April 14, 2007
Intelligence Center Launched at California State University
Intelligence Center Launched at California State University, San Bernardino
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., April 13 (AScribe Newswire) — The two young men stood before the assembled audience in the darkened room delivering an estimate of China’s domestic stability over the next 15 years to the unseen national intelligence officer for East Asia.
Typically from these types of briefings, intelligence agencies develop analytical reports and recommendations that ultimately play a role in developing national policy.
But though the officer, Lonnie Henley, is a frequent audience for this type of executive briefing, the presentation wasn’t at the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon or even the CIA. It was an exercise at Cal State San Bernardino and the analysts are graduate students from the university’s National Security Studies program. And Henley was there to comment on the presentation.
The event was one of the highlights of the Friday, April 13, official launching at Cal State San Bernardino of a unique consortium of seven California State University campuses working in collaboration to prepare students for work in the world of national security and intelligence. Cal State San Bernardino is the lead campus in the project.
The California State University Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence, CSU-ACE is the product of a multi-year, multi-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provided through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
The seven campuses are working together to prepare students for careers in intelligence through a full academic program and field experiences. In addition to Cal State San Bernardino, CSU-ACE also includes California State University campuses from Bakersfield, Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach, Northridge and Cal Poly Pomona.
U.S. Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, spoke at the event, which was held at CSUSB’s Santos Manuel Student Union.
Professor Mark T. Clark, director of the CSUSB National Security Studies program, said the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence program has several components, including the development of skilled candidates for national intelligence service, a scholarship program for travel abroad for language study and cultural immersion, regional national security-related conferences and seminars, and summer outreach programs for high school students.
The National Security Studies program at Cal State San Bernardino is one of just three such programs in the United States, along with those at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a Fairfax, Va., satellite campus of Missouri State University. The intelligence community has frequently recruited at CSUSB, and the university’s NSS students also have gone on to work for legislators, the Governmental Accountability Office and the military.
Curricular programs on the seven consortium campuses are designed to help students with language acquisition, critical thinking and writing, foreign studies, graphic information system-related skills, national security and intelligence studies, and graduate studies in related programs. Top students will have the opportunity to earn funding to participate in summer travel-abroad programs.
Clark said that aside from the seven-campus CSU consortium, only nine other universities in the nation have been funded for such a program. However, the CSU consortium is unique with its multi-campus collaboration.
The center also will launch a summer national security institute for high school students this summer at Cal State Long Beach. Clark hopes the high school outreach efforts will encourage students to graduate from school and prepare for college by providing them with seminars and information sessions on regional studies, cultures, languages and technology.