After a winter emergency several years ago, faculty at Northwest Missouri State University noticed the need for providing training for emergencies. 

John Carr is an instructor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Northwest. He also directs the Emergency and Disaster Management Program. Carr said the program got its start after the ice storm of 2007 when several people on campus noticed a need to train people to be prepared for emergencies and disasters. 

“We assembled together some of the classes that we had on campus and created a minor,” Carr said. “From that, a lot of interest grew from our existing student population, other students started hearing about this minor and coming to Northwest specifically for it. Fast forward to now, we have a bachelor’s program in Emergency and Disaster Management which is our four year program, we also have the minor in EDM as well as a number of other certifications individuals can get related to that field.” 

Carr said there are 45 majors and 40 minors within the program. 

“We’re always surprised at at the number of individuals that are interested in this,” Carr said. “Usually whenever I talk to other folks that are interested in the program they say, ‘Well this is a great thing, this is something that everybody needs nowadays.’ If you watch the news or you listen to the radio, you hear all these stories and we need individuals that know what to do whenever bad stuff happens. That’s really what we emphasis with our classes.” 

Carr said there is a broad range of fields that students go into after completing the program including the military, local government, insurance companies, non-profits and more. 

“The bottom line with our major is that we train individuals that are self-sufficient, that they are motivated that they are ready to go into some of these fields and take on some of those responsibilities,” Carr said. “So if they can take these skills that we teach here, the communities, their school districts, their businesses, wherever they’re located, are better because of that.” 

Courtney Leeper is a Senior in the Emergency Disaster Management Program at Northwest. She said after graduating, she would like to work at a non-profit organization. 

“I’ve always had this passion for helping people and there’s a lot of fields out there that had the ability to do that but this one stood out to me because you have the ability to help people in a way that most people don’t know how,” Leeper said. “When someone survives a disaster, there’s so much going through them and not a lot of people know how to help them get through that and get back to their normal life, but within this field you learn how to help them get back to normalcy.” 

As part of the program at Northwest, an experienced based learning opportunity is offered through the Missouri Hope exercise. 

The training exercise was held last weekend at Mozingo Outdoor Education Recreation Area and featured numerous other schools, first responders and area agencies. The exercise gives students and area volunteer first responders experience in carrying out disaster response through simulations and giving them the chance to work with equipment. Carr said simulations include scenarios such as going into a damaged building following a tornado to look for individuals and provide treatment. 

To learn more about the Emergency and Disaster Management Program at Northwest, click here.