George Gilbert, West Point’s Emergency Manager, attended the 24th annual Emergency Management Higher Education Symposium held June 6–9 at the National Emergency Training Center (NETC) in Emmitsburg, Maryland.
The event consisted of workshops, plenaries and breakout sessions highlighting how to build, engage and amplify the work of the emergency management academic community.
During the event, Gilbert received a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) challenge coin from Joseph Cole, a student volunteer from Fayetteville State University.
Gilbert’s research on the impacts of institutional racism on communities of color spiked the interest of the emergency management community.
“There are so many examples of how institutional racism has left these marginalized communities extremely vulnerable to disasters. Failure to invest in these communities and replace aging infrastructure unnecessarily expose these neighborhoods to grave danger,ˮ Gilbert said. “For example, buildings constructed with the most modern building codes were the safest places to be during Hurricane Sandy. Shamefully, many communities of color are overlooked and do not meet minimal standards to qualify for federal mitigation grants.”
Gilbert is a member of the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. He and some of the other committee members are working with Historically Black Colleges and Universityʼs (HBCUs) to promote student chapters of IAEM by providing guidance and helping defray the cost of student membership fees.
“It is critically important that the emergency management field is representative of the communities they serve,” Gilbert said. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen a decline in enrollment and the number of emergency management programs being offered at HBCUs.
“We are determined to fix this negative trend by increasing scholarship opportunities and through other outreach efforts (e.g., instructional design and faculty recruitment),ˮ he concluded.