Educating for Resilience: STEM, AI, and the Future of Cybersecurity

Ann Johnson: Welcome to Afternoon Cyber Tea, where we explore the intersection of innovation and cybersecurity. I'm your host, Ann Johnson. From the front lines of digital defense to groundbreaking advancements shaping our digital future, we will bring you the latest insights, expert interviews, and captivating stories to stay one step ahead. [ Music ] Today, I am joined by Brad Mortensen, the 13th president of Weber State University, which happens to be my alma mater. Brad has spent his career leading in higher education, expanding access for students, and helping institutions evolve to meet the challenges of the future. As cybersecurity leaders, we know that the talent pipeline and how we prepare the next generation is one of the most pressing issues facing the industry. Welcome to Afternoon Cyber Tea, Brad.

Brad Mortensen: Thanks, Anne. It's great to be with you.

Ann Johnson: So, Brad, you've been in higher education for more than two decades. From your vantage point, how has STEM education changed? And where is it falling short in preparing students for the industry and today's digital economy?

Brad Mortensen: That is a really important question and one that we're grappling with every day. There are so many demands in STEM education for a STEM-educated workforce. And at a school like Weber State, we're an open enrollment institution, meaning that our admissions requirements are really that you want to go to college, and we welcome you in, and then we try to help place you to be successful. So in that environment, really, we find ourselves doing a lot of catch-up work with students who just have kind of the basic math, reading, writing skills in order to be successful, which are foundational for the STEM fields. But many of our students, and especially with this generation who went through a year or two of school in COVID times, we're really finding that they need some extra help and attention in those areas. So the first and foremost challenge is really trying to make sure that students have the foundation to succeed in STEM fields. And from there, we can do pretty well from that point. We have great industry involvement and professors. And we're trying to stay on top of the curriculum as technology changes to help the students be relevant once they graduate. But we have -- The biggest challenge is really getting students from that entry point with the foundational basics to then be able to succeed as STEM students.

Ann Johnson: So because I graduated from Weber State, and I have, and it's been a very long time, but I have a little bit of perspective on at least the culture of the university, which really hasn't changed all that much from being open enrollment to the types of students that you attract to folks that are, some are returning, right, and they're doing career change. With all that, given that you have a mix of folks just out of high school, and you have folks that are returning career, and you have folks pursuing associate's degrees and bachelor's degrees, when you think about employers and you think about industry leaders and you think about the students that you are educating, what skills, what mindsets do you wish that these graduates would have before they enter the workforce?

Brad Mortensen: We had a big employer expo, we call it the Northern Utah Employer Expo, NUEX, just last week. And so we had a lot of employers on campus. Even across different industries, what I find kind of repeated as a theme is that employers, at the end of the day, they want good humans with a basic level of technical skills, but beyond that, people who can be dependable, can problem solve, can communicate together, have those durable skills, those human skills. They will take someone, at least what we're hearing in our area, they will take someone with that type of mindset and say, we'll teach you the more sophisticated technical skills. And we know, throughout your career, you're going to have to relearn those anyway. But first and foremost, we want people who are good humans and good citizens. And so that's something that we try to take seriously, and in a way so that liberal arts aren't competing with STEM but that we can find the best of both worlds and try to infuse that in our students. But that's increasingly a challenge for many reasons. But it's definitely that balancing act of providing enough technical skills that they can be successful but then also teaching those durable workplace skills that are common across all industries.

Ann Johnson: I love that. And I love how you talk about being good humans because you can certainly teach people a lot of skills. Teaching people to be good humans is a little bit harder. But also that you talk about how liberal arts -- I talk to folks that I completed dual major in political science and communication, so I didn't have a STEM degree coming into the technology field, right? And I love how you frame that they shouldn't be competing because you actually need a variety of skills even to pursue a technology career. I mean, I've had one for 30-some odd years now. So I'm hoping I'm a good representation of that.

Brad Mortensen: Well, from everything we see, you definitely are, Ann. We're proud to call you an alum from Weber State.

Ann Johnson: Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I try to encourage people as they come into a career in technology that it takes all kinds of backgrounds. And that's what I try to represent, that you don't have to -- If we hire everybody as a STEM graduate from MIT, you create this groupthink. And that's certainly what you don't want when you're solving hard problems like cyber. Well, let's move on to artificial intelligence because you knew it was going to be part of the conversation. Can't get through a conversation in 2025 without it. AI is transforming how we work. I mean, I use it every day. It's also transforming how we learn. I see a lot of things online about how universities are trying to incorporate AI, maybe to improve productivity, maybe to improve the instructor's access to information, even. How do you see AI reshaping classrooms, and how do we prepare students for the future that includes AI?

