Dr. Ryan Baggett

There are a lot of different opportunities for our students with regard with the industry. We have both public and private sector opportunities for our students. If you look into just the public sector, you can see opportunities at the local levels, at the state level, at the federal level. All the skills that they’ve learned, the knowledge that they’re gained here at Eastern Kentucky University, will better prepare them for these jobs. If you look out five years, if you get that crystal ball out and see what it’s going to look like, it’s difficult because we are very situational type of industry.Before 9/11, we wouldn’t have even known that homeland security department was going to exist. Then, you go and you look at the events of hurricane Katrina, where we switch from a terrorism type of model to an all hazards, bringing in the natural hazards, the importance of that piece of it. Who knows what’s going to happen in the next five years. We often times say that we’re training our students for jobs that may not even exist yet, but at this point in time, we’re using historical facts, reasoning what we know now, kind of doing some projections, some creative thinking about what might exist, to prepare our students for the jobs of tomorrow.