When some students think of spies, intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency, they think of media-driven images such as Tom Cruise's self-destructing sunglasses in "Mission: Impossible II," satellite reconnaissance in "Patriot Games" and James Bond-esque high-tech gadgets straight out of the Spy Museum.
But what those students don't know is that people living the intelligence lifestyle may be sitting next to them in class.
Until late January, the CIA's post-9/11 ventures into the classrooms of American universities have escaped general notice, according to anthropologist Dr. David Price of St. Martins College in Olympia, Wash.
Price specializes in the study of intelligence and national security. His latest research has led him to call public attention to the growing CIA presence at U.S. universities.
In December 2003, President George W. Bush signed the Intelligence Authorization Act for the fiscal year of 2004 into law. This bill included Section 318, which designated $4 million for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program.
Named after the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), the scholars program is an ROTC-like pilot program intended to recruit and train graduate students for futures in the CIA or other U.S. government intelligence agencies.
Students interested in the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program must be U.S. citizens who are enrolled in full-time graduate programs. Other requirements include the completion of a summer internship with a U.S. intelligence agency such as the CIA or National Security Agency, and the same background check conducted for full-time CIA employees.
The intelligence program's scholars receive financial awards of up to $25,000 per year, and participate in exclusive and mandatory meetings with their fellow program scholars and mentors from the sponsoring intelligence agencies.
Price said he believes that the clandestine nature of the most recent CIA involvement on university campuses may be a danger to the integrity of the academic community.
"I am not opposed to improved intelligence, I am opposed to increased secrecy on campus," Price told The Eagle. "Secrecy has no place in university classrooms. A fundamental principle of university educational environments is that professors and students can challenge each other in open ways."
Beginning in the early 1990s, the federal government started subsidizing the graduate educations of intelligence trainees through the National Security Education Program. The program offered graduate students up to $40,000 per year to master languages considered crucial in the intelligence field, including Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian and Russian.
Following the completion of their master's degrees, the students are required to pursue a career in government intelligence in return for the scholarship.
The National Security Education Program came under public scrutiny by members of the academic community concerned with the fading distinction between academia and state interests. Now, Price directs attention to the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program as a similar threat.
"We need to openly talk about what [the Pat Roberts program] and increased secrecy does to the openness we need in our classrooms," he said. "Campuses should teach well-documented history classes on the history of U.S. intelligence agencies."
After one and a half decades of research on the Freedom of Information Act, Price was quoted on the progressive Web site freepress.org that many reports from students involved in secret intelligence training exposed the "deviant" political views of their professors. These Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program students are also secretly compiling dossiers on their professors and fellow students, Price said.
Although the test phase of the intelligence-scholars program involves fewer than 150 participants per year, Price said the academic community should remain vigilant against covert government operations in the classroom.
Some AU students agreed.
"National security issues aside, that every student in every university must be publicly accountable for his reasons for obtaining an education and his post-graduate plans seems like a pretty clear-cut invasion of privacy," said AU senior Alex Behrman.
Jane Lee, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs, said the Pat Roberts program would induce counterproductive censorship in the classrooms.
"If students and professors can't be honest in a learning environment, then can it truly be called a learning environment?" Lee questioned.
For more information on the program, applications can be found on nsa.gov, cia.gov and intelligencecareers.com.
