The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has received a $750,000 grant to advance workforce development initiatives in cybersecurity.
UA Little Rock is among 14 institutions awarded nearly $26 million in training grants in December. These funds were announced by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Arkansas Division of Higher Education Commissioner Ken Warden, and Chief Workforce Officer Mike Rogers as part of the Higher Industry Readiness through Educational Development (HIRED) Program. The program, funded by the Workforce Initiative Act of 2015, aims to bolster Arkansas’s workforce in key industries.
The grant will support several workforce initiatives led by UA Little Rock’s cybersecurity, computer science, and information technology faculty. These include the development of two new certificates of proficiency in artificial intelligence and software engineering, expanding the university’s range of specialized training options.
Additionally, the funding will enhance the Certificate of Proficiency in Cyber-Informed Engineering by integrating it into the Cyber Learning Network. This consortium of seven University of Arkansas System campuses already offers a Certificate of Proficiency in Cybersecurity Fundamentals. The first course in the Cyber-Informed Engineering program, Industrial System Security, is scheduled for launch in Fall 2025.
The grant will also enable Virtual Arkansas to adapt UA Little Rock’s Cybersecurity 1 course for concurrent enrollment, which will allow qualified high school teachers to teach the course to Arkansas high school students. Teachers who have completed UA Little Rock’s National Cybersecurity Teaching Academy (NCTA) will be eligible to teach these classes, having earned a graduate certificate in cybersecurity education and 18 credit hours in graduate-level education. UA Little Rock aims to launch these concurrent enrollment classes by Fall 2025.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock release on Newswise
