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Colorado State University Pueblo Re-Designated as National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense

Release Date: April 25, 2022

Greg Hoye

Executive Director

Marketing, Communications, Community Relations

(719) 549-2284

Dr. Mejias and Dr. Abdelrahman with certification

Pueblo— The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has announced that Colorado State University Pueblo has been re-designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (NSA-CAE-CD) through 2027.

Official letters of notification will be sent to CSU Pueblo president, Timothy Mottet, Colorado Governor, Jared Polis, related members of the U.S. Congress, and appropriate Congressional committees. A ceremony recognizing CSU Pueblo's national NSA-CAE-CDE designation will be held in Summer 2022.

“This re-designation certifies CSU Pueblo as a competitive university that offers students a premier curriculum to prepare them to enter the world of cyber security and defense. We are proud of our Center for Cyber Security Education and Research (CCSER) and the work they do to support students,” said Mottet.

The U.S. NSA works in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education and the National Science Foundation, CyberCorps Scholarship for Service which seeks to reduce vulnerability in our national information infrastructure by promoting higher education and research in the areas of Cyber Security and Information Assurance to produce a growing number of students and professionals to advance state-of-the-art knowledge and practice in these respective areas.

Students attending nationally designated NSA CAE-CD schools such as CSU Pueblo to become eligible to apply for related scholarships and grants through the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency.

The NSA CAE-CD program directly supports the 2003 U.S. National Strategy to Secure Cyber Space and the 2011 International Strategy for Cyber Space to address the critical shortage of IT professionals with cyber skills and highlights the importance of higher education as a solution to defending America's cyberspace and national security.

Dr. Roberto Mejias, Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems and Director for the Center for Cyber Security Education and Research (CCSER), completed the rigorous 9-month NSA-CAE re-designation application in late 2021.

The re-designation application for NSA-CAE-CDE designation required comprehensive documentation of cyber defense courses, institutional I.S. Security plan, university-level support, multidisciplinary collaboration, institutional outreach and the extensive mapping of CSU Pueblo's Cyber Security Defense program of study courses to 22 "Knowledge Units" (KUs) that followed stringent NSA-CAE content criteria.

CSU Pueblo now joins a prestigious list of current NSA CAE-CDE designated institutions across the country. For more information visit the National Security Agency website here.

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