The M.S. in Emergency Management and Business Continuity is managed and directed as an interdisciplinary program by NJIT's Department of Information Systems. A university-wide program committee will keep the structure, guidance and direction to courses, course development, and specialty area development on the leading edge.

Goals of the Program

This program is intended to:

• Allow students from most undergraduate degrees to enter a Master's level program in the field of Emergency Management and Business Continuity.
• Encourage those with undergraduate degrees in the Physical, Biological, Social Sciences, Engineering, Management, Public Administration, and Communications to enter this evolving field.
• Encourage outstanding students to consider an academic path to a Ph.D. and to conduct research in their original (undergraduate degree) field that is relevant to areas of Emergency Management and Business Continuity. For students going on to a participating Ph.D. program, all 30 credits will be counted toward the 90 graduate credit Ph.D. requirements.
• Provide a part time path to the degree based entirely on courses offered online through the Web, using appropriate group communications technology that allows for active participation with other course and degree students (Virtual Classroom (TM) and Asynchronous Learning Network approaches).
• Meet the new policy of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), which will require, beginning in 2010, an academic degree rather than just the current four years of experience requirement.
• Bring about the integration of the endeavors of Emergency Management and Business Continuity into one academic program, given that crises and disasters are impartial about their impact on both public and private sector segments of society.
• Increase the professionalism of this field, which is evolving in importance and societal needs, by increasing its presence in academic, research, and development professional communities.

THE PROGRAM IS OFFERED BOTH ONLINE AND ON CAMPUS

Summary

Fundamental/Core Courses (12 credits):

Students may choose core courses in any order but we recommend students take IS 612 in the first semester.

Choose two of the following courses, or one course plus a master's project or masters thesis. Students who have not worked in this area are advised to consider doing a project or thesis.

Students may take a coherent set of four additional courses in another field that is related to Emergency Management. Usually this would be in their current professional area as specified by their undergraduate or other graduate degrees. Such courses may be applied to a second masters or a Ph.D. program in accordance with NJIT policies and program structure. Students can take all four courses in one specialty area or across several specialties as appropriate to their interests.

There is an advisor for each specialty area that may be contacted for questions on that specialty area and for advice on choosing courses. The specialty areas currently include:

Critical Infrastructure:

Critical Infrastructure focuses on planning issues, maintainability and safety engineering, vulnerability analysis, hazard/crisis impact analysis and mitigation, infrastructure inter-dependencies, rehabilitation technologies, condition assessment, problem detection, diagnosis and process propagation, and program management. Students with an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and related engineering disciplines would be encouraged to consider this specialty area.

The design and assurance of communication infrastructure is critical to all aspects of emergency management. Being able to evaluate and insure the mitigation of vulnerabilities for such systems is an important contribution to the infrastructure survivability of such systems. Students with an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering are encouraged to consider this specialty area.

Environmental Science:

With the increasing complexity of our society comes severe risk of the accidental and deliberate release of a wide range of hazardous materials, both chemical and biological. Those trained to be able to make a meaningful contribution to the understanding of the associated risks, how to detect and track the implications of their occurrence, and how to respond meaningfully to their mitigation represent an important professional talent that needs to be available in the Emergency Management and Business Continuity Area. All organizations dealing with hazardous materials should have this sort of talent in their Emergency Management team.

Information Systems:

The application of computing information and communication in the Emergency Management and Business Continuity field represents the potential use of technology to integrate all the functions that must take place before, during, and after the disaster, as well as among the different organizations and units of organizations that must be involved in the preparedness, response, and recovery. Information systems are the glue that puts together planning, mitigation, detection, training, command and control, response, and recovery into one unified process that provides the necessary infrastructure for the overall responsibilities. As such, they must be designed and developed with the evolving needs of the users and the organizations integrated into the development process.

Management:

The professionals in Emergency Management must be able to integrate the development of plans for response processes (within their organization and across necessary external organizations). They must also ensure that everyone will receive adequate training and that in times of disaster those involved can work as well motivated and coordinated teams, no matter what degree of heterogeneity of expertise and level of experience exists among respondents. The emergency manager or business continuity professional must be able to be an entrepreneur or champion of emergency preparedness, and to prove and present people the best possible justifications for investing in an organizational function that may not be viewed as absolutely necessary by all those concerned, especially in times of restricted budgets. He or she must be able to stimulate planning, communication, and coordination among all parts of the organization or organizational units necessary to bring about effective crisis planning and response.