By Rachel Konieczny
News Assignment Editor
A new cybersecurity major is in the process of development, available to incoming freshman and other interested students in the fall of 2016, said university officials.
Steven Andrianoff, Ph.D., cybersecurity program director and computer science department chair, said St. Bonaventure hired a consultant to look at cybersecurity programs in the northeast for the purpose of making the university academically comparable to other institutions. Bonaventure, through the grant of The John R. Oishei Foundation, expanded upon its partnership with Hilbert College, with the Cybersecurity Program being a culmination of those efforts.
Andrianoff did not provide the name of the consultant.
“We really think that this collaboration with Hilbert takes advantage of their criminal justice program, which is where their strengths are for the management, human side of it, and it takes advantage of our strengths and computer science—more [of] the technical—programming area,” Andrianoff said.
Emily Morris, Ph.D., vice president for university relations, identified cybersecurity as a program that could be offered collaboratively with Hilbert.
“The program is a direct result of our strategic alliance conversations with Hilbert College, during which faculty and academic leaders from both institutions convened to investigate academic opportunities,” Morris said.
Morris said that no other institutions are offering cybersecurity like Bonaventure, with Alfred State College being the only other regional institution that offers an undergraduate program in cybersecurity.
Andrianoff commented on some of Bonaventure’s different approaches to the cybersecurity program as compared to other institutions.
“The university and Hilbert has this Life-Size [program] which is cameras and projection equipment, so our university has three different rooms—one’s a conference room, and two are classrooms that are already equipped with this equipment,” Andrianoff said. “Hilbert has two rooms that are equipped with it.”
Andrianoff explained that this equipment is already used by Bonaventure faculty to deliver courses to students at Hilbert. The program director said the Life-Size technology is tentative.
“Life-Size is a particular technology,” said Andrianoff, who added the program is not necessarily a permanent selection. “This semester, we’re going to pile in a couple of classes and see how it works delivering those remotely to Hilbert and then have Hilbert do the same back here [on Bonaventure’s campus].”
Andrianoff spoke to several freshman computer science majors, over half of who expressed interest in the new program.
Jack Cote, freshman computer science major, had a different opinion from the majority of his peers.
“The new program should be innovative and different enough that it could attract freshmen who already know what they want to do with a computer science degree which would allow them to specialize in a field of computer science,” Cote said. “It’s almost as if a physicist has a specialization, but for computers. The degree sounds interesting, but it’s just not my cup of tea.”
Andrianoff said cybersecurity will attract students to Bonaventure, with federal money available for scholarships. The federal government needs a workforce, while businesses need applicants with cybersecurity skills, he said.
He referenced a group of alumni who were computer science majors while at Bonaventure and developed their own consulting firm in Washington, D.C., working with the federal government on cybersecurity matters. He did not give specific names.
“It would be a lot more difficult for us to do the program on our own,” Andrianoff said. “I think by this collaboration with Hilbert, we’re able to have a stronger program that we can put in place quickly.”
koniecrc14@bonaventure.edu
