Fairleigh Dickinson University once again got designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense through the academic year 2026. During the process, NSA and a committee of academic peers has validated FDU’s BSCS with Cybersecurity Concentration offered at FDU’s Florham Campus through academic year 2026. At FDU, we have managed to achieve our goals after two years of extensive work on several Program of Study validation project activities involving planning, implementation and coordinating efforts that started in the year of 2019. The scope of the validation project consisted of four domains including program and curriculum enhancements, students’ enrichment, faculty, and support, in addition to the continuous improvement’s domain. Our success story in this program has been materialized in 2021 through securing four NSA Cybersecurity scholarships to our students. We shall continue to pursue continuous improvement and excel in the field of cybersecurity for the information security and safety of our nation. Hence, we are proposing to introduce our success story in obtaining this achievement and what has lead to reach our goals.

Furthermore, in April 2021, FDU was awarded the Expanding Access to Computer Science Education: Professional Learning Hubs grant from the NJ Department of Education to support the creation of a Computer Science Hub at FDU and to provide professional learning opportunities for New Jersey educators and to promote the growth of computer science. The services provided by the CS Hubs will help realize the strategic goals identified in the NJ Computer Science State Plan including Interactive Community Building to Support School Administrators, K-12 Teacher Professional Learning, Web Repository of Tools & Lesson Plans Accessible to All, and Culturally Responsive Teaching Practices.