Some 300 homeland security programs have been developed at colleges and universities since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11, reports the Boston Globe. According to Stanley Supinski, director of the partnership program at the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security in Monterey, Calif., a third are certificate programs, and the rest split between masters, bachelors, and associates programs. Some certificate programs are built for people already in the public safety and information technology areas.
The programs are designed to prepare students to work in the public and private sectors. According to the US Department of Labor, jobs in security management will grow faster than in any other area. Besides state and federal agencies, nonprofit institutions and businesses hire people to manage many security issues, from recovery from tornadoes and floods, to terrorist attacks, to cyber security issues.
This trend in higher education has been controversial. Critic Steven P. Lab, director of the criminal justice program at Bowling Green State University, argues that "It's a hodgepodge of topics that have already existed on college campuses for the most part. And they've strung them together in a meaningless whole called homeland security." More useful for the job market, Lab and others say, would be for students to specialize in such areas as Middle Eastern Studies or biology.
But supporters of the trend, such as Daniel M. Rattner, a visiting scholar in the criminal justice department at Northeastern University, feel that better communication and collaboration between government and businesses on critical infrastructure issues can only be understood by studying homeland security—which includes disease, natural disasters, and other emergencies including terrorism.
Daniel Webster College in Nashua, N.H. just started its program this fall. Provost Michael Fishbein focused on the strong programs Daniel Webster already has—aviation and computer science to create the program. Homeland security majors must also spend a year concentrating on a geographical area or learning a language and must complete an internship. Students will perform a security audit of the campus, which is near an airport, later this semester and again in two years.