The National Intelligence University is a federal degree granting institution with a far-reaching mission — to educate and prepare intelligence officers to meet current and future challenges to the national security of the United States. Its main campus is located within the Defense Intelligence Agency Headquarters at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling (JBAB) in Washington D.C., and has graduate and academic centers with the National Security Agency and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
The NIU is a unique and technologically advanced university that focuses on the profession of intelligence and is the only institution of higher education in the nation that allows its students to study and complete research in the Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information (TS/SCI) arena. The University is committed to offering and continuously maintaining an in-depth curriculum intended to enhance the desired analytical skills and competencies of intelligence analysis to include critical thinking, communications, engagement and leadership. The NIU’s success is measured through its graduates, many of whom have gone on to serve as directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, service and Combatant Command J-2’s, the Director of National Intelligence, and other important posts.
The staff and faculty at NIU work closely with a professionally diverse student population to provide a challenging and rewarding educational experience that culminates in a Bachelor of Science in Intelligence Degree, a Master of Science in Strategic Intelligence Degree, and graduate certificates in intelligence studies. Federal employees throughout the Intelligence Community (IC), the military, law enforcement, National Guard, Reserve and other related security functions have the opportunity to apply for the resident (full-time) program through their parent agency or service, or can apply on their own for one of the NIU’s cohort (part-time) programs. The cohort program classes are conducted in the evening and select weekends at the DIA Headquarters as well as the graduate and academic centers at NSA and NGA during the day.
History of the NIU
Toward the end of his administration, President Dwight Eisenhower appointed a Joint Study Group to examine the organizational and management structure of U.S. foreign intelligence. Its foremost concern was military intelligence coordination. The final report advanced the concept of a new intelligence organization which would act as the primary point of contact for the military intelligence community—a defense intelligence community, a defense intelligence agency.
In January 1961, President John F. Kennedy and his Secretary of Defense, Robert S. McNamara, took an immediate interest in the concept of an agency which would extensively integrate the military intelligence efforts of all Department of Defense elements. They had become responsible for national security in the era of Khrushchev, the U-2 crisis, a deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia, and the Bay of Pigs. In August 1961, the Department of Defense established the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). DIA was responsible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) for the integration of Department of Defense intelligence and counterintelligence training programs, and career development of intelligence personnel. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) saw the logic and economy of consolidating duplicative strategic intelligence schools, and on 27 February 1962, issued a memorandum to establish the Defense Intelligence School.
The Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency was required to develop a plan for the Defense Intelligence School with a curriculum based on intelligence courses offered at the Naval Intelligence School and the Army Strategic Intelligence School. The Defense Intelligence School would be created by Department of Defense Directive 5105.25, establishing the school as a professional educational institution attached to DIA. Its mission was to enhance the preparation of selected military officers and key DoD civilian personnel for important command, staff and policy-making positions in the national and international security structure; prepare DoD military and civilian personnel for duty in the military attaché system; and assist the broad career development of Department of Defense military and civilian personnel assigned to intelligence functions. The first class graduated in June 1963.
In 1968, a Board of Visitors was formally authorized and recommended that the School reach out to civilian employees of the intelligence community, and that highly qualified civilian faculty should also be hired. And, in the interest of academic accreditation, authority to grant a master’s degree in intelligence should be sought. By 1973, the Director of DIA supported these recommendations approved the degree program concept, and on 10 September 1973, the pilot program for the proposed Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence (MSSI) degree began.
In October 1980, Public Law 96-450 formally authorized the School to award the MSSI degree. It was passed by both houses of the Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter. Regional accreditation was obtained in 1983 at which time the School was re-chartered and renamed the Defense Intelligence College. It relocated to the new Defense Intelligence Analysis Center on Bolling Air Force Base in 1984.
With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and the general desire of the country in the early 1990s to realize a “peace dividend,” budgetary cutbacks and reductions in force were made, not only in the Department of Defense but in the Intelligence Community as a whole.
A major impact of these cutbacks in the 1990s was a transformation of the College into an institution that was devoted solely to intelligence education and research, with all training courses, to include attaché training, shifted elsewhere in DIA. In 1993, the College was renamed the Joint Military Intelligence College. The College embarked on a new era in which its mission was more sharply defined.
In 1997, Congress authorized the College to award a Bachelor of Science in Intelligence (BSI) degree. The BSI Program is a fourth year degree completion program. It affords those students who have accumulated three years of undergraduate credits a means to complete their degree requirements and to obtain a degree directly related to the field of intelligence. The Program enables BSI graduates to advance their careers within the National Intelligence Community.
In December 2006, DoD Instruction 3305.1 changed our name to the National Defense Intelligence College. The DoD Instruction was revised again in February 2011 to reflect the current designation — National Intelligence University — and the Director of National Intelligence formally and publicly announced that change as well as the expanded mission and vision of the NIU during the August 2011 convocation of the class of 2012