Contact: Tom Durso, Director of Media Relations, 610.660.1532, [email protected]
SAINT JOSEPH'S UNIVERSITY USES $5 MILLION IN FEDERAL GRANTS TO ESTABLISH DISTANCE-LEARNING CENTER FOR EMERGENCY WORKERS
Philadelphia, Pa. (June 7, 2001) -- Using nearly $5 million in federal grants, Saint Joseph's University has established a distance-learning center to prepare the country's emergency-response community for the psychological consequences of incidents involving weapons of mass destruction.
The Early Responders Distance Learning Center (ERDLC) provides first-line responders across the country--National Guard members, emergency medical technicians, firefighters, and others--with accredited, Web-based coursework and teleconferences on the effects of nuclear, biological and chemical attacks on their peers and on victims.
According to executive director Dr. Paul L. DeVito, professor and chair of Saint Joseph's Department of Psychology, while the psychological effects of these incidents often are not as well anticipated as the physical ones, the psychological victims nevertheless end up flooding the emergency-care system.
"The country is prepared to deal with bombings, explosions, natural disasters, and so on, but not with chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear attacks," said Dr. DeVito. "Each of these dramatically changes the nature of what responders will experience.
"In incidents of this nature, we're very prepared to deal with the physical casualties, and almost totally unprepared to deal with the psychological casualties, which occur multiplicative of physical casualties, from 4 to 1 to 400 to 1."
Funding for the Early Responders Distance Learning Center, through the U.S. Departments of Defense and Justice, was authorized in 1999 by Congress, which was concerned about domestic terrorist attacks similar to the 1995 release of sarin gas in a Tokyo subway, which killed 12 people.
Online training provided by ERDLC--known as advanced distributed learning courses--includes all levels of educational requirements, from credits toward additional professional certification and advancements in some cases to certificate and continuing-education credits in others. Online courses also are available on a non-credit basis.
Coursework enables military and civilian early responders to effectively contain and control damage and minimize public hysteria with the fewest possible casualties, until state and federal authorities arrive on scene. ERDLC also provides information to hospital emergency caregivers who would be called on in the event of an attack.
Saint Joseph's ability to house ERDLC and provide distance-learning content is based on both academics and infrastructure. The university's graduate-level curriculum includes accredited coursework in areas directly linked to the Center's mission: biology, chemistry, psychology, public safety, environmental protection, criminal justice, and health-services education and administration. Related to Saint Joseph's distance-learning capabilities, the construction of state-of-the-art Mandeville Hall and the complete technological refurbishment of Post Hall are the most visible elements of the university's commitment to providing the very latest educational tools to students, faculty, and staff.
The academic components of the center will be provided by Saint Joseph's, as will many of the technological resources, with assistance from MountainTop Technologies, Inc., of Johnstown, Pa. Coursework will be delivered via the existing National Guard Distance Learning Network sites in Pennsylvania and across the country.
For more information, call ERDLC at 610.660.3392, or visit its Web site, at http://erdlc.sju.edu.
Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1851, Saint Joseph's University is celebrating 150 years of academic excellence. One of just 137 schools nationwide with a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and AACSB business school accreditation, Saint Joseph's is home to 3,450 full-time undergraduates and 2,900 graduate and nontraditional students. The university's strong liberal arts tradition is marked by rigorous and open-minded inquiry, high academic standards, and the development of the whole person.
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