SECRET RESEARCH DRAWS RIT STUDENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201070009-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 9
• Publication Date: February 16, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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ROCHESTER DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE (NY
16 February 1986
Sit resew h draws FAIT students
By Eugana Marl" moms conservative than most col- would as, only that "several htur-
Tom Johnson, a 22-year-old math McKenzie, director of the Center
major at Rochester Instituted oo, for COMPutst Science and Tech.
Technology, helped develop A cm- nology The cca is "quite con-
puter model for a new war game a servativa," said -Angels Strode, a
couple of years ago, senior who is chairttutretthe Stu-
The game wasn't for fun. It was dent pttadorats, the student gov.,
tor the Pentagon - and classified. ernmront.
Geoffrey Welch, another 22-yeas- fpZ,( q, p ,ate
old math major at RIT, performed andgovernmental,'find RIT's m-
accuracy studies for the Trident nu- reer-otfented students attractive
dear missile. Those< studies include& because of the emphasis the. school
statisticsll' reseepVh and writing corn. Puts on applied learning.
l
d fli
I-dter programs or suau
ate
ghts.
His work also was classified.
Johnson spent six quarters at the
U.S. Army's Concepts Analysis
A,gency in i H4hhesda.' Md., as a co-
operative eeati*n student. Welch
spent four sjuastErs git the Naval
.
.
students, said Prof. Wiley dred" students were in the CIA's
The agencies with the most ac-
tive, organized recruiting efferta.
Neither ia rarit on RIT's cam-
top-secret pus order signed by Pregi. these d"s. dent Harry S. Truman in 1952. Its
RIT co-ow studeh juniors and ,mission is twofold: to secretly
senidrs who alterna&- uarterR, gather intelligence through techno-
fult tune: wotk i il' "?" le fical means, such as satellite
study - are' going' to' work for U:B,' navesdro ping systems, and to
intelligence-gathering end't eirwkprotect the government's confiden-
research agencies in numbers that, tial messages through encryption.
might shock their older brothers and The NSA is based at Fort Meade,
sisters from the Vietnam WWhere:, Md., and has list nth posts in
Those numbers put RIT m a class many nations.
with only a handful of achtipls in the 1 eerudsas from-the NSA and
nation. . CIA visit the RIT campus twice a
Ih-the last year and a half, about W*" and an giv epre Gtations
30 Rf T co-op students hawi gone to or - _~ ts,
are me N:SA and the CIA, said.
Beverly Gburski, director of the
co-op program at HIT.
The NSA is probably the most
secret agency in the U
gar
S
me NSA received 30 co-op .
"pints" from RIT in the
19184-1985 school year,~
to Bonnie Salem; a mdtdfnato:ln
Rr s Co-op proms-That would
translate to abou tit to 15 stu-
dents, bemuse a placement equals
one three-month stint and one
studs4t often takes more than'one
in a year.
AN NSA SPOKESMAN, who
said his name could not be used in
print in ion with the agen-
cy, said there were "a lot" of HIT
students in the NSA's co-op pro-
gram. Schools typically have two
or three or, at most, five students
in the program, he -said. About 300
Agency and the Central Intelligence
Agency, said George T. Georgantas,
a professor who is head of the,
math department.
Four or five other defense re-
srch agencies are activel and
st dlsdully recruiting RIT co-op
students.
The students, most from come
puter science, math, e
and imaging programs, bq in
volved in work rangi fret
tology studies for the
kitchen facilitwi9v lib Army.
Many of these students go on to
work full-time for a defense agen-
students from 50 or so schools are
Because much of the work co-op in the NSA's program at any one
students do is classified, the agen- )ime.
cies perform a thorough security of Robert Chico, the coordinator
check on them before they are ac- for student programs at the CIA,
cepted for employment. said a "good number" of RI1 s
The agencies themselves proba-, dents were in the CIA's program.
bly find RIT students "to their RIT had 10 placements there in
taste" because the students are the 1984-1985 school year. Chico
program and that they represent a
Cross-section of schools.
