Intelligence studies programs as US public policy: a survey of IC CAE grant recipients

ABSTRACT

In 2005, the Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) grant was established to help strengthen and diversify the US intelligence workforce. Seed funds are provided for colleges and universities to establish academic programs and offer professional development opportunities. We surveyed grant recipients and compiled academic programs (degrees, minors and certificates) to gauge how well IC CAE is meeting stated objectives and to identify which program features are perceived as most valuable. We found 49 such academic programs, significant placements of IC CAE graduates in both governmental and non-governmental sectors, and high regard for most professional development opportunities.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insights and the improvements they resulted in. We would also like to thank those who provided feedback at the 2019 International Association for Intelligence Education Annual Conference.

Disclosure statement

The authors have taught at an IC CAE-funded program (one no longer receiving funding).

Notes

1. Defense Intelligence Agency. “Apply to be an Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence.”

2. Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence, “ICCAE.”

3. Department of Defense, Audit of the Intelligence Community Centers of Academic Excellence Program’s Use of Grant Funds.

4. Ibid, iii.

5. Rudner, “Intelligence Studies in Higher Education”.

6. Dujmovic, “Less is More, and More Professional”; and Spracher, National Security Intelligence Professional Education.

7. Hendrickson, “Intelligence Analysis as an Academic Discipline.”

8. Hendrickson, “Intelligence Analysis as an Academic Discipline;” Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States”; Landon-Murray and Coulthart, “Academic Intelligence Programs in the United States”; Marrin, 2009, “Training and Educating US Intelligence Analysts”; and Smith, “Common Thread?”

9. Coulthart and Crosston, “Terra Incognita.”

10. Andrews and Nute, “Peer Review Skill Development in Intelligence Education”; Cozine, “Teaching the Intelligence Collection Disciplines”; Davies, “Assessment BASE”; Graves et al., “Days of Intrigue”; Jensen, “The Intelligence Officer Training Corps”; Lahneman and Arcos, “Experiencing the Art of Intelligence”; Wade and White, “Closer to the Real Thing”; and Wheaton, “Teaching Strategic Intelligence through Games.”

11. Jensen, “The Intelligence Officer Training Corps.”

12. Spracher, National Security Intelligence Professional Education.

13. Ibid.

14. Dujmovic, “Less is More, and More Professional.”

15. Crosston, “Fragile Friendships.”

16. Smith, “Amateur Hour?”

17. Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States”; Landon-Murray, “US Intelligence Studies Programs and Educators in the ‘Post-Truth’ Era”; Smith, “Amateur Hour?”; and Spracher, National Security Intelligence Professional Education.

18. Arcos, “Academics as Strategic Stakeholders of Intelligence Organizations,” 333.

19. Spracher, National Security Intelligence Professional Education, 117.

20. Foreign intelligence services also seek potential connections and recruits in US universities, and see academic and scientific research as an important source of intelligence. In fact, while doing their graduate work in the early 2010s, one of the current authors had a classmate who was later discovered to be a deep cover Russian operative who was arrested and sent back to Russia. For further discussion, see Golden, Spy Schools.

21. Priess, The President’s Book of Secrets, 3.

22. Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States.”

23. Golden, Spy Schools; Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States.”

24. Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States,” 7.

25. Ibid.

26. Office of the Director of National Intelligence “Intelligence Community Directive 205.”

27. Miller, “Soldiers, Scholars, and Spies.”

28. Golden, Spy Schools; Vogel et al., “The Importance of Organizational Innovation and Adaptation in Building Academic-Intelligence Collaboration”; Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States.”

29. Desch, Cult of the Irrelevant.

30. Marrin, “Intelligence Studies Centers.”

31. Defense Intelligence Agency, “Frequently Asked Questions.”

32. National Security Agency, “National Centers of Academic Excellence.”

33. Landon-Murray, “Big Data and Intelligence.”

34. Department of Homeland Security, “Minority Serving Institutions Program.”

35. National Security Education Program, “Mission and Objectives.”

36. Platt, “Latino/a Students and Covert ‘Securities’”; Zwerling, “The CIA on my Campus … and Yours.”

37. Van Puyvelde and Coulthart, “The Intelligence Community Must Remove Barriers to Minority Recruitment.”

38. Coleman Selden, “Representative Bureaucracy”; Connolly et al., “Communicating to the Public in the Era of Conspiracy Theory”; Kennedy, “Unraveling Representative Bureaucracy”; Lim “Representative Bureaucracy”; and Meier and Smith, “Representative Democracy and Representative Bureaucracy.”

39. Price, “Silent Coups.”

40. Ibid.

41. Judd, “The CIA and the University.”

42. Cook, “The CIA and Academe”; McCarthy, “The Sun Never Sets on the Activities of the CIA’’; and Warner, “Sophisticated Spies.”

43. Cook, “The CIA and Academe”; and Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States.”

44. Johnson, “Spies and Scholars in the United States”; Miller, “Soldiers, Scholars, and Spies”; and Sims, “Academics in Foxholes.”

45. See note 22 above.

46. Determining acceptable survey response rates is dependent on the survey mode and population. However, 50 percent falls into the range of commonly accepted response rates. For example, see: Biersdorff, “How many is enough?”

47. Dillman, Smyth and Christian, Internet, Phone, Mail, and Mixed-Mode Surveys.

48. See note 33 above.

49. Yoder, “Intelligence Community Doesn’t Look Like Either Federal or Overall Workforces.”

50. Wheaton, “The Intelligence Job Market from 20,000 Feet.”

51. Ibid.

52. Wade and White, “Closer to the Real Thing.”

53. Graves et al., “Days of Intrigue.”

54. See note 12 above.

55. Marangione, “Teaching the Millennial Intelligence Analyst”; and Twenge, “iGen.”

56. Walsh, “Teaching Intelligence in the Twenty-First Century.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Landon-Murray

Michael Landon-Murray is an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. His research focuses on intelligence analysis, education and oversight and he is co-editor of Researching National Security Intelligence, from Georgetown University Press.

Stephen Coulthart

Stephen Coulthart is an Assistant Professor of Security Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso’s National Security Studies Institute. His research focuses on intelligence analysis, technology policy, and border security. He is the lead editor of Researching National Security Intelligence, from Georgetown University Press