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Norwich University was ranked second on a list of schools considered by security practitioners to be the best in the country for cybersecurity courses and degree programs.

The Ponemon Institute, which conducted the survey for Hewlett Packard, compiled the list of top schools based on responses from 1,958 security practitioners, about 65% of whom identified themselves as being at a supervisory level. Norwich was named second behind the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Survey participants were given a list of 403 educational institutions and were asked to select and rank up to five of the institutions in descending order of preference. Respondents were then asked to rate each school’s program based on their perceptions about the school’s academic rigor, faculty quality and other measures.

The rest of the top ten on the list consisted of the following schools: Mississippi State University, third; Syracuse University and Carnegie Mellon University, tied for fourth; Purdue University, fifth; the University of Southern California, sixth; University of Pittsburgh and George Mason University, tied for seventh; West Chester University, eighth; U.S. Military Academy at West Point, ninth; and University of Washington in Seattle, tenth.

“Obviously, this is a great honor for the University,” said Dr. Peter Stephenson, chief information security officer at Norwich University. “In an era where conventional wisdom suggests that the next war will be fought in cyberspace it is completely appropriate that the oldest of the senior military colleges should have a strong cyber security focus. I am very proud of our excellent faculty and, especially, our outstanding students.”

Most the schools that cracked the top-10 list, including Norwich University, are NSA and Department of Homeland Security-certified centers of academic excellence with curriculums that address both technical and theoretical issues in cybersecurity, undergraduate and graduate level programs and hands-on learning opportunities.

Norwich University’s undergraduate Computer Science and Information Assurance (CSIA) program offers a Bachelor of Computer Science degree that utilizes state-of-the-art forensic tools and a faculty dedicated to making sure students have a command of the basics and then opportunities to work with real companies on real cases.

Norwich’s College of Graduate and Continuing Studies (CGCS) offers a Master of Science in Information Security & Assurance online program which teaches technical skills as well as the management skills necessary to implement organization-wide information assurance programs.