UT expands national security curriculum, programs

The University is expanding national security education with new hires, fellowships and majors across multiple colleges, it announced in multiple August news releases. 

The University hired more than 20 faculty to work in the School of Civic Leadership, the Clements Center for National Security, the LBJ School for Public Affairs, the College of Liberal Arts, the Strauss Center and the Center for Humanities. 

This fall, the Clements Center welcomed its first class to the Defense Technology Fellowship, which director Paul Edgar said marks new ground for the Center, whose programs mainly attract liberal arts students. The fellowship will connect STEM students with defense-related employers in Austin and expose them to careers in national security. Edgar said the fellowship will help students become familiar with defense companies, learn whether they want to commit to working for one and make it easier to apply to jobs. 

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“The companies have a sort of a pre-vetted group of prospective applicants that they can be a little more confident in than a broader general pool, that these are people that have the skills that they need and that are confident that this is the kind of work they want to do,” Edgar said. “We see the availability of so much around us here in the Austin area that has again accelerated over the past couple of decades, or even the past several years, and we want to take advantage of it for everybody’s benefit.” 

National security work has changed and expanded in the past 100 years and now has more opportunities for non-government work, said Adam Klein, the director of the Strauss Center for International Law and Security. The Strauss Center sponsors research on cybersecurity, technology and global affairs, national security law, the U.S.-Mexico border and space policy. Klein was involved in the hiring of new faculty this year. 

“Today, national security is about the movement of money, how companies behave, who companies hire, who they can sell their products to, how banks can serve customers and what safeguards they have to follow,” Klein said. “National security is playing a much bigger role in the private sector, which means those companies now need people to advise them on how to survive and navigate through this new world.” 

The new faculty will support new degree programs including the Strategy and Statecraft major, a collaboration between the Clements Center and the School of Civic Leadership. The LBJ School will hold a new Master of National Security. They will also support existing programs such as the International Relations and Global Studies major in the College of Liberal Arts and the National Security and International Business minor in the McCombs School of Business. 

“The world right now is a dangerous place, and part of being an engaged and informed citizen is being aware of the national security challenges that we’re facing,” said Matthew Fuhrmann, a new security studies professor in the LBJ School. “Even for students who don’t want to do anything in the national security space for their careers, I think it’s important that they have opportunities to become knowledgeable about those areas, so they can engage in the public discourse on those issues.”