SAN DIEGO — Panelists from five colleges and universities started Tuesday morning at the Share user group conference by talking about their mainframe course curriculum.

The panelists — from North Carolina Central University, Estrella Mountain Community College, Illinois State University, Widener University, andMarist College — are all part of the IBM Academic Initiative, which encourages universities to teach mainframe skills to students.

The panelists were just five of 325 schools on the IBM Academic Initiative list that are either investigating or currently teaching mainframe-related courses. That’s 325. That’s a lot. Do you think there are that many mainframe job vacancies out there? Not everyone thinks the mainframe skills shortage is as dire as some make it out to be.

From the discussion that ensued during the panel session, it seems like the skills shortage is in information technology overall, not just the mainframe. There were a series of actions and consequences over the last seven years that led to meager computer technology programs in colleges and universities: the technology bubble burst, which caused jobs to dry up, which caused enrollment drops in computer-related college majors, which caused a dearth of courses and course literature.

But it also seemed like the schools were starting to build their curriculum back up again. The panelists were a good example of that.

One thing that was interesting was the structural differences between the mainframe curricula from school to school. Some have certificate programs, others have mainframe course tracks that are rolled into existing computer technology degrees.

Cameron Seay from the North Carolina Central University, for example, explained how its mainframe courses are really just a subset of business classes but that they’re looking “forward to expanding in the future.”

“We’re in the School of Business and don’t have as many technology courses as I’d like,” he said.