Montreat expands cybersecurity plans despite Cooper funding veto

Student in Montreat College cybersecurity lab
KEEPING TABS: A student monitors a map of global cyberattacks in Montreat College's cybersecurity lab. Photo courtesy of Montreat College

As Assembly Drive winds its way through a nearly century-old stone gate and along Flat Creek to Montreat College, the path is marked by an abundance of natural splendor. The school sits in a richly wooded cove between two mountain ridges, just outside the Pisgah National Forest; its viewbook for prospective students boasts of 30 miles of hiking and biking trails in the surrounding small town of Montreat alone.

In recent years, however, a significant portion of the college’s attention has shifted to affairs of a decidedly indoor bent. Under the direction of President Paul Maurer, who took leadership of Montreat in 2014, the private, Christian liberal arts school has rapidly become one of North Carolina’s foremost cybersecurity institutions.

In six years, Maurer says, enrollment in Montreat’s cyber programs has gone from zero to 142 — a major surge of strength for an institution that in 2013 had considered merging with Point University in Georgia and closing its local campus altogether. The college’s annual RETR3AT cybersecurity conference has attracted hundreds of attendees since it first convened in 2015, with speakers including Republican Sen. Richard Burr and Max Everett, chief information officer for the U.S. Department of Energy.

And the expansion is far from over, Maurer believes. He expects that additional growth in Montreat’s STEM majors, including cybersecurity, will soon merit hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to build a larger campus on 89 acres currently owned by the college between U.S. 70 and Interstate 40, less than a half mile from downtown Black Mountain. Part of that plan is a $40 million facility to house the school’s cyber program alongside a new, separate initiative called the Carolina Cyber Center, for which the N.C. General Assembly voted to award $20 million in October.

“This is a way for academia and industry and government to work together to solve the economic and security threat of our age in our state,” Maurer says of the center, often abbreviated as the C3. “We’ve been working on this project for two or three years now, and we have found tremendous support from all these sectors, who agree that a P3 [public-private partnership] approach is a really wise and progressive approach to addressing a very complex problem.”

But Maurer has not found support from Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. On Nov. 8, the governor vetoed House Bill 398, which contained the Montreat funding, calling the money “a substantial capital earmark outside the state’s proven university system.” With the General Assembly adjourned for the rest of the year, it’s unclear when or if the matter might be taken up again.

In the crossfire

The path to Cooper’s veto was itself marked by contentious political maneuvering. Originally, the C3 money was part of House Bill 966, the General Assembly’s comprehensive appropriations act. According to reporting by Carolina Public Press in August, the governor did not object to any local projects in that bill, including the Montreat funding. However, he had vetoed the budget in June due to disagreements with Republican lawmakers over education and health care spending.

Although the House Republicans overrode Cooper’s veto on Sept. 11 — in a vote for which most Democrats were not present, with many claiming they had not been informed of its timing — their colleagues in the Senate were unable to muster the three-fifths supermajority needed to pass the budget into law. In response, lawmakers began passing “mini-budget” bills to fund less controversial portions of the original budget.

On Oct. 23, in his role as senior chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, altered House Bill 398, which originally contained funding for rural broadband that had been moved to a different mini-budget and passed on Oct. 14. He replaced its language with funding requests for the C3 and other information technology needs. By then, according to Rep. John Ager, D-Buncombe, the money had begun to attract negative attention from Democrats.

“The rebellion in my party centered around the large appropriation going to a private institution when there were several cybersecurity programs in our university system,” Ager explained in an email to Xpress. “They found negative data about Montreat’s graduation rates. They felt like the $20 million was a sweetheart deal by North Carolina Republicans to support a conservative Christian school.”

Rep. John Autry, D-Mecklenburg, formalized that opposition on Oct. 24 by proposing an amendment to the bill that would have removed the C3 money and replaced it with the same amount “for the continuing upgrade of statewide cybersecurity capabilities.” The amendment failed in a tie vote that same day; Ager was the only Democrat to cross party lines in opposition to the change.

“I still believed [the C3] was a worthy project that was really bigger than Montreat College. It would have created a high-tech hub in Buncombe County and spin off companies that would benefit the region,” Ager said of his vote. “It would work with the university system, the community college system and the new [N.C. School of Science and Mathematics] in Morganton.”

The bill proceeded to pass both the House and Senate mostly along party lines, with Ager again the only Democrat breaking ranks to lend his backing, before receiving Cooper’s veto. “Republican leaders want to provide a multimillion-dollar earmark without explanation while shortchanging the entire state’s cybersecurity department,” wrote Cooper spokesperson Ford Porter in response to an Xpress request for comment. “That’s not the way this process is supposed to work.”

