Turns out that the George Polk Award is given out by Long Island University which is also home to the Homeland Security Management Institute.

Polk Award page at Long Island University:

The George Polk Awards are conferred annually to honor special achievement in journalism. They were established by Long Island University in 1949 to commemorate Polk, a CBS correspondent murdered the year before while covering the Greek civil war. Winners are chosen from newspapers, magazines, television, radio and online news organizations. Judges place a premium on investigative and enterprise work that is original, requires digging and resourcefulness, and brings results. Some of the most respected names in journalism have won Polk Awards…

Homeland Security Management Institute - Long Island University

The Homeland Security Management Institute (HSMI) of LIU Riverhead is the nation’s premier online graduate education program in homeland security management. Designated by Congress as a National Security Center of Excellence, HSMI graduates are among the best-trained and most sought-after law enforcement officers, managers and executives in the nation. As one of only six institutions of higher learning in North America to receive an endorsement by the FBI National Academy Associates, the HSMI provides a rigorous and challenging foundation in homeland security.

Founded in 2004, the HSMI offers the 36-credit Master of Science in Homeland Security Management, the 15-credit Advanced Certificate in Homeland Security Management, and the 15 credit Advanced Certificate in Cyber Security Policy. Many of our students hold management or executive-level positions in agencies such as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the NYPD, the U.S. Coast Guard, and all branches of the Department of Defense, as well as leading defense contractors. Students also are professionals in the financial, health care and education sectors as well as state and local law enforcement in urban and rural agencies across the nation.

More at Faculty of Senior Fellows - Long Island University

…

Mr. Ferrer is a military veteran with twenty years of distinguished service in the US Air Force. Over the course of his military career, he served as an operational linguist (in Russian, Spanish and Italian language fields); an Air Training Command Master Instructor, language course developer and education evaluator; national counter-narcotics training course manager; and, creator and director of Senior Executive Service leadership development courses for the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Intelligence Community (IC).

…

For a general search of “National Security Agency” at Long Island University click here.

For a government search of “Homeland Security Management Institute” and “Long Island” click here.

Military sites click here.

Original source from Long Island University - Wikipedia

LIU Riverhead is home to the Homeland Security Management Institute, recognized as one of the leading institutions in the United States in homeland security training. The institute has been designated a “Homeland Security Center of Excellence” by the United States Congress.

From Homeland Security Management Institute Employment - Long Island University at Riverhead

Occupations in this category include criminal investigators, compliance officers, police officers, security and prison guards and airport screeners. In particular, the Transportation Security Administration projects a need for 9,000 full- and part-time screeners in 2005, and a similar need in 2006. The Coast Guard, which also is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), needs to hire additional staff for port security, as well as for search and rescue controllers. And as a result of the intelligence reform law enacted in December 2004, DHS will be hiring 2,000 border patrol agents annually for the next four years and an additional 800 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators each year.

The Justice and Homeland Security departments also will be seeking increasing numbers of people, especially those with foreign language expertise, to serve as intelligence officers.

This “security sector” ranked as the single largest area of need, even though this survey did not include data from the National Security Agency or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which is confidential and unavailable to the public. On November 18, 2004, President Bush issued an executive order calling for the CIA to increase staffing by 50 percent in three key areas: clandestine operators, intelligence analysts and intelligence officers proficient in “mission critical languages.” Since the number of employees in each of these three groups is classified, how many new hires this will demand is unclear. But press accounts estimate the president’s request will translate into 2,200 new clandestine officers alone.

Homeland Security - Safety First - NYTimes.com

BEFORE 9/11, the term “homeland security” didn’t exist. Neither did the academic discipline. The events of that day changed that. Security experts — like Vincent Henry, a police officer turned Fulbright scholar who heads the Homeland Security Management Institute at Long Island University — recognized that an entirely new, specialized industry would have to be formed, and that managers and executives would have to be schooled in the ways of domestic and international terrorism to fill a security void.

From the lunatics at Prison Planet: Another list of real terrorists/anti-govt fascists who threaten the Constitution

Vincent J. Doherty

Vincent J. Doherty is the director for program outreach for the Center of Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) and was the CHDS 2005-2006 senior fellow/practitioner at the Department of Homeland Security, Preparedness Directorate. He is an adjunct professor for the Homeland Security Management Institute at Long Island University and he is currently on the board of advisors for Ahura and EdgeVelocity Corporations. Mr. Doherty is a member and the former local co-chair of the Science and Technology Committee for the Inter-Agency Board (IAB) for Equipment Standardization and Interoperability. A retired, highly decorated twenty-five-year veteran of the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY), he is currently a contract instructor for the Center for Domestic Preparedness, an instructor for the National Fire Academy, and a New York State Certified Fire Service Instructor.

Stan Supinski

Stan Supinski is the director of partnership programs and a faculty member in the Center for Homeland Defense and Security Master’s Degree Program. He is also a visiting professor to the Long Island University Homeland Security Management Institute and has served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts and University of Denver. He is the former deputy for training and education for the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, where he developed the organizations’ academic training and education programs; he is also the founder and former director of the Homeland Security/Defense Education Consortium (HSDEC), a network of more than 270 federal, military, and civilian educational institutions. Dr. Supinski has conducted research and authored numerous articles on homeland security and defense, technology support to education, and language acquisition. His research includes development of the Daily Knowledge Vitamin, a technology-based, distributed learning methodology used to maintain and incrementally increase knowledge and skills. The methodology has been used by military linguists worldwide, and has been adopted by the U.S. Coast Guard and other DOD and civilian organizations. Dr. Supinski holds a PhD in instructional systems design from Florida State University and a master’s degree in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School.

6 U.S.C.
United States Code, 2011 Edition
Title 6 - DOMESTIC SECURITY
CHAPTER 4 - TRANSPORTATION SECURITY
SUBCHAPTER I - TRANSPORTATION SECURITY PLANNING AND INFORMATION SHARING

SUBCHAPTER I—TRANSPORTATION SECURITY PLANNING AND INFORMATION SHARING

(c) Member institutions
(1) Consortium

The institution of higher education selected under subsection (b) shall execute agreements with the other institutions of higher education identified in this subsection and other institutions designated by the Secretary to develop a consortium to assist in accomplishing the goals of the Center.
(2) Members

The National Transportation Security Center of Excellence shall consist of—

(A) Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas;
(B) the National Transit Institute at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey;
(C) Tougaloo College;
(D) the Connecticut Transportation Institute at the University of Connecticut;
(E) the Homeland Security Management Institute, Long Island University;
(F) the Mack-Blackwell National Rural Transportation Study Center at the University of Arkansas; and
(G) any additional institutions or facilities designated by the Secretary.

Also of note. Inside Edition won a George Polk Award in 1996.