Intelligence and Security Studies, one of The Citadel’s hottest programs, leads to in-demand careers

The FBI Watergate Panel, featuring Angelo Lano, Daniel Mahan, John Clynick, Paul Magallanes, and John Mindermann, moderated by Assistant Professor Melissa Graves, takes place during the 2020 Citadel Intelligence Ethics Conference in Mark Clark Hall at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina on Wednesday, February 12, 2020. (Photo by Cameron Pollack / The Citadel)

Undergraduate and graduate level programs certified by the International Association for Intelligence Education

Photo above: Dr. Melissa Graves, professor of Intelligence and Security Studies at The Citadel, hosts a panel on campus in 2020 featuring the original investigators from the Watergate scandal, with whom she did research for several years.

As the global theater transforms, intelligence and security professionals are in greater and greater demand, working to keep the nation safe by understanding unprecedented current events and forecasting future events.

There are hundreds of thousands of jobs for educated intelligence professionals. Including the U.S. military branches, there are 17 U.S. agencies, with close to 200,000 individuals employed by the Department of Homeland Security alone. Large corporations have growing security and intelligence functions, as do law enforcement entities in states, cities and counties across America.

Among those ranks are many intelligence experts who were educated at The Citadel. The Military College of South Carolina has developed leaders for the America’s Intelligence Community since three-letter agencies like the FBI were formed. In years past alumni studied through various degree pathways, but now cadets and students benefit from the formalized Department of Intelligence and Security Studies, the first in the state of South Carolina, launched in 2017.

Louis Brems - The Citadel SY 18-19,Cyber Security Conference, Department of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, — While serving as America’s Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats dines on campus with cadets majoring in Intelligence and Security Studies, during a break from the college’s Intelligence and Cyber Securities Conference at The Citadel in 2018.

The 380 cadet and student undergraduates majoring in Intelligence and Security Studies, and the more than 90 pursuing the master’s degree and certificates, will graduate from programs with the prestige of certification from the International Association for Intelligence Education (IAFIE).

“Certification by the IAFIE provides current and prospective cadets and students with the understanding that a third-party, comprised of top industry professionals, thoroughly reviewed The Citadel’s Intelligence and Security Studies programs and verified unanimously that they meet or exceed industry standards,” said Larry Valero, Ph.D., head of The Citadel Department of Intelligence and Security Studies.

What they said

Comments from the IAFIE panelists reviewing the Bachelor of Arts in Intelligence and Security Studies included the following:

We feel the overall structure of the program provides a firm grounding in intelligence and security studies for students, while offering them opportunities to explore various avenues in the concentrations. We appreciate the way this allows students to tailor their education in ways more directly amenable to their career aspirations.
Daniel S. Gressang, Ph.D., IAFIE Certification Review Chair

A letter from the IAFIE panelists reviewing The Citadel’s (non-cadet) Master’s of Arts in Intelligence and Security Studies included this:

The group was impressed with the unique and highly specialized concentrations available to MA students, including a Cybersecurity Concentration that does an excellent job of providing students with the technical foundations needed for cybersecurity practitioners. We congratulate you on your successful certification review! We hope this process also helps strengthen an already wonderful program.
Mike Landon-Murray, Ph.D., IAFIE Certification Review Chair, IAFIE Educational Practices Chair

The Citadel’s Intelligence and Security Studies degree options; study in D.C.

Intelligence and Security Studies is one of the fastest growing Corps of Cadets undergraduate programs going from zero to almost 400 in four years. There are also non-cadet options in The Citadel Graduate College’s civilian programs.

The degrees are structured to make them available to cadets and veteran day students, to working professionals studying in the evenings or online, and for those seeking graduate level studies. Additionally, Intelligence and Security Studies majors and graduate students interested in studying away for a semester can apply their tuition to studying and interning in Washington D.C.