INSTITUTE, W.Va. –West Virginia State University is the first higher education institution in the state to open a Cybersecurity Clinic.
WVSU officials, faculty and students gathered Wednesday afternoon to hold a ribbon cutting for the clinic, which is located on the fourth floor of Wallace Hall on the university’s campus.
WVSU President Ericke Cage said that this is an amazing opportunity for the university.
“It’s such an incredible opportunity to marry the expertise we have as an 1891 land grant institution that’s really moving at lightspeed in the Cybersecurity space, to marry that expertise with the incredible expertise that Google has as the technology company,” Cage said.
He said that with the clinic students will be able to use the knowledge that they receive, when they go out into the local community and work with small businesses and organizations to help them understand Cybersecurity and how to make sure they have a strong Cybersecurity system.
The clinic came about after the university received a $1 million dollar grant from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund in June 2024.
Cage said that having the support from an international company like Google is tremendous for the university.
“I mean it really is quite remarkable when you really stop to think about it, so it’s a wonderful day, it’s a wonderful feeling and I think it speaks to the future of our university,” he said.
He says the clinic was because of the collaboration between everyone involved.
“I love it when a plan comes together, and in this case, it really has been a labor of love as our faculty, and staff, students and community stakeholders, particularly Google worked together to put this Cybersecurity clinic,” Cage said.
A part of the clinic students will have access to Google experts online.
Cage also said they will have access to the teachings Google has on their website already.
“And of course students will also be able to leverage the really vast teaching tools that Google already has available in the cloud,” he said. “That’s my understanding of how we’ll be collaborating with Google.”