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Marist/IBM Joint Study

Marist seeks to distinguish itself by the manner in which it uses information technology to support teaching, learning, and scholarship. The College has had a longstanding partnership with the IBM Corporation that has helped place Marist among the most technologically advanced liberal arts colleges in the country. A key component of the Marist/IBM partnership has been a 30-year joint study arrangement that has benefited both the College and IBM in many ways. Through the Joint Study, IBM has been able to test concepts and technology applications that the company believes can be of value in the 21st century in education, business, digital media, communications, finance, software defined environments and other fields. The Joint Study has provided Marist with the capacity to acquire and use cutting-edge technology to support instruction, faculty and student research, as well as administrative initiatives.

The introduction of computers and computer science courses at Marist began in the mid 1960s, a time when few colleges the size of Marist had moved into this field. From the start, computers have been viewed as a functional tool for everyone at Marist as well as a scientific discipline to be mastered by those in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics.

The Marist/IBM Joint Study began with the installation of a $10 million IBM 3090 mainframe computer in Donnelly Hall. Over the past three decades, Marist has worked with IBM to carry out several major upgrades of its mainframe computer. In the Spring 2012 semester, the College installed a new z Systems mainframe that provides a level of computing power ordinarily associated with large research universities and Fortune 500 companies. Marist and IBM have collaborated on two IBM Shared University Research grants that have helped to enhance Marist’s e-learning initiatives.  Marist and IBM have collaborated on building a test bed for software defined networks (SDN) which has been used to demonstrate use cases such as disaster recovery within a software defined environment (SDE). Marist and IBM have also collaborated on implementing a Cybersecurity curriculum in response to the growing need for those critical skills in the IT industry. 

Most recently, Marist and IBM have embarked on emerging technology research projects with applications in both business and academic worlds.  These projects include such technologies as data analytics, cloud computing, blockchain, machine learning, and cognitive computing.  Current and planned activities provide Marist students the opportunity to work closely with faculty and technical experts in the industry from many different disciplines.  Marist’s work with IBM has created the infrastructure that is necessary for faculty, students, and staff to engage in leading-edge teaching and research using tomorrow’s technology.

Recent Videos and Publications

Video: Marist Cybersecurity SOC: Cybersecurity Education, Geolocation and IBM QRadar

Video: Marist SOC Opening 

Videos: Digital Identity Initiative

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