Description
The field of security risk management has grown dramatically since 9/11 as public and private institutions seek increasingly resilient systems to protect their assets. The value in this thesis is in providing insight into the security risk management field and the level of formal instruction being provided at academic institutions in order to prepare tomorrow’s industry leaders. Why should a person enter the field of security management? What is academia doing to prepare tomorrow’s security management leaders? Are there any gaps? If so, what can be done to address these gaps? The concern is that while many formal programs exist with the term “security” in their titles, few actually provide coursework with the aim of instructing students on the how-to of creating resilient security systems to deter, detect, delay, deny and respond to potential and actual loss events. Though many of the fundamental concepts of physical and cyber security are shared, this thesis focuses almost entirely on the field of physical security. The first part of this thesis discusses the foundational concepts of the field. The next section seeks to answer why one should enter the field of security risk management by addressing the need for security management practitioners, the changing paradigm among industry leaders, and the market’s demand for security management practitioners. The third part of this thesis seeks to answer the question What is academia doing to prepare tomorrow’s security management leaders? by addressing the current state of academic programming in the furtherance of security management studies. The final part seeks to answer the following question: If a course could be designed to prepare security management practitioners, what would it include and how would it be delivered? As a result of his research, the author concludes that there is a need for more coursework in security risk management at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive levels. While an entire undergraduate or graduate degree could be developed to fulfill this need, the author proposes a start with a semester-long course in security risk management systems to be taught at the graduate and executive continuing educational levels.
