Archives - Syracuse University

What is a Bachelor of Professional Studies?

BPS degree programs provide students with specific skills and credentials employers seek when they hire and promote employees. Graduates are equipped with the competencies needed to keep pace with today’s global networks and technologies.

Curriculum within Syracuse University’s Bachelor of Professional Studies programs adhere to the university’s existing standards for rigor and excellence. 

What’s the difference between a BPS, a BA or a BS degree?

While all are four-year bachelor’s degrees, the difference between the three types comes down to what type of skills outcomes or curriculum you’re interested in..

Bachelor of Professional Studies (BPS) degrees, unlike Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BS), combine a career-focused major with a 30-credit professional competency core. This core covers essential workplace skills, including ethics, problem-solving, and teamwork, along with a 30-credit liberal studies core, providing a well-rounded education.

Liberal Studies Work Archive & Samples:

Toni Salisbury Lipton - SOC 318 - Introduction to Statistical Research

Toni Salisbury - SOC 305 - Sociology of Sex & Gender

Toni Salisbury – WRT 205 - Studio 2: Critical Research & Writing

Toni Salisbury - HST 831 - Genocide, Atrocity, and Political Violence in the Modern World

Cybersecurity Administration

The Bachelor of Professional Studies major in Cybersecurity Administration encompasses the protection of information systems and the leadership skills needed in this fast-growing field. Cybersecurity is the science and practice of protecting information by preventing, detecting, and responding to attacks and an essential part of any corporate or government plan.  With the rising need for more advancement in protecting our national and personal security from online intrusions there is a call from government and corporate areas to have specialists, administrators and leaders trained in this field. This degree will provide students with the skills needed to manage people and technologies required to protect information, information systems, and infrastructures.

Preventing, detecting and responding to attacks is essential to all organizations, and cybersecurity specialists are fighting on the front lines of this effort. With the rising need for protecting our national and personal security from online intrusions, there is a call from government and corporate areas to have specialists, administrators and leaders trained in this field. The Cybersecurity Administration, B.P.S. program is validated by National Security Agency (NSA).

Learning out comes include:

Evaluating organizational, and information system vulnerabilities by employing technological, analytical, communication, and critical thinking skills.

Creating effective solutions to minimize cybersecurity security risks balancing those risks against business and organizational requirements.

Applying codes of conduct that are consistent with ethical standards, in relation to information and cybersecurity systems, strategies, plans and operations.

Applying cybersecurity strategies, policies, and procedures to information and cybersecurity systems in both the short and long term.

Cybersecurity Work Archives & Samples (though most work was done in a lab, so samples are unavailable):

Coming soon!

 

Admissions Essay

The Sound of Music has been a muse – a teacher – for me throughout my life in ways I could never have imagined a movie could be. I fell in love with Rodgers and Hammerstein because to me what they were doing in their time was such responsible, artistic genius.  What they were ultimately conveying was important and poignant, and yet it all came across subtle and gentle within their beautiful, playful music and libretto. There was no agenda, or seemingly much less than what we are bombarded with today. The song “Carefully Taught” from the movie South Pacific was the first time I had an opportunity to explore the idea that racism was conditioned and not born in us. I had a deep understanding of this from the age of seven for no other reason than that song in that movie.  I played it over and over, recognizing where I had already seen this happening in my own life. What an amazing gift at seven years old to be able to know that I don’t have to dislike others because of their born differences, even though others in my family might. Though so important, that isn't what I’m to talk about here.

The Sound of Music isn’t dealing with racism and it only barely touches on the Anschluss and the beginning of the impending holocaust. It’s not even a historically accurate account of the Von Trapp family’s story.  However, I learned about the Anschluss, which led me to learn about the holocaust because of this movie. I heard those words and wondered what they were, so I began to ask questions. “The flag with the black spider on it that makes everyone angry.” One of the young Von Trapp children mentions.  What a subtle and yet impactful thing to have a child say, and as a child, I shared her curiosity about that black spider flag. I sought to learn about it. I had questions about why the men in the uniforms wouldn’t let Captain Von Trapp sing with his family, so I began to learn about the Nazi’s and their leader. I learned about these things not because I was required to learn about them in school, but much earlier in my life, and from genuine interest brought to my attention by this film, the circumstance of this family, and the urgency of the Nazi’s within this storyline. They were scary, and I wanted to understand why they had to be so scary. Still to this day, I don’t understand. I will never understand the holocaust.

