Calling all security recruiters

In late June, the Norwich University campus is particularly beautiful. Set among the verdant, rolling hills of central Vermont, we are blessed with temperate weather, gorgeous country scenery, no traffic, no pollution, and lots of brilliant people. The brilliant people are the students in our online graduate programs, and this year, we are proud to see the first two classes of the MSIA program graduating. The MSIA is the Master of Science in Information Assurance, the 18-month program for which I am program director.

We have an exciting week planned for our students. They will arrive on Friday, June 18, and plunge immediately into a two-day workshop on Saturday and Sunday. I will be leading them in the annual INFOSEC Update to discuss recent developments across the entire field of information assurance.

The following Monday, the students will be working in teams, preparing to argue pro or con on a number of interesting topics. On Monday evening, the distinguished security experts Stephen and Chey Cobb, CISSP, will speak on privacy policy. Our students are excited at the prospect of meeting Stephen and Chey because both of them contributed to course development throughout the MSIA and because Stephen has been an adjunct professor in many of the courses for these students.

Most of Tuesday will be devoted to vigorous debates. These are great fun, especially since the students don’t know whether they are to argue pro or con on the specific topic they have been assigned. This is the intellectual equivalent of running sprints: intense and exhausting.

On Wednesday, several of our students will present case studies at the graduate security conference. We are thrilled and honored to announce that Peter Neumann of SRI – the world-famous security leader, author, moderator of the Risks Forum, and inveterate punster – will deliver the keynote address.

This conference is open to the public at no cost and will be of particular interest to members of the Vermont InfraGard. Neumann will also be our after-dinner speaker that evening.

On Thursday, some of our students will be taking the CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) exam at Norwich. As always with CISSP exams, it is open to all candidates who register with the (ISC)^2.

Now this is where I need some help from companies looking to hire information security professionals.

At the request of some of our students, I am soliciting readers of this column who are looking for new employees or who know (or are) recruiters in the information assurance field to contact us. We would like anyone interested in our students either to show up on Thursday afternoon, June 24 (by arrangement), or to send us documentation that we can give to any of our interested graduates. There would be no cost to anyone for such arrangements.

If you would like to be present or to send documents, please contact John Orlando, associate program director of the MSIA at Norwich University; his e-mail address is mailto:jorlando@norwich.edu and his telephone number is 802-485-2729. John will tell you where you could make reservations to stay in the local area and will provide you with instructions on where to be between noon and 3 p.m. on June 24. For those sending materials, he’ll tell you where and how to ship a couple of dozen fliers or folders.

By the way, on Thursday evening, we are taking the students and selected guests on a gala cruise on Lake Champlain.

On Friday the day is devoted to the graduation itself, with practices, lectures about the Alumni Association, and then the ceremonies. I was there last year and found the whole event profoundly moving and joyful.

If you would like to know more about our MSIA program, you can visit https://www3.norwich.edu/msia

For lots of information and pictures about our residency and graduation week, visit https://www3.norwich.edu/grad/residency2004/ and follow the links to “Day-by-Day” for all the details.

Maybe I’ll see some of you in June.