Bridge Information Assurance Education Gap between the Majority and Minority Universities through Collaboration

Information security and assurance is a rapidly developing area therefore government and industry have high demand for information security professionals. This paper reports collaboration activities between North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T SU) and University of North Carolina (UNC) Charlotte as well as results and lessons learned. Leveraging the strength of the Department of Software Engineering and Information System at UNC Charlotte the Department of Computer Science at NC A&T SU has established the new Information Assurance (IA) concentration undergraduate curriculum. Four new IA courses, five IA interactive simulation software packages and two isolated IA laboratories are developed. Faculty members in both universities have collaborated to manage and mentor the Cyber-Defender programs, host IA and Cyber Security symposiums, submit proposals, advise graduate students and publish papers. The outcome exhibits that the collaboration between the majority and minority universities serves as a pathway for the minority university to build competencies in information assurance, and bridged the widening "information assurance gap" between majority and minority universities.