RICHARDSON, Texas (June 10, 2003) - On June 24, The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) School of Management will begin offering a series of short courses designed to provide training in responding to disasters, including acts of terrorism. The short courses, which lead to a Certificate of Emergency Management Preparedness, will be offered through the school's Executive and Professional Development division and are designed to train professionals to manage complex emergencies, from response to recovery.

The first course, "Fundamentals of Emergency Management," will meet Tuesdays from 6 to 8:30 p.m. and will last for seven weeks. Students are required to complete five core courses and two electives to receive the Certificate of Emergency Preparedness, which can be completed within a year. All classes will be held on the UTD campus.

The short-course series is especially designed to benefit professional emergency managers, city and county administrative staff members, civil and government attorneys, business continuity planners and risk managers, insurance brokers and anyone directly responsible for emergency preparedness within their organization. Instructors will include local and state government experts and experienced program specialists. The series also will feature a number of guest speakers including experts from local government emergency management teams, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, volunteer organizations and UTD faculty members.

The cost of each course is $495. For additional information, please contact Dorothy Miller at 972-883-2562, or view the UTD Professional Development website at http://som.utdallas.edu/profdev/.

UTD's Executive and Professional Development, working in partnership with public and private organizations, focuses on strengthening individual and organizational effectiveness. It offers non-credit programs including workshops, seminars, conferences, short courses, custom-designed programs and one-on-one training. Companies can work with UTD to design custom on-site or on-campus training.

About The UTD School of Management
The UTD School of Management ranked sixth worldwide in research productivity in operations management and management information systems over the last six years in a study published by OR/MS Today, a publication of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS). The school is the largest of UTD's seven schools, with an enrollment that has increased 80 per cent over the last six years to more than 4,300 students. The school's new, 203,000-square-foot building - featuring classrooms with state-of-the-art audio and visual equipment, wireless connectivity, video-conferencing facilities, a computer lab, faculty offices, meeting rooms and an executive education center - will open this summer.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's Web site at http://www.utdallas.edu.