The Associated Press
Las Cruces, N.M. (AP) -- It’s more than current events or social studies when New Mexico State University professor Jim Holden-Rhodes asks his students why the railroad bombings in Madrid came three days before the Spanish elections.
Holden-Rhodes is teaching one of the nation’s few university courses in intelligence, and, to pass, students must demonstrate an understanding of how events half a world away impact on the United States.
“What is the strategic significance of Madrid?” Holden-Rhodes asks.
“Do terrorists play with election politics?” he asked the class.
The university first offered a minor in intelligence studies last fall to prepare students for jobs with intelligence and law enforcement agencies. About 20 students are seeking the minor this spring.
In June, the school will begin offering a master’s degree in history with a concentration in intelligence studies.
Recent classroom discussion has touched on the war in Iraq, the U.S. presidential race, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and other terrorist activity worldwide.
“I would expect the next few attacks to be against coalition members,” said Gary Root, 48, an Albuquerque engineer working for a certificate in computer security. “The bigger picture is, they’re trying to isolate the United States.”
University Provost William Flores said intelligence studies is a natural adjunct at NMSU because of the university’s long association with White Sands Missile Range and “a long history working with the intelligence community.”
“They know our reverence for security,” Flores said recently.
The university received $21.8 million in funding from the Defense Department this year.
Mercyhurst College, a private college in Erie, Pa., also offers a degree program in intelligence studies, Holden-Rhodes said.
About 25 students staff two on-campus intelligence labs funded by the Department of Defense. The Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) lab scans Internet sources, and the Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) lab monitors broadcast signals ranging from radar to cell phone traffic.
Holden-Rhodes, a retired military intelligence officer, oversees the OSINT lab, which received a three-year, $3 million contract from the Army in April 2003.
Under the lab’s contract, five students monitor Internet traffic in nine nations in the Middle East and South America. They daily scan Web sites of dozens of newspapers and magazines and track radical chat rooms and Web sites.
Students, who often wear khaki trousers and black T-shirts with a patch that says “Intelligence Studies Program/New Mexico State University,” are required to develop competence in a foreign language.
“I’ve been interested in current events since I was in high school,” said lab employee Maurice De Segovia, 23.
De Segovia, fluent in Spanish, specializes in the so-called tri-border area of South America, a region that includes portions of Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.
Islamic extremist groups operate in that region, he said.