Harvard To Train U.S. Officials

Senior government officials will attend classes at Harvard this spring with an eye toward gaining skills to prepare for domestic terror attacks.

On Friday, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced a $250,000 grant to fund planning and start-up costs of the National Preparedness Leadership Academy, a joint venture of two Harvard schools.

Through the Academy, government officials will take classes at the School of Public Health (SPH) and the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), with a focus on terror threats—specifically bioterrorism—as well as general emergency preparedness.

“There’s a growing recognition that new types of leaders and leadership must emerge towards preparing our country,” said Leonard J. Marcus, co-director of the Academy and lecturer on public health practice at HSPH.

Courses within the Academy will center on terror threats, with a special focus on bioterrorism, as well as general emergency preparedness.

“Public health has never been terribly well-integrated into that larger set of agencies,” Marcus said, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Academy Co-Director and KSG Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy Arnold M. Howitt ’71 said that while the Academy’s primary focus will be bioterrorism, improving government response to infectious diseases such as SARS and the West Nile Virus will also be within the mission of the Academy.

“Although bioterrorism and terrorism in general are certainly going to be a central focus...CDC is also interested in looking at emergency management issues that affect the public health,” Howitt said.

CDC Director Julie L. Gerberding will attend a planning meeting on Nov. 23 and 24 along with HSPH and KSG faculty and government officials, according to Howitt.

Funding for the Academy comes directly from the CDC’s Office of Terrorism Preparedness Emergency Response, according to CDC spokesperson Von Roebuck.

The initial $250,000 grant is for planning costs only, Howitt and Marcus said, and further funding is expected from the CDC once operations begin.

“We’re told that moneys have already been appropriated for the implementation [stage],” Marcus said.

Neither of the Academy’s co-directors would confirm the attendance of specific government officials at the academy, saying only that informal invitations and acceptances had been exchanged with officials at the CDC and the Federal Emergency Management Administration.

Howitt left open the possibility of hiring instructors from schools other than HSPH and the KSG, but he said most courses would be taught by professors from the two faculties sponsoring the Academy.

The Academy is slated to begin operations in April, Marcus said, focusing first on federal preparedness and hoping to later branch out to the state and local level.

As director of the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness at the KSG, Howitt penned a Boston Globe op-ed on Sept. 17, 2001 charging that the nation must develop an effective emergency preparedness system in order to combat future terror attacks.

Speaking more than two years later yesterday, Howitt said the nation had made only minimal progress.

“We’re still taking some basic steps that have long needed to be done,” he said.