In partnership with MCITy and Cisco Systems, Rust College’s Center for Cybersecurity launches a transformative workforce development program to address Mississippi’s critical cybersecurity shortage, with 2,186 unfilled jobs and a national gap of 469,930 (Cyberseek.org, Feb 2023–Jan 2024). Aligned with our mission to empower diverse students and “Secure the Future: Innovate, Defend, Inspire,” this initiative equips participants with industry-relevant skills and certifications to meet the needs of the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), state and local employers, and strengthen Mississippi’s cybersecurity infrastructure across healthcare, finance, and education.

In-Person (5 days/wk)

• 8-5 daily for 4 months
• Stipend – $5000/mo
• Complete 3 certs
• 6-week internship for those completing certifications

Online

• 6 months to complete coursework, 3 certs
• Required joint virtual meeting every Tues/Thurs evening; in-person one Sat/month
• Stipend – $1000/course
• 6-week internship for those completing certifications

Course Descriptions

• CEU 110 WFD: Computer Networking – The topics in this course will provide students with understanding of common network protocols, how network components interact, and how networks evolve over time. The course will cover labs to provide students with the experiences in using tools to monitor and analyze a network and expand familiarity of network vulnerabilities.
• CEU 111 WFD: Cybersecurity – The topics in this course provide students with a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts and vocabulary within the vast cybersecurity discipline. Students learn to describe the current cybersecurity threat landscape, including the various motivations, objectives, and threats. Students are taught adversarial thinking, the need for cybersecurity, to describe the goals of cybersecurity, how risk management informs the approach to cybersecurity, and the principles and best practices of cybersecurity. Students will complete labs practice basic security design fundamentals that enable them to build systems that can be trusted. Students will gain knowledge about how to administer and maintain a comprehensive enterprise security infrastructure.
• CEU 112 WFD: Cloud Management – The topics of this course provide students with a basic understanding of the technologies and services that enable cloud computing, different types of cloud computing models and the security and legal issues associated with cloud computing.

Program Partners

Rust College is thrilled to partner with the Mississippi Center for Innovation and Technology (MCITy) and Cisco Systems, uniting our strengths to fortify cybersecurity in Mississippi and beyond. Aligned with our Center for Cybersecurity’s mission to empower diverse students through cutting-edge education, ethical innovation, and strategic collaborations, this alliance leverages MCITy’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and workforce development initiatives in Vicksburg, MS—a hub bridging economic contrasts with high-tech opportunities like the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center. With Cisco as a cornerstone partner, we gain access to world-class networking and security technologies, enabling hands-on training, research, and certifications that equip our students to defend digital infrastructures against evolving threats. Together, we’re “Securing the Future: Innovate, Defend, Inspire,” fostering a resilient, inclusive digital landscape that uplifts communities and drives global progress.

Cisco Systems’ Cisco’s purpose to Power an Inclusive Future for All includes empowering communities globally to innovate and ideate by connecting the unconnected. In Mississippi, where the digital divide and the critical cybersecurity talent gap continue to grow, Cisco’s Community Enablement and Incubation team is planting seeds of opportunity and innovation through a strategic partnership with Rust College and MCITy: Cisco Cyber Pathways MS. The program offers both in-person and online pathways, spanning from September 2024 to April 2027 with three cohorts, providing practical skills and stipends to support participants. Through this partnership, Cisco Networking Academy—one of the world’s longest-standing IT skills-to-jobs programs—is delivering career-aligned training and certification pathways in cybersecurity.

Cisco’s Cyber Pathways MS initiative builds upon the Networking Academy’s remarkable track record in Mississippi, which has already empowered 13,639 students since inception and contributed $6.2 million USD in in-kind resources to the state’s educational landscape. These aren’t just courses—they’re pathways to opportunity, designed to open doors, elevate communities, and build a diverse cybersecurity workforce. With 93% of U.S. students who complete certification-eligible courses finding career or educational opportunities, the impact is real and far-reaching.

Whether you’re a student or a career changer — it’s about creating access and setting learners on real pathways toward high-paying tech careers over time.

Through this collaboration, Cisco’s Community Enablement and Incubation team, in partnership with Cisco Networking Academy, MCITy, and Rust College, is empowering Mississippi learners, strengthening local economies, and fostering a secure, inclusive, and resilient digital future.

Thad Cochran Mississippi Center for Innovation and Technology (MCITy) is located in the historic Mississippi Hardware Building overlooking the Mississippi River in downtown Vicksburg, MS. The site is squarely in the middle of an area of significant contrasts. Vicksburg (Warren County), MS, is a micropolitan area with three census tracks having poverty rates of over 30% and three additional tracks over 20%. The State of Mississippi is near the bottom of US states in high-tech wages and has only 2-4% of its workforce in high-tech positions. These percentages are the lowest for the Southeastern United States. Conversely, the area is also home to a new $1.45 Billion Continental Tire plant and a major Department of Defense laboratory, the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), with an annual budget of over $2 Billion (and personnel holding almost 1000 advanced academic degrees).

MCITy was conceived to advance the high-tech environment in MS through the following means:

• Train a home-grown workforce fully capable of supporting the high-tech industries of the next decade in support of economic development and quality of life improvement
• Establish a cadre of high-tech entrepreneurs capable of taking to market technologies, products and service developed by the state’s universities and government research organizations that are deemed of commercial value
• Communicate the requirements of government research organizations (ERDC and Stennis Space Center) for contracting activities to non-traditional sources. For example, ERDC alone out-sources over $500 Million annually.
• Provide ongoing opportunities for technology startups and collisions
• Co-locate all of the key elements of high-tech economic development for the region (ERDC, Vicksburg-Warren Economic Partnership, academia, business leaders, workforce developers) under one roof to maximize synergism of thought and action.

The MCITy development is transforming the economy of central Mississippi by providing the following:

• an entrepreneurial center – combination of experimental, computational and interactive workspaces to encourage teaming and the testing of market-ready business ideas
• a technology transfer center – programmatic enclave where existing and new Mississippi businesses can work directly with federal and local programs to advance their technology and business concepts
• a high-tech workforce training environment