The Cyber Fellows Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is cracking the code for growing a corps of educators to teach cybersecurity.  

Thomas. W. “Tony” Brown III is the principal investigator of the Cyber Fellows project at Forsyth Tech.

Cyber Fellows Principal Investigator Thomas “Tony” W. Brown III explained that the ATE grant awarded by the National Science Foundation in 2021 has been a catalyst for the college to increase its adjunct cybersecurity faculty from six in fall 2021 to 13 in fall 2023. Seven of the 13 instructors were women, and six of the 13 were individuals from racial and ethnic populations historically underrepresented in cybersecurity.

“We were very fortunate to get this grant, and they [the National Science Foundation] essentially gave us everything that we asked for,” Brown said. In addition to leading the Cyber Fellows project, Brown is department chair of Forsyth Tech’s Davis iTec Cybersecurity Center and program coordinator for network management at the North Carolina college.

The ATE grant covers the tuition and related costs for middle school and high school educators to take four cybersecurity courses at Forsyth Tech and a two-week boot camp to prepare for the CompTIA Security+ exam. The grant also covers the fee for the exam, which is the current industry standard for entry-level cybersecurity roles.

Educators who complete the four-course curriculum for Cyber Fellows earn Forsyth Tech’s Information Technology (IT)-Cybersecurity certificate and receive a $250 stipend; those who take the industry exam receive another $250 stipend. The Cyber Fellows also receive travel support to attend one professional conference.

Victoria Ferrell, who was in the first cohort of six Cyber Fellows in 2021, said she was “blown away” by the incentives when she heard Brown’s recruitment pitch to the staff at a GenCyber summer program where she was working. “It kept getting better and better,” she said of the list of benefits.

After more than two decades as a high school career and technical education teacher Ferrell zipped through the required cybersecurity courses at Forsyth Tech and became an adjunct instructor in fall 2022. When the program coordinator position for the department opened, she applied for it and was hired by the college. She is now a co-principal investigator of the Cyber Fellows grant.  

Brown and Ferrell were interviewed via Zoom for this ATE Impacts Blog post. Their article “K-12 Educational Cybersecurity Scaling Program Designed to Meet Industry Needs” in the Journal of Advanced Technological Education (J ATE)  explains the project’s effort to equip educators “to cultivate a future generation of cybersecurity professionals,” bridge the cybersecurity talent gap, and foster diversity.

Brown and Ferrell were among the 11 teams of community college educators who participated in J ATE Connect, which provided coaches to community college educators who had not previously written and submitted manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals. 

Outcomes Data

The Cyber Fellows project has increased the number and diversity of cybersecurity educators, students, and technicians.

So far 34 secondary school educators have completed the one-year, four-course certificate program. Two have reported that they have taken and passed the industry exam. Seven of the 14 Forsyth adjuncts teaching online cybersecurity courses in fall 2024 completed the Cyber Fellows program. Fifteen educators from across North Carolina have signed up to be in the fourth cohort of Cyber Fellows that will begin taking courses this fall.

The four courses and the exam that the career and technical education teachers who participate in Cyber Fellows take and the IT-Cybersecurity certificate they earn are the same courses and credential that Forsyth Tech cybersecurity students take at the beginning of their associate degree programs.

Brown pointed out that while not every Cyber Fellow has become a community college adjunct instructor, the four courses give them the tools to add cybersecurity information to the high school or middle school courses they teach. He hopes that eventually the Cyber Fellows will influence more high school students to dual enroll in Forsyth Tech’s cybersecurity program.

Cybersecurity Enrollment Grows

So far the growth in cybersecurity enrollments at Forsyth Tech has been fueled by adult students, and the expansion of the adjunct faculty corps has helped the college meet demand from recent high school graduates, career switchers, and IT employees who want to add cybersecurity skills.

Brown said, “We've had students come in for cybersecurity and go back for the networking piece. Or they come in for system security, and then they go back for cybersecurity to get that. They started with the hardware piece. Then they come back for the software piece, and we've had networking students come in. They finish networking and then they go into cybersecurity.... We've also had computer programmers come back into cybersecurity, and we've had technical support and services [personnel] come back and do cybersecurity.”

In 2021, 163 people enrolled in Forsyth Tech’s cybersecurity and systems security courses. In 2022, the program had 193 students. In 2023 it had 275. In early August, 309 individuals had enrolled in Forsyth Tech’s cybersecurity courses for fall 2024.

Participation Expands Among Diverse Populations

Victoria Ferrell was in the first cohort of Cyber Fellows. She is now a co-principal investigator of the project.

The goals of the Cyber Fellows project include not only growing enrollment, but “to add in some more diversity,” Brown said, noting that cybersecurity has historically been dominated by white males.

In 2021, Forsyth Tech’s cybersecurity program had 49 female students and 75 students from racial and ethnic minorities. In 2022, there were 58 female students and 122 students from racial and ethnic minorities. In 2023, there were 73 female students and 140 from racial and ethnic minorities.

“It is a very, very big, diverse group of students that we have, whether it be Black, White, Hispanic ... Those are the three main ethnicities that we have in our program,” Brown said.

Recruitment Efforts & Alumni Career Paths

To make diverse student populations aware of cybersecurity careers and Forsyth Tech’s associate degree program, Brown, who is a Black man, and Ferrell, who is a White woman, have participated in outreach efforts at 18 high schools in the Piedmont Triad region between Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem.  

Their student recruitment efforts have benefited from the synergy of other federal and state grants that Forsyth Tech has to recruit students and to help them persist in the cybersecurity software program and systems security hardware programs.

For instance, Forsyth’s IT faculty members collaborate with Winston-Salem State University on a Gear Up project that brings middle school and high students to campus for hands-on experiences with various technologies. The college also participates in the CyberCorps®: Scholarships for Service, a U.S. government program that provides significant grants to students pursuing bachelor’s and advanced degrees, and in the Crosby Scholars, a regional program that helps adolescents prepare for college.

The college also hosts an array of cybersecurity-focused summer camps, and offers programs to recruit women, African American men, and Hispanic men, and help them persist in college.    

Brown said graduates of Forsyth Tech’s cybersecurity program have been hired for entry-level positions as junior analysts, incident response handlers, IT analysts, help desk staff, and security analysts.

After alumni gain on-the-job experience, they qualify for compliance roles and as penetration testers.