ODNI adds new colleges and universities to its school recruitment program

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Dec. 27 announced that six consortia of colleges and universities will be joining its initiative to ready and recruit the next generation of intelligence professionals. 

The Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence program offers grants to assist schools with intelligence-related curricula, research and workshops as well as access to professionals from the intelligence community to inform students about careers in the field. 

The new IC CAE program participants are: Arizona State University; Chicago State University, in partnership with Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana; Metropolitan State University; Spelman College; the Southern University System, in partnership with Grambling State University; and the University of New Mexico. 

Participants receive five years of program development funding and can get an additional four years of funding to ensure their program’s long-term continuity. 

“At its inception, the grant focused solely on the development of national security curriculum,” said Cynthia Snyder, assistant director of national intelligence for human capital, in a statement. “Today, grant recipients can choose from among four different curriculum pathways: national security, foreign language, [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] or an integrated approach combining national security, STEM and foreign language."

Representatives from the government, private and non-governmental sectors who spoke at a September webinar by the Intelligence and National Security Foundation agreed that the IC workforce will increasingly promote STEM expertise. 

The schools announced last Friday join more than 80 colleges and universities in the initiative, which was started in 2007.