Canton on Emergency Management

Emergency Management Solutions - September 2023

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Featured Articles

EM Qualifications: Who Needs a Degree?

    by Lucien Canton

Why Being Prepared for Natural Disasters Is More Important Than Ever

    by Tim Riecker

The Mechanics of Effective Crisis Management: Navigating Challenges with Precision

    by Erik Bernstein

EM Qualifications: Who Needs a Degree?

Want to start an argument among emergency managers? Just raise the question about whether an undergraduate degree should be one of the qualifications for the job and stand back and watch the sparks fly. The discussion usually degenerates into two categories. Those with degrees can’t see why it would be a problem and those without argue that they have had successful careers without ever needing one.

Get over it, people. It’s not about you, it’s about the future of emergency management. Stop thinking about yourself and your career experience and look at how things have changed and continue to change.

Last month I wrote about the problem of deciding what qualifies someone to be an emergency manager by focusing on the recent fires in Hawaii and the resignation of the local emergency manager following questions about his qualifications for his position. My point was that is hard to judge qualifications when you haven’t agreed on specific qualifications and have no way of measuring how well a candidate meets those them.

The problem with defining qualifications is that many current emergency managers take the view that imposing qualifications may affect their current jobs. Many of us came to our positions as a second career and offered considerable experience but limited knowledge of emergency management. We learned on the job and haven’t done too badly, all things considered. But times have changed.

One of the things I have noted over my long career has been the increasing complexity of our responsibilities as emergency managers. We came to our positions with skills that suited us extremely well for response planning and operations. But that skill set didn’t necessarily apply to the intricacies of mitigation and recovery planning that requires working with politicians and community groups with their own agendas rather than with hierarchical organizations like police and fire departments. We weren’t prepared for the new issues we’re now dealing with like diversity, equity in relief operations, and income inequality. We can handle local events, but are we prepared to deal with regional and national level crises such as climate change, political unrest, and immigration? Are we able to move beyond tactical operations to strategic thinking?

 One of the hallmarks of a profession is a specialized body of knowledge. For emergency managers, that is primarily the tremendous body of social science research that we’ve been accumulating since the 1950’s. The competitive advantage this offers is that instead of making assumptions about how people will act in crisis, we have research that indicates how they are most likely to act. Consider the many disaster myths that we encounter such as the assumption that looting will occur in a disaster versus the reality that crime actually decreases. Research also recognizes and highlights changing situations, for example the impact of social media on emergency warning.

If we accept that knowledge of emergency management research is an essential qualification for an emergency manager, then we must also accept that there must be some method for imparting that knowledge. While there is no question that this knowledge can be acquired without a formal education program, how do we determine if a candidate has met minimum requirements? Indeed, how do decide what that minimum requirement is? Do we require a standardized test or specific certifications such as the Certified Emergency Manager designation? A degree from an accredited emergency management program that teaches from a standardized curriculum would certainly simplify this process.

A degree program offers other opportunities besides just imparting knowledge; it can teach skills useful to an emergency manager. People are often surprised when they ask me what skills an emergency manager must master and I respond that they must be able to write effectively, speak persuasively, and facilitate a meeting. These skills are developed during most degree programs where students are expected to do research, write papers based on that research, and present the results in oral presentations. Yes, these skills can be acquired independently from a degree program, but a degree carries the inherent assumption that the student has mastered these skills by virtue of graduating from the program. This is our goal: to have an agreed upon indicator that a candidate has a minimum level of knowledge about the discipline of emergency management.

One argument I’ve encountered as I discuss professionalization is the charge that I’m limiting entry to our field. That’s precisely the point. Currently, one becomes an emergency manager simply by saying you are one. The result is that we have many examples of emergency managers who should never have been hired. The main purpose of any profession is to limit entry to the profession to those that have demonstrated that they meet the minimum requirements necessary for success in that field.

I’m not proposing that current emergency managers need to rush out and get a degree. What I am saying is that we need to establish minimum qualifications that ensure that emergency management candidates have the knowledge and skills to be successful in our discipline and that must include knowledge of emergency management research. This is best accomplished through a structured academic curriculum. This is not forcing current emergency managers to meet new standards; it’s about ensuring that the next generation of emergency managers are equipped for future challenges.