UNIVERSITY ADDS HOMELAND SECURITY GRADUATE-LEVEL

TrackSecurity Director News (09/01/09)

Starting this fall, students at the University of Houston-Victoria will be able to take master's-level courses that aim to prepare them for careers in intelligence, federal law enforcement, and diplomacy. The courses, which will be part of a new concentration in international and homeland security, will cover a variety of topics, including the Koran and the Bible. Courses on those religious texts will aim to give students an understanding of the religious roots of terrorism and insurgent movements over the past 60 years. The courses in the new concentration will also cover techniques that have been used to fight terrorism. Finally, the concentration includes a language component that requires students to complete 12 hours of foreign language classes or to demonstrate proficiency in a foreign language besides Spanish. Students enrolling in the concentration are being encouraged to study Arabic, since demand for individuals who speak Arabic is high in the intelligence and diplomatic fields.
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METRICS AND MANAGING EMERGENCIES SECURITY

According to John Williams, head of security at Prince William Hospital in Manassas, Va., emergency management planning begins by providing employees with education and training on how to correctly respond and meet challenges to achieve their initiatives. Having an in-depth emergency response plan that covers all potential exposures for an area or sector is helpful. But if these plans are not shared with investors, tested for strength, and audited for improvement, they are a waste of time. To get as much as much data as possible from a security drill, Williams advises security leaders not to tone down distractions. "Build your drills with enough injects to stress your plans, resources, and team to the breaking point and beyond to see if it can stand the surge," he says. The hospital holds at least four major emergency drills once a year, which can include: mass casualty; chemical, biological, explosive, radiological, and nuclear (CBERN) decontamination; infant abduction; weather related (the most likely event); police action, which may involve an active shooter, hostage, barricade, or altercation; lock down; hazardous chemical spill, and others. "When developing an emergency management drill, staff buy-in is greater the more realistic the events leading up to the drill and the actual drill seems to them," Williams adds.
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