My Dissertation “The National Security Education Program and Its Service Requirement” is Now Available Online

Loyola University of Chicago eCommons made my dissertation available for download yesterday and should you have interest in the National Security Education Program you may find interest in my dissertation.  The suggested citation and link follow:

Comp, David J., “The National Security Education Program and Its Service Requirement: An Exploratory Study of What Areas of Government and for What Duration National Security Education Program Recipients Have Worked” (2013).Dissertations. Paper 509. http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/509

A Note of Thanks to Everyone Who Helped Me with my Dissertation

As this blog posts here on IHEC Blog I am participating in commencement at Loyola University Chicago and will receive my Doctorate in Cultural and Educational Policy Studies, Comparative and International Education.  It was a long nine years to complete this degree and there are many to thank and I wish to specifically thank everyone who helped me with my dissertation and those acknowledgements follow:

THE NATIONAL SECURITY EDUCATION PROGRAM AND ITS SERVICE REQUIREMENT:  AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF WHAT AREAS OF GOVERNMENT AND FOR WHAT DURATION NATIONAL SECURITY EDUCATION PROGRAM RECIPIENTS HAVE WORKED

I would like to acknowledge everyone who has assisted me throughout my doctoral studies over the years.  I would first like to acknowledge my adviser, Dr. Noah Sobe, for agreeing to serve as my adviser and for his patience and feedback during the many courses I took with him and as I completed my dissertation.  Additionally, I would like to thank Dr. Robert Roemer and Dr. David Ensminger for agreeing to serve on my dissertation committee.  I truly appreciate all of their time and assistance as I navigated this process!

A very special thanks is due to my friend and colleague Dr. Kevin Gormley at the National Security Education Program for his encouragement dating back to a lunch meeting in Los Angeles in 2009 to our phone conversations and e-mail communications throughout 2010 and 2011 about my project.  This dissertation would not have been possible without Kevin’s support and assistance!  I also wish to thank the many staff members at the National Security Education Program including Dr. Michael Nugent, Judy Collier, Roy Savoy, Katie Davis, Alison Patz, and Stuart Karaffa for their approval of my project, their time in reviewing my survey instrument and providing valuable feedback at our meeting back in November 2010 and their assistance in launching my survey instrument.  I also wish to thank Genie Lomize, Treasurer of the Boren Forum, and Dr. Philip Lyon, Former Executive Director of the Boren Forum, for their support of my dissertation and for Dr. Lyon’s continued support and time to meet at the National Security Education Program Office in November 2010 to review and provide feedback on my survey instrument.  A note of thanks is also due to Christopher Powers, Director of the Boren Awards for International Study at the Institute of International Education for answering my e-mail questions about historical program dates.  I hope that the National Security Education Program, the Boren Awards for International Study and the Boren Forum will find some value in the results of my dissertation.

I also want to thank all of the National Security Education Program Alumni (Boren Scholars and Boren Fellows) who took time out of their busy schedules to complete my survey instrument!

Additional gratitude is offered to many colleagues in the field of international education who provided resources and feedback as I worked on my dissertation.  This list of individuals includes the following:  Dr. Gary Rhodes and Dr. Miloni Gandhi from the Center for Global Education at the University of California, Los Angeles for taking time out of their busy schedules to review and provide feedback on my dissertation proposal and survey instrument; Mickey Slind for sending me her personal collection of primary documents related to the early years of the National Security Education Program (they will always have a home in Bury Book International Education Library & Archive); Elizabeth Mandeville for sending me a valuable  primary document pertaining to the early years of the National Security Education program; Stephanie Kirmer for taking the time out of her schedule to meet with me and provide a statistics tutorial and for lending me one of her publications as I worked on the data analysis portion of my dissertation; Kyle Flynn for helping me better understand the statistical analysis of my results; and, Dr. Louis Berends for his friendship and support throughout our studies and time at Loyola University Chicago and beyond.

Further acknowledgement and thanks is due to my supervisor Christine Gramhofer at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.  Her support for time off to work to research and write my dissertation was truly helpful and greatly appreciated!

Thank you to my mother Vicky and Sam, father Jim and Mary Ellen, and my mother and father-in-law Therese y Don Carlos for their encouragement and continued support over the years and their enthusiasm as I neared my goal.

Finally, but most importantly, I wish to thank my wife Ana and children Gabriela, Andrés y Lucas for their patience, assistance, support and faith in me.  The nights away from the family while attending classes and the days and nights away from them while writing my comprehensive exams and, in particular, this dissertation were truly difficult.

I could not have completed my research without the support of all these wonderful people!

ABSTRACT - "The National Security Education Program and its Service Requirement: An Exploratory Study of what Areas of Government and for What Duration National Security Education Program Recipients Have Worked" a Dissertation by David Comp, 2013

If you are interested in reading my dissertation and are unable to locate it electronically then please feel free to e-mail me and I will send it to you as an e-mail attachment.

The National Security Education Program celebrates 20 years

On September 8, 2011 the National Security Education Program (NSEP) celebrated 20 years in Washington, D.C. with the author of the 1991 legislation Senator David L. Boren, currently President of the University of Oklahoma, in attendance.  At the celebration, Senator Boren and Dr. Clifford Stanley, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, addressed the Boren Fellows, Scholars, members of the NSEP Board as well as other lucky international educators and stakeholders in attendance.  

