CIVE.5415 Hazardous Materials Transportation (3cr)
Hazmat transportation, safety and security are a convergence of operations, policies and regulation, and planning and design. This course will address the multimodal operations, vessels, technologies, packaging and placarding involved in the safe and secure transportation of hazmat. Safety and security rules, regulations, emergency preparedness and response, industry initiatives and programs, and U.S. government agencies governing hazmat transportation will be included, as well as international impacts on hazmat transportation safety and security.
CRIM.5700 Crisis and Emergency Management (3cr)
This course will provide a broad introduction to the critical challenges of disaster management. The course will address past and present strategies for reducing and responding to hazards posed by both manmade and natural disasters. Emphasis will be placed on what we can learn from the history of disasters, and on how we can apply those lessons to the management of future events.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.5710 Domestic Terrorism and Violent Extremism (3cr)
This course examines the evolution and contemporary nature of domestic terrorist threats and violent extremist movements that the U.S. has confronted over the past several decades. Special attention is focused on right-wing militias, religious extremists, racial supremacist/hate groups, and extreme environmental and animal rights groups. Students will also learn about political and socioeconomic factors that enable a terrorist group's ideological resonance, prison radicalization, the role of the Internet in mobilizing individuals toward violent behavior, and the legal and criminal justice dimensions of responses to terrorism.
CRIM.5720 Comparative Terrorism and Counterterrorism (3cr)
This course examines a broad spectrum of terrorist groups and counterterrorism responses in over a dozen countries, including Colombia, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Northern Ireland/UK, Pakistan, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Yemen. This comparative analysis will help students develop and understanding of patterns and trends within political violence (including radicalization, tactics, financing, targeting behavior, malevolent creativity, disengagement and de-radicalization) and the many different policies and strategies adopted by governments in response to terrorist threat.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.5730 Threat Assessment and Risk Management (3cr)
The goal of this course is to enhance understanding and increase expertise regarding risk management and the impact of terrorism on economic and other critical infrastructures in the United States. The course will provide the tools (operational and statistical) and technology required to mitigate these risks. A second purpose of the course is to examine and critically discuss current and future methods to create best practices in security management.
CRIM.5740 Overview of Homeland Security (3cr)
The U.S. has embraced the homeland security monolith without a full understanding of what it encompasses. This course provides a comprehensive overview of homeland security and defense as undertaken in the United States since 9/11. The course critically examines the current body of knowledge with a specific focus on understanding security threats, sources, and reasons for these threats. The roles of the key players at the federal, state and local levels, the policies and procedures enacted since 9/11, and the homeland security system in practice are also examined.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.5750 Contemporary Security Studies (3cr)
This course examines the complex nature of key domestic and international security threats and responses. Topics include terrorism and insurgency, transnational organized crime, WMD proliferation, cyber-security, intelligence, national and homeland security strategies, critical infrastructure protection, and theories of international security.
CRIM.5780 Intelligence Analysis Policy and Practice (3cr)
Students will examine the tradecraft of intelligence collection and analysis from various perspectives. Topics will include strategies, tactics, legal and ethical implications, sources, means, methods, limitations, covert action, methods of analysis, and case studies of prominent intelligence successes and failures in the last half century.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.5790 Critical Infrastructure Protection and Resilience (3cr)
This course will develop an in-depth understanding of the 16 Critical Infrastructure sectors in the U.S.; federal, state and local government regulations and strategies to ensure resilience; the planning, processes and physical, operational and systems measures to protect and harden critical infrastructure; and the interdependency among these sectors and between operations and infrastructure in light of national and homeland security.
CRIM.5880 Strategic Intelligence and Homeland Security (3cr)
Students will examine how the intelligence process supports homeland security planning and operations. Topics will include intelligence collection and analytic tradecraft methods, homeland security intelligence organizations, legal and ethical limitations on intelligence support to homeland security, and case studies of notable homeland security intelligence over the past forty years. The course will also expose students to the wide array of intelligence career opportunities within homeland security.