Brad Mortensen: It was so stark in November of 2022 when ChatGPT first kind of rolled out and was available. And the instant reaction from faculty was, how are we going to stop students from using this so that -- so they're not cheating, right? It was that knee-jerk response. But it only took just a little bit of time for folks here to realize that we need to teach students how to use AI in a responsible way. They still need to have the foundational understanding of core subjects. And whether that's cybersecurity or coding or things in health care, there needs to be a basic level of knowledge there. But we would be doing them a disservice if we're not teaching them how to enhance their understanding and problem-solving without incorporating AI in the classroom. I was just having this conversation with a couple of faculty earlier this week about they're even creating assignments where they'll have students do an assignment on their own and then have the AI models produce an answer and then evaluate them against each other. What parts did the students do better? What parts did AI do better on? So really, trying to teach students to be good consumers of those tools. It's so reminiscent of the calculator conversation I had when I was a kid growing up about whether we could use calculators in class or not. But this is next level. This is way beyond a calculator and will certainly transform things. I'm really proud. For a little while this fall, I held the campus title, our IT folks told me, of number one user. I was working on a particular project of our AI tool that we have for our campus community. So I still claim that title. I don't know if I'm still in the number one spot. But I mean, I see the benefits it does in just like trying to incorporate large amounts of information and synthesize that in a way that's more useful that would take so much more time without having those tools. So I'm a big fan of it and proponent of it and try to emulate that for our students and faculty and staff. But again, I think it takes that approach of teaching students the fundamentals but learning how to take advantage of the modern tools that are at their disposal.

Ann Johnson: I love that. I love the calculator analogy because I remember when I was in school, you couldn't have a calculator. Yet when my child, who is a member of Gen Z, was in school, I needed that HP scientific calculator, and I'm just staring at her. I'm like, you need what? You know, you're allowed to bring that? You can have that? Really? It would have helped calculus class a lot.

Brad Mortensen: Yeah, life would have been so much easier than those long division problems. But anyway.

Ann Johnson: Yeah, exactly. So like cybersecurity and now AI have pretty big talent gaps. What role -- And there's a huge role, I think, for universities. And we do a lot of investing also with community colleges or trade schools for the same reason, though I know Weber State actually graduates a lot of folks on the associate's path. So I think you function a little bit that way. But what role do you think that universities can play in helping to really fill those talent gaps? And really, you talked about having industry leaders on campus, but really getting precise about what industry needs so that graduates can actually step into jobs, maybe just with short apprenticeships.

Brad Mortensen: It's so interesting how the stars align in the universe sometimes. I just, earlier today, the ABET accreditors, I met with them here on campus. They were wrapping up their accreditation of our computer science and cybersecurity program for their on-site visit. And so I kind of got to hear firsthand how our programs are doing from our external folks who validate those very things that you're talking about in terms of the quality of the programs. And one approach that we take at Weber State is what we call stackable credentials, where students can complete in one -- in the more technical side of our cybersecurity program, they can complete just some short-term certificates that allow them to go out and get jobs and be placed in basic levels. And then while they're doing that, they can come back and work on their associate's degree and their bachelor's degree and get that advanced understanding that will help them to grow in the workforce. And we try to do that, in a way, because, like we were talking about earlier, so many of our students maybe are returning adults or wanting to -- they're first-generation, low-income students, and they can't afford to just go to school full time. They need to work while they're going through. So if we can add value to that and then stack that ladder, that in for them to continue to tool up and upskill their credentials while they are working, we get feedback from the employers that it's really valuable to them. And the employers appreciate it because they're able to take what they're learning in the classroom. And as much as we try to model it in the classroom, especially in cybersecurity with our sandbox and hackathons and some other things we try to do, just being in the real world takes it to another level. And so that makes them better employees by having both that practical hands-on, real-world experience with the classroom learning. And we've taken that approach and gotten positive reviews from it. So we're just trying to expand more because we're barely scratching the surface and meeting the industry needs here in Utah. And I'm sure it's that way practically everywhere.