Cooper’s office did not respond to a follow-up question asking why the governor had switched his position on local projects since August. But Ager believes that the $20 million for the C3 — well over three times as much as the roughly $5.5 million Montreat raises annually, and more than twice the college’s total endowment — stood out more glaringly in October compared to other allocations in the mini-budget. The next largest earmark in the bill was $5 million for the NC HealthConnex health information exchange.

“As long as the Montreat appropriation was in the general budget, I think [Cooper] was OK to not challenge it. Putting it in a small mini-budget highlighted all the reasons to be against it. In hindsight, that was a political mistake,” Ager wrote.

Matter of faith?

Montreat College President Paul Maurer
TALKING TURNAROUND: Paul Maurer, president of Montreat College, has overseen an expansion of enrollment in the school’s cybersecurity programs from zero to 142 since joining the college in 2014. Photo by Matt Rose, courtesy of Montreat College

Following Cooper’s veto, Sen. Ralph Hise, R-Mitchell, who in April sponsored a separate bill that would have given $2 million to Montreat for the C3, issued a statement suggesting how at least some Republicans interpreted the move. “Vetoing this legislation puts the state’s most critical information at risk and signals to hackers that the state is vulnerable,” he wrote. “Gov. Cooper seems to have put our information in danger just because he doesn’t like the religious choices of some of the administrators at a college.”

Neither Hise nor Saine responded to multiple requests for further comment on the Montreat allocation or Cooper’s veto. However, the college has drawn attention in the past for its Community Life Covenant, adopted in 2017, that all staff must sign as a condition of employment. The document includes positions drawn from the school’s Reformed Christian tradition such as affirming “chastity among the unmarried and the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman” and “the God-given worth of every human being, from conception to death.”

Ager confirmed that his party colleagues were concerned by those religious statements: “Democrats did not like the oath Montreat professors were required to subscribe to,” he recalled. The Buncombe representative did not mention sharing those concerns; he wrote that personal meetings with Maurer had convinced him that Montreat “was the only institution in N.C. that stepped up with a matured vision” for cybersecurity training.

Maurer focused on the political fight between Republicans and Democrats as driving the failure of House Bill 398. “Unfortunately, the portion of that bill to come to Montreat College had gotten politicized in the weeks prior, and what is really a completely bipartisan issue and problem became a partisan issue,” he said. When asked for his take on Hise’s remarks about specifically religious motivations, Maurer offered no response.

But David Thompson of RBX Solutions, a lobbying firm that represents Montreat’s cybersecurity programs at both the state and federal levels, believes that Democrats did not respect the planned division between Montreat College and the C3, which he says college staff would establish but then spin off as an independent nonprofit. He emphasizes that employees of the new center would not be bound by the same covenant as Montreat workers.

“We’re not talking about standing up a regional training center that’s going to be a Christian training center. That’s not at all what we’re proposing,” Thompson says. “It’s a very important distinction that again has been lost in the discussion here.”

Ethics and network protocol

While a proverbial firewall would be placed between the C3 and Montreat’s religious beliefs, both Maurer and Thompson say that the college’s desire to impart lessons beyond raw technical skills make it the right choice to catalyze the training center. As a liberal arts college informed by a moral code, Thompson argues, the school shapes graduates who are more than glorified hackers — a philosophy that would remain central to the new nonprofit, which lists “a focus on ethics and character-based learning” on its webpage.

“What Montreat brings to this discussion, that a state university does not bring in any meaningful way, is that we have to consider the human side of cyber,” Thompson says. “You’re really weaponizing students if you are not providing guardrails for the ethical treatment of cybersecurity.”

One such public cybersecurity program is the Davis iTEC Cyber Security Center at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, which currently teaches over 300 students. Janet Spriggs, president of Forsyth Tech, said in response to Thompson’s statement that the college “looks forward to finding ways to partner with Montreat in this very important area.”

Spriggs added, “We recognize our program focuses on a different aspect of cybersecurity defense than Montreat’s program. However, we believe our program, the programs at other community colleges and universities and the Montreat program are all important in preparing IT security professionals.”

Cybersecurity lab at Montreat College
LET THERE BE LIGHTS: Montreat College hopes to build a $40 million space for cybersecurity training with labs similar to its current facility, pictured, that would be managed by an independent nonprofit and used for shorter courses to support the needs of industry and government partners. Photo courtesy of Montreat College

Maurer draws parallels between his school’s approach and that of the U.S. military academies, which he says are the only higher education institutions besides faith-based colleges to integrate personal character and ethics into their curricula. It’s no surprise, he continues, that Montreat’s message has resonated with partners in the federal defense complex.

