The JPMorgan Chase Technology Center at Syracuse University officially opened Tuesday, and speakers were on hand to talk about what the center brings to campus and the Syracuse area.

‘This hub for global-enterprise technology is bringing engaging, information age jobs to our community,’ said SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor at the opening. ‘This is the very picture of innovation in higher education.’

The center will provide opportunities for students to intern during the summer and academic year. Currently 30 students are interning, but that number may grow in future semesters, said Jeffery Saltz, the director of the center.

‘Students will get a chance to learn about what it’s like to work in a global enterprise, and we’ll get productive work out of these students as well,’ Saltz said.

The interns will help the 125 JPMorgan Chase employees work on a number of technology projects. The interns and JPMorgan Chase employees will look at information technology problems, cyber security and risk analysis.

Although the center – located on the first two floors of Lyman Hall – officially opened Tuesday, parts have been operational since the summer, Saltz said. The first set of 12 student interns worked over the summer.

The building is the result of two years of collaboration between SU and JPMorgan Chase. The center is the bank’s latest installment of the roughly $30 million investment the company gave to SU in 2007 to develop new financial service technology and infrastructure courses. In the past, SU and JPMorgan Chase created an academic minor, global enterprise technology, which currently has almost 450 students enrolled.

The opening of the center marks the end of the two-year construction project which was unique in its extensive use of women and minority subcontractors, said Rex Giardine, SU’s assistant director for capital projects at the Office of Planning, Design and Construction. About 70 percent of the subcontractors used were from minority and women construction firms, he said.

To build the center, SU employed Pike Construction, a Rochester, N.Y.,-based contractor. SU challenged the contractor to use minority and women construction firms as part of the university’s ‘Project Build,’ an initiative launched in 2004 to build relationships between SU and minority and women businesses, Giardine said.

‘It’s very rare to have this much minority and female participation,’ Giardine said. ‘This is an example of a good collaboration that helped smaller enterprises.’

rhkheel@syr.edu

Published on October 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm