College of International

Security Affairs
National Defense University

Homeland Defense Fellowship Program

What is the Homeland Defense

Fellowship Program?
The HDF program is a semester-long certificate program
awarding eight graduate-level credits to qualified students.
Students of HDF are comprised of International military
officers and US interagency personnel.

cisa.ndu.edu

Designed to provide
students the skills and
abilities to think critically
The program is designed to provide students the skills and abilities to think critically about
strategic challenges to reduce the preconditions, risks, and effects of terrorism. HDF students
will be able to navigate changes, understand the lessons learned and deduce the applicability or
unique sui generis aspects of security approaches established since September 11th 2001. The
HDF program further provides the ability to assess and prioritize national defense objectives,
work across agency and international boundaries and, decisively analyze strategic issues such as
resources, trade-offs and missions. HDF student will increase their understanding of emerging
and persistent threats to the homeland and of the possibilities of organizing effective responses.

HDF Program
Upon completion of the HDF
Program, students are awarded a
certificate of completion and will
have earned eight (8) graduatelevel credits. The required
courses of the HDF Program are:

6951 - Organizing for

Homeland Defense (3 credits)
6949 - Law Enforcement and
National Security (2 credits)
6954 - Critical Infrastructure
Protection (2 credits)
6965 - Homeland Defense
Fellowship Practicum (1
credit)

The HDF student will develop their abilities to...

1
Understand the dimensions
of the contemporary security
environment

4
Understand the US
response to the new threat
environment and how
best to build international
capacities and capabilities to
meet common challenges in
Homeland Defense

2
Assess the contemporary
spectrum of conflict and how
domestic national security
architectures are challenged
by new or renewed threats of
an unconventional nature

5
Understand the organization
and policies of US Homeland
Security and Homeland
Defense today, and in
comparison with history and
with other nations

7
Understand theories of
security and international
relations that affect relevant
decision-making

3
Evaluate the lessons learned
from seminal case-studies
which span the scale of
homeland threats from
natural to man-made

6
Appreciate how history and
culture shape Homeland
Defense and Security
perceptions and practices

8
Apply analytic
methodologies to homeland
security

Homeland Defense Fellowship graduates stand outside of Marshall Hall

he Homeland Defense Fellowship Program

(HDF) culminates in a one-week trip to the
West Coast of the United States as part of the execution
of the one-credit Homeland Defense Practicum - CISA 6965. The purpose of the trip is to provide students with first hand observations and direct access to
the executive leadership at eight (8) separate field locations involved with energy security, homeland
defense and homeland security. The students will be able to see and hear first-hand from practitioners and local leadership of the issues and challenges they face each day. .

HDF Trip Goals

This trip is designed to integrate all of the lessons from the
HDF and NES program and demonstrate how the theories and
strategies they have been exposed to during the semester are
actually implemented at the tactical and operational levels.

HDF students attend a lecture during the west coast practicum.

By the end of the trip, students will have satisfied the following:
1. Understand the organization and policies of US Homeland Security and Homeland Defense today.
2. Appreciate how history and culture shape Homeland Defense and Security perceptions and
practices with the US.
3.Be in a position to evaluate the post-2001 policies and structural changes made to the US national
security architecture.
4.Understand how authorities assess risk and undertake critical infrastructure and key resource
protection.