• Prioritizing the subjects covered in undergraduate and graduate courses for security professionals
• Executive training needs and interest in graduate programs offered through satellite technologies and on-campus course work
• Security managers' hiring preferences

• Industrial/manufacturing (9.6%)
• Health care (7.9%)
• Banking and finance (6.4%)
• Government (6.4%)
• Utility/energy (6.4%)
• Retail (6.2%)
• Educational institutions (4.4%)
• Research and development (4.1%)

Security managers who responded were generally near the top of their fields. Fortune 1000 companies employed 40% of them, 45% were the highest ranking security executives in their companies, and 28% worked with government classified materials. Three-quarters of the managers were employed by companies with security department budgets ranging from 250,000 to over 2 million dollars. Nearly half the respondents had 20 or more security employees. (See figures 1 and 2.)

As shown in Figure 1, 24% of the respondents' companies had security department budgets of less than $250,000; 31% had budgets in the range of $250,000 to $1 million; 23% had budgets from $1,000,000 to $2,500,000; and 22% had budgets of more than $2,500,000.

Figure 1
SECURITY DEPARTMENT BUDGETS
 

Figure 2
SECURITY EMPLOYEES MANAGED BY RESPONDENTS

Figure 2 illustrates the breakdown in the number of security employees for which respondents were responsible. Fifteen percent of respondents had more than 100 security employees; 33% had 20-99 employees; and 52% had fewer than 20 employees.
 

MAKING COLLEGE COURSE WORK RELEVANT TO SECURITY PROFESSIONALS
Security managers were asked to rank the most important college course work for future security professionals. Out of a total of 100 topics relevant to security professionals, eleven main subject areas were identified and ranked in importance. Based on a ranking system where 5=greatest importance and 0=least importance, Table 1 indicates the significance of these eleven subject areas at the bachelors' and masters' levels.
 

Table 1
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Mean Score

TOPICAL AREAS	BACHELORS N = 999		MASTERS N = 765
	Mean Score	Rank	Mean Score	Rank
Security/Ethics	4.0	1	3.4	2
Personnel Security	3.8	2	3.0	5
Business Skills	3.7	3	3.5	1
Communications	3.7	3	3.3	3
Safety and Physical Security	3.7	3	3.1	4
Computer/EDP	3.5	4	3.1	4
Intellectual Property/Information Security	3.4	5	3.0	5
Business Processes	3.3	6	3.1	4
National Security	3.3	6	2.9	6
Criminal Justice	3.0	7	2.4	8
Person/Organization/Nation	3.0	7	2.7	7

 

As Table 1 suggests, differences were found at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the importance of specific topical areas. The most important areas at the bachelors level were: security/ethics, personnel security, safety and physical security, business skills, and communications. At the masters level, business skills, security/ethics, and communications were ranked highest in importance.
 

TRAINING AND EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF SECURITY EXECUTIVES
Security managers were questioned about their own interest in 3 to 5 day academically oriented seminars focused on management issues and skill development. A ranking of their areas of interest is shown in Table 2.
 

Table 2
EMERGING EXECUTIVE TRAINING NEEDS

TRAINING NEEDS	RANK	MEAN SCORE (N = 1334)
Total Quality Management applied to the security setting	1	3.5
Marketing security within the corporation	1	3.5
New technologies for protecting security in  the industrial setting	2	3.4
Computer and telecommunications security	2	3.4
Effective organizational design and  management development	2	3.4
Meeting management skills	3	3.3
Crisis management models - case studies	3	3.3
Presentation and marketing skills	4	3.2
Facilitator and intervention management skills	5	3.1
Computer security training and law - case studies	6	3.0
Finance and tax laws regarding security  protection for the non-financial manager	7	2.5
International criminal justice system overview	8	2.1

 

The areas of highest interest in Table 2 were:

• TQM,
• marketing security within corporations;
• new industrial security technologies,
• computer and telecommunications security, and
• organizational design and management.

PROJECTED SECURITY HIRING PREFERENCES
Finally, the future hiring preferences of security managers were assessed. Candidates with combined degrees (i.e., criminal justice/security/business) were the most highly sought after. See Table 3 for rankings of bachelors' and masters' areas of study.
 

Table 3
SECURITY HIRING PREFERENCES
(N = 1360)

PREFERRED AREA OF STUDY	BACHELORS		MASTERS
	Mean Score	Rank	Mean Score	Rank
Criminal Justice/Security/Business	3.7	1	2.5	1
Criminal Justice/Security	3.5	2	2.3	2
Business/Security	3.3	3	2.3	2
Business	2.8	4	1.9	4
Computer Science and Security	2.6	5	2.2*	3
Computer Science	2.5	6	1.7	5

 * Also includes background in business
N = 1360 Observations
 

As Table 3 shows, candidates for employment with the combined major of criminal justice/security/business were preferred at both the bachelors and masters levels. The next highest ranking major for both was also a combined major-criminal justice/security. The rankings of hiring preferences at the bachelors and masters levels diverge somewhat in the other areas of study listed.
 

For more information on the results of this survey, contact the School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, 560 Baker Hall, East Lansing, Michigan 48824-1118.