. Among the other active defense
Agencies on the RIT campus are:
? The Naval Surface Weapona
Center in Dahlgr~en,. Va., and
White Oaks, Md., which had 15
Co-op plgcements from RIT in
1984-85. It has about 225 students
overall:
? T}* U.S. Army's Armament Cen
Development
*Ad
r
in
which had
?,
14 RIT
100 students overall.. _.__
'(LS. Army's Concepts
?
which will -e 10 BIT s d n .,
Out of 79 students total in the
1985-1986 school year, according
tp Johnson, the' math major who
worked there.
THE VAPT. MAJORITY of
*rT's 3,000 0-op students find
Work wib'h. private employers. In .
1984-1988, for example, there were
almost 4,600 placements of HIT
Co-op students overall. The five
most active defense agencies re-
ceived 76 of those placements,
Salem said.
Though RIT is well represented
in the co-op programs of these de-
fense agencies, it apparently is not
disproportionately represented if
RIT's technical orientation and
the size of its co-op program are
taken into account.
Drexel University in Philadel-
phia has a similar technical orien.
tation and a larger co-op program,
one with more than 4,000 stu-
dents. It sends what appears to be
a. much larger number of co-op
students to these programs. In
1984-1985, 43 students worked for
programs just within the Depart-
ment of Defense, including 17 at
the NSA, said Gary Hamme, head
of the center for cooperative edu-
cation at Drexel. A total of 278
other students worked for a wide
range of other defense-related
agencies.
Northeastern University in Bos-
ton, on the other hand, has 9,600
students in its co-op program, but
has a liberal-arts orient tion. it
sent no students to the CIA in
1984-85, two to the NSA, none to
the Concepts Analysis Agency and
STAT
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two to We Nave ft an Weapeat
Centre, said Richard sociate ~ at coopeeative8 er- uca-
tion at Northeastern.
AT THE U -IV SBa'Y of
Rochester, which has ft'
of 19i19o who- oanwd
computer acienes; f job .
with the CIA; sus we*
to work for the A; and now
accepted work with the Naval
Surface Weapons Center, though
tuns offers were made, said
Maureen Beaudry, a recruiting co-
ordinator in the placement office.
Other schools often mentioned
as large contributors are the Uni-
versity of Akron, in Ohio, which
has a strong er4dneermig program,
and Virginia Polytech in Blacks-
burg.
While the presence of defense
recruiters .would have drawn ad-
verse attention on most college
campuses 15 years ago, it has ap-
parently stirred not a ripple of
controversy at RIT.
"There is no open student Con-
cern about these recruiters being
on campus," said Jim Miller;-
RIT's associate vice president for
institutional advancement.
"Not many students are vocal
about bucking the system. Stu-
dents here are geared toward pro-
fessional careers, not mor issues,"
said Strode, chairman of the stu-
dent government.
BOTH GBURSKI, WHO runs
the R1'I' co-op program, and
Strode, the, student government
leader, said they see a trend
among RIT students to be more
willing to work in defense. More
than 100 students showed up the
last time a CIA recruiter gave a
presentation about his agency,
said Manny Contomanolis, associ-
ate director of RIT's co-op pro-
gram.
Richard Kenyon, dean of the
College of Engineering at RIT,
said he sees nothing unusual
about students going to work for
defense agencies. "Anyone who can
operate in the world of electronics
and information processing is in
demand," he said.
And recruiters like RIT's em-
phasis on applied knowledge.
Computer students, for example,
are made to write more programs
sooner than students in other
schools and have done a good deal
of lab work by their third year,
said McKinzie, director of RIT's
Center for Computer Science and
Technology.
