ramsey, Ph.D., coordinator of the homeland security program at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (left) and William Newman, Ph.D., undergraduate program coordinator of homeland security and emergency preparedness program at VCU’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, served as panelists during the Undergraduate Homeland Security Curriculum Development Conference. Photo by Mike Porter, VCU Office of University News Services

The Homeland Security/Defense Education Consortium (HSDEC) and Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs hosted the Undergraduate Homeland Security Curriculum Development Conference on March 20 and 21.

Conference participants included 29 faculty representing VCU and 15 other academic institutions, the U.S. Northern Command and Battelle Memorial Institute. Participants represented universities offering homeland security and emergency preparedness majors, minors, certificates or course concentrations.

“Some of the best minds engaged in homeland security and emergency preparedness education gathered here at VCU,” said Dale Jones, Ph.D., associate professor of public administration and director of the National Homeland Security Project at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Participants discussed what students should be expected to know when they finish homeland security programs, learning objectives and outcomes, core curriculum requirements and possible areas of course concentration.

“This is a new discipline and what we’re trying to figure out is really what the students need to know in the academic study of homeland security,” said William Newman, Ph.D., undergraduate program coordinator of homeland security and emergency preparedness at the Wilder School.

VCU is one of nearly 200 members of HSDEC, the nation’s premiere consortium of higher education and research in homeland security and homeland defense. It also was the first major research university in the country to develop a homeland security and emergency preparedness undergraduate degree.

“A large number of government employees working in homeland security and homeland defense will be preparing for retirement by 2010. We are trying to be ready by preparing the next generation to fill these vacancies,” said Houston H. Polson, Ph.D., chairman of the Homeland Security/Defense Education Consortium.