New at Hurst

New+at+Hurst

Owen Roberts, Contributing writer

nybody who has ever heard of Mercyhurst University has likely heard about the Intelligence program.

The success of the program is what drew one of our new professors, Christopher Corpora, Ph.D., to Mercyhurst University this fall.

Corpora spoke to the Merciad about his past employment in the intelligence community and his goals at Mercyhurst this year.

For Corpora, to be working at the institution that he has been hearing about all these years seems almost surreal.

Corpora is an intelligence and international security expert with more than 25 years of experience with multiple government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the Department of State.

Corpora has been deployed more than 10 times to various conflict and post-conflict regions.

To be working in academia now and to be at Mercyhurst of all places is something that he describes as “a dream come true.”

His goal for the program is to prepare students for the real world.

For Corpora, his most notable job opportunity was when he was sent to the Maldives, a group of islands south of Sri Lanka, to study the behavior of its citizens and find out why so many of them are influenced by Islamic terrorist beliefs. His work in the Maldives went on to influence United States resource allocation there.

In a day and age where television and gaming are popular for children and adults alike, Corpora stresses the importance of reading recreationally as well as getting out into the world.
He believes that reading is one of the best things to do outside of the classroom that will help students become better learners and analysts.

A fun fact about Corpora is that he is always in the middle of multiple books. For him, the most important genres to read for self-improvement are fiction, philosophy, psychology and theory.
Needless to say, students have so much to learn from Corpora. This semester he is teaching RIAP 177: Intro to Intelligence Studies and RIAP 288: Communicating Intelligence Analysis.

With his experience in the intelligence community, we hope that Dr. Corpora continues to share his wealth of knowledge with Mercyhurst students for years to come.