Ann Johnson: Yeah, I mean, Utah certainly has -- I think people forget that Utah has a really storied history, particularly in the Orem area with things like Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect. And there were -- there's been a lot of companies, Novell, that were actually headquartered there. And it continues to be a growth engine for technology. So I know the demand is there. The demand is there for talent.

Brad Mortensen: Yeah, absolutely. And then we have, it flows over to from not only in the IT fields, but the NSA has a big operation here in the state. We have a big defense presence with Hill Air Force Base. And there's a lot of cybersecurity demands and workforce needs there. And so we -- and we have close partnerships. We have educational partnership agreements with the federal government, with both the NSA and Hill Air Force Base. And so we're -- we have an endless supply. And then -- and then we get to local credit unions and hospitals, others. There's just an endless call for our graduates, which is, it's good for the students who are going through the programs. And it's a good position to be in in the university where we're preparing those. It's just we need to continue to figure out how to expand that pipeline.

Ann Johnson: Yeah, we have something with MSSA, which is our transitioning military members and their spouses, where we partner with universities to give them real-world experience plus education. And we work with the government on that. And I just think those programs just take it to a different level, where students can come out of school with a level of experience. So I love that you're investing in that. The other thing that's unique to Utah, I'll give a little plug here because, as you know, I grew up there, is that you have the MTC. For those of you who aren't familiar with that, but the Mormon Church has the Missionary Training Center, where people learn languages. And one of the reasons that there's government presence like the NSA, but also employers like to hire out there, is you get very fluent speakers in many languages that aren't common even. It's helpful in cybersecurity too.

Brad Mortensen: Yeah, it's very helpful. And it gives us a chance with our language. And again, talking about merging the liberal arts with the technical skills, we see a lot of students who've had those mission experiences who want to come and maybe minor or at least take some courses in the language that they've learned and then also combine that with a technical field, which really opens so many pathways for them.

Ann Johnson: So we've touched on this a little, but I'm going to ask you the point of your question. We as cyber leaders often talk about the soft skills like communication, like critical thinking, adaptability that are just as important, quite often, as technical expertise. How do you see your role as a university balancing that need? Even if somebody is on a very rigorous technical course and very rigorous technical degree program, how do you prepare those students for leadership and collaboration and communication skills and make certain that they're getting those learnings also?

Brad Mortensen: It's challenging in the world today with society being as divided as it is. But one of the most important things we can do at the university, and I don't just mean Weber State, but in higher education, is help students to be able to have those difficult dialogues and to understand that people have different perspectives and to be able to exchange ideas and have that civic debate. We are building some modules into our first-year experience class for all of our students to take around that concept so that they can know that supporting free speech doesn't just mean that I support free speech when I agree with it. But it means we support free speech even if we don't agree with it. And trying to imbue our students with a better understanding of that, I think, is not only vital for success in industry, but really, as we look at this time in our nation's history, we need to prepare this upcoming generation to address some of those things that our current leadership generation is not doing all that well at in terms of having folks be able to do better at finding things they have in common than just wanting to sit back and fight in a virtual environment too often about who's right and who's wrong when, in actuality, there's so much more that we can work on together. And I think that if we can, through those types of modules and examples, if we can teach students to do that with respect and diligence, then those kind of problem-solving, communication, teamwork abilities in the workplace will hopefully follow and we can prepare our students with the ability and the practical experience of having done that while they're on the college campus to have a little bigger understanding of the world and of their co-workers in the future. At least that's the hope.

Ann Johnson: Yeah, and it goes back to, I was reading something earlier today that someone in the political sphere said that, in recent times, and it was a very nonpartisan statement, they didn't point at anyone in particular, they just said in recent times, people think that if you seek to understand, you agree with someone. Like if you and I have a fundamental disagreement and I seek to understand your point of view, it means I'm agreeing with you. It's really just seeking common understanding and common perspective because human beings are unique individuals. And I think that's the muscle we've lost a little. And to your point, I think it is because, as I say, people need to go touch a little grass and get offline because it's easy to hide behind maybe a fake persona or even to a certain extent, your real persona and argue with someone online versus having the human engagement where you actually have to seek to communicate, right, and bidirectional communication.

Brad Mortensen: Yeah. And it's so the college campus should be the model place for students, and even faculty and staff in the community, to come to be able to explore that and see that modeled in an appropriate way. And but if not, then at least, I mean, we're so blessed here at Weber State, as you know. I mean, we've got trails that go into the foothills and stuff that lead right off of campus. And so folks can get outside and take perspective that it's a large, it's a much larger world out there than we maybe see behind our computer screens at times. So we just need to associate with each other and have a little bit of grace and seek that understanding, like you say, to try to figure that out.

