Oct. 30, 2025 - 10:00am
Cyberattacks pose a serious threat to all sorts of people, and lots of resources go into addressing the challenges that can come at any time. But it’s just as important to ensure the next generation of cybersecurity experts are equipped with the tools they need to keep everyone safe long into the future.
That’s the goal of the University of Oregon Cybersecurity Teacher Training Workshop, “Training the Trainers,” that ran for the first time this past summer through the UO Computer Science Department.
For five days, 11 computer science teachers from high schools across Oregon gathered at the UO campus in Eugene to learn about the RING curriculum for teaching cybersecurity. This curriculum was designed by the National Security Agency to enable teachers to offer a cybersecurity class at their high schools, a class that is not taught in most Oregon high schools.
The workshop, taught by UO professor, Dan Carrere, introduced the RING curriculum to teachers and provided them with a wealth of related resources to help them present the material to students. Most of the teachers came away with plans to teach some or all the curriculum in their schools this academic year.
“We are committed to supporting teachers by providing access to various resources to create more valuable, hands-on experiences for students interested in cybersecurity,” said Reza Rejaie, professor and head of the Department of Computer Science.
The workshop is part of Rejaie’s larger project to promote cybersecurity education and training in Oregon. This initiative, titled Nurturing Inclusive Cybersecurity Education (NICE), is funded by a Future Ready Oregon grant from the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
In addition to supporting the cybersecurity community around Oregon, the RING curriculum is available for UO students to study through a popular 100-level course titled “Foundations of Cybersecurity”. The class is a gateway into more advanced cybersecurity classes but also satisfies a core education requirement for all majors.
Building on the success of the inaugural edition of the teacher training course, plans are in the works to run it again during the current academic year, with 60-80 teachers expected to participate.
“An important outcome of this workshop is the creation of a community of computer science teachers who are engaged in teaching cybersecurity courses across the state and are closely connected with cybersecurity programs at UO,” said Rejaie.
—By Evan Ney, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Computer and Data Science