Quality Concerns in the Teaching and Learning of Security Studies

In his analysis of security education in the US, Adolf (2010) underscores the challenges facing HE in security studies, especially in the areas of teaching, research and development of HE security programmes. One key challenge is that most of the security studies programmes are still aligned to the criminal justice programmes offered to public law enforcement officers. Adolf argues that scholars of security studies have consistently equated security to public safety, yet the main goal of security programmes is basically to improve businesses and performance of organization by minimizing risks and liabilities thereby increasing profits. As a result, the security industry is increasingly getting distanced from criminal justice and becoming more identical to business. It is within this framework that future security professionals are expected to have not only emergency management skills but also business skills (Holladay, 2003).

Adolf’s analysis of the US colleges offering security studies has revealed that only 13% of the undergraduate programmes in security studies are aligned to business. Yet business education among security managers has been considered key (American Society for Industrial Security, ASIS, 2001; Holladay, 2003; Purpura, 2002; McCrie, 2001; Fischer, Halibozek & Green, 2008). Adolf also found that there are only two doctoral-level (PhD) security programmes in the US, with one University offering a PhD in Business Administration with a bias towards businesses and corporations. This implies reduced level of high quality security research in future. Adolf’s analysis is in agreement with Hill (2007) as discussed elsewhere in this chapter, who reports on the initiative by Denver University College to revise its graduate programmes on security to make them more business as well as security focused.

The other challenge Adolf observes is on the quality of lecturers. The author decries delivery of instruction by security lecturers with vast security experience but limited academic research focus. The result is a security manager with practical skills but limited theoretical grounding in their skills. Adolf agrees with Vest (2007) that the essence of HE institution is to blend practice with theory through teaching and research. There is therefore need for universities to create synergy between research in security studies and teaching of practical security skills. This would enable security studies, which is still a largely underdeveloped field, to grow through academically rigorous research by its professionals. Similarly, Adolf has concurred with Ortmeier (2005) that majority of the lecturers in HE in security studies are mostly law enforcement oriented within minimal security research experience, perhaps due to failure of the colleges to recognize security as a specialized field, separate from criminal justice.

Adolf further argues that lack of proper academic and research grounding of HE security lecturers is seen to be the major contributor to underdevelopments in security studies in terms of knowledge reservoir, concepts and theories. For instance, the many definitions of security still concentrate on protection of persons or items (Fischer & Green, 2004; Purpura, 2002; McCrie, 2001; Kennedy, 1995) yet a security professional is expected to be proactive in order to prevent unwarranted behaviour before it happens (Adolf, 2010; Hill, 2007). The evolving multidisciplinary nature of security coupled with the multiple threats has necessitated a situation where no single definition of security can last. The situation can only be improved through research in the field by HE security experts.

Adolf further observes that some progress has been made in indentifying the key foundations to security studies. The author outlines the 18 pillars of security studies

identified at the 2001 ASIS Academic Practitioner Symposium as ‘physical security, personnel security, information systems security, investigations, loss prevention, risk management, legal aspects, emergency/continuity planning, fire protection, crisis management, disaster management, counterterrorism, competitive intelligence, executive protection, workplace violence, general crime prevention, crime prevention through environmental design and security architecture’ ( Adolf, 2010, p. 128-129). The delivery of HE under these pillars would require security lecturers who are well grounded in the specialities.

The other challenge facing higher education in security studies, according to Adolf (2010) is lack of adequate research focusing on security. Majority of the graduate thesis and doctoral dissertations across the US are on a wide range of academic disciplines including criminal justice, business and education, with security focus only appearing as collateral. Even though this trend may be the beginning of a journey towards the right direction for security studies, the diverse interests of the researchers may only produce mixed signals or mere progress in the search for a firm theoretical foundation for security studies. In this journey, such key areas as general security management, ‘prevention of terrorism, competitive intelligence, and executive protection, workplace violence, crime prevention through environmental design and security architecture’, still remain under-researched (Adolf, 2010, p. 131).

The last challenge, according to Adolf, is on accreditation of security education programmes. With the rapid expansion of security education, HE institutions have continued to admit students from the military, government officials, who may be interested

degree programmes. However, there is no form of accreditation to validate the content of the programmes, making it difficult to verify whether the existing college security programmes are of standard quality. No security studies body similar to the American Psychological Association or the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business or; Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programmes, exist. These institutions verify psychology and business courses to ensure that they meet the required standards. For security studies, therefore, students have no instrument to measure the value of security programmes in order to make informed choices concerning which one to enrol for.

It is important to note that Adolf‘s discussion of security studies is based on his reference to the private security sector, hence his narrow conceptualization of security as a field which should exclude criminal justice. But his 18 pillars of security are basically what public law enforcement officers deal with on daily basis, though with a bias towards public protection and criminal justice. Even though the focus of private security is on individual and cooperate interests rather than public, those interests still exist within the public domain of a country or state, and are significantly affected by the existing public security apparatus. For instance, protection of businesses from risks and losses may not just require business management skills alone, but also criminal intelligence and criminal investigations skills, which are components of criminal justice. Analogically, public and private security entities are therefore comparable to siblings, whose origins are the same, roles inherently complimentary but with public security being the elder sister.

The challenges discussed by Adolf, are however key in understanding the dimensions of both public and private security studies. Lack of adequate research on security studies has not only bedevilled the private security sector but also the public sector. For instance, the

inadequate presence of research on security in Kenya has already been mentioned elsewhere in this chapter (International Centre for Transitional Justice, 2010). Nevertheless, these challenges together with those of lecturer competence and lack of proper accreditation are pointers to the quality dynamics of HE in security studies, which are at the centre of this research. This study therefore recognises Adolf’s discussion as crucial in identifying the emerging and inherent challenges in provision of HE in security studies, which might affect its quality. A comprehensive understanding of these dynamics would benefit more from an investigation of the perceptions of the students with regard to these challenges. As a student of security studies at North-eastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, US, Adolf’s perspectives might be taken as student’s perspectives but they are based on his assessment of HE in a highly developed world and are not specific on quality teaching and learning. To apply his experiences to the Kenyan situation would be like comparing the size of a goat and that of an elephant and concluding the elephant is much bigger. This study therefore set out to examine students’ perception of the quality of teaching and learning in the security courses offered in Kenyan universities.