A math department brochure
describes Its programs as "misled
lY designed to meet the needs at
both students and their potential.
employers ... That's how mathe.
matics and statistic are taught at
RIT - with an eye on their appli-
cations. And this is what makes it
so easy for our graduates to find
jobs.*
RIT ALSO ATTRACTS em-
ployers because,it offers some un-
usual programs. The school, for
example, offers the only under.
g aduate programs in the nation
in mi engineering and
in imaging science.
The CIA's loo calls RIT 1kot
a sups` He said that t
-number of RIT students in the
CIA's program "reflects the agen-
cy's strong, positive opinion M
RIT and its unique area of inter-
est, especially in photo science,
and its excellent programs in com-
puter science and engineering."
The biggest advantage of the co-
op program for the defense agen-
cies -- as well as for private em-
ployers is that it is an excellent
recruiting tool in the competition
for technically trained persons.
About 80 percent of all students
who enter the NSA's co-op pro-
gram eventually become full-time
employees of the agency, the,
NSA's spokesman said.
Elaine Tierney, the co-op coor-
dinator at the Armament Research
and Development Center, said
that 90 percent of co-op students
accept full-time employment there.
At the CIA, the retention rate is
"above 50 percent," Chico said.
Johnson, the math major, has
accepted a job with Electronic
Warfare Associates, a defense con-
sulting firm in Vienna, Va. Welch
has an offer to work full time for
the Naval Surface Weapons Cen-
ter, but he would like to work for
one of the defense-research agen-
cies closer to his home in Massa-
chusetts.
STUDENTS WITH AN inter-
est in defense work can quickly
get involved in "heady" assign-
ments, which partly offsets the
fact that they are paid lea In the
government programs than they
would be in the privets-sector co-
op jobs,- said M. Richard Rose,
president of RIT.
"I was taken aback by the level
of responsibility I was given," said
Welch, the math major who
worked at the Naval Surface
Weapons Center. Johnson said
that on his first tour at the Con-
cepts Analysis Agency he per-
formed tasks usually done by se-
nior staff members.
It is hard to pin down exactly
when the relationship between
2
RIT and most of these agencies
began. Center Naval Surface Weep,
began a formal co-op
agreement with RIT in 1979. And
Gburski sold RIT has had a
good relationship with the CIA
and NSA" for five and a h
years, the length of time she'alfs
been on the job, but she believes
the relationship began long before
then.
But the relationship with the
CIA apparently goes back much
further. An agency memorandum
dated Oct. 16, 1975, mentioned
RIT's program as one with which
the CIA had established "certain
relationships which might be cate-
gorized as 'special' or 'particular.' "
THE MEMO, FROM the CIA's
director of personnel, was among
documents made public under a
Freedom of Information suit filed
by Morton Halperin, former aide
to Henry Kissinger in the Nixon
administration.
The desumenta also revealed
that RIT'a College of . hits. Arts.
and Photography rep about
from the CIA in the form
of grants between 1966 and 1975.
The future of the student pro-
grams, however, may be in doubt
at some agencies. Because of ceil.
ing levels imposed by Depart-
ment ment of the Army, the Armam
Research and Development Center
now has only 20 coop students. It
once had 100. The Naval Under
water Systems Center in Newport,
R.I., which has had several stu-
dents from the National Technical
Institute for the Deaf in its sum-
mer program, will have no sum-
mer program this year because of
a freeze declared by the Navy.
A positive note for the co-op
programs may be the Strategic
Defense Initiative, the so-called
"Star Wars" program.
SDI may create even greater de-
mand for technically trained per-
sona in certain areas, said Rose, a
former deputy assistant U.S. sec-
retary of defense for education. In
some programs already, like imag-
ing science, "we could place dozens
to hundreds more students" in in-
dustry and government, he said.
SDI, he said, will make the com-
petition even more acute.
And the future also might be
brighter at such agencies as the
CIA and NSA, whose budgets are
not subject to close congressional
scrutiny.
"The agency's future rests with
kids. RIT is a very progressive
school and we hope to increase
our involvement-with it in the fu.
ture," the CIA's Chico said.
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