The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA) is an interdisciplinary academic center. Collectively, program faculty work to create a supportive and cooperative academic environment for students and bring a wealth of knowledge, research, and hands-on field experience.
Our Mission
The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy (DRLA) is dedicated to the systematic strengthening of global humanitarian leadership, a process that integrates education, research, and application to achieve increased resilience in communities and individuals impacted by disasters. Such leadership is guided by the ethics of the Triple Bottom Line: equity, environment, and economy.
The Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy is part of the Tulane School of Social Work. The DRLA's mission of strengthening leadership in communities to address root causes of vulnerability, such as chronic poverty and social inequality, is supported by the School of Social Work's dedication to teaching students about human diversity and the importance of promoting social, environmental, and climate justice.
The Program
Although there are many graduate programs that focus on disaster and risk management, none of them specifically target the role and development of leadership and resilience in producing effective programs or outcomes, making the DRL Academic Program the first with such a dynamic and innovative focus.
The Disaster Resilience Leadership Science (DRLS) Graduate Degree Program is a broad-based, integrative, and evidence-based graduate program that addresses relationships among the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that characterize communities that are vulnerable to disasters. The program applies knowledge of the context of disasters to leadership that leads to more resilient, equitable, and sustainable post-disaster communities. The purpose of the DRL Graduate Program is to prepare students for professional careers in:
- communities that are affected by and vulnerable to disaster destruction and disruption
- organizations that focus on all phases of disaster management (preparedness, response, recovery, and risk reduction)
- leadership and upper level management positions within organizations and communities that require strong leadership for the promotion of an increased level of equitable resilience
MS in Disaster Resilience Leadership
MSW & MS in Disaster Resilience Leadership Dual Degree
Certificate in Disaster Resilience Leadership
The Approach
Based upon extensive research that the DRLA program leadership has conducted with reputational leaders in the field, including leaders from within other premier academic institutions, international organizations, prestigious NGOs, the donor community, think tanks, and the voluntary organizations active during disaster movement, it is widely agreed that a systematic and interdisciplinary approach to leadership is widely needed in the community and insufficiently addressed in most academic programs.
As Tulane University itself has exhibited such resilience and strength of leadership in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Ida as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic, it represents an ideal setting to support such an approach to disaster resilience leadership education and allows students to experience the recovery and equitable resilience that is ingrained in the city of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.
