Ashland University officials signed an agreement last month with the Wright State Applied Research Corporation that will allow AU juniors and seniors to complete semester long internships with the corporation.

The agreement was a renewal of a former partnership in 2013 with the Advanced Technical Intelligence Center which is now run by WSARC.

Students have the option of pursuing two tracks for the internship. They can either apply for being an intelligence analyst or opt to be a cyber security analyst.

Dr. Cindy Moseman, Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the director of the AU Intelligence Program, talked about just what made this program so special and unique.

“What is unique about this program is they potentially offer students top secret security clearance,” Moseman said. “No analyst training program in the United States offers this unique opportunity.”

While there is the potential for applicants to gain top secret security clearance, it is no guarantee.

Potential candidates first must be a U.S. citizen with no prior records before even beginning the process to apply.

“It’s a daunting process,” Moseman said. “I’ve seen the application and the process is amazingly long, but students who have undergone the internship said that it was phenomenal and well worth it.”

Students then have to undergo a series of extremely thorough background checks to ensure that they can be trusted with such important information.

“They will have information to things that they don’t want shared with other governments,” Moseman said. “They want to make sure they are very stringent in who they give that clearance to.”

The internships are open to any major, due to the demand of so many specialized positions that need to be filled in the field.
“We’ve had accountant, criminal justice, political science, psychology and history majors all go through the program,” Moseman said. “They’re looking for a wide variety of people because there’s so many different positions and companies that need intelligence and cyber security analysts.”

While the internships offer the potential for experience in the field and security clearance, they come at a cost. The internships are not paid for and require the students to pay for expenses.

Even though the experience comes at a cost, it opened the door for many opportunities to prior AU students, Moseman said.
“For current AU students that want to do the internship, you can use your financial aid to help cover the expense,” Moseman said. “Many students from the program are recruited into job positions or get jobs almost immediately afterwards.”

If students are pursuing the intelligence analyst track, they can expect their experience from the internship to be split up into two parts.

For the first ten weeks, students will learn from highly esteemed teachers and experts in the field. The remaining weeks are dedicated to a hands-on project in the field, Moseman said.

Ashland has had a huge amount of success when it comes to the return on the internships.

All students who have been accepted into the program from AU in the past were granted top secret security clearance.

Two recent graduates of AU that went through the program now have jobs being a contractor for the FBI and working at the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

AU alumni and psychology major, Nick Slinger, experienced the benefits of the program first hand when he got the internship with the help of Moseman back in the summer of 2016.

One of the former projects that he worked on during his time in the program involved helping the Dayton Police shut down a gang.
“Through social media and software programs, they were able to locate this gang and help the police shut them down,” Moseman said. “Nick and everyone involved made a difference.”

After he had graduated, he was offered a job as a federal contractor with the FBI.

“Nick told me after the experience that anyone that goes through the internship will be offered a job,” Moseman said. “He said it was just so fascinating to hear from amazing experts in the field.”

For Slinger and others, the partnership has helped to provide a whole new way of thinking.

“The whole attitude of being in intelligence and have secure information is a different way of thinking,” Moseman said. “It’s a great opportunity for students wanting to pursue those tracks.”

Current AU students wishing to apply for the WSARC internship can apply at any time.

Those who are interested in the internship for the summer should contact Moseman right away.