(1) The university of Colorado at Colorado Springs may partner with other institutions of higher education and a nonprofit organization that supports national, state, and regional cybersecurity initiatives to establish and expand cyber higher education programs and establish needed cyber education and training laboratories. The subject areas of such higher education programs may include, but need not be limited to, courses certified by the national security agency and the United States department of homeland security; a systems engineering approach to the study of cyber network architectures, threats, and defenses; business management; foreign language skills; legal issues; cryptology; technology development; and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics courses.
(2) In furtherance of subsection (1) of this section, the university of Colorado at Colorado Springs, in conjunction with other institutions of higher education and a nonprofit organization, may:
Coordinate with the United States department of homeland security and the nationalsecurity agency to certify cyber courses and curricula;
Coordinate planning for cyber education with appropriate institutions of higher education in Colorado, the United States Army reserve cyber consortium, and appropriate national institutions of higher education that have programs certified by the department of homeland security or the national security agency;
Coordinate with community colleges in the development and transferability of appropriate curriculum and technical certification programs, and provide coordination for the development of elementary and secondary education feeder programs;
Establish a public policy think tank as an academic research center of excellence forgovernment, academic, and industrial communications, conferences, research, and publications; (e) Establish education, including online courses if appropriate, training, and academic symposia for government leaders at all levels;
Establish protocols for coordinating and sharing information with state and federallaw enforcement and intelligence agencies responsible for investigating and collecting information related to cyber-based criminal and national security threats;
Support state and federal law enforcement agencies with their responsibilities to investigate and prosecute threats to and attacks against critical infrastructure; and
Include distributed ledger technologies within its curricula and research and development activities.
(3) The university of Colorado at Colorado Springs shall participate in activities in furtherance of this section only upon the approval of the board of regents of the university of Colorado, if required by the laws and policies of the board of regents.
Source: L. 2016: Entire part added, (HB 16-1453), ch. 189, p. 669, § 1, effective July 1. L. 2018: IP(2), (2)(f), and (2)(g) amended and (2)(h) added, (SB 18-086), ch. 319, p. 1916, § 3, effective May 30.