In one of my many trips into cyberspace, I came across an individual who noted that she was taking a course at Curry College in Terrorism. This, of course, struck me as amusing. Is Curry College an evil syndicate of al Qaeda? Had this women singlehandedly blown the cover of an American insurgent network? Well, as usual, my mind was getting the best of me, and such was not the case.
What I did find, however, was just as fascinating. Curry College is one of those many lower tier New England Liberal Arts schools. In order to be more competitive, it offers a myriad of courses, namely a continuing education program. One of the certificate programs in this lineup is called “Homeland Defense.”
In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Certificate in Homeland Defense was designed to prepare traditional and continuing studies undergraduates and law enforcement practitioners to meet the new challenges of homeland security.
To complete the program, an individual must take eight courses.
I’m split on this one. On the one hand, we certainly want individuals trained to deal with this new terrorist threat. On the other, however, the idea that Curry College is profitting off of 9/11 leaves a bad taste in my mouth. What are your thoughts on this?
Link:
http://www.curry.edu/Academics/Continuing+Education/
Certificate+Programs/Homeland+Defense.htm
I read through the names of the courses and the certificate description and I am not sure how this will actually help all that much. It almost seems to be a course based on what to do once a potential terrorist group has been spotted. I think that is ok, but what I think would be an interesting course would be how to find potential terroistic groups.
I dont blame this college for doing this. As you pointed out they are a lower tier liberal arts school in New England. Just like University of Texas-Austin, Harvard, or even Trinity College, Curry needs to get students to go to the school. Since they are not as well known, they must offer students something unique to the school. So I am not surprised, but I do think they could have done a betetr job with the courses.
I’d look at the balance between usefulness and profit before deciding that they’re unreasonably profiting from 9/11.
Some quack who goes around selling radiation suits and duct tape and insisting that it’s what your family needs to defend itself is one thing entirely. That’s manipulating public paranoia to sell things to people that they probably don’t need at all and won’t find useful. I agree, that’s disgusting.
Curry, on the other hand, does seem to be teaching courses that at the very least have the potential to be informative. I haven’t taken the courses so I don’t know how actually useful they are, and as Tex just said, they probably aren’t going to teach any Curry students how to root out terrorists. I don’t, however, think they should have to teach students how to root out terrorists – that’s a job for the FBI and CIA, who I’d like to think took more than a couple college classes on the subject. As far as giving students a more in-depth look at terrorism than they’d get from watching TV, Curry looks like it’s at least attempting to be effective. As a college, they have to make money.
Any knowledge of what Trinity is teaching in this area? I’d at least think they would offer a workshop on how to radiation-proof a kegger…
– Chris