Disaster Management Leadership

 

Semester & Location:	Spring 2025 - DIS Copenhagen
Type & Credits:	Elective - 3 credits
Major Disciplines:	Leadership Studies, Management, and Organizational Behavior
Faculty Members:	Dorte Mari Aggergaard (she/her) students contact through canvas inbox.
Time & Place:	Tuesday 14:50-17:45  Classroom: TBA

Description of Course

Pandemics, terrorist attacks, natural disasters. How do you respond as a leader during extraordinary crisis? How do you make decisions with limited, rapidly changing information and wide ranging consequences? This course is built around exercises and simulations that teaches you the skills it takes to respond to unusual emergencies. Together, we explore cases that have called for extraordinary leadership in unusual times and get inspiration for our own practice of leadership in Copenhagen and Berlin.

Included Travel Component

A mandatory study tour is included in this course at no extra cost.

Our travel destination is Berlin in Germany. You learn about cultural and national differences during times of uncertainty.

This trip comes at no extra cost to you but is a mandatory part our curriculum and active participation is expected. Our study tour takes place over three days during the period of your semester known as the ‘Study Break’ and you must depart by train with the group from Copenhagen Central Station. Please notice you cannot meet us at the destination and failure to leave with the group from Copenhagen Central Station has a negative impact on your final grade.

Learning Objectives

In this course, you will:

• Meet professionels who are working with disaster management in a local context
• Experience, analyze, and discuss leadership perspectives and local experiences/perspectives 
• Explore, compare, and contrast Denmark and Germany as case studies for critical analysis of disaster management and leadership through times of change and uncertainty
• Walk the talk: Gain experience as a leader during our study tour activities and hands-on class activities and assignments  
• Demonstrate mastery of course material and reflect on how it applies to your lived reality

Course Topics 

(subject to change)

• Leadership, culture and cultural differences play a key role throughout our course. You will be encouraged to reflect on and analyze differences between the United States, Denmark and Germany. 
• Terrorism and disaster management. How can one prepare for the unexpected? We examine different strategies and initiatives when we analyze and discuss Scandinavian cases in order to throw light on disaster management and the approaches that guide decisions when planning for preparedness, response, and recovery, in order to reduce risks.
• Leading with an agile mindset. Is there a difference in leadership perspectives and approaches when leading a small country such as Denmark compared to Germany and The US during crisis? What can we learn from different leaders about their actions and decisions when they were standing on burning platforms and had to make decisions with limited information and wide ranging consequences?
• Leadership and culture. During our exploration tour you can experience cultural differences. In this course we take seriously those great learning opportunities and use them as springboards for discussions and reflections.
  

Faculty

Dorte Mari Aggergaard (she/her)

M.A. (Modern Culture & Innovation, University of Copenhagen) B.A. (Art History and Pedagogy/Educational Studies, University of Copenhagen and Roskilde University). Visiting scholar at Leeds and Brown University. Member of the Denmark Committee at Brown, and DIS representative at Harvard, MIT, RISD and Brown. Worked for The European Commission's Safer Internet Programme, recipient of an EU Lifelong Learning Programme grant for a project on cross-cultural learning. Has worked with innovation, and been part of the start-up community in Copenhagen. With DIS since 2014.

Teaching Methods 

The teaching in this course is based on experiential learning and students are expected to participate actively in activities, independent field work, presentations and discussions both during class, field visits, on study tour, and on canvas.

The course is taught using a combination of methods. There is a very strong emphasis on participation and using the the city as our classroom (rain or shine, we'll be outside). While I am responsible for the overall structure of the class, all of us will contribute to the production of knowledge and creating a learning space with reflection, responsibility and trust.

The class will mainly be student driven through group work, hands-on activities, and debates. Your own engagement play an important role and you are encouraged to reflect actively on your leadership experiences during our hands-on activities and help towards creating an inclusive and safe learning environment. 

Overall, the aim is to create a class community characterized by respect and willingness to listen/consider others’ perspectives, where it is safe to explore ideas together and individually, even when they are not fully conceptualized or thought through. This requires a great amount of trust in each other and a willingness and curiosity to consider each other’s arguments.

Required Readings 

Course readings are found on Canvas. Before each class, you are expected to read texts, listen to podcasts, and/or watch films/videos assigned for the class.

Readings include:

• Avishai, B., Kim, J. Y., & Coll, S. (2020, April 21). The pandemic isn't a black swan but a portent of a more fragile global system. The New Yorker.
• Brafford, A. M., & Ryan, R. M. (2020, September 25). 3 ways to motivate your team through an extended crisis. Harvard Business Review.
• Chatterji, A. K., & Toffel, M. W. (2020, December 1). The new CEO activists. Harvard Business
  Review.
• Elkington, J. (2020, October 29). The 6 ways business leaders talk about sustainability. Harvard
  Business Review.
• Tedeschi, Richard G. (2021, January 26). Managing Yourself—Growth After Trauma.

Assignment	Percent
Attendance, participation and engagement Attendance, participation and engagement during class and exploration tour Written participation and engagement on Canvas	30%
Individual project or paper	30%
Media production	40%

Students are expected to:

• Students are expected to show up for class prepared and participate actively
• Complete all assigned worked prior to each deadline and each class
• Contribute actively and engaged during classes, visits, activities, on study tour, and make sure to always speak up and contribute to our knowledge production each time we are together
• Be punctual and attend all assigned activities both during our classes, mandatory activities, visits, and on study tour.
• Missing classes, activities, visits and assigned work without a legitimate excuse will result in a lower final grade
• Cell phones are to be shut off or silenced during class and texting, using social media etc. during class will have a negative impact on your participation grade.
• Laptop, tablets, and smartphones are NOT to be used during class and visits unless approved by your instructor or for note-taking. If you fail to meet this expectation, it will have a negative impact on your final grade.

Grading

**To be eligible for a passing grade in this class you must complete all of the assigned work**

• Active class participation throughout the course: A=96 / Occasional participation: B=86 / Little or no participation: C=76. Fine-tuning of percentage points may occur, reflecting student performance.
  
  
• Note that attendance at all classes and the mandatory study tour is required and expected and is not credited as participation. Failure to attend will have a negative influence on the participation grade, however.

• Canvas discussions Before most classes you are required to post at least one entry to our Canvas discussions page. You are required to complete thoughtful canvas responses to readings, guest lectures, and visits in Denmark and in Portugal. Your instructor will provide you with more information.

How to Get a Good Grade

• Involve yourself! Allow yourself the luxury of taking a genuine interest in the course.
• Get organized! Enter all due dates in a calendar and set aside time to work on assignments and prepare for class. 
• Prepare for class! Every class! 
• Take good notes! You will be graded on your analytical thinking. 
• Participate! Sharing your thoughts and ideas in class is not just important for the participation grade, it is one of the best tools for developing your analytical skills.

A word about grades 

I realize that grades are important to you, but try not to let your anxiety about grades deter you from taking intellectual risks and learning just for the joy of learning. I do not grade to punish or reward you just as my grade is not an indication of my evaluation of you as a person. I grade you to give you my honest assessment of your academic performance. 

Academic Regulations  

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

• Course Enrollment and Grading
• Academic Expectations and Honor Code

 DIS - Study Abroad in Scandinavia - www.DISabroad.orgLinks to an external site.

Please notice that the course topics are subject to change, depending on how the semester unfolds and the interests of the class.