DCE
Crisis Leadership Short Course
Disasters and manmade societal threats create crisis conditions requiring effective leadership from those in engineering and technology-centric organizations to stabilize, manage and mitigate impacts.
Crisis Leadership prepares and assists students in developing and applying a complex, interdependent system-level of thought required to predict and plan for crises, as well as lead teams and organizations, under crisis conditions, that can effectively implement appropriate, effective responses. Students will experience best practice applications through lecture, readings, peer and expert discussions, evaluation of seminal case studies, and through hands-on involvement in a hypothetical emergency response team scenario.
Upon completion of Crisis Leadership, students will be able to:
compare and assess the typical phases of a crisis, with focus on examining “signals” and/or predicting its onset or vulnerability
assemble and recommend emergency response actions that match expected outcomes, considering available resources, known frameworks and governance structures that serve as boundary conditions for implementation
build and lead teams that are trained to effectively implement crisis response actions
create updated response action plans, training and test exercises that reflect and integrate lessons learned from prior incidents
apply practices and processes learned during completion of the curriculum to simulated crisis scenarios in a dynamic exercise environment
Course Information
This course is administered entirely online, asynchronously, with discussion boards and at least a single one-hour synchronous module session via Zoom (Day, Time, TBD at the start of each cohort). Instructor Office Hours will be available for assessments/reviews/discussions as scheduled during each course; frequent and by request.
The course consists of five modules, each having a series of lecture video topics, related readings, and activities. To facilitate cohort continuity in discussion boards and instructional scenarios, the course is designed to be completed in 6 weeks, with each cohort participating in one single synchronous session during their course offering.
The expected topics and/or activities associated with each course module are summarized below. A schedule is provided for guidance on course completion:
Module 1 – Foundations for Discussion and Managing Crisis
Module 2 – Understanding Crises as a function of Leadership
Module 3 – Tools for Crisis Leadership
Module 4 – Success Factors For Crisis Leadership
Module 5 – Crisis Leadership Applications
Students may watch lecture videos and complete individual activities within the modules generally at their own pace. Several of the module activities are discussion board-based that should be completed within the timing prescribed by the schedule. Students will be required to participate in the synchronous session to complete the course.
Students will be required to purchase the course text described below. Other course materials will be provided free of charge via the Canvas course site (or the University of Florida e-library system).
Title: The Unthinkable – Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why
Author: Amanda Ripley
Publication date and edition: 2009
ISBN number: 978-0-307-35290-3 (hardcopy)
The required course material, eText ISBN: 9780307449276, 0307449270, The Unthinkable - Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why, by Amanda Ripley, can be delivered digitally through Vital Source etext. To opt in to the program, please go to https://www.bsd.ufl.edu/G1C/bookstore/allaccess.asp
Students should expect additional reading assignments from materials that will be outlined by the instructor at the start of the course and that the instructor makes available. Students will be required to purchase additional reference text(s) and/or selected documents (e.g., Harvard Business Review articles), at a cost not to exceed $75.
Instructor Contact Information:
Brett Rhodenizer, Adjunct Professor of Practice, University of Florida Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering
E-mail address: brett.rhodenizer@ufl.edu
Office Telephone: (352) 392-7047
Office location: 311 Weil Hall
Office hours: By appointment
Web site: www.ufedge.ufl.edu