Nation’s First Community College Secure Software Program Comes to ICC

Danielle Madero, Harbinger
Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015 

With the help of Carnegie Mellon University and local partners, Illinois Central College will become the first community college in the nation to offer an Associates of Applied Science in secure software development degree.

The program was initiated through collaboration among Girish Seshagiri, Chief Technology Officer at ISHPI,  Inc., Julie Howar, Dean of Information Systems at ICC, and companies Illinois Mutual, CEFCU, the German American Chamber of Commerce and Peoria Educational Region for Employment and Career Training.  

Carnegie Mellon, a leading institution in information systems technology, provided the needed courseware scaled to a community college level.  The new curriculum from Carnegie Mellon, along with a German based apprenticeship program in cooperation with local businesses, is the center for this upcoming opportunity.

“We already have an outstanding information systems program,” Howar said. “Carnegie Mellon helped the needed classes and adapted what we already had to create a secure software program.”  

Seshagiri, of ISHPI Inc. an Inc. 5000 company, has followed this concept from the beginning.  

“I have been working with secure software for many years trying deliver defect free software on a predictable cost and schedule… defective software is not secure and is vulnerable to cyber attacks,” Seshagiri said. “I am working to address cyber security issues caused by defective software.” 

For the last two years, Seshagiri has pushed for ICC to be the training focal point of the program and believes that Peoria needs to be the centerpiece for the nation in secure software development.

Seshagiri added, “I approached ICC because of ICC’s excellent computer science program. Julie Howar provided the leadership to adopt Carnegie Mellon University’s software assurance curriculum and created the first-in-the-nation Associate of Applied Science in secure software development degree.” 

Howar and Seshagiri agreed that by incorporating this course of study into an apprenticeship they would be better able to aid middle class workers and place individuals into employment faster. Utilizing the German standard for apprenticeship model will push middle class workers into the industry in as little as 6 months.

“We will be able to put students into jobs faster,” Howar said. “Students will be able to enter the apprenticeship after the first semester.”  

The German model is arranged so that students receive more time in the classroom during the beginning of the program. Towards the end of 2.5 years, students will spend less time in the classroom and more time in the workplace.

Up to 24 students can apply and be accepted into the program, currently 15 are enrolled this fall. In addition to ICC enrollment and acceptance, students participate in a rigorous application process to be accepted into one of eight apprenticeships. According to Howar, the apprenticeship will have its own set of criteria for participation.  Not only will the students have to meet employer requirements for hiring, they will also  need to take the Berger Aptitude Test (B-APT).

Students who are not selected for an apprenticeship can still continue on a standard education track by completing all required courseware and applying for an internship.  In both cases, at the end of 2.5 years, students are required to take a certification test with the International Information Systems Certification Consortium (ISC)2 .

Any students interested in participating or applying to ICC’s Secure Software Development program should contact the department advisors Doug Peterson (309) 694-5296, YoungJu Son (309) 694-8807 and Gwen Chandler (694-5558).