Ethan Coats is an assistant professor of cybersecurity at BCTC working on his doctorate at Morehead State University. He has
Lauren Campbell, Associate Professor of Business Administration and Assistant Dean of Business, Computers and Information Systems at BCTC, has long been an influential figure at BCTC. While a student at BCTC, she was elected Student Government Association President and was a member of Phi Theta Kappa and the International Student Association. She was also on the team that voted to change the name of Lexington Community College to Bluegrass Community & Technical College. She worked for VisitLEX as a project manager for seven years before joining BCTC as an educator in 2015, and was selected for the Innovative Educator Academy through KCTCS.
While working with Bluegrass Community & Technical College's community professional partners and the Institutional Planning, Research, and Effectiveness office, BCTC leaders identified a need for increased cybersecurity professionals. As the influence and necessity of digital spaces increases so too does the need to secure these spaces. This project aims to research and evaluate recruitment methods for cybersecurity education and to determine it's broader inadequacies in every community. This research will be used to increase the amount of cybersecurity professionals and cybersecurity education available for the benefit of the local area and national security at large.
Past research has determined that many people decide on a career path while in high school. Our aim is to use this to determine how to reach those students that could potentially be interested in a cybersecurity profession, but do not currently have knowledge of the career paths available to them. By increasing our outreach efforts and educating their school networks we have the opportunity to increase the awareness of options available to them within this field.
