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Former U.S. chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security, Gen. Bruce M. Lawlor, was named director of Virginia Tech's Center for Technology, Security and Policy.
The newly formed center, located at Tech's National Capital Region offices in Alexandria, Va., focuses on the development of graduate level national and homeland security courses and community outreach programs.
The center's mission is to prepare the next generation of public and private leaders to address today's security challenges, according to the CTSP Web site. Jim Bohland, vice president and executive director of National Capital Region Operations, Virginia Tech, said the center opened about a month ago and Lawlor was hired as director Jan. 9.
Lawlor was one of five senior White House staff members who wrote the plan to create the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He was also the first commanding general of the Department of Defense Joint Task Force Civil Support.
Lawlor was out of town yesterday and could not be reached for comment.
"He has a lot of experience creating and running large operations, and I think that will definitely serve him well as he runs this center," said Nicholas Stone, deputy director for National Chapter Region for Tech.
Bohland said that Lawlor will be teaching in the center for public administration and policy and the courses are open to any graduate student in the National Capital Region.
Lawlor will be responsible for developing the educational, research, and outreach programs of the center, which includes establishing internal and external advisory boards, hiring adjunct professors and promoting the center both in the region and nationally, according to a press release.
Joining Lawlor is Randall Murch, associate director of Research Program Development at Virginia Tech. Murch is a former FBI investigator, forensic scientist/manager, and engineering enterprise manager.
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VT has a center for technology, security, and policy? Is this a joke? VT just had the largest massacre on a school campus, and now they are in charge of security? VT had the time (2+ hours) & technology to alert the campus of a killer-at-large, but chose NOT to notify. VT "leadership" was fretting about the upcoming fund-raiser and how to hide 2 bodies. While the VT Policy Group was drinking coffee, 58 Hokies, unaware, were trapped and gunned down, with 30 murdered. Failure of leadership trumps technology. Gen Lawlor, please start by cleaning up VT.
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Debster, you've got to be kidding me. Your diatribe is a small step away from suggesting that Cho was given his weapons by the administration and told to 'do thy bidding.' I'm not going to rehash all the facts here because the issue ought to be left alone at this point (the issue, that is, of whether or not VT leadership is wholly incompetent - I would contend that few could have responded as well as that group did), but I will say that the time for pointing fingers has come to an end. The only finger to be pointed is at Cho, since he was the one who committed the crime.
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Kyle: maybe a large step, but not a small one. There's a legal term, "criminal negligence." Actually, "negligence" alone works well enough. The Administration knew about Cho for some time before April. They chose to do nothing, probably for political reasons (a student was expelled for GWU for "depression," for which GWU received intense criticism). The University made mistakes, and I think we'd all be better off if they could fix them and move on. Unfortunately, that would mean admitting that there were mistakes, which is unlikely to happen.
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