NSU offers homeland security emphasis with criminal justice major

(Broken Arrow, Okla.)--In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, U.S. universities and government agencies endeavored to create courses of study which could help prevent or respond to catastrophes.

Today, Northeastern State University offers a Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice with a homeland security emphasis. Students are taught appropriate response measures for emergencies whether perpetrated, accidental or natural. Courses available at NSU-Broken Arrow include an introductory class, emergency and disaster planning, terrorism, disaster response-recovery and emergency management skills.

Ericka Lunsford, a senior from Tulsa attending NSUBA, said she enrolled in the curriculum because she found it appealing.

The homeland security option has a broad application, she said. You take courses about terrorism and emergency management. It is excellent educational preparation for city agencies, criminal law, police, EMTs, emergency planners, first responders, HAZMAT management and forensics. I hope to work in Tulsa with emergency management.

The Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security reports that homeland security is one of the nations fastest-growing educational disciplines. The center, created in 2002 to be the leading homeland security educator in the U.S., says about 300 programs have opened at higher education institutions in the past decade.

Lunsford said her NSU homeland security courses were absolutely helpful when she became one of the first civilians to undergo basic training for the Federal Emergency Management Agency at Camp Gruber near Braggs.

I want to go back and take the advanced training, she said. Its a little scary, but well worth it. It will definitely weed you out if you're not cut out for rescue work.

James Buster Hall, assistant professor of criminal justice at NSUBA, teaches homeland security courses.

NSU is the only school in Oklahoma that offers homeland security with our criminal justice degree, he said. It is proving a popular minor. The classes have 50-75 students.

While Halls courses discuss emergency management including firefighting, it is terrorism which interests many students. Hall has spent nearly 40 years studying terrorist groups from all eras. In August he was one of just 30 educators selected to attend a faculty workshop at the NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

The purpose of these courses is to help students understand terrorists motivations and tactics and determine how it might be countered. Hall said comprehension requires looking beyond political and cultural biases.

In the west we do not consider terrorism a tool for social, political or cultural change, he said. But many American colonists of the 1770s engaged in activities which fit the criteria of terrorism. From the British perspective, all rebels were traitors. A group will often resort to violence if it believes all other means for change are exhausted.

Hall said it must also be considered that terrorism, while desperate, sometimes works if sustained for many years or decades.

Often that success is tied to assimilation into a political movement, he said. It can get the job done, but at what cost?

In the minds of many Americans, the word terrorist may conjure up someone killing for political change or advantage, but Hall cited the Mexican drug cartels.

These cartels are committing acts of terrorism, but it is commercially motivated violence, he said. If you know how something works you can figure out how to take it apart. Terrorist acts are criminal acts, but terrorism itself is an ideology. I try to teach that terrorism is more a law enforcement problem than a military problem.

In one course, Hall taught the students how to organize into cells and had members of the FBIs Joint Terrorism Task Force speak to the class.

At semesters end, the agents debriefed the students, Hall said. The agents said about half the cells would fail, but the other half had something put together. The exercise helps students grasp the tactics terrorists might use.

Lunsford encouraged prospective criminal justice students to explore the homeland security option.

I think it is a secret too well kept here at NSUBA, she said. I think more students should ask about it and it should get a lot more attention.