As a whole, this movie is filled with fun and frolic, and a sweetness often detested by many, including those brought on to participate in the production. When approached to play Maria, the incomparable Julie Andrews had concerns about the sweetness of the movie before ultimately accepting the role.  Likewise, the brilliant Christopher Plummer, who plays Captain Von Trapp in a way most actors can only hope to mimic, turned down the role multiple times before director Robert Wise flew to meet him in a different country to discuss it.  It was Wise’s directorial vision of the character and the changes he was going to make from the stage version that eventually won Plummer over. When I learned this of the casting process of the movie, I was gripped by it.  I am a theatre artist, I have been since I was fifteen years old, and I’ve been in this play twice as the oldest daughter Liesl Von Trapp. Yet the play does nothing for me like this movie does. This piqued my curiosity greatly. Why was that?

The movie became something I watched or heard every day from the time I was nine until I was fifteen because of this preoccupation with it; this information I learned that kept leading me further and further into what I didn’t know about the world, about people, about myself, about film making or producing.  I would learn something new about the film, or the production process, and I would need to watch it again. When my family started complaining that I was taking over the television and they wanted to watch other things, I taught myself how to tape record the entire movie’s audio directly from the VHS tape, and I would listen to it on my Walkman for hours on end, start to finish, over and over again.  To this day I know every word of this movie, every lyric to every song, every step of blocking and choreographed movement. I can picture everything about this film. I’m so attuned to its rhythms, that the relationship to timing I have with this movie is probably only rivaled by those who actually worked on producing it.  It’s a strange thing to admit, honestly. It’s something I know is strange about myself, so I don’t reveal this often or to many. However, ultimately, I’m nothing but grateful.

There was something about the way this film was directed and pieced together, not necessarily the story, that had me enthralled. From the very first frame of whistling wind through the majestic mountaintops in the opening sequence, the unforgettable lusciousness atop Mehlweg Mountain as Julie Andrews, twirling, begins her sincere response to the hills, matching the aliveness with her pristine voice. The lyrics of Rodgers and Hammerstein giving us imagery you can enter; you can easily picture it, feel it, without sight.  “...My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that fly, from the lakes to the trees… My heart wants to sigh like the chime that flies from a church on a breeze / To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way / To sing through the night, like a lark who is learning to prey…”

 One might be wondering at this point, why on earth I’m writing about this musical to apply for a Cybersecurity program?  What does this have to do with anything? A valid question. For me, how this all pieces together, is that today I can look back and recognizing the beginning of what was to be my attention to detail, my critical thinking and listening skills, my ability to take in information and analyze it acutely from a very young age, and not only process it, but understand that I have a perspective on it that will be different from others. My sense of timing and the precision that is important to me in everything that I do; a knowing that when one tiny thing is off, such as with data or coding, the entirety of a project can be gravely affected. This aided me in my Audio Engineering studies as well, understanding that in some vocations you’re doing a good job when no one notices your work. As a performer, this understanding that the most important things might often happen off-stage to pull together what will ultimately be seen and appreciated by the public has changed my orientation to life, and to art.

To further expound, I must at least quickly mention what the characters taught me: the integrity exemplified within the character of the captain, so lovingly supported by the character of Maria, remains engrained in me – don’t ask others to be less than they are and don’t allow others to ask you to be less than you are, and then how to do that.  I am still learning how to do that whenever I lead teams in my professional or creative life or create training outlines and documents.  On a rather sappy note, this film, these two main characters, could also inspire me when I felt low in life for a very long time. Through knowing this film the way I do, I was able to carry a valuable lesson of overcoming fear and standing up to my own insecurities into the primarily male dominated fields I often find myself in. First with Maria’s tenacity in the song “I have Confidence,” and then again in the end, when the entire family risks their lives and climbs actual mountains to flee the Nazi regime. Nothing I do and no failure I have will be scarier than that!

Though this might seem to be a long-winded, silly inspirational essay only important to me, the truth is, I could write pages and pages more about what this film has taught me, correlating my relationship to how it trained me in ways that are transferable in life and therefore in any career. Learning even more about that very thing as I write about it in reflection. I thank you for the opportunity to write this and to be reminded of why it’s important to pay attention to things unseen, and subtle changes that might appear arbitrary in any display of information, such as what can take place with malware or ransomware. This is a skill required to successfully secure networks and continue to build risk, change and knowledge management practices to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability.

TS LiptonComment