“What distinguishes our doctoral degree in emergency management from the ones that are already out there is that those other programs are housed in a specific discipline,” Kushma says. “Our program is distinct because we are truly interdisciplinary, and no one discipline dominates how we are going to deliver.”
The progression leading to the approval of the doctoral program started with founding the Institute for Emergency Preparedness in 1995. Dr. Barry Cox, professor of chemistry, founded the emergency management program, served as the first department head and continues to work with the department after his retirement.
“The original focus of the Institute was to find a civilian use for the US Army Chemical School after the closure of Fort McClellan,” Cox says. “Based on our experience with the project, we saw a need for an academic program in which people would be taught to respond not only to natural hazards, but also to manmade hazards in terrorist events.”
In 1998, JSU added an emergency management concentration to the Master of Public Administration degree. A baccalaureate program in emergency management followed. Because the undergraduate program was well received, the university added the Master of Science in Emergency Management. After the actual enrollment for that program quadrupled projections, Cox, Kushma, and others went forth in designing the doctoral program. With each new emergency management program comes added success, according to Cox.
“This is a fabulous opportunity for JSU,” says Dr. Rebecca Turner, vice president of academic and student affairs at JSU. “This doctoral program represents years of hard work on the part of our emergency management faculty and our administrators. It represents an opportunity to meet an unmet need, and to be at the forefront of an emerging professional field.”
Professors like Kushma, who lead the development of the doctoral program, are passionate about the field. Kushma received her bachelors and masters degrees in social work, and worked in disaster relief with the American Red Cross for almost 15 years. Seeing firsthand the impact of emergency management led to her interest in advancing educational opportunities in the field.
“I’m happy to be at a university that has really supported the field,” Kushma says. “It’s new, and not every university would invest its resources to grow such a unique program. So, we accept this new challenge with a great deal of gratitude to our university administrators as well as excitement about what the future holds.”
Cox explains that the targeted audience for the doctoral program will be mid-career professionals already in the field who wish to expand their knowledge and experience. By offering all of the doctoral courses online, JSU will provide flexibility for those professionals who wish to pursue the advanced degree at their own pace and place.
“One of our audiences is soldiers in Afghanistan,” Cox says. “We have a number of soldiers in the program, and they can be deployed anywhere in the world and still have access to the Internet and complete their work.”
JSU’s online graduate program in emergency management is testimony to the success of distance education in the field, for students from all 50 states, all seven continents and several foreign countries have taken courses online.
With our first doctoral program scheduled to kick off in the fall of 2011, JSU is proud of the role we continue to play in preparing those professionals who build a safer and better-prepared tomorrow.
Julie Skinner, a student worker in the Office of Public Relations, contributed to this article.
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