Mark Haselkorn is not in a good mood. It抯 September 1, the water is still rising in New Orleans, and the Hurricane Katrina relief effort is an unmitigated failure.
揙nce again, we抮e four days into the thing and it抯 communication problems, it抯 憌ho抯 in charge?� � Haselkorn says. 揧ou know, you抎 think it抯 our country and FEMA would have everything under control. They don抰.�
The failure offends him at several levels. As a human being, he抯 aghast at the suffering. As a professor of technical communication in the College of Engineering and a former resident of the French Quarter, he resents the mismanagement all the more bitterly and feels the loss all the more personally. And as the founding director of the 天美影视传媒抯 new Interdisciplinary Program in Humanitarian Relief (IPHR), he抯 frustrated for yet another reason梩he way nations deal with disasters, which is to wait until they happen and then throw money at them.
It抯 a risky subject to raise, as Elizabeth Kolbert pointed out in the New Yorker, because to most Americans 揳 disaster of [Katrina抯] magnitude seems to demand not dispassionate analysis but simple human empathy.� But according to Haselkorn, a dose of dispassionate analysis is just what the conversation needs. 揟he disaster-response organizations are going to get plenty of money. They won抰 even be able to spend it all. Same thing happened with the tsunami. I can抰 tell you the phenomenal amount of tsunami money that has yet to be spent. And that抯 not to take away from the heroic effort that抯 going on. It is heroic. It is necessary. It抯 just that there抯 a role for researchers, a role for thinkers as well as doers, in this sector,� he says.
The 天美影视传媒 may now be thinking, and doing, more about the need for improved humanitarian relief efforts than any other academic institution, thanks to Haselkorn and a group of like-minded scholars from a remarkably diverse range of disciplines. Through the new interdisciplinary program梐 collaboration among the Marc Lindenberg Center in the Evans School of Public Affairs, the College of Engineering, and the Center for Internet Studies梩hey抮e trying to change the way people prepare for and respond to disasters. It is the first of its kind in the nation.
揥e need to play our role as a university,� Haselkorn says, 搕o get the research done, to professionalize the field, to think about systems, to think long-term. Because everybody else, as expected, is worried about those people on the roof. And they should be. But the fact is those people wouldn抰 be on the roof if the universities were doing a better job of doing research, and if the whole world thought about research as part of the humanitarian activity. That抯 my soapbox.�
Hindsight may be 20/20, but Haselkorn was on his soapbox long before New Orleanians were on their roofs. In late 2003 he began having conversations with Elaine Chang, then acting director of the Lindenberg Center, about ways in which engineering and humanitarian relief might be synthesized in a program of academic study. The following spring, he taught the University抯 first-ever course on 揌umanitarian Logistics.� A few months later, he and three colleagues co-wrote a proposal for 揳 new interdisciplinary program in humanitarian relief at the 天美影视传媒,� citing 揳 self-acknowledged lack of professionalization� in the field. And in January, just after the tsunami devastated South Asia, Haselkorn published an op-ed piece in the Seattle Times in which he noted that the emergency management sector 搑einvents itself with each new catastrophe.� From where he stands, the bungled responses to Katrina梥ymbolized by the image of hundreds of unused, half-submerged school buses梐nd, more recently, the earthquake in Pakistan, are 搕errible ways of being proven right.�
The lack of professionalism, Haselkorn adds, has nothing to do with a lack of professionals. On the contrary, humanitarian relief attracts extraordinarily hard-working, resourceful people. But there抯 no degree that credentials them, as he pointed out in his Times article, 搊r journal devoted to research on improving humanitarian-relief systems. Field workers learn on the job and there is a turnover rate of nearly 80 percent per year� in the non-governmental organizations, leaving few veterans to mentor the newcomers.
The program intends to remedy some of that, beginning with the professional credential. As of this past fall, the UW is offering what may be the field抯 first frame-worthy piece of paper梐 certificate in relief. It抯 a one-year program, which students from a wide variety of disciplines can complete while working toward their advanced degrees. Along with some core courses in systems and logistics, the requirements include a substantial 損racticum敆several weeks of hands-on relief work.
Randy Kemp, an information school Ph.D. candidate, will be part of the first wave of 31 students to receive the certificate, although he may have trouble finding a place for it on his wall梙e already holds degrees in international relations, information library studies and Christian studies. Kemp says he hopes to spend his practicum in the Middle East or North Africa, studying the feasibility of a user-friendly Geographic Information System (GIS) device for recovery efforts. GIS technology is a sort of 搃ntelligent mapping,� often derived from satellite imagery, that links data to location. Though the device exists only in Kemp抯 imagination, it has clearly been there for a while now.
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