Professors at Georgia Military College’s-Augusta campus are excited for the opportunities that a new cyber training center in their city will provide for their students. In January, Governor Nathan Deal announced $50 million in funding to establish the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center in Augusta. GMC’s Associate of Science Degree in Cyber Security educates students on basic programming, networking, data structures, and information security skills.

“We look at confidentiality, how you secure important information, integrity, and availability,” said Kip Hamilton, GMC’s Augusta Professor of Computer Science. “We teach them about risks, threats, and vulnerabilities. We teach all of this because that’s what they’re going to be doing at the cyber center.”

GMC’s Cyber Security program has been established for more than a year. The program continues to receive great interests from students. The program’s high interests revived GMC-Augusta’s Computer Club that faded away nearly three years ago. The Augusta campus currently has 32 students enrolled in the program for winter term and George Hendricks, GMC’s Augusta Academic Dean, is expecting that number to increase for later terms.

“With this announcement, the spillover effect for us is the interests it creates in the community and the opportunity to pull in more enrollments because we’re a way to offer an intentionally structured degree that focuses on the technical skills and the critical thinking skills that are necessary to that field,” said George Hendricks, GMC’s Augusta Academic Dean.

The Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center will bring academia, private industry and government together to establish cybersecurity standards across state and local agencies. The state-funded facility will focus on training, education, research and development, and will act as an incubator hub for cybersecurity startup companies. It will also develop and practice protocols for responding to cyber threats.

“In this town everyone is talking “cyber”,” said Hamilton. “The cyber center is coming in and they’re bringing 3,000 technicians into the center. Fort Gordon has their Cyber Command Center here and more and more companies are coming. This town is going to be the cyber center of the United States.”

Earning an AS degree in Cyber Security at GMC will prepare students for employment opportunities and meet educational requirements for continuation towards a bachelor degree in cyber security or computer science. Upon completion of this degree, graduates will be able to transfer credits to a 4-year Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree program in cyber security or computer science. George Hendricks, GMC-Augusta Academic Dean, says the new center will create more opportunities for learning in the community with the creation of more clubs, organizations, and competitions for GMC’s students. Cyber Security degree majors are in high demand and Computer Science Professor, Kip Hamilton, believes GMC’s students could benefit greatly from the proposed cyber center.

“GMC has the opportunity to get our students in on the ground floor,” said Hamilton. “We open up the door and you run with it from there.”