Via Little Green Footballs comes this little tidbit from the New York Sun:
Furious students and faculty members at the Borough of Manhattan Community College are demanding that the school abandon plans for a certificate program on security management. They view it as an endorsement of the Bush administration’s Department of Homeland Security.
Like hundreds of other community colleges across the nation since the September 11 attacks, the two-year CUNY school in Lower Manhattan is hoping to take advantage of the surging demand for security training. The school’s faculty proposed a program in May that would teach students about threats to homeland security and how to counter them.
At a school where the student government headquarters is decorated with a poster of a tortured Abu Ghraib prisoner and another that calls President Bush a “madman,” some students and faculty members have reacted to the proposed program with intense suspicion.
While those who proposed the program argue that it will offer BMCC students sought-after skills to help them find jobs in the security industry, critics say the program is an oppressive outgrowth of the Department of Homeland Security.
I’m a security professional by trade – educated at Indiana University’s Department of Criminal Justice. This has to be one of the most ridiculous political moves I’ve ever seen made by a community college before.
The security industry continues to grow and expand – organizations such as the American Society for Industrial Security are helping to lead this effort. Obviously at this community college, they have more important priorities – and those priorities are not their students.