Raising the Standards of Emergency Preparedness at the University of San Francisco

With a major earthquake seemingly looming over the San Francisco bay area, the University of San Francisco faces the challenge of surviving such an event and returning to normal operations as soon possible for both health and economic benefits. To address the potential concern, the university established the Office of Campus Resilience in August of 2014. This paper will detail a 300 hour fieldwork experience while working with this department. During the fieldwork, several projects were completed based on goals, objectives, competencies, and core knowledge areas established through the University of San Francisco’s Master’s of Public Health program. As a means of improving the universities emergency preparedness, research was conducted, programs to educate students on emergency preparedness were planned, and the inaugural preparedness fair was developed.