Dissent and reasoned debate are essential in an academic community. Questions should be raised concerning mortgage-backed securities, high executive salaries and bailout money in a civil discussion with folks such as Jamie Dimon. But attempting to prevent his arrival or disrupt commencement proceedings would not educate us in understanding what went wrong in the financial crisis, what would be effective compensation models that reward performance without exacerbating the rich-poor divide, and how a government can prevent financial meltdowns without bailing out large companies that take excessive risk.

The spirit of academic freedom and the values of our university are not compromised by the planned visit of Jamie Dimon or the JPMorgan Chase & Co.-Syracuse University collaboration. I see no constraint on the teaching or research carried by any philosopher, social scientist or humanities researcher on campus. SU’s Board of Trustees includes several corporate executives, but I believe that SU’s educational activities are not molded to benefit their employers.

The next two paragraphs summarize the main aspects of the JPMorgan-SU collaboration, from my perspective as the chairperson of a department in which students and faculty benefit from the collaboration.

The first facet of the JPMorgan-SU collaboration addresses the needs of students who expect to be employed after graduation, in technology-intensive companies such as JPMorgan, General Electric Co., IBM and CISCO. Familiarity with the needs of potential employers makes our students more qualified and employable when compared with graduates of other institutions. We need to expand, not diminish, the number of such qualified students. Some of the new curricular initiatives also provide such avenues for students whose majors are not closely related to computer and information science.

The second facet of the collaboration is applied research, addressing problems that affect everyone. Advances in technology come with tremendous security risks, and SU’s faculty members have developed a world-class reputation in analyzing and addressing such risks. Some examples of the research questions are:
–  How can we better figure out if your credit card number gets stolen?
–  Can we improve the detection of someone hacking into your account to steal financial information?
–  Can we improve the detection of money-laundering operators carrying out illegal financial transactions?
–  Can we provide convenient access to bank accounts without compromising security?

Working on these problems enhances the capabilities of our faculty members and students, and makes the world a financially safer place for us all.

At commencement time, let us celebrate the achievements of our graduates and respect the contributions and sacrifices made by their families, many of whom travel long distances to enjoy their children’s accomplishments.

Chilukuri K. Mohan
Chair, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science

Published on April 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm