Dixie Crow Chapter, Georgia Southern Advance EMSO Curriculum Partnership
The AOC Dixie Crow Chapter met with leadership from Georgia Southern University’s Allen E. Paulson College of Engineering and Computing on September 3 to discuss expanding the university’s electromagnetic spectrum operations (EMSO) curriculum with a new course to complement the EW 101 engineering course introduced in 2014-2015.
Georgia Southern was represented by Dean of Engineering Abhijit “AB” Bhattacharyya; Dr. Rami Haddad, chair of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering; Drs. Seyeon Jeon and Sungkyun Lim of the ECE faculty; and staff from the university’s development and business engagement offices. Georgia state Sen. Billy Hickman (District 4) and two GSU students also attended.
Dixie Crow was represented by Chapter President Rodney Brooks, Immediate Past President Adam Delestowicz, Chapter Advisor Cecil Christopher, and members from Raytheon, TERMA, AFLCMC/ESY, MERC and BAE Systems, including Past AOC and Dixie Crow President Lisa Fruge-Cirilli.
The morning session covered an overview of AOC and the Dixie Crow Chapter, the ECE department’s programs, and faculty presentations on antennas, wireless propagation, radar, RF resilience, synthetic aperture radar, distributed sensing and signal processing. Attendees then toured Georgia Southern’s research labs and facilities.
Discussion centered on workforce and curriculum priorities, including which technical skills are hardest to hire for today and which will matter most in the next three to five years, what EW/EMSO graduates should be able to do on day one, and what would make Georgia Southern’s proposed Electronic Warfare and Electronic Reconnaissance courses distinctive. As a next step, the Dixie Crow Chapter will compile a list of subject matter experts to support guest lecturing opportunities at the university.
“It’s very exciting for the Dixie Crow Chapter to be a partner in this effort,” organizers said, calling the session a productive step toward strengthening the EMSO workforce pipeline in Georgia’s defense ecosystem.
