Since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security and emergency management have become important areas of expertise for communities impacted by disasters and those engaged in disaster planning and response. Vincent E. Henry, CPP, PhD, associate professor and director of the Homeland Security Management Institute at Brookville, NY-based Long Island University, has established an impressive online program for a new academic discipline. In this interview, he addresses the challenges facing Homeland Security and building industry professionals, and identifies the knowledge gaps that both communities can bridge with the goals of achieving greater public safety and security.
Vincent E. Henry, CPP, PhD, is associate professor and director of the Homeland Security Management Institute of Long Island University (LIU), and holds a PhD in Criminal Justice and an M.Phil. from the City University of New York (John Jay), as well as BA and MS degrees from Long Island University (CW Post College). He is an accredited American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) Certified Protection Professional (CPP). He retired from the New York Police Department (NYPD) in 2002 following a 21-year career where he served in a variety of uniformed patrol, plainclothes investigative, management, training, and executive positions, and was Commanding Officer of the Police Commissioner’s Special Projects Unit from 1991 to 2000. In 1989, he became the first American law enforcement officer to be named a Fulbright Scholar, and spent a year in Australia studying the cross-cultural patterns of police corruption and reform as Fulbright Fellow at the Centre for Australian Public Sector Management at Griffith University.
Barbara A. Nadel, FAIA – You’ve led a very distinguished law enforcement career in the NYPD, as a 9/11 first responder, in academia, and being involved with many aspects of security. What inspired you to teach Homeland Security?
Vincent E. Henry, CPP, PhD – Although 9/11 had a profound personal and professional impact on me, I’ve always been passionate about public safety and public safety education. Within days of Sept. 11, I recognized the compelling need for new educational programs – especially at the graduate level – geared toward amplifying the levels of knowledge and skills among managers and executives in Homeland Security professions. Based upon my experience in gaining a graduate education while working full-time in a very demanding professional career, I designed the program to eliminate as many of the impediments working professionals face as possible and to maximize the value of the education we could offer.
The degree is also given entirely in an asynchronous (without time constraints) online format, since our student population of working professionals do not typically work conventional hours. Even if they lived in the New York area (where LIU is physically based), their professional responsibilities might not permit them to attend traditionally scheduled, face-to-face classes. Asynchronous online education also allows us to bring in the perspectives and expertise of the best faculty and students from across the country and around the world – we aren’t limited to New Yorkers. Our students include senior FBI agents from the National Capitol Region, military officers on ships based in Guam, troops on the ground in Central Asia, and police, law enforcement, emergency managers, and educators from around the country. They each have a unique and valuable perspective on the Homeland Security enterprise, and the asynchronous online format facilitates dialogue.
Homeland Security and the Building Industry
What role does the building industry – especially building owners, facility managers, architects, and engineers – play in Homeland Security?
The building industry is an integral part of Homeland Security, and we are developing specialized graduate courses built around their particular interests and needs. We hope to have that curriculum completed and ready for the fall 2007 or spring 2008 semester, and the course or courses will focus on both design issues and operations. Architects and the construction industry play a central role in public safety, and the salience of that role is becoming more and more evident as clients become more concerned with the protection of people and property.
We are offering training programs this spring in planning for building evacuation. New York City’s Local Law 26 of 2004 (an amendment to the NYC Building Code) requires that security and fire safety directors of large buildings be trained in building evacuation, and the law offers tax incentives for each member of the safety staff who receives the training. The institute is affiliated with one of the 10 entities authorized to provide that specialized training, which we will offer under the institute’s auspices. The institute is also planning specialized courses in the area of school and school building security.
You’ve mentioned that 9/11 has had little impact on the academic community regarding new programs addressing disaster planning and response. How can schools of architecture and engineering incorporate security and Homeland Security design issues? Are these areas best left to continuing education after people have gotten professional licenses and are in the workforce, or should they be part of degree programs and licensing exams?
I find it distressing that 9/11 apparently had such little impact on the academic community, including schools of architecture and design. Clearly, issues of building design and construction were prominent in public discussions of the 9/11 attacks, as evidenced by the numerous studies and commentaries about the capacity of the World Trade Center to withstand the attacks. To my knowledge, there have been relatively few courses instituted in architecture schools relative to designing and constructing buildings that are resistant to terrorist attack. While I appreciate the difficulty of developing and implementing new building codes, I also find it distressing that the City of New York, in particular, has taken so long to implement some very basic requirements that could dramatically improve safety and survivability in the event of disaster.
I also believe that these issues should be addressed through continuing education, and perhaps a concerted effort on the part of professional organizations is required. I’m not an architect, and I certainly appreciate the fact that because this is a relatively new area of concern for the fields of architecture and design the courses cannot (and probably should not) be hastily cobbled together, but even as a layman it seems clear to me that the need for this education is compelling. The Homeland Security Management Institute would be more than willing to partner with schools of architecture to lend whatever expertise we might offer in developing such curriculum.
