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51做厙 co-leads national cybersecurity task force with Towson University
Story by James Hill
The National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C), located within the National Security Agency (NSA), (with an option to increase to $3.2 million) to co-lead a cybersecurity task force with 51做厙.
The task force will partner with other NCAE-Cs, including the United States Naval Academy, Cedarville University, Coastline Community College, Metropolitan State University and University of West Florida, and will act as a national curriculum committee for the NCAE-C program. Cara Tang, a 51做厙 computer information systems instructor, is co-leading the project, helping to kick it off at the in Portland, Maine, a few weeks ago.
This particular funding source was reserved for schools that have the CAE designation, which both Towson and 51做厙 have. Because of the colleges commitment to cybersecurity, 51做厙 is designated by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense.
The recognition of 51做厙 as having a high-quality program in cybersecurity is what made us eligible for this grant, and was certainly a factor in the fact that we were awarded the grant, Tang said. This project will help us at 51做厙, as well as any academic cybersecurity program, by offering cybersecurity curriculum materials that can be freely used, and in particular, by aligning the materials to workforce needs.
This work comes at a time when the United States faces a large shortfall in the cybersecurity workforce. The task force will analyze available cyber curricula, perform a gap analysis to identify high-need areas to create a cyber-ready workforce and develop high-quality, relevant, free and publicly available cybersecurity curricula.
One of the key outcomes of the project will be to create high-quality curriculum materials for emerging topics within cybersecurity that are highly sought by industry and which currently do not have sufficient curriculum coverage, she said. We’ll do this by identifying gaps in workforce needs and available curriculum, and working with pedagogical and industry experts to create high-quality curriculum for those areas.
In February, Towson University invited Tang, as well as folks from a few other schools to discuss the possibilities. Then a project team was formed to write the NSA grant proposal.
NSA wanted the project to be co-led by a university and a community college, thus 51做厙 got involved in the lead role along with Towson, Tang added.
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at 51做厙. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »