Guest Speaker Sparks Discussion on CAE Designation

In August, Gary Sparks, program director, Metropolitan (METRO) Community College Cybersecurity Center, Omaha, Nebraska, spent time with the chapter discussing METRO's Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) efforts. Sparks pointed out that the CAE community consists of universities and community colleges nationwide working through Homeland Security and the National Security Agency to earn their CAE designation. Currently, 400 schools have CAE designation. It is common practice for CAE institutions to share their assignments, classes and best practices. Above all, this promotes ethical standards and standardized requirements for CAE certification. Sparks talked about providing the local community with support for grades K-12 through training and providing relatable content. Sparks commented that the local community often turns to educators to understand the cyber threats around them.

He elaborated on the CAE designation process and clarified that CAE begins after the program of study has been validated and consists of the required sections. Sparks pointed out the benefit of adopting various community STEM initiatives to inspire innovation through events like GenCyber, Cyber Patriot and Cyber Tatanka. Sparks concluded with an enlightening talk on cyber threat and how QR codes are also being used in phishing emails and identity exploitation.

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