Security Studies Certificate Program

The Security Studies Certificate Program is a campus-wide multi-disciplinary baccalaureate certificate program that is administratively nested within the Department of Political Science and housed in the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences at North Carolina Central University.  Launched in Fall 2016, the mission of the Security Studies Certificate Program is to prepare students for the Twenty-First Century globalized job market and security environment.  By the same token, the Security Studies Certificate Program dovetails with the new Global Politics Concentration in the Department of Political Science.  The goal is to take a cultural approach in preparing students for an evolving job market.  The Security Studies Certificate Program (SSCP) incorporates five departments at North Carolina Central University (NCCU):  Political Science, Criminal Justice, Environmental, Earth, and Geospatial Sciences, History, Language and Literature.  A student can complete SSCP both while pursuing a degree at NCCU or as a stand-alone certificate program.  With a total of 24 semester credit hours, students should be able to complete all required courses within one academic year for a stand-alone certificate.  In addition to traditional students at NCCU, community college graduates and transfers, “part-way home” students (some college credits, but no degree), veterans, and adult learners will benefit from SSCP.  It will have an inherent appeal for employment opportunity with government agencies, military and diplomatic services, multinational corporations, and non-governmental organizations.  SSCP will ground students in historical and cultural knowledge with special attention to language skills, and augmented with analytical and quantitative skills.  With distinct regional foci SSCP will concentrate on the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, but is open to specialization in other regions of the world.  Students will be expected to complete 6 semester hours of a foreign language beyond the General Education Curriculum requirement.  The foreign language must be related to a regional specialization.  SSCP is particularly interested in students willing to learn “critical language.”  Funding can be found for those willing to embark on that rewarding journey.

 

NCCU is a partner with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, and Duke University for a $1.86 million grant (FY2014-FY2018) from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for establishing the Triangle Institute for Security Studies Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (TISS-IC-CAE) in Intelligence and Security Studies.  For its share NCCU received $246,506 as a sub-award from UNC-CH.  As part of the grant NCCU has committed to developing five new courses and modifying two existing courses.  DIA funding will also open up opportunities for students to visit the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Tennessee) and intelligence agencies (Washington, DC), participate in simulation exercises and summer seminars, attend professional conferences, hear guest speakers, and meet practitioners and recruiters.