fema higher education conference cancelled

Just another sign of the times. No reason was given, but the 2025 annual Emergency Management Higher Education Symposium has been cancelled.

One can only guess at what the reasons might be:

• Anticipating budget cuts

• Everything that has been done previously—is under review

• The topics from previous symposiums indicate that they don’t fit with the administration’s political agenda

• Or?

Likely we will never know the reason for the cancellation. There will be no public announcement.

There is a position at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that focuses on emergency management education efforts. That position could be in jeopardy. As I’ve written previously, the entire concept of the Emergency Management Institute (EMI) could be challenged. Why not move all classes to an online format? You and I know the value of the time spent outside the formal classroom at EMI—but budget cutters don’t care about the fact that relationships are the bedrock of building an emergency management program.

Which leads to a final statement. When people come in and take a chainsaw approach to an organization, the “foresters” have no idea of all the implications for what they are doing in one area and how they are interconnected with other areas of work. I think in retrospect we may be saying in the future, in the words of Jesus, “Forgive them for they know not what they do/did.”