Three years after the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Penn State is developing a master's degree program to fulfill the national need for health specialists trained in homeland defense.
Peter Forster, political science instructor and the degree program's development manager, said one of the program's primary purposes is to make public health professionals aware of homeland security issues, such as bioterrorism.
"We're trying to provide an opportunity to establish a new cadre of individuals who are educated in the issues of public health preparedness," Forster said.
Forster added that he thinks the program will prepare individuals who want to work for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the 22 agencies within it.
"Both the DHS and [U.S.] Northern Command are very interested in having the academic community take up the reins of developing educational programs," he said.
The people looking for an education in this area want things they can take from a program and apply to their job, he said. "The study of homeland security at a national level is an applied field," Forster said. "For example, one of the people who is co-author of one of our courses is in New Orleans right now, helping with the relief effort."
The degree, which will be offered beginning in the spring through the College of Medicine and the World Campus, will feature all online courses. Many of the degree courses already exist but will be slightly modified so that they will be more in-depth and tailored to the homeland security field.
The number of spaces available in the program has not yet been set, and the curriculum for some courses is still being written, Forster said.
Geosciences professor Kevin Furlong said one of the program's goals is to give students enough of a background education in disaster preparedness that they can respond to future homeland security threats. "We can't in advance know exactly what's going to happen in any one case, terrorism or natural disasters," Furlong said. "People are unlikely to face the exact same situation more than once."
Furlong added that the program is unique for its interdisciplinary focus.
"Traditionally, we're very good in our own discipline, but we're not really aware of the impact of what we're doing on other aspects of what people do," he said. "This will give students the breadth of experience that goes beyond what they would get in their own sub-discipline."
People think of homeland security as just protecting against terrorism, but that's only one part, Furlong said.
"FEMA's response to natural disasters is also very important to homeland security, as we've seen recently," he said of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Assistant plant pathology professor Gretchen Kuldau, who is teaching a course for the degree, said her course would look at food supply. "It focuses on the ways that agriculture can be impacted negatively by chemical agents and natural disasters, and also through moving those crops to the food process area," she said. "It's a total picture, from farm to fork."
Kuldau said she thinks the program would be targeted toward people already working in government. "Government contractors or people working in the homeland security area, I suspect, will be interested in updating their skills," she said.
Forster said the Penn State program is different from those offered by other schools. "There's a number of master's programs in homeland security out there," he said. "But we're the first to be offered by a College of Medicine."
For example, Ohio State University offers degrees in political science, sociology or computer science with a concentration in homeland security. George Washington University offers certificates in crisis and disaster management, telecommunications and national security.
Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon said the degree is a good fit for Penn State, since the university is one of the largest research institutions in the nation. "It's just another natural area to develop more expertise in," Mahon said. "Many students will find it an attractive degree."