In 2017, the National Security Agency certified Montreat as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education. Although eight other North Carolina schools, including Forsyth Tech, have also received that designation, Montreat remains the only religiously affiliated college in the state to be certified. Earlier this year, the school became one of just five institutions to sign a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Army for cyber education.

Maurer notes that Montreat was also asked this year to take “a leadership role at a national level” in the NSA’s cybersecurity training work. NSA spokesperson Mike Dusak said his organization had no comment on who specifically requested Montreat’s leadership, why the college was chosen from among other Centers of Academic Excellence or what its responsibilities entail.

By popular demand

Montreat’s boosters are confident that funding for the C3 will materialize soon, even if Cooper and the General Assembly fail to reach an agreement over state support. They believe a pressing need for skilled, ethically responsible workers — Thompson says that 13,000 cybersecurity jobs are currently unfilled in North Carolina alone, and the nonprofit Center for Cyber Safety and Education estimates that 1.8 million cybersecurity jobs will be unfilled globally by 2022 — will lead employers both private and public to back a training center.

“A lot of our seniors are getting three to six job offers. Their starting salaries are nothing like what I got coming out of college, I can tell you that,” Maurer adds. “They’re at high-profile Fortune 500 companies; they’re with the FBI; they’re in county governments. … We could have three times the number of students in the program, and I don’t think the demand would shrink one bit.”

In contrast to the college’s current programs, Maurer explains, the training offered through the C3 would be shorter in duration and more flexible in curriculum, regularly changing to meet industry certification needs. Not only would this approach make the center more appealing to businesses that may not be able to send employees to get traditional degrees, he says, but it would also support time-crunched workers transitioning from other jobs.

Additionally, a third of the space would be dedicated as an incubator for technological entrepreneurship. “We see this as a way of really helping develop the economic footprint of the future,” Maurer says. “As we’ve worked with the economic development thinkers of Western North Carolina, they’re very interested in this project because it helps diversify the workforce, which currently is really focused on hospitality and manufacturing.”

Maurer notes that Montreat has already received $2 million in state funding for the C3 in the fiscal 2018-19 budget and is currently searching for its executive director. Once that person is hired, he says, the college will formally establish a separate nonprofit for the center and develop more detailed plans.

“I think that we’re in this for the long term, and we’re in this in a meaningful way for how to solve a really serious problem,” emphasizes Maurer about the need for cybersecurity workers of character. “The veto is unfortunate, but it’s not the end of the journey.”

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Daniel Walton is the former news editor of Mountain Xpress. His work has also appeared in Sierra, The Guardian, and Civil Eats, among other national and regional publications. Follow me @DanielWWalton

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15 thoughts on “Montreat expands cybersecurity plans despite Cooper funding veto

  1. Enlightened Enigma

    Roy Cooper is by far the worst governor in NC histoire ! ZERO leadership skills and he mumbles…cannot answer questions.

    • bsummers

      At least he doesn’t drop French words into conversation when there’s a perfectly good English one available.

  2. Frank L. Fox

    The several references to “cybersecurity workers of character” in the article were quite troubling. The implication is that being a Christian means a person has good character. If we look at the professing Christians surrounding the current President–Mike Pence, Betsy DeVos, Mike Pompeo, and others–one can easily see that being Christian cannot always result in good character.

  3. bsummers

    I agree, Frank. There are so many things about this that are troubling. For one, as mentioned, the school was about to close in 2013, and then some anonymous couple who never set foot on campus just chipped in $10 million. That set the school on this path to try become, essentially, a part of this nation’s defense network. We’re not allowed to know who those people are. The president of the school said that God did it.

    “God has been at work at Montreat College for over 100 years. So it should be no surprise that during an especially difficult time in the college’s history, God made clear that He was not finished using Montreat College for His own glory. “
    https://www.montreat.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/presidents-report.pdf

    I don’t want people in the military who are being trained to defend this country to be indoctrinated like this. I’m sorry, it’s just wrong. And don’t tell me about any “firewall” between the religion and the cyber program. We all know that people who are driven by “faith”, can justify duplicity to get things done the way they think they should be done. People like the Military Religious Freedom Foundation have been fighting against this stuff for years. If you have a few bucks laying around, send them a donation:
    https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

  4. Mary McPhail Standaert

    This article is good local reporting. Thank you Mountain Xpress. Thank you Daniel Walton

  5. Mark

    Separation of Church and State.
    Having the State fund the church is clearly a violation.

