Master of Homeland Security at Pennsylvania State University

The intercollege Master of Professional Studies in Homeland Security (iMPS-HLS) degree program is designed to prepare professionals and develop leaders for the field of homeland security by providing exceptional graduate education that includes an integrated curriculum, expert faculty, and student interaction. The program is comprised of courses from several Penn State colleges and delivered via distance education through the Penn State World Campus to accommodate the needs and careers of professionals who are already active in homeland security and related fields of civil security, or those interested in transitioning into the field. The program provides select graduate students with an integrated, cross-disciplinary curriculum that is focused on a set of unified educational goals to help them understand and manage the complexities of homeland security in a global environment. Within the degree program and in addition to its common core curriculum, students choose one of seven specialization areas that represent main elements, capabilities, and risk-informed priorities of the homeland security mission space:

1. base program
2. agricultural biosecurity and food defense option;
3. counterterrorism option;
4. cyber threat analytics and prevention option;
5. intelligence and geospatial analysis option;
6. public health preparedness option; or
7. information security and forensics option.

The participating academic units for this collaborative program are: Penn State Harrisburg, the College of Medicine (in collaboration with the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center), the College of the Liberal Arts, the College of Information Sciences and Technology, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the College of Agricultural Sciences, and Penn State Great Valley.

Graduates from the iMPS-HLS program will be able to"¦

1. SEARCH AND SYNTHESIZE literature to integrate homeland security principles into disciplines and professional fields. 
2. INTEGRATE the use of disciplinary methods, techniques, and knowledge to solve practical problems.
3. IDENTIFY AND ASSESS potential threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences in a context from local to global environments.
4. EVALUATE scientific evidence and best practice to inform and improve real-world decisions.
5. PRACTICE ethics and integrity as a foundation for analytical debate and conclusion.
6. APPLY leadership skills and principles to produce and act on information in a collaborative setting.
7. COMMUNICATE the major issues of their discipline effectively to a diverse community of the Homeland Security Enterprise.