EducationCenter for Security Studies receives $3 million grant

Officials at the Texas Tech University System and Angelo State University (ASU) announced that the U.S. Air Force will provide a $3 million grant to ASU which will be used to continue and expand the school’s Center for Security Studies (CSS).

“After visiting Angelo State earlier this year, I recognized the value of continuing the momentum and building the existing partnership between ASU’s Center for Security Studies and the Air Force,” Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison said. “The CSS gives our Air Force personnel the special skills they need to work in foreign countries where they are likely to operate in the future.”

The CSS is a joint program developed by the university to meet the needs of the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command. The purpose of the center is to provide airmen and airwomen with advanced education — including bachelor’s and master’s degrees — in cultural competence, security studies, border security, and intelligence.

“We are very proud of the Center for Security Studies’ significant progress and grateful to Senator Hutchison and the Air Force leadership for their continued support of our programs,” said Kent Hance, chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. “If it were not for both the Senator’s and Air Force’s efforts, we would not have such an outstanding center of excellence at ASU.”

An Angelo State University release reports that enrollment has grown more than 50 percent since the program was first funded in Fiscal Year 2009. 

The CSS offers eight degree programs across four disciplines, and retention rate in these programs is nearly 100 percent.

“As a retired Air Force colonel and president of Angelo State University, I am proud that we at the university have been able to develop a program that both serves the needs of our military and addresses the serious homeland security challenges that this nation faces in the 21st century,” said Joseph Rallo, president of ASU.  “Angelo State University’s Center for Security Studies will be a lasting legacy to the vision of Senator Hutchison and her commitment to keep our citizens and our country safe from those who would do us harm.”

Robert Ehlers, Ph.D., serves as the director of the CSS, and has overseen the center’s growth and growing recognition to the program. In August 2012 the CSS hosted a major international symposium entitled “Transborder Narco-terrorism: Addressing a Changing Environment” that united a variety of federal and state agencies, participants from five other countries and a number of scholars and students.