| Jan. 25, 2012
COPY BY: Rana McDonald, 806-651-2129, rmcdonald@wtamu.edu
WTAMU Student Named Top Dz Scholarship Recipient
CANYON, Texas—One West Texas A&M University student’s mainframe experience has earned him accolades as the top honoree in the fourth annual Destination z Enterprise Computing Scholarship program, winning one of 2011 scholarships as well as the coveted Greg Zaubi Memorial Scholarship. Vance Morris, a senior computer science major from Canyon, was one of 12 students chosen from a field of 29 applicants to receive a Destination z Enterprise Computing Scholarship. He also was the top student in the field of 12 recipients, and that designation earned him the $2,500 Greg Zaubi Memorial Scholarship—a high honor in the field of mainframe education. Zaubi was a systems programmer who connected thousands of students and professors around the world to System z through the mainframe Knowledge Center hub. The annual scholarship program provides funds to encourage students to pursue mainframe-related IT careers. Candidates must demonstrate excellence in enterprise computing coursework, attend a Destination z member school and have plans to continue pursuing opportunities on the mainframe. Applications for the scholarships are reviewed by a committee of IBM academic initiative members and representatives of companies contributing to the scholarship funds. Individual scholarship awards vary from year to year, and the student receiving the highest score is awarded the Zaubi scholarship. Morris has an extensive background in mainframe experience. He has participated in the annual Master the Mainframe competition, finishing in the top one percent. He also serves as the systems administrator of the University’s coursework mainframe called Buffalo Thunder. “I’ve also built a custom Rational Developer for System z (RDz) unit test and deployed it to 40 Linux machines in our campus lab,” Morris said. “This semester will be the first offering of the final course in enterprise computing at WTAMU, and we plan to utilize the RDz unit extensively.” According to Rhonda Dittfurth, outreach coordinator with the Department of Engineering and Computer Science, WTAMU is the first university in the world to run a RDz, which provides full emulation of IBM’s System z hardware and runs z/OS operating system. Other universities are now looking to follow WTAMU’s lead and implement the RDz system. The scholarship funds will allow Morris to concentrate on his coursework this semester and after graduation, he hopes to put his skills in enterprise systems to work in either the business or U.S. government sector. —WTAMU— | 