The Benedict College SCPHPSC program was led under the direction of Mr. Henry Counts and Dr. Tami Ashford-Carroll, faculty in the Health and Sport Management Department. Mr. Counts, the principal investigator, and Dr. Ashford-Carroll, the program coordinator, encouraged all public health majors to apply for the program. Preparation and response to natural disasters requires public health knowledge and skills in addition to other knowledge bases and skills. Therefore, students from nine other academic majors (i.e., social work, mass communication, accounting) were also encouraged to apply for the program. Benedict College had a total of 137 students to successfully complete the program from the spring of 2022 through the summer of 2024.
They are currently working to make SCPHPSC sustainable and an integral component of the Benedict College’s Public Health program. The success of the Benedict College SCPHPSC would not have been possible without collaboration from Dr. Toya Murph, Midlands Region EPR Section Manager, and Mr. Scott Phillips, Midlands Region Volunteer Coordinator, from the South Carolina Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Emergency Preparedness and Response.
