CSUSB hosts kickoff for intelligence studies center
Daily Bulletin 4/12/07
As a national security studies student aspiring to be an FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration agent who would likely interact often with people of varied backgrounds, Yancheff said her journey abroad will be valuable career-wise.
"If we don't understand other countries, then we're going to be so self-centered in our views and the U.S. that we're not going to be able to understand (others)," she said.
Yancheff's excursion will be funded by a federal grant - renewable for four more years - won in 2006 by a consortium of seven California State Universities headed by CSUSB.
The $750,000 annual grant, awarded by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, paid for the establishment of the CSU Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence, which helps students develop skills they could use as analysts, engineers or other workers in organizations such as the CIA or state department.
CSUSB on Friday will host the center's public kick-off event, which will feature a presentation by students on China's domestic stability.
Mark Clark, the consortium's director and a CSUSB professor of political science and national security studies, said the grant represents an effort by the U.S. intelligence community to reach out to schools with diverse student populations.
"If we're going to be better at understanding the world, we need people that look like that world," Clark said.
"The old pattern was they always recruited at Stanford, Harvard, and the Ivy Leagues."
Lorie Roth, the CSU system's assistant vice chancellor for academic programs, said the perceived benefits of having multiple universities involved in the center included ensuring students could access resources such as Arabic and Farsi classes not available at all seven campuses.
Clark said though managing the "seven-headed beast" has been difficult, faculty from the schools involved have worked hard to lay the center's groundwork.
The well-established national security studies program at CSUSB is part of the center.
At the consortium's other campuses - Cal Poly Pomona and Cal States Bakersfield, Dominguez Hills, Fullerton, Long Beach and Northridge - undergraduates can add an intelligence community concentration to their majors, Clark said.
Intelligence community scholars take courses such as writing, critical thinking and briefings and presentations.
Students specializing in intelligence also take four electives, which vary by campus. At Cal Poly Pomona, choices include classes such as Ethical Problems in Everyday Life, Religions of the World and Cities in a Global Economy.
The consortium plans to invite high school students to CSU Long Beach in June to learn about intelligence careers. A speakers series on issues such as counterterrorism is also in the works, Clark said.
Though an intelligence minor or major is still far off, the consortium puts the CSU system at the forefront of intelligence-related academics, Clark said. The center's presence could help CSU researchers win grants in coming years, he said.
For some, the payoffs are already real.
Matthew Grover, Yancheff's fiance, will also be in Barcelona this summer on a grant-funded study trip. Another student is heading to Lebanon.
"I've been overseas, but not for an extended period of time in one place," said Grover, a prospective DEA agent. He added that learning Spanish could help him in the field.
"I spoke with DEA agents, and every single one you talk to says, `Learn Spanish, learn Spanish, learn Spanish - or learn Russian,' because of the Russian organized crime and the drugs that they deal, and Spanish because all of the drugs come from South America."