CRIM.5900 Descriptive & Inferential Statistics (3cr)
This course is a rigorous introduction to statistical inference: probability theory, confidence intervals, and hypothesis tests. The course also covers regression analysis, which is developed in a non-technical way, with an emphasis on interpretation of regression results, using examples from recent research.
CRIM.5910 Research Design (3cr)
Research design is a graduate-level introduction to methodology as used in criminology/criminal justice. The course surveys the research design enterprise and covers a host of issues on the measurement and collection of data, and other procedures that influence whether a research study will lead the investigator to scientifically rigorous information. This course explains various strategies for devising social science studies, compares the relative benefits of various designs, and identifies the tools necessary to conduct studies that will yield data worthy of analysis and interpretation. This material will be valuable for students who will conduct research and administrators who must evaluate the research of others.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.6580 Issues in Computer Crime and Cyber Security (3cr)
This course will examine the history and evolving nature of the relationship between technology, crime, and security, with a particular focus on legitimate and illegitimate Internet commerce, and cyber criminal methodologies and techniques. We will study major issues in cyber security including criminal and state-sponsored hacking; data, intellectual property, and identity theft; financial and personal data security; cyber-terrorism; tools and methods used to exploit computer networks, and strategies to protect against them; and new and emerging technologies. This course will be taught specifically for non-computer science majors, although students with computer science backgrounds are welcome for the experiences that they can bring to the class discussions.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.6640 Weapons of Mass Destruction (3cr)
This course explores the threats that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) pose to the U.S. and its interests along with the strategies to meet those threats. The course will examine the technical aspects, history, and contemporary threat of each category of weapon Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear followed by a critical analysis of U.S. and global efforts to limit access to these weapons and prohibit their production, proliferation and use. The course will also review some aspects of WMD attack response, recovery, and mitigation.
CRIM.6660 Terrorism Networks (3cr)
This course will explore the dynamics of terrorist networks and will equip students with an understanding of the drivers of terrorist network formation, development and disintegration. The course will also provide students with knowledge and understanding of how, why and when networks expand, affiliate, and occasionally splinter. And finally, students will be guided through the applicability of network theory and analysis to the design of hypothetical operational responses and contingency planning surrounding the disruption or containment of terrorist networks.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.6680 Scientific & Technological Dimensions of National Security (3cr)
In this required course for the MS in Security Studies program, students will take this course to learn all about the efforts in the public and private sector to design new sensors, scanner, and the general role of science and technology in homeland and national security.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.6990 Security Studies Capstone Research Paper (3cr)
This course represents the culminating capstone experience for students in the MA in Security Studies program at UMass Lowell. Incorporating the tools learned in CRIM.5900, Research Design and Methods, students are required to design a research question, gather and analyze information, and write a Masters level research paper of at least 50 pages on a topic of their choosing related to security studies. Students will provide drafts of their paper to their faculty supervisor periodically during the semester, and the final version will be submitted for grading on the basis of quality research and writing.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions
CRIM.7100 Advanced Research in Terrorism (3cr)
This course focuses on describing and understanding how research and evidence-based analysis helps us to understand, explain and predict changes in terrorist behavior. The course makes use of case studies to illustrate quantitative and qualitative research methods, and to approach research questions on terrorism from multiple levels of analysis. The course will also examine successful examples of interdisciplinary research and will help students navigate the pathway from theoretically informed research on terrorism to policy and practitioner-relevant counter-terrorism.
Requirements:
PhD Students only, or Instructor Permission.
ENVS.5810 Understanding Massachusetts Contingency Plan (3cr)
The Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP) is a body of regulations designed to streamline and accelerate the assessment and cleanup of releases of oil and hazardous materials to the environment. This course serves as an introduction to the MCP and will explore the intent and use of key aspects of this working document. Though primarily a regulatory course, some topics to be covered are technical by nature. Prerequisites: None. Though not required, some familiarity with relevant environmental science and/or engineering principles is desirable.
Requirements:
CSCE Graduate Restrictions