Her professor said there were no jobs in Syracuse, at least not for illustration majors. But Liz Crosby, a 2004 graduate, wanted to stay. She found a job that drew on her hobbies instead of her degree.

Now she is a Syracuse University admissions counselor and a proud member of the 11 percent of 2004 graduates working in Central New York. That number comes from the Center for Career Services’ annual placement report, which ranks Central New York as the second most-popular job destination, behind New York City and ahead of Boston and Washington, D.C.

‘I loved the school; all my friends are here and this is home for me now,’ said Crosby, who is originally from Grafton, Mass., and was part of the University 100, the group of student tour guides and campus ambassadors.

The number of graduates who stayed in Syracuse has remained about the same over the past four years. The alarming statistic is the rate at which young people are leaving the region, said Mike Frame, the economic development coordinator for the Metropolitan Development Association of Syracuse and Central New York.

A study conducted at the University of Michigan measured population changes in 102 metropolitan areas between 1990 and 2000, Frame said, and Syracuse lost a larger percentage of its under-35 population than any other city.

It’s what they call the ‘brain drain,’ the exodus of young, creative people from the Upstate New York area to bigger cities. It is a major issue for many in the Syracuse business community, who see local grads as an untapped source of talent, and the MDA has launched a number of projects – some in conjunction with SU’s Center for Career Services – to keep graduates here or draw them back after they’ve left.

‘If you’re from anywhere beside Syracuse, I’m not sure why you’d want to stay up here,’ said David Cerra, a sophomore from New Jersey in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

Cerra will likely be part of the other 89 percent, those who leave after graduation. It seems Syracuse doesn’t appeal to them, from an economic or social standpoint, as a place for a 20-something college grad to start a career.

‘When people learn a little bit more about this area, I think it’d be a more viable option,’ said Mike Cahill, director of the Center for Career Services, which launched a new Web site this year to help students find internships in the Syracuse area.

Cahill hopes summer internships will help students become more familiar with the city and spend more time off campus, getting to know the social and entertainment options that Syracuse offers. One of the major obstacles, he said, is that students don’t know enough about Central New York – even after four years at SU – to consider sticking around.

‘It’s connectedness that helps people decide to stay in an area,’ Cahill said.

Many students, though, feel very little of that connection.

‘We’re so separated from the rest of the city and the surrounding areas that we don’t really know what’s out there,’ said Shannon Grotzinger, a sophomore magazine and sociology major. She and her friend Margot Vineberg, a sophomore retail and marketing major, are from Philadelphia and have no intention of working in Syracuse after graduation.

‘I don’t have an aversion to the city,’ Grotzinger said.

‘But other cities are better,’ Vineberg said.

‘And there’s nothing to keep me here,’ Grotzinger said.

Frame cheered the university’s move to downtown as one of many ways to help students bond with the city instead of just the university. Jean Vincent, a public relations professor and president of the Vincent McCabe market research firm in Skaneateles, echoed his sentiments.

‘Many of the students didn’t have a handle on the area at all,’ she said. ‘They rarely leave the campus.’

Vincent and her public relations class spent the fall semester working on Project KEEP US, a survey of more than 2,000 students in the 12-county Upstate New York area. They developed five typical student profiles – one of which they called the ‘Recruitables,’ a group that made up 32 percent of those surveyed. These are students that go to school in Upstate New York now and, with the proper exposure to job opportunities in the area, would be willing to stay here long term.

‘We thought it was high time somebody asked some students,’ Vincent said of her survey.

Fourteen percent of students said they planned to live and work in Upstate New York after they finished school, and 33 percent said they had yet to decide. The survey reached 25 campuses around Upstate New York, and its 14-percent statistic is consistent with SU’s 11-percent count of students who stay in the area.

Project KEEP US also indicated that 36 percent of students surveyed plan to live or work in their hometown after graduation – the researchers call these students the ‘Homebodies.’ According to the SU Office of Admissions, about 13 percent of students list Syracuse as their permanent address, the closest indication available of how many students grew up in the area.

Though Frame is encouraged by the number of SU students who choose to work here after graduation, he still sees plenty of opportunity to increase the young, creative workforce in the area. Frame points to an economic strategy that mirrors the success of Silicon Valley – build a community of young, talented and creative individuals, and the businesses that need them will flock to Syracuse.

‘Businesses approached it in a very traditional way for a long time,’ he said. ‘Now they’re going the extra mile and having comprehensive internships.’

Frame says the key for businesses is to actively court soon-to-be graduates, whether it’s through internships, career fairs, or some other outlandish suggestions from the KEEP US survey, including a ‘career crawl’ that mimics the Armory Square bar crawls.

Cahill, Vincent, Frame and Neil Strodel, chief Human Resources officer at SU, suggested that a more diverse workforce and a more visible entertainment scene would also help Central New York businesses recruit recent graduates.

‘It’s not just about showing up to campus once a year,’ Frame said. And he challenged the common misperception that there are no jobs available for young people in Syracuse.

‘Just about anything you could find anywhere is here,’ Cahill said.

Frame also points to a number of Central New York benefits: a low cost of living, good quality of life and, for local students, the ability to be close to their family.

He expresses optimism in a new trend: students who left Syracuse in the past decade have started to come back to the area to raise families and take advantage of those benefits, he said.

‘On a slow but steady pace, we’re starting to add a lot of jobs in what they say is the creative economy, the knowledge-based economy,’ Frame said. ‘That 90s flight, we’re starting to see some reversal of that.’

But the current students – the other 89 percent, at least – are still a long way from eschewing the big cities for Central New York.

‘I mean, I enjoy it here, but I’m going to the city when I graduate,’ said Dan Sheridan, a sophomore acting major and New Jersey native.

‘I’m going to use my knowledge from here,’ Cerra said, ‘to thrive somewhere else.’

Published on July 6, 2005 at 12:00 pm