Ann Johnson: Exactly. And to your point, you have a lovely community there to do it. So it's a great place to go to school. Trust me. So I want to pivot and talk a little bit about resilience, because I think, to your point, in modern times, we're living through interesting times. There's a bit of reordering going on in the world, right? And I think it's going to require, actually, I know it's going to require people to be incredibly resilient. And nobody likes change, right? Fundamentally, human beings do not like change. But I do think there's -- people need to be able to be adaptable, as we talked about before, but also incredibly resilient. I'll just put a little comment in here. People often ask me, well, what's your key to success? And the one thing I will say is I'm resilient. If you ask 100 people, you know, you'll get divided opinions. But I think the consistent thing you'd get is people say I'm resilient. And I think that's why I've been successful. You've said your role as president is about unlocking the creative potential of everyone at Weber State. So how does that philosophy apply to preparing future leaders in high-pressure fields that require resilience, fields like cybersecurity or other fields like that?

Brad Mortensen: I really appreciate you picking that out and tying it together that way, Ann. Because when I first became president almost seven years ago, and it's funny to think about now because that was before COVID, right, and other things, but I just, and I'd worked at Weber State for 15 years before that, so I know the campus community really well, but I didn't want to be a disruptor. And I didn't want to talk about innovation too much, just because I know our campus community and that that would be hard for people to swallow. And so I said, well, let's talk about unleashing the creative potential because that's really what we all want to do. We want to be able to solve problems and apply ourselves and seek new knowledge to grow personally. But at the same time, as humans, we just -- if we feel like we're being forced to change, we just instantly kind of bristle and dig in our heels. And so I tried to reframe that about unlocking creative potential. And then, you know, the pandemic came. And we pivoted all of our classes to be 100% online over the course of three days and learned that we have so much more resilience and flexibility and ability to adapt than we give ourselves credit for. So since then, we've gone through a lot of change at Weber State as an institution. And some of it has been by choice, and some of it has been by policies passed by our state legislature and governor and board of higher education. But through all of that, we've always tried to keep that student-centered focus here that's really valuable to us at the forefront. I heard someone present at a conference once, and they just said, you know, "The challenge of higher education should not be navigating the bureaucracy of our campuses. It should be the disciplines that students are applying themselves to." And so we've tried to, in one way, and I don't think this is a bad thing, but tried to reduce the friction so that students can apply their resilience to doing their academic work. And, you know, at a commuter campus like Weber State, sometimes that friction is the parking and the time it takes for students to find a parking spot. But we also know mental health is a big challenge. And the number one thing, even though when you ask students, the survey results will say that finances are the number one reason why they drop out of college. But it really is something happens that causes them to lose the confidence in themselves to be a college student. And so we really try to focus on helping them find that creative potential. I try to harp on our students that they have more potential than they realize. And it takes a little handholding or sometimes a little tough love. And that personalized experience between our faculty and staff and students is what helps to unlock that. And it's kind of just an all-hands-on-deck exercise all the time because events happen and conditions change. And students have a challenge either at a personal level or at a societal level. You know, we had dramatic, tragic shooting that happened at one of our sister campuses here in the state of Utah just a few weeks ago. And that has sent a ripple effect across all of the institutions in our state. So it's a difficult time to be a college student. And yet we know that we have to help support them to gain the muscle to power through that.

Ann Johnson: And that can be a topic for another podcast on another day. I'm very happy that I didn't live as a student through that era, unfortunately. And it's, yeah, another podcast, a different day. So like me, you're a first-generation college grad. How has that shaped your perspective on education and also what business leaders can take from you about unlocking potential in people, you talk about potential, potential in folks who don't come from those traditional pathways?

