SYRACUSE N.Y.
JPMorgan Chase will invest $30 million to help develop new financial service technology and infrastructure courses at Syracuse University under a 10-year partnership announced Wednesday.
The partnership also includes plans to build a new corporate technology center at Syracuse to focus on the fields of financial and information technology, said Syracuse Chancellor Nancy Cantor.
The program will provide both a training ground for new students and create hundreds of new jobs in Syracuse and upstate New York, she said.
The partnership "provides one of those rare opportunities to pool intellectual capital to make an immediate difference in industry, higher education and our region," Cantor said.
The new curriculum should be ready for fall 2008, with the construction to begin shortly after. Cantor said the university will make temporary space available for the new program in the CASE Center in the Center for Science and Technology while the technology center is being built.
The classes will be open to students from Syracuse University as well as other public and private colleges and universities across New York , who will be able to participate through distance learning and other classroom and research exercises.
Eventually, Cantor said, the partnership hopes to extend its science, math and technology training into programs in the Syracuse City School District and other local school systems.
The new curriculum will draw on an array of disciplines including information studies and management, engineering, computer science, law and public policy and involve the "on-the-ground" expertise of JPMorgan Chase technologists, Cantor said.
"This partnership will put scholarship into action to solve real-world problems in global financial services technology while reaching out to K-12 students and engaging college students near and far," she said.
JPMorgan is interested in developing new technologies that can be used in the financial services business, such as new or better voice recognition, security systems or help desk programs or technologies, said Frank Bisignano, JPMorgan's chief administrative officer.

