NSA Scholarship Program
2015 SI3C Cyber Scholarship
January 27, 2016
The School of Information Systems and Applied Technologies (ISAT) at Southern Illinois University (SIU) is proud to announce scholarship recipients for the first round of the Southern Illinois Collegiate Cyber Co-op (SI3C) Cyber Scholarship Program. Each of the recipients will receive a $1,000 scholarship for successfully completing the requirements of the program as judged by the scholarship committee.
A second round of the SI3C Cyber Scholarship Program will begin in February and another eight scholarship recipients will be awarded $1,000 scholarships for completing the required cyber security exercises and essays. Additional details regarding the second round of the scholarship program will be distributed to SI3C faculty via email soon.
Congratulations to our SI3C Cyber Scholarship Program award winners!
SI3C Cyber Scholarship Program Recipients (1st round)
- Mark Blume - Lake Land College
- Joel Carter - SIU
- Colten Gibbons - SIU
- Steven Mangano - SIU
- Bryan McCarthy - SIU
- Damik Sabatos - Kaskaskia College
- Carl Stiff - Shawnee Community College
Dear Colleagues:
On behalf of the School of Information Systems and Applied Technologies (ISAT) at Southern Illinois University (SIU), I would like to extend an invitation to your students to participate in an exciting scholarship opportunity. As you know, the Southern Illinois Collegiate Cyber Co-op (SI3C) was created this year to formalize existing educational partnerships between SIU and regional colleges. Through the SI3C, we seek to offer academic and experiential opportunities for students and faculty in our partner schools.
The SI3C is calling on all interested college students to participate in a scholarship program funded by the National Security Agency (NSA) and administered by SIU. Through this federal funding fifteen students will be awarded $1,000 scholarships to be applied towards their tuition at SIU or their current college. One student from an underrepresented minority class will be eligible for an additional $800 scholarship.
To be eligible for consideration for the 2015 SI3C Cyber Scholarship program, students must register for the program at the link below, complete a series of eight weekly online security exercises, and submit an essay discussing the need for cyber security professionals.
Students will complete the online security exercises using SIU’s NETLAB+ virtual information technology laboratory (http://vitl.siu.edu) and submit the required documentation via SIU’s learning management system (https://online.siu.edu). Student essays will be evaluated by a committee of information security professionals from industry, academia, and government. If you would like to recommend a qualified professional for the committee, please provide me with their contact info and a brief explanation of their qualifications.
The scholarship program’s required cyber exercises will be available on October 19th and one exercise will be available each week. Students who register and their faculty sponsors will have account information for the lab environment and LMS distributed via email before the first exercise is available. Details regarding the required essay will be distributed via the LMS by November 9th.
Scholarships will be awarded to students based on two criteria: successful completion of all eight cyber exercises and submission of appropriate exercise documentation and quality of student essay as judged by the scholarship committee. Effort will be made to award a scholarship to at least one student from each SI3C partner school.
Please send any questions regarding the 2015 SI3C Cyber Scholarship program to Tom Imboden.
Thank you.