In September 2025, Syracuse University granted all 30,000-plus students, faculty and staff access to Claude Enterprise. The decision represented more than a licensing agreement — it reflected careful deliberation about values and partnership.
Why Claude
Evaluating the major AI providers over more than a year, Syracuse's Information Technology Services prioritized alignment over features. Jeff Rubin, senior vice president and chief digital officer, pointed to two factors that mattered most: Anthropic's invitation for Syracuse to join its higher-education advisory council, and the company's commitment to responsible AI development.
"There's a big difference between a partnership and being a customer."
— Jeff Rubin, Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer
The University also valued Anthropic's transparency — including its willingness to publish open standards and to share unfavorable test results rather than only its best numbers.
Built for academic work, and private by design
Claude Enterprise was tailored for campus use, with higher usage limits, collaborative Projects and a Learning Mode designed to guide students toward answers rather than hand them over. Most significantly, the enterprise version does not train on institutional data, keeping information within Syracuse's control. Only metadata about usage is visible to administrators.
"You are the captain of your ship."
— Andrew Joncas, Associate Vice President for Enterprise Data and AI
Adoption that surprised even Anthropic
By the end of the semester, more than 10,000 users had opted in, with 80% to 90% staying active week to week. Between October and April, student usage surged 394%, outpacing peer institutions.
More than a chatbot
The University rolled out Claude Code, add-ins for Microsoft Office and purpose-built tools like Clementine, a natural-language course-search platform. Ongoing education through the AI at Work series, the AI Insights newsletter and Tech Tips videos supported adoption and helped the community build real proficiency.
Why it matters
Bringing Claude to the whole campus was a bet on partnership over procurement — choosing a provider whose values, transparency and privacy posture matched the University's own. The payoff shows up in the numbers, but also in the culture: thousands of students, faculty and staff now treating AI as everyday, university-approved infrastructure rather than an experiment on the edge of their work.
Learn more: getclaude.syr.edu (opens in a new tab).