First Augusta University online masters will count military training as course credit

Augusta University President Brooks A. Keel and Maj. Gen. Paul T. Stanton, commanding general of the Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Gordon, on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding for the university's first two online-only graduate degrees.

The two degrees, a master of science with a major in information security management and a master of arts in intelligence and security studies, will accept credits for course work from soldiers in related officer training courses.

"Augusta University is proud to grow our online academic offerings to help service members further their education from wherever they're located, and with asynchronous programs to fit their busy lives and schedules," Keel said at the ceremonial signing, surrounded by military and Augusta University staff who worked on the program.

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The programs came together relatively quickly, according to Stanton.

"It was a matter of months ago. President Keel and I sat in this very conference room, and we discussed the potential of presenting an online offering to our Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine partners," he said. "Within a matter of months, the staff and faculty arrayed in this room with us, developed the online master's degree programs that Dr. Keel outlined."

These graduate degrees in their traditional form are relatively new programs for Augusta University, having rolled out in the past few years. The university will continue to add a range of cyber and intelligence focused programs, Keel said.

"Augusta University's growth in degree offerings and enrollment in these areas comes at a time of crisis level worker shortages in cybersecurity, with a half a million jobs unfilled in this country, across this country, in this area," Keel said. "Twenty-two thousand of those jobs are in the state of Georgia and nearly 2,000 positions are yet to be filled right here in Augusta."

How the programs help counter threats

Stanton said that the program will help counter the new and evolving threats in cyberspace, and give soldiers flexibility to continue their education on their own time, wherever they are.

"The rate of change of technology and the rate of change of our adversaries demands an educational foundation upon which our soldiers can be dynamic in the face of these changes," he said. "Partnerships like that with Augusta University help ensure that our formations, that our soldiers, have that educational underpinning. It's why a partnership like that with Augusta University is so powerful."

The memorandum of understanding outlines which credits in two different captain career courses for signals and cyber officers will count towards the masters degree. Stanton said while other programs offer academic credit to soldiers for military training, this is the first program that offers such degrees in these areas.

"This is the first of its kind, and it's unique in a couple of special ways," he said. "Augusta University, very detailed, went and said, 'We'll offer you credit based off of what you're learning from the Army.' But then they designed the rest of the master's program and their online offerings to complete the degree based on those underpinnings and based on those initial course credits. That I believe is unique."

Keel said that having the degrees online will not only help service members who begin a course at Fort Gordon and then have to move, but also opens the program up to service members across the country, as well as to civilians.

"Putting this thing online like we're doing, it opens the world up to the degrees we have to offer," he said. "And I think it's going to be difficult for us to be able to predict how many we're going to have and what that balance would be between civilian and soldier."

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Fort Gordon, Augusta University, sign memo on online cyber masters