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Finding the Elusive Balance between Security and Openness
The design community has tremendous concern about the many bollards and concrete barriers that have appeared on streetscapes in New York City; Washington, D.C.; and other cities since 9/11. Some feel that these elements, along with large setbacks and physical restrictions in major cities after 9/11, have had a negative impact on the quality of life. How do building owners and design professionals find that elusive balance between security and openness in the civic environment?
It seemed that, in the aftermath of 9/11, bollards and huge flowerpots were popping up all over; at first, I think they reassured the public. I’m not sure, in the long run, how effective they actually are in preventing various kinds of threats, but they certainly do seem to have a negative impact on quality of life and aesthetics. Some have said, in fact, that they can actually diminish public safety by imposing barriers to egress or providing hiding places and interrupting fields of view. This is, again, an area that calls for creativity and the sharing of expertise to achieve the proper balance between security and openness. It’s probably fair to say that complete security and complete openness are mutually exclusive, but in the long run, there is no such thing as complete security and, to some extent, any architectural element interferes with openness. Can the proper balance be struck? Yes, I’m pretty sure it can.
What can the building industry learn from Homeland Security professionals? What can those in your program learn from the building industry? Is there a synergy?
I think there is a tremendous amount we can learn from each other, and there needs to be a dialogue that brings us together to consider and address mutual issues of concern. Admittedly, my knowledge is rather limited when it comes to specific issues of architecture, design, and construction, but we could probably share a great deal of collateral expertise with those in the architecture, design, and construction communities. I could not, for example, begin to comment credibly on the technical aspects of how to design and construct emergency exits and stairwells, but I could probably offer some insights into the behavior of crowds under crisis situations – insights that might figure prominently in that design and planning.
Architecture and environmental design have tremendous impact on human behavior, and the behavioral aspects of disaster and terrorism are one example of the dialogue that should take place. It’s a matter of bringing together different areas of specialization and expertise, and understanding more about what the other person does.
An All-Hazards Approach to Security
What advice would you give to those who are developing an all-hazards approach (for terrorism, natural disasters, and crime) to security and disaster plans for their facilities?
An all-hazards approach is the most effective and efficient approach to take in developing security and disaster plans. You simply cannot develop thorough and comprehensive plans for all the potential crises and eventualities you may encounter, and this calls for a fairly broad plan that encompasses the problems and issues that are most commonly encountered in all sorts of crises and disasters. The key to a successful all-hazards plan, in addition to identifying and dealing with the common problems and issues, is building in the kind of flexibility that will permit adjustments according to the actual circumstances. The plan has to be broadly drawn, but not to the extent that it ignores the possibility of certain crises. It has to be specific, but not to the extent that it resists or prevents adaptation. Disaster planning, like architecture and design, involves both art and science.
Another crucial (but too-frequently overlooked) element of a successful security and disaster plan is the need to practice it often and realistically. Training and drills are absolutely essential, and every drill has to be undertaken with the view that there are lessons to be learned and incorporated into the plan. The plans should also be exercised in conjunction with other organizations, buildings, and entities to ensure their respective plans coordinate.
The Homeland Security Management Institute
What are the goals of the program? How will you determine the benchmarks for success? How is the online approach working?
The program’s goals are fairly simple: We intend to continue providing the absolute best, most relevant, and most effective graduate-level education in the Homeland Security field to the managers, executives, and other professionals charged with the responsibility to maintain the nation’s safety and security. We have a very strong emphasis on Constitutional issues and civil liberties, and the case-study approach we take permits professionals to extract theoretical principles from real-world events and, at the same time, apply theoretical principles to analyze and make decisions about the real-world events they confront on a daily basis. Given the rapid growth we’ve experienced in just 3 semesters and the feedback we get from students, both our curriculum and the model we’ve developed are highly effective.
In addition to the formal/informal feedback and evaluations we receive from students, the success of our programs will ultimately be determined by the success of our students. It’s a very high-stakes game and the specific benchmarks are difficult to measure, but our reputation and our success depend upon our students and how well they apply what we’ve helped them to learn. In this regard, it’s not unlike the quandary many in the private security management industry face: How do you measure the effectiveness of prevention and how do you demonstrate the extent to which your efforts in the security arena impact the organization’s bottom line?
Do you envision accreditation of Homeland Security professionals on a national scale?
We’re working very hard to establish a viable and legitimate accrediting entity for Homeland Security professionals and for Homeland Security education – an entity with meaningful standards. The institute is a very active member of the Homeland Security/Defense Education Consortium (HSDEC), an organization of academic institutions offering degrees and programs in the field, and we play a leadership role on HSDEC’s Steering Committee.
Homeland Security is a new academic discipline, so we need consensus among educators and professionals as to what constitutes the core competencies, core knowledges, and core skills of our profession. Once those are established, we can build curriculum around them and develop a basic literature of Homeland Security. It’s a deliberate process, but it is also an urgent process.
