INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Indianapolis is renaming its yearslong public safety management major to community resilience and risk management.
The program was designed to equip students to lead communities through threats and create stronger local networks.
Courtney Page-Tan, an assistant professor at the O’Neill School, said, “When we’re checking in on one another, when we’re working together, we’re able achieve a level of resilience that wasn’t possible if we try to go it alone.”
Challenges facing communities — ranging from hazardous weather and cyberattacks to economic threats — are becoming more extreme, some experts believe.
“These events are getting more frequent, more destructive. That is the trendline. And Indiana is living right on that trendline right now,” Page-Tan said.
She referred to recent catastrophic flooding that impacted thousands of people in central Indiana.
IU Indy says it is among only a few schools to offer the program as a bachelor’s degree.
“This is just the right combination of sustainability, emergency management, homeland security, leadership to really prepare students to kind of navigate the complex system that we see today,” Page-Tan said.
Page-Tan says that while public safety management remains critical for community resilience, it is only one piece of the puzzle. Other factors include sustainability and building trust within communities. Page-Tan noted that communities with higher levels of social capital recover faster from disasters.
The new major was designed to help students become leaders during disasters to prevent a crisis from turning into a catastrophe.
“Sometimes disasters really bring out the best in humanity. We see that every time something like this happens,” Page-Tan said. “Neighbors helping neighbors.”
Students currently enrolled in the public safety management major can choose to finish their current course of study or shift to community resilience and risk management. The school will automatically enroll students as community resilience and risk management majors after January at the Indianapolis campus.
