MSU Holds Computer Security Sessions for Minority Students, Faculty
June 17, 2004
STARKVILLE, Miss.–A computer security training program next week at Mississippi State is expected to attract more than 30 mostly minority college and high school students and faculty from nine institutions of learning.
Hosted by the university’s Center for Computer Security Research and funded by the National Science Foundation, the Information Assurance Workshop Wednesday and Thursday [June 23 and 24] will cover such topics as information security, network security, computer forensics and cryptography.
“The workshop is targeted for underrepresented groups and the majority of participating institutions are historically black colleges or universities,” said Susan Bridges, workshop coordinator and a professor of computer science and engineering.
“We currently have 34 participants–including 20 students and 14 faculty members– registered from nine educational institutions, both in and out of state,” added Bridges, an authority on the application of artificial intelligence to computer security problems.
To be held at Butler Hall, home of the computer science and engineering department, the program also will provide faculty participants with details about establishing an information assurance program at their respective schools. Sessions will be held 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Wednesday; 8 a.m.-noon Thursday.
In-state institutions represented at the workshop include Alcorn State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, and Rust College. Representatives from Tuskegee University in Alabama, and Maryland’s Bowie State University and Annarundel Community College also will participate.
Joining the institutional group will be high school students from the Washington, D.C., area. The student contingent is sponsored by the Joint Educational Foundation, a program that works with high-achieving students in high-risk areas.
Ernest McDuffie, program manager in the NSF’s Division of Undergraduate Education, will deliver the keynote address during an evening dinner Wednesday at the university’s Leo Seal M-Club Building. MSU head women’s basketball coach Sharon Fanning will give a motivational talk during the same event.
Ray Vaughn, an associate professor of computer science and engineering and director of the security research center, said the NSF and National Security Agency have urged Mississippi State to assist others in developing an information assurance program. In response to the requests, the university has worked over the past two years with the University of Kansas, Illinois Institute of Technology, Jackson State, Tuskegee, and Dakota State University (in South Dakota) to do just that.
“Mississippi State has developed a good reputation over the years helping other institutions in their pursuit of national center of excellence credentials–credentials we have had and maintained since 2001,” Vaughn said.
“Our philosophy has been to be as open and helpful as we can to requests for assistance in developing information assurance programs,” he added. “In the end, we all benefit from such cooperative activity with other universities.”
A Hattiesburg native and retired Army colonel who once directed communications and computer systems for the Pentagon, Vaughn joined the MSU faculty in 1997. A year later, he played a lead role in gaining prestigious NSA certification for the university as one of the first 26 national Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.
Over the past half-dozen years, Vaughn and Bridges have secured nearly $5 million in government and private industry grants. MSU computer science and engineering students regularly train under some 8-10 faculty members in a new security center laboratory equipped with approximately $200,000 in the latest equipment.