Excellent Session Award: USDLA 35th National Conference Presentation on Cybersecurity in American Higher Education

It was a joy to collaborate with two wonderful professionals with whom I had been trying to find an excuse to collaborate again: Dr. Phyllis Witt, my doctoral classmate in the Higher Education Leadership doctoral program at Maryville University, and Dr. Kathleen (Kate) Williams, my colleague from Life University, where she leads the library team/efforts.

It all started early this year with a phone call from Phyllis about how she had been hacked. Badly. I have been one of 15 million people to have been a victim of the 2013 – 2015 Experian breach. Sadly, few people today can say that their digital identity has not been breached.

From there, the urgency of raising awareness among those involved in online higher education became apparent and we joined forces to deliver this message at the 35th anniversary of the United States Distance Learning conference in Nashville. TN.

Kate conducted a literature review about the rise in cyber crime in the U.S., particularly since the pandemic, and particularly in the space of higher education. Phyllis presented her story and offered a primer on types of cyber crime–essentially how deep the rabbit hole is, to borrow from Alice in the Wonderland. I concluded the presentation with a call to three types of cyberhygiene actions we can take to deter cyber crime in our own studies, research, teaching, and practice.

At the conclusion of the conference, our team was honored with one of two Excellent Session awards, presented based on feedback from our in-person and virtual participants. Thank you for this honor, USDLA!

Witt, P., Williams, K., & Laws, G. (2022, July 19), Cyber crime: Raising public awareness. Presented at the United States Distance Learning Association National Conference, 35th Anniversary Edition, Nashville, TN and Recipient of the Excellent Session Award.