    • bsummers

      Their figleaf to get around that is that the cyber program will be under a separate foundation from the rest of the college. But when the President says things like this…

      “And in accordance with our vision to become a leader in Christ-centered education regionally, nationally, and globally, we are providing leadership in the cybersecurity field…” and “Why Christian Colleges Should Provide International leadership in Cybersecurity Education.”
      https://www.montreat.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/presidents-report.pdf

      It sort of undermines that figleaf. They’re asking for tens of millions of taxpayer dollars, while pretending that it isn’t going towards a religious institution. This cynical end-run around the intent of the separation of Church and State indicates to me a certain contempt for the concept of secular government, and especially a secular military. White evangelical Christians only make up around 17% of the population, roughly the same size as those who state no religious beliefs.
      https://www.newsweek.com/christianity-decline-americans-religion-unaffiliated-pew-study-1466035

      We deserve to know that the military represents the broad security interests of those of us who foot the bill, and not just those of some minority religious sect.

      • Gary Stewart

        Is it really indoctrination or is it religious freedom? No one is forced to go to this school. Its a choice. If you don’ agree with christian teaching then go to a public university. I have talked to people in the DOD who actually prefer the montreat college cyber students over the public ones because in their experience they have more integrity and tend to exhibit better behavior. That is not to say that all Christians are perfect. Trust me I know several who have worse character than those who aren’t christian. Just don’ t be so hasty to make a generalization. This country was founded on christian principles and we have the religious freedom to believe what we want to believe. I don’t care if I have an athiest, Muslim, christian, or Buddhist doing my cybersecurity as long as they are doing their job and keeping us safe.

        • bsummers

          I never said that people don’t have the right to believe as they want, or attend the school of their choice. What I object to is a religious institution cynically gaming the system to get public tax dollars, which will no longer go to honest public institutions, that don’t require students to accept any particular religious views. With the imprimatur of being an official State-funded school, they are leveraging attendees, staff, and placement of graduates. None of this would be possible without the little white lie of “oh, no – it’s a separate foundation“.

          Integrity? The people behind this lie should not be charged with protecting America in any way shape or form. They have failed in the “integrity” department.

          A lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie is a lie.

          • Gary Stewart

            Well first of all the students are not required to accept anything. Only Montreats staff have to align with the organizations views and beliefs. I think it is fine for any employer to serve, hire, or ban anyone that they want. We in America have the freedom to run our businesses as we please. The way I see it, and the way many other organizations or employers see it is that as long as they are secure, they don’t care if the student came from a private or a public university. I think the government sees it the same way. Biden and Trump have both talked extensively about boosting cybersecurity funding across the nation. Just out of curiosity, what is it that you think makes them fail in the integrity department?

          • bsummers

            Did you read my comment? They set up a “separate foundation” for State cybersecurity money in order to pretend that the school wasn’t part of a religious institution. It’s a lie and it demonstrates contempt for the law and for those who don’t think public tax dollars should go towards religious institutions. I don’t trust people who game the system like that.

          • Gary Stewart

            Do you think that the state doesn’t know that is is a separate foundation? They clearly know what they are funding. I don’t think it is a lie. I have been a student for 3 years now and I have seen several government officials tour the facility. Like I said earlier, the government doesn’t really care if it is a religious foundation or not, the fact that this school is training students in cybersecurity is what is important to them. There are plenty of things that taxpayer dollars go towards that I do not agree with, but at the end of the day it is up to the government to decide how their money is spent. If governor cooper decides to not fund this program then that is his choice, however, if a future governor does decide to fund it, I do not see any violation of anything. Several private christian charter schools get government stipends and right offs all of the time. Isn’t the protection of our nations cyber information more important than what school is getting funded to teach it?

  6. henry

    Governor Cooper made the right decision. This is not a program that state tax dollars should support. Re-elect Cooper.

    • Lou

      Exactly, yes and thank you. This college won’t even hire anyone who doesn’t profess to love Christ and believe in their teachings. As an atheist, I’m highly offended by that. 3 years ago several staff members and students left the college because they were being forced to sign some sort of covenant that they disagreed with. fairy tales have no place in our universities and for our state to support it would have been a huge mistake. I am sick and tired of funding the backers of war and lies and Donald trump. Enough is enough.

  7. Lou

    Wait a minute…does this mean that Montreat College is discriminating against job applicants without religious belief? They require a statement of commitment to their lord and savior Jesus H. Christ be included in a job application, along with proof of degree and references. So does that mean I can SUE THEIR BUMS OFF for discrimination? Coz I do not believe in sky daddy.

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