Westminster College is adding a new major this upcoming academic term for students interested in pursuing a security-related career.
Westminster Political Science Professor Tobias Gibson, who is in charge of scheduling additional classes for the new major and teaching most courses, said the decision to implement a security studies major was mainly influenced by student demand.
"We had a security studies minor on campus for about three years and it quickly became one of the more popular minors on campus," Gibson said.
He said a student declared a security studies major one day after the faculty approved the major - before the major was "officially in the books."
Gibson expects several students to enroll in the new program for the fall semester when they return to campus.
"I think we still have nine minors on campus, but between the majors and the minors, I'd be surprised if there are not at least 20 students enrolled at the end of the year," he said.
He said the same four core courses for the security studies minor - Introduction to Security Studies, Intermediate Security Studies, National Security Agencies and American Foreign Policy - will also serve as the primary coursework for the major.
Gibson described the security studies curriculum, and said in addition to the core classes, it will require multi-discipline course work.
"Topics and ideas from history, political science, philosophy, international relations and psychology are all part of a security studies curriculum," Gibson said in the news release. "Then classes must be small enough and discussion-based so these topics can be applied and analyzed in light of current national and international events."
When declaring a security studies major, students will choose from one of four tracks within the program - national security, homeland security, intelligence or cybersecurity.
He said the Intelligence Security track will teach students how to excel in intelligence analysis, and would be the ideal track for students interested in becoming an FBI field agent or a CIA analyst. The National Security track offers the longest and most diverse class list compared to the other tracks, and will provide students with a global perspective on issues such as immigration and migration. If students choose to enroll in the the Homeland Security track, they will study domestic security threats and homeland security law and policies in-depth. The CyberSecurity track offers the least number and variety of classes. Gibson said the cybersecurity component of the major was "self-explanatory."
The addition of a new major that is anticipated to be popular on campus required Gibson and other faculty members to schedule several new classes, giving students more opportunities to earn credits toward their security studies degree.
"I would say eight or 10 classes are new for the major," Gibson said. "But some of those are new based on the interest driven by the minor. We've pretty consistently had between about 10 and 17 minors at any time on this campus. For a minor at Westminster College, that's a lot of students."
Gibson mentioned a few of the new classes that will complete the security studies curriculum - National Security Law I, National Security Law II and Homeland Security Law are a sample of classes students can choose to enroll in.
"With the creation of the major, we needed more classes just to begin with. I think professors saw the interest of the minor itself and so they adapted their teaching and research interests to create a new class or two, depending on the professor. They found students who were interested in taking classes, and it's always the hard part to fill a classroom."
Besides general student interest, the growing interest in security studies can be attributed to security-related global events in the last decade, such as the September 11 attacks, resurgence in terrorist organizations, cyberhacking attacks, among others, he said.
Gibson thinks the new major will attract more college applicants. He pointed out that the Westminster Institute for National Security, held July 19-21, attracted 20 high school students from across the Midwest.
According to the news release, Westminster's recently renovated computer labs in the Department of Computer Science and Information Technology will function as a cybersecurity lab. The computer lab will equip students with the necessary tools to analyze security issues. The technology will provide students the opportunity to defend against simulated hackers by utilizing computer security and forensic tools.