UA’s emergency management degree ranked among nation’s best, most affordable
The University of Akron, a pioneer in emergency management education, has one of the nation’s most-affordable, highest-quality bachelor’s degree programs, according to a new ranking.
Emergency Management Degree Program Guide evaluated bachelor’s degree programs that cost less than $23,000 a year, the typical price tag for a year of college. The guide also looked at freshman retention rates, six-year graduation rates, student-faculty ratios and other factors.
UA students had the opportunity to tour Ohio's Emergency Management Agency in Columbus recently. "Given our close relationship with the OEMA, student tours are scheduled regularly to meet with the state representatives and see firsthand how state operations are conducted," says Stacy Willett, coordinator of UA's program.
UA’s Bachelor of Science in Emergency Management and Homeland Security ranks No. 15 in affordability with a one-year cost of just under $16,000. In overall program quality, UA ranks No. 6 nationally. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, lists 49 schools with four-year emergency management degrees. No other Ohio college or university offers a bachelor’s degree in emergency management.
UA program first to be accredited
Emergency management degrees blossomed around the country in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. But the UA program dates to 1998 and was the first in the nation to achieve accreditation in 2000. Today, UA faculty members sit on committees that set the standards for other programs.
“Now we’re kind of the old dogs in the field,” says Stacy Willett, Ed.D., coordinator of the program in UA’s College of Applied Science and Technology.
Willett also chairs the accreditation committee of FEMA’s Higher Education Program. UA emergency management faculty member Robert Schwartz, Ph.D., sits on the FEMA unit’s research committee.
What makes the UA program stand out is the mix of traditional and nontraditional students with diverse backgrounds, Willett says. In one classroom you might find a police officer, a firefighter, a public health student or practitioner, and students of business, criminal justice and military science.
Program mirrors reality
“The fact that all of these people have to talk to each other and integrate together as they learn the emergency management system mimics the real world,” Willett says. “All of these people, in reality, have to team up to protect us. In the classroom, we try to mirror that reality.”
About 100 UA students are majoring in emergency management. Students must complete a 300-hour internship before graduating. Many find internships — and later, permanent jobs — with local governments, health care providers and businesses in Northeast Ohio.
Some of those interns learned firsthand the importance of a coordinated response to public health and safety emergencies when they found themselves involved in planning during the recent Ebola scare, Willett says.
UA graduates lead or are members of emergency management teams at Aultman Hospital in Canton, the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals in Cleveland, and Summit County Public Health.
Visit Emergency Management and Homeland Security online for more information about this UA degree.
Media contact: Roger Mezger, 330-972-4219 or rmezger@uakron.edu.