Arkansas State University-Mountain Home: Keeping You Prepared

The first year of Arkansas State University–Mountain Home's (ASUMH) Accent on Student Success: Engaged Together in Service (ASSETS) project focused primarily on educating and planning for a potential avian influenza (bird flu) pandemic. After Hurricane Katrina, the United States saw first‐hand how important it is to have a disaster preparedness plan for a college. How will the institution resume operations? Where will students go? How will the educational process continue? Three academic disciplines approached the project from the following perspectives: Sociology students researched the history of pandemics and gathered information on other colleges' and local and state organizations' disaster preparedness plans. The EMT/Paramedic students researched the medical aspect of the bird flu. Lastly, the Fran Coulter Honors students put all of the information together in three separate brochures and a PowerPoint presentation to be shared with the public. [author]