In the latest advancement of the militarization of the US academy, Massachusetts based military contractor Raytheon has announced the birth of the "Raytheon University of Massachusetts Lowell Research Institute" this coming fall. From the corporation's press release:

It will occupy the entire fourth floor of the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center – an 84,000-square-foot building with state-of-the-art laboratories, equipment and classrooms.

Students, professors and Raytheon engineers will work together on innovations like flexible electronics and circuits based on carbon nanotubes, McCarroll said.

The partnership gives students real-world perspective on science, technology, engineering and math-related career opportunities and an in-depth understanding of the aerospace and defense industry as they prepare to enter the workforce.

The University of Massachusetts at Lowell appears to have no problem blurring the boundaries between educational inquiry and state power. The public school also boasts a "Center for Terrorism and Security Studies", where students interested in becoming spies and state security agents can obtain degrees in what seems to boil down to the projection of state power. Internships offered by CTSS provide "excellent experience for students interested in pursuing graduate education in a related field or a career in counterterrorism, homeland security, intelligence, defense policy, the military, or a security-oriented NGO."

Faculty research projects at the department are sponsored by DHS, the US military's controversial "Minerva Research Initiative", and the Department of Justice's National Institute for Justice, among other government agencies. Troublingly, many of the projects and courses at CTSS revolve around one of the deep state's most unhealthy and discriminatory obsessions: so-called "radicalization" theories, which almost always target Muslims. The radicalization trope has been thoroughly discredited as both violative of civil liberties and worthless from a public safety perspective. That doesn't appear to be an obstacle at CTSS. Perhaps unsurprisingly, its faculty appears to be entirely white.

With the opening of Raytheon's new "university" on top of the existing terrorism studies department—operating in collaboration with controversial US government agencies under fire for human rights abuses worldwide—UMASS Lowell is distinguishing itself as a leader in the militarization of the US academy.