Authors tackle homeland security

By Mary Frances Czarsty, senior writer
Posted on October 25, 2007

Halfway through Saturday’s book signing, the trio of authors hadn’t uncapped their Sharpie markers to etch a signature on the inside cover of their book, Understanding Homeland Security: Policy, Perspectives and Paradoxes.

But the competition wasn’t doing much better.

“At least that guy isn’t selling any either,” said author John Noftsinger Jr., laughing as he looked at the rival author’s table across the threshold of Barnes and Noble.

The book is the first collaborative effort of Noftsinger and his former students-turned-colleagues, Jack Wheeler and Kenneth Newbold, Jr.. Designed primarily as a textbook, the 232-page work examines U.S. homeland security in historical, philosophical, psychological, technological and political contexts.

“It’s a textbook, but we wanted to also aim at the general reader interested in homeland security, government, political science who just wants a general understanding,” said Newbold.

With topics including 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and FEMA’s response, terrorism and the Patriot Act, the authors used what  they termed the “JMU approach” to take an interdisciplinary look at homeland security.

“We’re studying this as a phenomenon, not that it’s good or bad,” Noftsinger said.

Noftsinger was approached in 2004 at a conference in Sweden about writing the book. Once he and the team assembled, it took a year of writing, 9 months of negotiating with the publisher and a year of editing before it was on the shelves in May.

The book is an extension of Newbold and Noftsinger’s work at JMU and Wheeler’s work as an IBM consultant.

This fall, the Information Analysis major was introduced as part of the School of Integrated Science and Technology. Fourteen students compose the inaugural class, and Newbold is on the short list of faculty for the major. The book is already being put to use in the introductory course that Newbold is team-teaching.

“This major opens up doors for you,” IA major Katie O’Brien said. “The chapters I’ve read have been really helpful and interesting.”

Noftsinger, the executive director of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at JMU, has spent much of his career specializing in interdisciplinary program and grant development.

Wheeler, who met Noftsinger as a graduate fellow of the Institute, has moved from academia to IBM where he now works as a security consultant.

The blend of the author’s perspectives is reflected in the book’s multi-faceted approach, which Wheeler says he hopes will get more than just students interested in homeland security.

“[Security] will only be achieved once everyone takes part in it,” he said. “Not just the people in academics, or in the government, or in the private sector like myself. It’s something for every individual to practice, not just to read about.”

As the authors formed a mini assembly line to sign their first book of the day – for “Captain Bob,” a retired U.S. naval officer and friend of Noftsinger – their fans began to gather.

The cast playing out the scene on the floor consisted mostly of family, friends, neighbors and co-workers, but eight books were gone in an hour.

“We’ve just been mobbed,” Noftsinger said, winking as he signed a book for a colleague. “It’s very draining.”