Dive Brief:
- Colleges and universities have struggled to fill terrorism studies programs, which post-9/11 students seem to clamor for, with qualified experts who can teach the topics.
- WGBH reports some academics believe the best experts must speak Arabic and have living experience in the Middle East, but those people are few and far between — and because they’re in such high demand, they’re expensive to recruit.
- Many colleges have hired less-qualified faculty to fill demand with available talent, but one critic of this approach says schools should stay away from "the pop culture production of terrorism."
Dive Insight:
Colleges and universities are forced to adapt to changing demands in academic programs all the time. Widespread discussion of the skills gap for computer scientists, for example, has created a booming market for coding bootcamps, which prepare students for entry-level work in software development and related fields. Some colleges have responded by partnering with coding bootcamps to offer the short-term, intensive training opportunities students seem to want.
The relative scarcity of terrorism studies experts is also not unlike the relative scarcity of faculty of color in academia, who are now in high demand on campuses aiming to diversify the teaching ranks along with their student populations. Complications in both cases include training a pipeline, and results take time.