Following is an excellent video (11:12) of interview snippets with Senator Boren, Under Secretary Stanley, former Boren Scholars and Fellows as well as those in the federal government who employ Boren Scholars and Fellows.  

You can learn more about the Boren Awards for International Study at http://www.borenawards.org/ and the National Security Education Program at http://nsep.gov/.


Two days prior to this 20th anniversary celebration, on September 6, 2011, I started a new job at Chicago Booth (The Business School at The University of Chicago) as the Associate Director for International Programs.  I am very excited and fortunate to have landed this new position but I must admit I will miss much of my previous work as the Senior Adviser for International Initiatives in The College and as Assistant Director in The Office of International Affairs, both at The University of Chicago.  In particular, for the past eleven years I served as the Fulbright Program Adviser for the U.S. Student Program and as the Campus Representative for the Boren Awards for International Study/NSEP and it is the advising of prospective applicants to both of these Fellowship/Scholarship competitions that I will truly miss.  I must confess that my favorite group to work with has been the Boren/NSEP applicants as this is a small, select and focused group of young women and men.  I like the Boren /NSEP program so much that I am focusing my dissertation research on the service requirement component of the program.  The early history of the program is very fascinating, on many levels, and one that all students of international education should be familiar with (in my opinion) and that history will also be part of my dissertation.  I got caught up in an end of summer slump on the dissertation front and this 20 year celebration of the NSEP has certainly been a motivator for me!  More on all of that at at a later time...

An Address by David L. Boren on Global Education in the 21st Century: A National Imperative

Back on October 12, 2010, current University of Oklahoma President (and former U.S. Senator and Rhodes Scholar) David L. Boren delivered an address to a Washington, D.C. audience entitled “Global Education in the 21^st Century: A National Imperative”. The event was sponsored by the Institute of International Education, the National Security Education Program and the Language Flagship Group. For more specifics on this speech including a link to pictures of the event, a link to more video and more information about Senator Boren please visit the Boren Awards for International Study website at http://www.borenawards.org/videos.html.

I have embedded parts I and II of Senator Boren’s address here on IHEC Blog for your viewing pleasure:

Following are past IHEC Blog posts related to David L. Boren and the National Security Education Program:

Rep. Dan Boren [D.OK] on the House Floor Speaking on the New NSEP African Language Initiative

Boren Awards – Breaking the Language Barrier

Searching for Literature and Documents from the Very Early Days of the National Security Education Program (NSEP) [related to my dissertation]

Rep. Dan Boren [D. OK] on the House Floor Speaking on the New NSEP African Language Initiative

While I was doing some research for my dissertation last night I came across a video on C-Span of Representative Dan Boren [D. OK] speaking on the House floor in support of H.S. 2701 Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010.  The primary focus of Mr. Boren's time on the floor focused on the new NSEP African Languages Intitiative which was very recently announced to the international education community here in the U.S. and to prospective Boren Fellowship applicants (Boren Scholarship applicants are not eligible for this new program).  I have embedded the video below:

In case you have difficulty viewing the video you can view it here.  Additionally, you can read about this new development from Representative Boren's press release last Friday, October 1, 2010.  You can read more about the new NSEP African Language Initiative here.  In case you have difficulty accessing the video I have copied and pasted the transcript of Mr. Boren below:

"Mr. BOREN. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for all the hard work you and the entire staff have done on this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2701, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010. This bill is an excellent product and addresses many critical areas, including those that have previously received little attention. One of the most important provisions in the bill is the commitment to developing foreign language capability, specifically in African languages that have historically been underrepresented in the intelligence community.

The bill creates a pilot program under the National Security Education Program, or the NSEP. It expands the David L. Boren Scholars by requiring the Director of National Intelligence to identify five high-priority African languages for which language education programs do not currently exist. The NSEP would then develop intensive training programs for implementation in both the United States and in countries where the languages are spoken.

Let's not forget that 10 years ago, we didn't anticipate conflicts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the need for Dari, Pashto, and Urdu speakers. When the need arose, we didn't have the capabilities to meet immediate demands, and to this day, we are still playing catch-up. Similarly, we cannot predict from where the next crisis will emerge. But by recognizing the current instability in the Horn of Africa, Sudan, and Congo, we can anticipate crises that may impact U.S. national security interests in the near future. We should be training the linguists and translators in the relevant languages now so that, once again, we are not reactive in our efforts but proactive in our actions. I urge my colleagues to support this bill."


December 7, 2010 Update:  Information about the new pilot African Language Initiative Program now available at http://apps.americancouncils.org/africanlanguages/. Funding is provided by the National Security Education Program (NSEP) and is administered by American Councils for International Education in partnership with participating U.S. domestic and overseas institutions.

Boren Awards - Breaking the Language Barrier

I haven't posted about the focus of my dissertation and won't directly do that until it is finished or close to being finished.  Previous IHEC Blog posts may have alluded to the direction I'm heading with my dissertation.  The following video also provides some insight into my current research interests.





Learn more at http://www.nsep.gov/ and http://www.borenawards.org/.