Norwich University honors Senator Patrick Leahy, Vermont's “Cyber Senator"

Senator Patrick Joseph Leahy is Vermont’s longest-serving U.S. Senator and dean of the state’s congressional delegation. In recognition for his selfless service to our state and its people, Norwich University in proud to honor and recognize him with the naming of the Senator Patrick Leahy School of Cybersecurity and Advanced Computing along with the establishment of the annual Senator Patrick Leahy Cyber Symposium.

As reflected in his letter of congratulations to President Emeritus Richard W. Schneider marking the 200th anniversary of the founding of our university, Senator Leahy noted that Captain Partridge “envisioned a place where future leaders could be trained not just in the military sciences, but also trained to the highest standards of public service, and closely tied to their own communities. Two centuries later, Norwich University still fulfills that dream.”

For over a quarter of a century, Senator Leahy has provided vital resources and connections to Norwich University and its students whose propensity to service before self is rooted in the distinctive citizen-soldier ethos of the University’s founder, Captain Alden Partridge. As a consistent supporter, partner and cheerleader for Norwich, Senator Leahy has been a critical enabler, empowering our university’s vision and advancing our students’ experiential learning and leadership development opportunities beyond the classroom to real world problem solving in the military, government, and the private sector in service to our nation.

Select highlights of Senator Leahy’s twenty-five years of partnership and support of Norwich University and its students, alumni, employees, partners and friends include:

• Beginning in the mid-1990’s, Senator Leahy partnered with Norwich University to build a Army National Guard Readiness and Regional Training Center on the Northfield, Vt. campus to house the Army and Air National Guard Information Operations Schoolhouses. This facility on our campus strengthens the relationship between Norwich and the Vermont Guard providing resources for students to attend school and serve. Norwich generates 19% of the annual recruiting goal for the Vermont National Guard and this facility provides a campus-based home for students to meet their military obligations and attend college.
• Creation of the National Center for the Study of Counter Terrorism and Cyber Crime at Norwich University in the Justice Reauthorization of 2003. Through federally legislative and directed funding in the Special Operations Command and the emerging Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Senator Leahy supported the Center over the next twenty years with more than $60M for cyber security education, training, and applied research which has positioned Norwich University as a leading authority in Cyber Education including the areas of computer security, forensics, network security, and malware analysis.
• In 2002 as Norwich developed its Cyber Education programs, Senator Leahy has been a consistent supporter of the National Security Agency Scholarship for Service program. Norwich has been the rare three-time awardee of funding for the NSA program which has provided over 100 undergraduate students to date with scholarships to pursue a college education in cyber enabling these Norwich graduates to synthesize new concepts and skills acquired to serve the nation in federal and state agencies.
• With his steeped background in national security and defense, Senator Leahy was quick to recognize the potential devastating and catastrophic impact of cyber attacks on the United States. His support of Norwich University Applied Research Institute’s (NUARI) creation of the DECIDE® exercise platform for the finance sector initially, and more recently, for the energy and transportation sectors has facilitated NUARI’s receipt of $34M in contracts from DHS to both build the structure and engage critical infrastructure to train for and practice joint cyber response and defense.
• As a pioneering thought-leader and supporter of the National Cyber Security Preparedness Consortium, Senator Leahy has been instrumental in Norwich University being awarded more than $25M over the past eleven years, to train and educate more than 95,000 first responders and State, Local, Territorial, and Tribal leaders to prepare and respond to cyber events.
• Beginning in 2017, and over the past five years, Senator Leahy supported the creation of the Cyber Security Scholarship program that initially began with a focus on Reserve Forces and then subsequently broadened to traditional scholarship funds and cyber capacity building. Norwich has received approximately $5.5M to support our academic programs in cyber. Soldiers and students traded funds for service to our nation.
• As an anchor partner, Senator Leahy supported the creation of the Department of Defense Senior Military Colleges’ (SMC) Cyber Institutes with Norwich as the lead institution for the six SMCs. In our leadership role, Norwich will execute approximately $7M of these DOD funds on campus which train and develop Cyber Leaders to meet America’s workforce requirements of the future.
• Norwich University will receive $4 million in federal funding to create an artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and quantum computing academic and experiential learning center.
• Additional projects that Senator Leahy has helped to support and fund at Norwich University include energy resilience research for the Army Engineering Research and Development Center ($1.5M), Artic or Cold Regions Microgrid architecture for Cold Regions Research Laboratory ($600,000), and program management of the hyper-enabled operator visual augmentations systems suite ($8.4M).