Le Moyne, Syracuse, businesses and state to spend over $2M to fill tech labor gap

Syracuse kids at Le Moyne coding camp

A group of middle schoolers from the Syracuse City School District learned computer coding at a camp run by Pam Puri last summer at Le Moyne College.provided photo

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Le Moyne college is partnering with the city, city school district, state and private sector in a $3 million effort to prepare city kids for tech jobs.

The program, called Erie 21, doesn’t create a pathway to a specific job or field, as many of the city’s other workforce training programs have. Instead, it looks to cultivate critical thinkers who excel at the kind of reasoning required for computer science and other tech-related fields.

“It’s not a pipeline. It’s a pathway,” said Bill Brower, vice president of communication at Le Moyne College.

The program has four parts that target city kids and adults.

  • A two-week residential summer program at Le Moyne College for city middle schoolers (rising 6th, 7th and 8th graders) that teaches computer coding. There’s also teacher training.
  • An academic support program for 1,500 city 8th graders and high school students
  • A software education program for college students at Le Moyne that is designed with area businesses who need tech employees. This includes intensive academic support for the students.
  • Job training and education aimed at helping struggling and unemployed adult workers retrain for tech jobs.

The program is built from expanding and bringing together already existing efforts that have had success, Le Moyne College President Linda LeMura said. “No one can solve these problems alone anymore,” she said.

Le Moyne will be running the program. It’s funded through several sources: $2 million from the state’s Upstate Revitalization Initiative fund, $400,000 from the city’s J.P. Morgan Chase Advancing City’s grant (over three years), $750,000 from Le Moyne, and $50,000 from M&T Bank.

In a meeting with the Syracuse.com editorial board, the group said their hope is to get others from the region to sign on to the effort. They also want people to think about economic development differently.

“It’s redefining economic development,” Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said. “It’s not something you can touch or feel or cut a ribbon on.”

Instead, the idea is help kids from distressed areas of the city become confident and smart, and, eventually, prepared for work in the new tech economy Syracuse is expanding in its downtown core as part of the Syracuse Surge.

Recently, JMA Wireless announced that it would expand in the vacant Coyne Textile building on Syracuse’s South Side, adding 100 tech jobs to the region’s economy.

But jobs like that will not be able to stay here if there are no people trained to fill them, business leaders who are part of Erie 21 said.

“If we can’t find people, how do we grow here?” Randy Wolken, chairman of the Regional Central New York Regional Economic Development Council and president and CEO of the Central New York Manufacturers Association. “We have to get involved much earlier.”

Marnie Eisenstadt is a reporter who writes about people and public affairs in Central New York. Have an idea or question? Contact her anytime: email | twitter| Facebook | 315-470-2246

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.