Intelligence Studies Students Study Abroad in the UK

Oxford-Students from Ole Miss and St. Cloud State University traveled to the United Kingdom to learn more about intelligence and security usage in the world.

“Intelligence and Criminology in the UK” is a month long trip running from July 19 until August 13.

“It’s a study abroad where we’re working with St. Cloud State University out of Minnesota,” said Carl Jenson, director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at Ole Miss. “A former colleague of mine in the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit organized this.”

Eight students from Ole Miss will tour parts of England and Scotland on a trip designed primarily to learn. The students will also get to sightsee at famous British sites and take part in educational tours such as the FBI attaché and the Defense Intelligence Agency office in London.

The students will take three courses during the trip. One course, “Critical Issues in Intelligence and Law Enforcement,” devotes time to subjects which the entire intelligence community is focusing in on.

“Today, if you look at things the intelligence community is interested in, they care about things like pandemics,” Jensen said. “They care about things like economics. They care about things like cyber issues. They care about failing states. So it’s a huge wide ranging of issues.”

The students will be taking is “Criminal Profiling.” Both Jensen and Doctor John Campbell from St. Cloud State will teach the course. The third course being taught is “Futures Research and Intelligence Analytics.” This class will focus on where the intelligence field is headed in the future.

According to Melissa Graves, project coordinator at the CISS, students will tour places such as Scotland Yard, the British Parliament building and Old Bailey, a courthouse in London from the medieval times.

“It’s set in London, in York. We’ll go to Dalkeith, Scotland and the Isle of Skye,” said Graves. “And we end the program at Alnwick Castle, so it’ll be fun.”

Graves said that the study abroad group will spend their last two weeks at Alnwick Castle which was used as Hogwarts in the “Harry Potter” movies.

Maury Breazeale, study abroad advisor at Ole Miss, said that this trip is not the typical study abroad trip. “First, who’s leading it. It’s a couple of ex-FBI agents. Second, the fact they get to live in Alnwick Castle for two weeks. Third, the number of interesting places they’re getting to visit. It’s amazing.”

For more information on the CISS, click here.