UW-Oshkosh’s new Fire and Emergency Response Management (FERM) degree program is getting quite a bit of attention lately, thanks to Melissa Spielman and Candice Tylke.
Melissa Spielman, a student in the FERM program, is the first recipient of the Candice E. Tylke Scholarship. The $1,500 scholarship will help Spielman cover tuition costs for the 2009-10 academic year.
The scholarship is named in honor Tylke, an Oshkosh graduate. After receiving a bachelor of science degree in biology in 1994, Tylke went on to study fire science at Madison Area Technical College.
Tylke then served as a firefighter and paramedic in Beloit until she died in 2008 at the age of 42.
The annual scholarship that bears her name is a one-year scholarship awarded to a student who has completed one semester in Oshkosh’s FERM degree program. Preference is given to female applicants and applicants who have graduated from the fire science program of MATC.
Spielman, 34, a firefighter and paramedic in Green Bay, is exactly the type of person the scholarship is meant to help. In fact, Spielman and Tylke were classmates in the MATC fire science program.
Spielman graduated from MATC in 1997 and began working in Green Bay after a short stint as a firefighter/paramedic intern with the town of Madison.
The idea for this degree program came in 2002 from a group of fire chiefs who were looking for a program for firefighters similar to the criminal justice program designed for police officers.
“There was no program that we offered or offered anywhere in the state for firemen,” James Simmons, chairman of the political science department and member of the committee that developed the FERM program, said.
The program is directed at leadership and management within fire departments rather than firefighting.
“There were only a handful of programs like this in the country,” Simmons said. “(There wasn’t) a degree or a program for people who didn’t want to become firemen, they wanted to become chiefs.”
There are no firefighting classes or EMT classes in the FERM program, Simmons said. Students are expected to know all these things or will learn them on the job. Those who finish will deal with legal issues, elected officials, diverse minority communities and budgets.
In 2006 the UW Board of Regents authorized the creation of this new bachelor’s of applied sciences program, Simmons said.
The bachelor of applied studies (BAS) differs from a bachelor of arts or science in that one must have a two-year associate degree from a technical college in order to enroll in the program.
The only other BAS program at Oshkosh is the Leadership and Organizational Studies program, also located in the Center for New Learning.
The first classes began in fall of 2006.
The committee thought the majority of incoming students would be fresh out of the fire science programs at one of the state’s technical colleges.
Instead about 80 percent are coming from the state’s 35 professional or career fire departments, said Sarah Smith, recruitment coordinator and adviser for the FERM program.
Those coming from the career departments are “not necessarily older, but at least experienced in the job,” Smith said.
The first group of six students to finish the FERM program graduated in December 2008. Five students graduated in May 2009, and five more are expected to graduate in December 2009.
Currently there are about 45 students enrolled in the program, Cynthia Brun, FERM program coordinator, said.
Only 35 of the approximately 800 fire departments in the state are career departments, with the remainder all being volunteer departments, Brun said.
The majority of the volunteer firefighters do not have an associate degree in fire science and are, therefore, not eligible to enroll in FERM classes.
To provide these volunteer firefighters with an opportunity to improve their leadership and management skills, Oshkosh has developed a certificate program aimed specifically for them.
The Center for New Learning will soon begin marketing this certificate program and expects classes to begin in fall of 2010.
Tylke also arranged to give a grant to Oshkosh to begin a female-only summer fire camp.
For six years now, Oshkosh has held beginning and advanced five-day co-ed fire camps for people between 15 and 20 years of age, Brun said.
Each year, about four or five of the approximately 25 campers were female.
This past summer, the first all-female beginning fire camp drew 16 campers, far more than were expected.
When the campers and instructors are female, many issues and questions are raised that would normally not be raised in a co-ed camp, Brun said.
The high enrollment in the first year shows that the all-female camp does reach out to a larger number of women.
The advanced fire camp will always remain coed since men and women will have to work together in fire departments and the camp is meant to be as realistic as possible.
Brun added that some of those who began in fire camp went on to obtain an AAS at one of the technical colleges and are now back at Oshkosh to obtain a BAS.
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