Colleges' Hottest New Major: Terror

[Kire]

Colleges' Hottest New Major: Terror
Campuses Altering Courses, Tapping Into Homeland Security Funds

By Susan Kinzie and Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, April 30, 2005; Page A01

Cathy Lanier had to think like a terrorist and come up with a way to kill a few thousand people at a picnic in San Luis Rey. The virtual town in California, repeatedly cursed with smallpox epidemics, explosions and attacks on its nuclear power plant, is part of her new education: The commander of special operations for D.C. police is earning a master's degree in the fast-growing field of homeland security.

Schools across the country are catering to such students as Lanier by revamping curricula and research as they try to keep pace with the changes brought on by the 2001 terrorist attacks and take advantage of a large pool of homeland security money. At hundreds of schools, Sept. 11 is influencing how many topics are taught -- from medicine to firefighting to politics to computer networking.

The changes are driven by legislation and policy, interest from students and faculty, demands from employers, a sense of mission -- and money.

The federal government has pumped cash into this new fight, spending more than $12 billion for homeland security research and development over the past four budget years. "Homeland security is probably going to be the government's biggest employer in the next decade," said Steven R. David, who directs the homeland security certificate program at Johns Hopkins University.

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