IBM and Missouri State University are teaming up to create a new college IT curriculum: Bachelor of Science in IT Service Management. The new degree program in the Department of Computer Information Systems (CIS) is the school’s attempt to bring real-world relevance to its CIS program.

According to Professor Ron Dattero from Missouri State, MSU had over 1,000 students enrolled in the CIS around Y2K. But in recent years, enrollment dropped to 300. Dattero said the school had to do something, so it turned to Big Blue to revamp its program to make it more attractive to job seekers.

Traditional CIS curricula focus on coding, database analysis, mathematics and engineering — but oftentimes these skill sets don’t translate to the job market. Skills like project management, software distribution, and fault management are more aligned with what the industry is looking for.

Paul Kontogiorgis, IT Services Curriculum Program Director at IBM helped MSU build its new curriculum around IT services. He said that academia has not had an introduction to the real business of IT since the early 1990s.

“Academia and industry have not collaborated on common interests,” Kontogiorgis said. “Businesses go to research facilities to make quick money, but have done little on preparing the future for academia. Academics have limited industry experience.”

This new program from IBM and MSU attempts to bridge that gap and bring new relevant coursework to CIS students. According to Kontogiorgis and Dattero, the hottest skills are: Fault or problem management (monitoring network, storage, server platforms and applications), IT project management and change management.

Dattero is also working to bring ITIL certification into the curriculum. The effort is still under negotiation, but Dattero is working on getting university stakeholders to help fund ITIL and certification and examinations.

Traditionally, companies pay for their employees to spend three days (20 hours) cramming in an ITIL foundation course from a third party testing firm. But students at MSU could have the luxury of a whole semester (45 hours) to study ITIL and according to Dattero, walk away with a better depth of understanding of ITIL service management principles.

“The number of professionals certified in ITIL is really going up,” Dattero said. “We need to have pros coming out of the schools, rather than companies trying to produce people with service management foundations.”

Are traditional CIS programs relevant? Should companies be doing professional development (like ITIL certification) or should that be a college level requirement? Which university has the best IT management program in the US? Leave me your feedback in the comments section.