Brad Mortensen: Yeah, I just see in our students all the time. And our graduation ceremonies are awesome, and the weeks leading up to them, because we just kind of are highlighting graduates and their accomplishments. And I feel like you could pull any student out of line and have them tell you their story. And it just -- it gives you so much hope for the future and to hear the things that students have overcome. And what I take away from all of that is we're too quick to judge and label people because, most of the times, it's not a question of intelligence. Folks have the capability. It's so much more, like I was saying before, just a question of confidence in themselves. And that's another way I think of saying the resilience. So folks can come from all walks of life. I mean, students who -- I've talked to students who are, they went blind, and now they're an accountant. They sold their dairy farm, and now they're a nurse. I mean, people have this remarkable ability to change and adapt and pursue dreams, so just being open to that, I think, as leaders, and not pigeonholing folks for something we may be seeing in their past. And that can be risky at times. But, you know, just like that saying you hear on all of your investments, past performance is no indicator of the future. And I think that's true with humans, too, and especially someone who has applied themselves and gone to college. And so, and that's why I do what I do, because I want to be part of the solution to help people make those discoveries within themselves.

Ann Johnson: I love that. Let's do just one more question specific about STEM education. What excites you most about the role that you think STEM, the STEM future and STEM education, will play in building the future of our resilient cybersecurity practitioners? I'm always trying to future-proof the industry.

Brad Mortensen: Yeah.

Ann Johnson: And need universities to help.

Brad Mortensen: As I see and talk with our students here at Weber State, and as we know, there's so many challenges in the world, but their, sometimes you might call it optimism or naivete or hope, is just so powerful. And they don't know that -- some of these things that we maybe say, oh, we can't do that. That's going to hold us back. They haven't built those barriers in for themselves. And so it gives me hope that, as we're discovering new technologies through the STEM fields, as we're unleashing these students with so much creativity and energy to apply themselves, that we can find solutions to so many problems that are facing society now. And we talk about energy and water and air quality a lot here in the state of Utah right now being big problems. But there are other things. When we talk with our defense folks, they're talking about the threats from our adversaries. And we have to be cognizant of that. But it just, it really gives me hope to think about matching up the potential of our students with the untapped potential of future technology and science to be able to find solutions to these problems and have a prosperous humanity far into the future, hopefully for my grandkids. And that's something worth investing in and fighting for and making sure that our students have the best education that they can so that they can apply themselves in that way.

Ann Johnson: I love that philosophy. And I do think that the foundation you give them, the training you give them will give them the confidence to be adaptable as society changes and the confidence to fight some of these big problems that we're having, which brings me to the optimism part of Afternoon Cyber Tea. So I call myself a cyber optimist because I've been doing this over 25 years. And I know that for everything you read in the news, there's thousands and thousands of events we've stopped as an industry. So if you had to leave one nugget with our listeners about what you're optimistic about, about the future, maybe it's the potential of your students and their ability to tackle these problems, I'm actually not trying to lead you, but what are you optimistic about the future when it comes to building resilience, building cyber resilience and just building the future for our students?

Brad Mortensen: Like I said before, the attending a graduation ceremony at Weber State leaves you with this pure confidence, not even optimism, but just this confidence that the future is in good hands. And that's not to say we don't have problems and that people are going to struggle and that we're going to struggle as a society, as a nation, and as a planet. But there are really bright students who have picked themselves up and done major, life-changing innovations and accomplishments in order to get their degree. And if they can do that, if they continue to apply themselves, I'm confident that they'll be able to address all of the other challenges that are before us too. So if you're ever down, you all are invited to come to a Weber State graduation ceremony and take part of that emotion and joy and celebration that we have with our students. And probably the same could be said for any college or university campus.

Ann Johnson: I think Weber State, and I'm going to sound biased here, is a bit unique because there's so many returning and commuting students there. And I know there are other universities that have that. But you get such a wide breadth of students. And some folks, as you pointed out, that are really down on life and pick themselves up, I think even more so than some, maybe more the traditional schools that don't have as much of a commuter or returning population. So it is pure joy. And thank you. I appreciate you joining us today. I appreciate you talking about potential and bringing that joy. Great practical advice. And thank you, I know how busy you are, thank you for making the time.

Brad Mortensen: Thanks, Ann. It's an honor and appreciate the great work that you're doing.

Ann Johnson: And many thanks to our audience for tuning in. Join us next time on Afternoon Cyber Tea. [ Music ] I invited Brad Mortensen to join me on Afternoon Cyber Tea because I wanted the perspective from an educational leader about how we are going to future-proof the industry with AI and with cybersecurity and build the next generation of leaders that are going to be tackling problems we can't even imagine today. It was a really engaging and informative conversation. And I think you will love how we talked about the potential of students and the joy and the optimism he has when he thinks about his graduates and how they're going to tackle the problems of the future. [ Music ]